The Trojan Horse Affair - Part 4
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As we uncovered more clues about who could have written the trojan horse letter every so often hums. And I would go back and reread the letter itself to see whether the new information we were finding unlocked any of the letter's secrets. We definitely did that after we get a hold of the auto report.

And that's the auto report. This is the birmingham city council's report about whether head teacher was on a dar, had faked resignation letters from four teaching assistance at school, elderly primary. The other report, remember, predated the trojan horse sleep. And so after digesting the audit, hums, and I gave the charge and horse sleep another luck.

oh my god, homes .

started shaking his head. The auto report, the fact of IT IT looked like he had been incorporated right into the trojan horse letter, get a lot of step four of the plot hums, assess to me step force the part of the letter, that is, you're supposed to get ts to cook up allegations against the head teacher in order to Spark an investigation .

to add credibility to the issue. IT is always Better to push for an external council investigation.

IT is also report what hadn't jumped out of us until we read the audit is that according to the letter, the tea are supposed to push for specific type of inquiry into the head teacher. They are targeting an external council investigation. The audit investigation we just read was exactly that.

An external council investigation into ivana dar that the t asit. atterly. Had asked for and participated in. And step four continues.

We have Sally here who always pushes on our behalf, and he has helped us along.

That is a name that mentioned a bunch throughout the charge horse letter b times, to be precise. That's far more than anyone else. Aside from to hear alarm.

The supposed of king pin of the scheme also mentioned eight times in the world of the letter. Sally is a key accomplish to hear in Operation trojan horse. The letter describes her as a birmingham council officer who's a mole, essentially adding the jihad from inside the upper ranks of the local government.

Sally has been very supportive and has helped our agenda progress. The author rights, according to the letter, once the T S make false allegations against the head teacher that are working to unseat, Sally is the one who make sure the city council launches an external investigation into that head teacher. So it's like any auto report, you might see any investigation from the council. You might be part 叶子 上 the name of the .

council .

officer who commissions the odd investigation into rivonia dar Sally。 Let me look at the order report .

where her name on there.

Let me see. Yeah, I mean the tailors, the director IT she's head the director, her name in the bottle report here, right? Sally Taylor was a high ranking, but inconsecutive burek rap at birmingham council SHE was the person in charge of managing the city schools during the atterly dispute when the t reported to burma city council that mrs. Darr might to falsify their resignation letters. IT was Sally who received those complaints IT was Sally who got the council's audit team to investigate the complaints and when the council decided to get the police involved, Sally was also a part of that the trojan horse's letter makes IT seem like he did all of that duplicitous, sly in league with the trojan horse platters.

I mean, it's not even that clever.

The trojan horse letter looks to us to be taking direct aim at one of rimington city councils own staffers ham handedly trying to make the audit investigation, which was so blisteringly critical of ivana dar, seem rigged. The birmingham council is supposed to have fAllen for this and considered red. The letter, or real islamic reat .

is radiation is actually what happened?

What happened? Why is everybody looking away from this? It's right here. It's in the document from serial productions and the new york times.

I'm brian read.

I'm him to save. This is the trojan horse fair.

Armed with the audit investigation, which officials had retracted, and we've committed to keeping reporters like us from seeing we went back to birmingham city council, this time to the council's current deputy leader, a woman named to bridget Jones. I know, I know it's spelled differently though.

We went to bridget Jones because during the trojan horse affair, SHE was the elected official who oversaw school policy, and SHE was in charge of the burning of city council's response to the treason horse letter. Albert board introduce this to her. Actually, bridge Jones was the protection of his, a rising star in the local labor party who like board, is a former physicist, council or total s deputy leader. Jones would have much more on the ground knowledge of how the city deal with the letter. So I asked first question when you got the trojan horse letter and you guys started discussing IT here in the council, when was the first conversation um you other people to counsel head about atterly primary school?

