UK NEWS

RE TEACHER BATTERED FOR ‘DOUBTING ISLAM’

The gang ambushed 38-year-old Gary Smith as he walked to work

FOUR Muslim men slashed a schoolmaster’s face, fractured his skull and broke his jaw after they decided his religious teaching “mocked Islam”, a court was told yesterday.

The gang ambushed 38-year-old Gary Smith as he walked to work, smashing him over the head with a concrete block and knifing him across the face. They kicked and punched him and beat him with a metal rod.

Mr Smith, who also suffered bleeding to the brain and leg injuries, needed surgery following the attack last July and did not regain consciousness for two days. He now has no sense of smell, and suffers long and short-term memory loss.

Mr Smith, head of religious studies at the Central Foundation Girls’ School in Bow, east London, has moved back to his mother’s home where he is battling depression.

Some of the gang, who had attempted to ambush Mr Smith several times before the attack, were recorded plotting to beat him up as he walked to work. Detectives had previously placed a recording device in Akmol Hussain’s Ford Focus, for “unrelated” reasons.

The recordings were discovered after the attack and Hussain could be heard calling Mr Smith a “dog” they wanted to “hit, strike or kill” because of his job.

After the ambush the men fled in a car, “boasting” about their roles in the assault and praising Allah.

They claimed they had launched the attack because of the way Mr Smith was teaching about Islam and over rumours about “inappropriate behaviour” with female pupils. It was accepted by the defendants that these rumours were “totally and utterly unfounded”.

Sarah Whitehouse, prosecuting, told Snaresbrook Crown Court, that the gang targeted Mr Smith “quite simply because of his position as head of religious studies at the school”.

She added: “The defendants held strong religious beliefs and they chose him because they did not approve of his teaching.”

In a recording played to the court, Hussain is heard saying: “He’s mocking Islam and he’s putting doubts in people’s minds. How can somebody take a job to teach Islam when they’re not even a Muslim themselves?”

Hussain, 27, a builder from Bethnal Green, bus driver Sheikh Rashid, 27, from Shadwell, Azad Hussein, 26, from Wapping, who works in finance, and student Simon Alam, 19, from Whitechapel, all east London, have admitted causing grievous bodily harm.

Badruzzuha Uddin, 24, a mechanic from Shadwell, has admitted hiding blood-stained clothing.

The gang will be sentenced on Thursday.