Batley school protests: Teacher allowed back in Prophet Muhammad image row

A teacher who was suspended after showing children a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad can return to the classroom.

Protests were held outside Batley Grammar School after the teacher showed an image during a religious studies lesson in March.

An independent investigation found the teacher did not intend to cause offence by showing the image.

The school said it would offer more guidance and training for staff.

The image was shown on more than one occasion to students during lessons earlier this year, the investigation found.

Demonstrators gathered outside the school gates on two occasions, with some calling for the teacher to be sacked.

In an executive summary of the report, the trust said teaching staff “genuinely believed that using the image had an educational purpose and benefit”.

But the trust said it recognised that using the image did cause “deep offence” to a number of students, parents and members of the school community, adding that it “deeply regrets the distress” caused.

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Watch:  “The Batley teacher who showed his pupils a picture of Muhammad has been treated despicably. His school abandoned him. The teaching unions abandoned him. Liberal commentators kept quiet. This was a shameful capitulation to religious extremists.” Brendan O’Neill and Julia Hartley Brewer, spiked

Batley Grammar and the triumph of the mob by Brendan O’Neill, Spectator (£)  Here’s the depressing truth about the Batley Grammar controversy: the mob has won. Angry protesters who gathered at the school gates to demand teachers be forbidden from displaying images of Muhammad have pretty much got their way. Following an external inquiry into what happened at Batley Grammar, the trust which runs the school has said such images should never be used again.

Batley Grammar has caved to the mob from spiked

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