Adele I don't think they are conversation .

that adele .

specifically for some time I told bridget Jones the .

reason rescues we know about the audit report. We know when you receive the rosen horse letter, the council had just finished an investigation into rivanna AR and the resignations in atterly. So i'm wondering what were the first conversations you had when you read the train horse sleep and at all about utterly and you guys, I just finish this on IT.

I was not personally involved any of that order at work. So just explain the politician versus the officer split. We do SHE knew .

about the odd n investigation SHE knew we were talking about. But SHE explained she's a politician and elected official. Much of the council's business, such as audit, is done by officers who aren't elected. So even though bridget Jones was the council member in charge of education in schools, SHE says an audit would rarely come to our awareness.

This one.

one of the recommendations of IT was that the matter be referred to the police. So you wouldn't aware of that.

Even got thing is about four years ago now. To be honest with you would have to go back .

and look at my if don't remember talking about atterly at length when the trojan .

horse slater came in the focus when the rogan hole letter came in, we look searched as a whole. So IT was more of question as to whether this kind thing was systematically happening.

But the letters of whole begins williston examples, right, of schools where his plot was underway, with add being the one was discussed a greatest length. So even if you look at the letters as a whole, when did the council become aware that the adder's case we had just investigated this?

I don't think I personally was aware that we had had that investigation so quickly beforehand that but .

when you don't know, when you became aware .

that for me personally, quite some time afterwards, I think many, many months for memory. So the implication .

of what bridget Jones was telling us is that as he was managing the four out from the torture horsell a councilor officers didn't bother to share this information about elderly with her. They never even mentioned the all the investigation to her for months, which is mind boggling.

Councillor Jones was having meeting after meeting about the letter as the national government in london bore down on the city council, castigating local officials for allowing a possible islamic plot to spread on their watch. British Jones offered her resignation to abba bar, which he refused. He justified him from the parliament twice about the council's 那个 way。

As far as british Jones could remember through much of that, through this stressful trojan horse related events, her colleagues never thought to say to her, hey, by the way, you know that intricate about the trojan horse. Are that change? The head teacher added, and bizarrely, nations, we actually just ask the police to look into those, because I are ordered to think the head teacher might be a phony letter. I just f why I.

well, I didn't know that information .

was that I was that possible .

fact is so important. It's so well into this letter. That's really shocking psych.

but he didn't .

need to be silly.

Tata, the council education director who commissioned and signed off on the investigation into adder's the person the letter claims is a mall SHE and councilor Jones work together all the time. They had weekly meetings about schools.

SHE update you that we have a head teacher has been accused of fraud, and we're referred the matter to the police.

So that kind of thing would usually come to a brief ing. But I do not remember that coming twenty of my brief ings, I don't remember this. Anyway, you gotta remember this was a couple of things.

We are bad to happen in this conversation with .

deputy leader is Jones can show you brian was about .

to pull from his backpack some council correspondence we obtained showing that silly tailer definitely was talking about there is won a dar investigation in the weeks before the George horse that showed up to which bridge Jones would reply where you get these she's saying from reporting .

mean this is a letter from Sally Taylor again. November said great .

Jones would look at this official correspondence from plata in which silis writing in november twenty thirteen, the same months the trolley horse that appeared about the order investigation to respond a door and how the council were offering the other matter to the police and counter. Jones would say, again, yeah, that I think I would never know about that with then point to bridget Jones, you had weekly meetings with silt ylang, and she's named in the torture horse sea. Don't interrupt.

Named in Turner is named .

the terrorist who we, which is a weird bone for her to pick because it's technically true. The one time the letter mention sile's last name IT says Turner, not Taylor, but ever document produce by the council, which says right in in the letters is probably referring to sound Taylor because there was no silly Turner .

who worked here.

British Jones would remain steadfast, SHE said. He recalled no conversation from this time about udi primary school, not with Sally, not with .

anyone all.

At one point during this exchange, bridget Jones said something that still makes me uneasy.

So it's a really interesting line of questioning because nobody has ever asked me about adder's .

before um SHE got this mildly preterm expression on her face will confused.

