A 14-year-old autistic boy’s naive prank. A scuffed copy of the Koran. His mother’s pitiful public apology. And a story that speaks volumes about modern policing

 The Mail on Sunday has learned that at the height of the intimidation the family received an arson threat to their home and the boy –described as ‘absolutely petrified’ – was forced to move to a secret location. After initially contacting West Yorkshire Constabulary, his mother later urged officers not to prosecute to avoid further inflaming the situation. Instead the police said they would ‘work with the school moving forward’.

One parent, herself a teacher, said it ‘feels like a medieval witch-hunt’. The charity Humanists UK called the situation ‘horrendous’ and claimed the school ‘acted in rash haste’, adding that it should not have allowed itself ‘to be pressured – whether directly or indirectly – into excessive disciplinary action in deference to religious groups’.

Yasmine Mohammed, the author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, said: ‘This is more than what would happen in Pakistan or Iran. This is an insane level of capitulation to irrational bullies.’

The school stands at the bottom of a hill in a quiet residential area, less than ten miles from Batley Grammar School where parents protested in 2021 after a teacher, later suspended, showed pupils an image of the prophet Mohammed.

In Batley, Muslims make up more than 33 per cent of the population. In Wakefield, a cathedral city famous for its coal-mining heritage, they account for only three per cent. Religious tensions that occasionally surface in Batley and elsewhere in West Yorkshire are far less noticeable here...<<<Read More>>>....