School Linked to Jihad Training Ordered to Shut

By LAURA CLARK

AN Islamic school which was raided by anti-terror police as a suspected jihad training camp has been ordered to close by the Government.

The Jameah Islameah school, near Crowborough, East Sussex, is being shut down for failing to provide an acceptable education and for failing to ensure the health and safety of pupils.

The decision comes after anti-terror officers were deployed around the school grounds for nearly a month last September amid claims it was being used by Islamic fundamentalists to train teenage boys. The operation followed the arrests of 12 men in South London after they returned from a trip to the school, which catered for Muslim boys aged 11 to 16, though no arrests were made directly from the Pounds 1,000-ayear facility.

However, charges have been made in connection with the wider investigation, which is investigating an alleged network of terrorist recruiters.

Now the Department for Education and Skills has announced that the school, which had only 11 pupils at the time of the police raids, is being removed from the register of independent schools, saying it was ‘no longer good enough to operate’. This makes it illegal for the school, in the village of Mark Cross, to remain open.

While there were no criminal arrests, concerns about the school led to a series of inspections by education watchdog Ofsted, which found ‘a significant number of major weaknesses’.

The school was ordered to follow an action plan for improvement but failed to meet it, DfES officials said.

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