It's just a very unusual line of questioning why we're .

investigate in protein horse letter. And one of the primary claims may were then bombs the council, the extensive order IT into a, and arrived a complete opposite conclusion weeks before the torture house. That this is not really unusual for us and connection and the reason why we're interested in this yeah is just .

you asking me about something so please ever asked me about four.

That in itself is like pretty telling. What were people concerned about? There was like two years of hell with this letter. Why didn't know at any point to actually hang gonna get the claims in the actual letter?

All school other journalists.

I think that's a rather .

revealing comment from bridget Jones. Ask all the other journalists. When SHE scheduled this interview with us, SHE clearly did not expect us to bring up badly primary school in this way.

I am going off to go afraid because I got some more visitors coming in and.

There is a strange atterly shaped blind spot and coverage of the trojan horse affair. Even people who are actively trying to reshape the trigen horse narrative years later sidestepped that school serious well intention. People who have done good work to correct the record of the children horse fair, even they have looked past the atterly case, a big guardian feature story several years on a well research book by academics, a dog play, based on interviews with many of the same people we've talked to, including bridget Jones, which is toward the country.

None of these discusses the elderly resignation dispute, or was on a dark, just last year, the BBC air to three part investigative series about Operation trojan horse on a show that's called the corrections, whose entire premise is to put right stories. The media got wrong. The first episode is called the anonymous letter, and still the words atterly, or is on a dar, do not appear in any of the twenty eight minute episodes.

When the BBC does briefly discuss the letters origin, they treat IT like a joke. The reporter interviews A T, V producer who compares the story to a school bee dee caper where you expect to discover the answer at the end. And the reporter says.

i'm going to a disappoint you. There are many rumors about who altered that letter. Unfortunately, none that a fit to print .

this averting .

of the national gaze from atterly. I think it's White politicians like our bar and bridge Jones have been able to equivocate why miss conceptions have vestured why the trojan horse fair has eluded genuine understanding all these years. The way nearly everyone else talks about this story, it's powerful at times. It's made me question how hums and I approaching IT.

Imagine we got IT wrong.

I do imagine that you do. I do. I ve had moments when i've said to myself, we've got to be the ones thinking about this backwards. There must be something i'm misunderstanding. As a foreigner, relatively new to this, and am I making just an epic miscalculation by casting my lot with this lapsed, often overconfident doctor skating and his parents apartment? The fact that so many people looked into this independently, from the cops to counterterror expert, from scotland yard to independent, investigated for the council to other reporters, you know, IT makes you wonder if maybe you're on your mind like .

what it's .

enough to make me second guess IT makes .

me second guess them.

And did those .

feet .

in in some time, walk up on in winds mountain and grew?

This is what I was quoting, the silt ill's house first in the morning.

or in the english countryside.

Yeah, band saw some bushes and erupted. Are you listening to yourself? You are just the most ridiculous human being, no, any given day. Sally, tell him, didn't talk to us, not this day, not any of the days. We've knocked on the door, drop letters at a house.

We're into her own facebook, emailed her we ve got a single e mail back, quote, I am no longer employed by booming city council. I provide the extensive information to the various inquiries that matters you refer to, you wrote, and therefore i've decided not to meet with you accordingly. I trust you respect my wishes not to receive or end them any further correspondence or communication with you.

So we would like a british jone's word that's far as he recalled, silica had not told her about the investigation into which raised IT is quite impossibility if silly tailer had been passed along that critical intil to someone like a british Jones then as possible, that information also did make IT up the chain to someone even more important, by far, the most powerful person responsible for dealing with the change of now I know, mr. Speaker, that there are some distinguish citizens in this country who have put on their cars a poster or sticker seeing bullets to break IT Michael golf. But we now know from labor's owned from bench that their official breaks ic position is bulks Michael goal was britain secretary icy for education when the church horse that appeared.

