Batley Teacher has a new identity but is STILL in hiding after two years his family reveals

A teacher who feared for his life after showing pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed during an RE lesson has been given a new identity but still remains in hiding almost two years later, MailOnline can reveal.

The teacher, who is in his late 20s showed the controversial image to children at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire in March 2021, sparking days of heated protests by parents and activists at the school gates.

A family source told MailOnline: ‘He’s living far away from the Batley area and has been given a new identity. He’s slowly trying to rebuild his life, but it’s not been easy.

‘The whole family has gone through a very difficult time. He got into a lot of trouble for what happened, and it could have cost him his life. It’s better that he’s out of this area and the less people know, the better.’

The family source refused to reveal if the teacher, who was head of RE at Batley Grammar, remains in the teaching profession.

Yunus Lunat, a prominent local lawyer who acted as spokesman for Muslim parents at the time of the incident said: ‘The teacher is leading a new life under another identity somewhere far from here. But even if he was to come back to Batley, I can assure you that his life would not be in danger. We’ve all moved on, everything is calm and has been settled after the initial furore. It’s a shame that the teacher concerned did not have the confidence to allow a mediated return to work. . . “

After initially showing the cartoon in class, the teacher was suspended from his job but in May 2021 he was cleared following an independent external investigation of causing deliberate offence and told he could have his job back.

Dr Yasmin Zia, a governor at Batley Grammar School said: ‘He didn’t want to come back and is no longer at the school. We don’t have any contact with him, don’t know where he is but from our understanding, he is living under another name somewhere in the UK.’

Akooji Baadat, an official from Batley’s Snowdon Street Mosque said: ‘Both sides have learnt lessons from this painful incident. The community has forgiven this teacher, (has the community asked for the teacher’s forgiveness?) we’ve got nothing against him, and he has nothing to worry about if he was to return to Batley. But when something like this happens there’s always a danger of retaliation. Things have cooled down, we’ve all moved on and the teacher does not need to live in fear, but you can never tell.’

Memories of the Batley incident have been revived recently in the area after it emerged last week that four boys at a school in nearby Wakefield were suspended for ‘accidentally’ dropping a copy of the Quran.