How ‘Community Cohesion’ and the religious interests of a minority community trumps all other considerations.
The first point that needs to be made here in relation to this story is that there is no provision in British law for an act of blasphemy, secondly no matter what interpretation is put forward, the fact is that there was no deliberate act of ‘blasphemy’ committed at Kettlethorpe High School.
The reality of the situation is that quite bluntly, a mountain has been made out of a mole-hill in the interests of pushing a minority religious agenda and a manufactured sense of an offended community to fit a political agenda.
What really happened at Kettlethorpe High School, Wakefield on February 23rd 2023? On the previous evening a small group of teenage lads who are students at Kettlethorpe High School were involved in playing the video game ‘Call of Duty’. One of the boys, a year 10 pupil, is a high functioning autistic 14-year-old, lost the game and was required to make a forfeit next day.
A challenge set by his peers to bring a copy of the Koran (Quran) into school, the boy is from a non-Muslim family and in the previous week had brought a Bible into school. At the time of writing it has not been possible to verify the ethnic or religious backgrounds of the other boys involved.
The 14-year-old was a nervous, socially awkward lad and at some point in his interaction with the other ‘gamers’ he dropped the copy of the Koran as he was proving that he had met the dare. The book hit the ground and the cover of the Koran sustained a minor scratch and a couple of pages were scuffed, later images showed a couple of dirty smudges, otherwise the book was not damaged. That was the extent of the ‘disrespect’.
The whole situation should have been dealt with by stating, “nothing to see here, move along”. If a young lad had dropped a copy of the Holy Bible, nothing would have been said, in fact the situation would probably have gone un-noticed and unreported. But different agendas were at work here.
The school over-reacted to accusations of the book being deliberately damaged in an act of anti-Muslim hatred and four of the students involved were suspended from school. Rumours circulating on social media even went so far as to allege that a copy of the Koran had been burned, another false story was that the book had been desecrated with faeces!
Very quickly self-appointed spokes-persons were calling for the boys to be prosecuted for ‘blasphemy’. Note in many Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, acts of ‘blasphemy’ are subject to severe punishments including the death penalty. Britain did away with such attitudes centuries ago.
The situation was clearly inflamed for both political and religious purposes by Islamist activists within the local Asian-Muslim community. Labour Party functionaries within the ethnic minority community in the Wakefield area were seeking to make an issue here and Labour councillor Usman Ali actually made public statements about ‘Islamophobia’ and claimed that a copy of the Koran had been ‘desecrated’, without offering any factual evidence. Someone should have made it clear at this point that Sharia law does not have legal standing in the British legal system.
It is almost unbelievable but it was Kettlethorpe High School that first reported this incident to the police. In addition the school actually collaborated with the Independent councillor for Wakefield East, Aker Akar, who organised a meeting at a community centre attached to a local mosque. The headteacher reported, “This morning we met with our local Muslim community leaders, local councillors and police.” Why?
This was making a mountain out of a mole-hill, blowing a nothing situation out of all proportions. The response by the senior leadership of Kettlethorpe High School has all the hallmarks of being carefully worded by someone walking on political eggshells and desperately seeking to avoid causing offence to a very vocal minority.
Consider the official statement put out by school head teacher Tudor Griffiths, “We would like to reassure all our community that the holy book remains fully intact and that our initial enquiries indicate there was no malicious intent by those involved.”
Such has been the impact of this story that the Minister for Schools Nick Gibb felt it necessary to release a formal press statement, saying that the situation was “totally unacceptable” that there is “no blasphemy law” in the UK and quite correctly that schools should be supporting British values.
But far worse is the carefully worded and self-righteous press statements by West Yorkshire Police. “A ‘hate incident’ has been recorded, but it “did not meet a criminal threshold”. In a prime example of police ‘wokery. the official statement also said that a “14-year-old had been spoken to by police” and “words of advice” had been given to a pupil at the school who had made death threats! “A hate incident has been recorded but no criminal offence has been committed.” “An incident occurred ‘minor damage was caused to a religious text”.
And finally, “a report of malicious communications in relation to threats made to a child.” The actions of West Yorkshire Police in regard to this matter should be investigated by the Home Office, and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Individual police officers responsible for overseeing the police response should face disciplinary measures for their over-reaction to a non-event and for wasting police time and resources.
Moreover the police response was highly selective and was bordering on ‘wokery’ or political correctness, the only real offences committed here were the death threats made against a 14-year-old autistic boy.
The overreaction by the school, by the local authority, by the Muslim community and by West Yorkshire Police should ring alarm bells for all concerned British citizens, because if this is the response by all the above to such an unimportant, minor issue in a school yard, what would happen in the event of something genuinely serious?
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Main Image: Kettlethorpe High School. Google Street View.
Bottom Image: British Movement.
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