He's a prominent figure in the conservative power over the years. He's held several cabinet posts run for prime minister. He's currently influential member of prime minister bois Johnson s. Cabinet trans put in charge of executing breit a serious responsibility in a word which in spanish translates as khani, which is debating her employment an english rings with rocks.

Happy to give way.

but there's more that is men than testa al ephesians. Michael golf captained the country's response to the church horse affair without golf, urging briefings to parliament, the cabinet, the press about the extreme threat, winding through our schools without his decision to call in the form account terri, for britain, the trojan horse might have been a very different affair.

So is important to know what, if anything, he was told about the elderly order report. And it's connection to georgian house. That's after the break.

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To figure out what Michael golf knew about the torch horse that am and when he knew him, brian, I came to focus on a particular meeting, a meeting which, to us, a pair to determine the fate of the letter. We've been calling the meeting inventively the borg of meeting because is between the then leader of msy council. So I A bore who'd had a frustrating interview with, in our first week reporting an education secretary, Michael gove.

The ball goal meeting occurred on favourite twelve, twenty fourteen on that day, Michael gove, someone elbow bought to london to discuss the trojan, was that am and the potential plot that was underway birminghams ols. Just look at the chrome of events. This is the day when everything seems to change.

Before this meeting, there was relative calm. The georgian hall said he was not public, those no media frenzy nor special investigators before the board of meeting is possible. The letter could have been stuffed and forgotten in a dusty five cabinet and burn again.

But after a borgo of meeting of fb twelve, that's when Michael goal began pushing for sleeping in deventer in burma n. The letter hit the press. The offero went. Now, the fact that Michael goal was involved in the meeting that, uh, ddt on slow against both muslims is not surprising at all. The rhona gentlemen, Michael gove, has been referred to as one of our country's most high profile.

Islam hopes he would reject this label, but it's one he's been awarded by too many of his pairs and colleagues to ignore conservative color speed alban, whose known golf more than twenty years, described him as, quote the answer, n. Commander, chief of islam, a fobes inside the conservative party, the most senior, most politician in the conservative party banner. Sawali, who worked to longside Michael gove in the cabinet, described his views on islam as extremist and said that he'd radicalized SHE, used that word with a big tongue cheek, radicalised her party and the prime minister against muslims.

Gold sees muslims as uniquely prone to violence and anti democratic ideas through the ideology of islamism, which is procyon's with, I know this because he wrote entire book about IT called sales seven seven, a reference to the london tube and bus bombings on july seven, two thousand and five. Not everyone enjoying the book. A prominent historian described in this way in a book review quote a confused epic of simplistic incomprehension, riddled with more factual errors and misconceptions than any other text have come across in some two decades. Overviews books on the subject and quote. You can understand then why people have often pointed to Michael golf as the boogyman of George hall scandal, saying that because of his preconceptions about muslims who are willing to believe in the George hall, no matter of a piece of edits IT, although he used the little cynically, without investigating its authenticity, to whip the country up against the islamist threat he so focused on.

We knew from the birmingham city councils audit report that the council had already debunked the most detailed example of Operation trojan horse. So the obvious question was what went down in the bogo of meeting on february wealth IT? Seems like that's where the council would have told Michael gove about the atterly audit. When we'd met without our board, we'd asked him what happened.

Another meeting? Well, I have difficulty recollecting. absolutely.

Albert spoke of his meeting with microsoft as if I were a theoretical event, and he was imagining how IT might have gone.

Had IT taken place, we'd have had put before as if the trojan horse letter, and we would have had questions about what have you been doing. We'd have given an account of ourselves, and then government would have decided to take whatever action wanted to take.

We asked him who else was there?

I was myself presuming. And bridget, i'm presuming.

But when we went to bridget, we're you at the meeting of february ary, twelve.

with ichael golf? no.

Somehow this consequently meeting between alba bar and one of the most powerful people in the country, a meeting that most definitely happened in real life. No one we spoke to, Albert bour, bridget jone's, top council officer. Peter, hey, was able to recall IT that what was said, not who was there, not even if they themselves were there. Were you at the meeting with mico golf in february twelve? I was, he tells about that meeting.

