Judge rules that Michaela School can be named at High Court hearing on alleged prayer ban

 Schools Week LINK reports today the Michaela Free School's request that the school not be named was reject edby Judge Linden in today's High Court hearing regarding a Judicial Review requested on behalf of a pupil.

The Judicial Review is over the alleged banning of Muslim pupils from taking part in prayer rituals at the school that resulted in a public petition with more than 4,000 signatories in March 2023. LINK

Judge Linden said:

I do not accept the that the evidence in this case shows a risk to the lives or safety of members of the school staff or its wider community which would justify holding this hearing in private.

The petition is no longer on the Change.org website but said in part regarding the alleged ban:

A school that prides itself on being “multi cultural” and “multi faith” is treating their Muslim students in this way?? What’s worse is that this school is majority Muslim students and there is no prayer room designated for them. Students have requested for a prayer room which has  been refused by the school and so they have to pray on the floor outside.

 Judge Linden accepted the application for the claimant, a pupil, to be referred to as “TTT”  and another person involved in the litigation, to be referred to as “UUU”.

 

As the hearing is in progress I will not publish any comments until the case is over.

The new Home Secretary's Brent (Kenton and Wembley) connections

 Suella Braverman

 

This article was published on Wembley Matters in 2020, LINK when Suella Braverman was appointed by Boris Johnson. It was submitted by someone who was at school with her. It sheds some light on the new Home Secretary and her ambitions.

Following Boris Johnson's appointment of Suella Braverman (nee Fernandes) as attorney general (shortly after she attacked judges as unelected and unaccountable) it is interesting to hear from someone who was at school with her in the 1990s:

 

Sue Ellen Fernandes (who prefers to be known as Suella, so as not to be compared to a character in the 1980's TV series "Dallas") grew up in Kenton.

 

Her mother was a Conservative councillor on Brent Council, Uma Fernandes (who, as a candidate for Parliament, managed third place in the Brent East by-election won by Sarah Teather in 2003).

 

By the sixth form at school, Suella was open about her ambition to be a Conservative M.P., and to become Prime Minister, like her idol, Margaret Thatcher.

 

She studied law at Cambridge, and went on to become a barrister, specialising in planning law, but also spending time trying to get selected as a Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

 

One of the roles that helped on her Tory CV was acting as Chair of Governors for Katherine Birbalsingh's Michaela Community School LINK, although her knowledge of planning law did not seem to cover the fact that consent was needed to display a large advertisement over its building in Wembley Park LINK:

 

The advert had to be taken down after a few days - a waste of taxpayers money that could have been avoided!

Suella was elected for the "safe" Conservative seat of Fareham in Hampshire in 2015. Now, at the age of 39, this "aspirational" junior barrister has been appointed by Boris Johnson as the Government's top legal adviser.

 

Heaven help us!

 Seven years earlier I wrote on Wembley Matters about an encounter I had with her at a 'consultation' about Michaela Free School which is quite revealing of her attitude towards the public. LINK

 

Suella is a daughter of former Brent Conservative councillor Uma Fernandes who was a councillor for 16 years and stood in the Brent East parliamentary constituency, and Suella herself stood as a Conservative candidate in Fryent ward. She attended a local Brent primary school, Uxendon Manor, but her secondary education was at Heathfield School in Pinner - a Girls Public Day School Trust establishment.