I don't think I went to. The first one was bridget Jones, Peter hay and said .

he wasn't there.

You briefed about when they go back. I would have been by bridget. Yes.

I was not .

like .

whoever was that that Michael girl meeting beyond myself .

was the meeting I was. We could not, for the life of us, get anyone to illustrate ate the details of this meeting. No one at the meeting from the df e side would talk, and Michael gove is not responded to our multiple request for interview about the church, a horse of fair.

Maybe everyone genuinely did have collective amnesia about this one meeting, but the government meeting produces minutes, a tire and by product until the role you've got. And then they become gold. We went after them.

We put in a freedom of information request to the D F E for their minutes to the board gov meeting. They said that information was exempt. I didn't give IT to us when we requested the same minutes from burning um city council IT got comical. They came up with a bunch of cocom I reasons to deny us. Then when I question those, they went dark on us for months and months, far beyond statuary deadlines.

I got the information commissioner involved, the regulator in charge of buffer wise, who agreed the council was an acting right, but the council stop with them to, when I visited the council offices to find out what the problem was, employees, they refused to come out talk to me. There was a phone call where I got more emotional than i'd like to admit about the importance of freedom of information laws to democracy. So much time went by in our pursuit of these borrego of minutes that britain installed new prime minister .

breaks IT was finalized. Please welcome the demand for university gospel .

quiet and ma graduated from journalism school. His classroom mates had their families .

of ceremony cheering the mom.

reno, hamza and only me.

Winner of the channel four prize huma signed.

He got an award. I was crowd.

Once I became an award winning journalist, brian now were able to nail down one measly by important fact about the meeting between Michael gove and apple b. We're able to figure out from a council record rega, who else from bombing city council was present. We learn there was just one of the person, one of the representative from the council, besides Albert r, an officer in charge of education for burma.

One silly Taylor, the same si tailor who was implicated by the torch horsa as a double agent, was a person brief, I M Michael golf about the George horses. A Sally, the supposed backstabbing, sneaky y sympathy SHE was in the room with Michael golf. Did no when they are acknowledge this and did they not talk about adder's? Sally was the person who'd commissioned the order investigation into adderley. Does SHE not bringing that up, even just to clear her name to show the plot wasn't real, that he wasn't a more in their mates, would IT know and had scan to hope of finding out. By this point, most back council contacts were disapearance honors deputy did the bridge Jones told us to stay in touch, but despite many messages and a dialogue with the press office, SHE did not respond for years in council.

The council especially point to George horse investigator, who so bothered after we asked about adder's didn't even reply to me message, trying to give birth him as promised for over night stand cano in bamian when he came for our interview, and silence boss Peter hain, saying he's under brush from the council, try to retract his interviews with us, which is not something most journalists let people do. We want to show what else to try. The only person who were replying to our messages was out of bore surprise. I figured we must will take another crack at him or the harm. We set up a second meeting more than a year after first.

So there's a resignation scandal that happens at atterly primary school.

Are you familiar with that? familiar.

And through all the stuff would lend gland chiefly the counsel's order investigation into the added case. Brian pull documents from his orange backpack, the internal .

order report city council said these resignation letters were faulty fied and that they were likely falsified by the head teacher sad Taylor had referred and the council .

had referred the matter to the police.

Sadi Taylor had council board. Yes.

in an in an opposite point.

yes.

the version of letter is this the .

first you're hearing about .

this because I really .

never heard of any this.

No, no. I have no memory whatsoever of there being a audit investigation one month prior to the trojan horse letter into elderly school. Now I can see very much the not just the relevance, but the huge importance of this.

I'm glad you can. We have a sense that the whole trojan horse yaga could have gone very differently. Agree with you. So you agree with that.

If I known about this councilor .

ball gestion toward the silent il's letter about the aud .

investigation, which spoke about a totally opposite scenario to the trojan horse letter, we would have had a different story to tell to the department for education.

Is this issue included in the reports by investigators aim cartier and p. Oclock up barajas ababa, the leader of the best city council, that hired in artie and gave evidence to be o'clock, yes, but only a minimum. We told him.

like a few lines where .

you laughing.

What is just making whole thing even more incredible? What you're doing this afternoon is providing me with information which are more and more convinced I did not know about until you spoke about IT this afternoon.

I'm shot.

I have to say, as effective as I can that I have no knowledge of an audit investigation into early school. I'm surprised that there wasn't someone in the city council who might said, hold on, hold on. You need to know about this. IT worries me.

But Sally was in the meeting with Michael gove. So what did he not bring this up with?

ichael? Gov, not to. Not that I can recall.

SHE really didn't .

bring IT up. My, my regulation is, no.

What did you talk about in the meeting then? Did you say, like there's four schools where a plod is under way, what's happening at those schools wouldn't be what you talk about.

I suspect a, we did talk about matters in that way you guys .

are talking about if this is true, Sally Taylor has a lot to answer for. This is all in her head, I mean, you know, I mean.

from month, just all in her head and writing.

Where we think this all points atterly primary school, everything we found point to the fact that this crossing horse letter was not a true whistleblower about an issue in that makes sense, but that IT was used to direct attention away from police fraught n investigation.

and .

IT worked.

Yeah.

just do you know what? We are now a well into the year of trying to get the minutes from that meeting from the city council through F A, Y. request. So I mean, I would love to clear the subs since you don't have a memory of IT, but the city council is actively withholding that information.

If there was a brief ing for the meeting and there would have been a brief in report for that meeting, I don't have access to those computer files.

Someone in city council does reveal them.

but I can only conclude that that someone doesn't want to make them available because there is something possible that they don't want others to know about.

Can you get him for us?

I'm rather interested myself to have a look .

at the all the seems like .

IT yeah IT would help clear this up.

I find what you're telling me here this afternoon disturbing. What you are describing to me is a council which I wouldn't say is Operating with motives, which I do not understand. There is an agenda here which a number of people seem to be complicit in. I don't think I found myself in a position as as or say as bad as this.

Council board had to go. He left us alone inside council house.

Dumb struck book. I can't believe what can happen. I can't believe .

in homes are started whispering. I went to shut the door so the council staff outside when see my colleague talking to himself and.

Can you believe this?

OK there?

Oh my god, I cannot believe the words I found out of my mom today. Have you ever been in a room? Would something like that going down? I was like, is, is this real? The man literally said that this had the capacity to change the entire project of the children horse. Yeah.

it's the first time someone insider that has seen what we've seen and agreed with IT. He's seen what we've seen.

A couple of minutes later.

okay, did understand IT pretty quickly .

out on temple street, the high subsides a little. We thought about him with british Jones. We tend up with the same evidence, the same questions, as he seemed off guard the whole time. Abr presented with the same stuff.

There was just a bit of a quick grasp of the entire of fuck.

In rapid. We do even have to push, like with bridget, we had to keep pulling her teeth, pull teeth, pulling heat before SHE just gave us a bit of blood, right him. He stabbed himself in the face as he walked in.

He was crazy. At least give us a still a chance. No, my man was ready.

This is the same abbot who one year ago, riled me up with talks of atmosphere and e docs and segregated p but now he talked aside his president so quickly. Here's what I really think happened. He's already talked to bridget. He already knows exactly the question. Council board later told us he hadn't talked to bridget ahead of time. But whatever he was, a politician telling us that what we, an earth, was putting him in one of the worst messes of his four tier political career, raising the possibility of a cover up within the council while he was leading game and really throwing some heavy blame with Sandy Taylor and a fellow bureaucrats bran did checking with Candy tailer one more time and told her, we know he said not to ever communicate with her again, but he just wanted to impress on her this seriousness of what council leadership was claiming, that he didn't share the add ordered report. And upon receiving this email, sad tell the court is back and spoke at just getting SHE never applyed.

Then one rainy friday, a few weeks after our second meeting with them, we heard from our baby again. Go to the side entrance of council house at five o'clock today, he told us under the archway next to the Green guard house, we did and he appeared and let us to a room inside. 我我我 but you're making a weird face。

You might be surprised. I managed to do um I .

noticed he was clutching some sheet of paper.

I have got two things, three things I have got the briefing note that went to Michael gove.

oh, oh, wow. O okay.

I have the letter that accompany in that brief ing out from me to Michael golf. And I have the notes of that Michael .

gove meeting. okay. OK, okay. What would you ever here?

Funny indeed.

what I have in front to me.

what are you willing to share IT? I'm probably am, you have to can be a little oil.

We've been waiting for a year. So here this information, so we can wait a few seconds now, you know.

So this was a brief ing note.

Alberta starts reading a brief ing note put together for him on february six, twenty fourteen, in preparation for the meeting a week later in london. And I was sent to Michael. Go ahead of time as well.

One by one, the council goes through specific schools. The trojan horse letter claimed were being infiltrated by plotters and provides information about what the city council new was actually happening with each region's park. Salty and .

elderly school school .

orderly .

already. Sorry, but elly, wait for that one. Here's with the council .

senta Michael golf and the department for education about that school six days before their february twelve meeting.

ali schools referred to in the trojan and what's document the schools inspected in january two thousand and twelve and was graded as good with an outstanding judged for leadership and management in twenty first of december, which I presume as two thousand twelve, four support staff claimed through the city council whistle Brown policy that the head teacher falsify their resignation letters and they had never resigned. Service directly asked all IT to investigate, and they reported that his audit reported and said that in their view, that had been productivity and handed the report to the police.

I mean, that is the order report. That's right. That's the order report and its conclusions.

That is that is the order that one you referred to. Yeah.

yeah. The one you told us you'd never been briefed done before. We explained IT to you the information you said could have changed everything had only you've been told IT. It's right here in a brief ing document prepared for you.

Well, it's not spelled out particularly. I can read IT out.

He tosses the brief across the table to me. Then he turns to notes taken by Sally Taylor of what was said in the meeting itself, the meeting on february twelve with Michael golf in london. The meeting we've been working for so long to trying get inside the meeting that we think set the chosen horse letter on its faithful path. This is what official said in the february twelve meeting about the church in horse letter.

The police recommendation, including the counterterrorism unit, was that the document was bogus.

That's what he says there.

That's the world augus.

These are minutes to the meeting with Michael goes, I scan the brief in the note council, bora, just toss me. I could see the council had described the rogan horse letter to Michael gove and the defy this way quote. There is a serious credibility gap regarding the document.

The document contains serious factual inaccuracies and in a number of areas, contradictions and quote. The council also explains that their auditors had investigated a number valley tions in the letter and quote come to a clear view that there was no basis to these. The council determined the trojan horse sleep was bogus.

Of course they did. The council told Michael, go to his face. The counter terror police laughter was bogus.

Of course they did. Sally Taylor drought IT down notes to memorialize that. Of course he did. SHE shared with her department, knew with the politicians.

Her department compiled pages effects showing what was actually going on in birmingham schools and that the letter wasn't to be trusted. And shor colleagues, brief dollar bar and Michael gove about the fraud investigation into atterly primary school. So you guys, you knew, you knew this was a fake letter.

Well, no one was wanting to say IT was .

a fake letter. Why not? You did say several times. Mea mean.

when you give a sniff IT of the torsional document, you just IT cones up a lot of issues. Doesn't IT is IT a fake letter? Is IT not a fake letter? What was IT produce for? What was the purpose .

who produced IT? We're not doing this again council board correct that atterly isn't given particular attention in the brief ing note its bullshit ted along with a handful of other schools and I get IT the briefing note doesn't say the trojan horse letter came from atterly, but something doesn't end up about the story that Alberta and bridget Jones have been telling us.

Bridget Jones said in her interview that SHE didn't recall being informed about the audit investigation into atterly by Sally Taylor or anyone else until well after the trigen horsell arrived. But we eventually got a hold of brief ing documents showing that Sally Taylor and council staff did hold briefings for bridget Jones, where they talked about the utterly audit, not once, but twice, at least before the trojan horse letters showed up. When we email the deputy reader Jones about this, SHE wrote back and confirmed that he said he went through the old records and saw he had been briefed and naterally, but that he was just one of many schools on the agenda, which is why SHE hadn't remembered IT.

SHE added that SHE trusted Sally Taylor and had no reason to believe Sally without anything from her. So okay, no one put two into together, I guess. Well, there is this other detail. We've seen evidence that after the letter arrived, a council officer who was tasked with analyzing IT did point out the obvious link between the trojan horse sleep and the elderly resignation dispute.

According to the transcript of an interview this council officer later gave to an investigator, SHE says he wrote a memo about IT, which he reads from in the interview, and he says he sure this memo would have gone to our board, but our board tells us he has no recollection of receiving IT. And when we requested the memo from the council, they told us that does not exist. Why wouldn't the council just tell us all this from the beginning and by us, I mean everybody, the public, when the trojan horse letter surfaced, shouldn't they just have said, yeah, yeah, we have a good idea where the sledge might have come from and we're on IT.

Don't worry, it's not a real plot. We've been investigating part of this so called Operation for months. We've already called in the police. Instead, they've gone to such great length to hide the fact that they once use common sense.

When we ended that third interview with our bar, he said when he had more time, he wanted us to talk through the rest of our reporting. So the next time I was in town, I called them. As soon as he answered, I could tell something was up.

I've got difficulties, he said. I asked if I could start recording, but he suggested I probably shouldn't, given what he was about to tell me to put IT rather bluntt, he said they're trying to gag me. They're been discussed at high levels within the council, he said.

Bridget Jones was involved. Legal was involved. IT had been made cleared to council board that they did not want a meeting with us.

He was mixed about IT. He said he had plans to see council lawyer soon to discuss the matter. And I need to get back in touch. A week went by, we did not hear back from our board that we did hear from the council.

Yeah, yeah. Hey.

I just got a letter from the council threatening and junction.

thanks. We are we'd landed the birmingham cil was threatening to take us to court. They're threatened to seek an injunction from a judge that would forces to hand over our copy of the order report and would legally muscle us from ever speaking about its contents.

And as for the meeting on for b twelve, we know sad Taylor and aba br told Michael gove that the trojan horse, ta was incredible that the police that was bogus, and yet allegations made and what has become known as the trojan horse letter suggest that children were not being kept safe in burma. Schools go went on to treat the letter as a real threat. The steps we are taking today are those that we consider necessary to protect our children from extremism and to protect our nation's traditions of tolerance.

He commissioned investigations, allowed the media to run a mock with IT looked as if Michael gob ignored evidence that the georgia hora was a hoax so he could take advantage of for zone purposes, so he could pretend there was a jihadist conspiracy taking place. How tidy would be able to say that what happened? But I can't.

Because looking in the minute of the bogo meeting on every twelve was a fact, a fact that would help explain what happened and open a whole new dawn to this mystery. There was another anonymous letter, write, what do you asking now? Is my letter .

he did you rather?

Now, next, all the children was a bad, a study in call IT.

The georgian horse of here is produced by read and me, along with the recollects, the shows edited by saracenic, additional editing by our glass and by contributing editor I in fact, and research by america, and fading original score by Thomas meller, with additional music by map magni and Stephen Jackson sound designed, mixing in music supervision by Stephen Jackson and filled on a host at the dion visual company. Judy's nighters are objective edit new drama is managing, editing, supervising producers and day juba executive assistant is our vote delay on some dork is an assistant managing editor, new york times.

Special thanks to Cassie hoey, Francis swan, safe land, mt. Tierney, stone Nelson, Christopher sweet a and Julie whittier er.

the children was so fair is made by zero productions in the new york times.

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