A leading private school in the UK is under investigation after it was accused of discriminating against the daughter of one of the West’s top spies, a former al-Qaida bomb maker who is credited with saved thousands of lives.
Aimen Dean, who spied on British intelligence inside the terror network for eight years, has lodged a formal complaint against St George’s School in Edinburgh, claiming it singled out her five-year-old daughter because other parents they feared he was a security risk.
The Register of Independent Schools is investigating whether St George’s failed to adequately safeguard or promote her daughter’s welfare after Dean complained about a “toxic environment” at the school, using powers under the Education Act (Scotland) of 1980.
If the registrar, Alex O’Neill, found St George’s was either “objectionable” or at risk of being censured, Scottish ministers could impose strict conditions on the school, ordering it to improve its policies and governance. It could also be subject to a formal inspection.
St George’s said it “strongly disputed” Dean’s version of events and was confident the registrar would reject his allegations.
Dean told The Guardian that as a result of his experience, he and his family are leaving the UK to find new schools in the Middle East for their daughter and three-year-old son, although He granted them British citizenship in exchange for their service. in the United Kingdom.
Dean and his wife, Saadia, allege the school insisted on different drop-off and pick-up times for their daughter after a handful of parents complained last October that Dean was a safety risk . A few weeks earlier, he had told a Channel 4 documentary about the September 11 attacks that he was a former member of Al-Qaida.
Dean said he had told the school about his past in December 2019, when he was assured that MI5 posed no risk to the school’s security. After other parents complained, the couple understand the headteacher, Alexandra Hems, again asked for and received assurances from MI5. However, they claim he said: “Don’t expect a welcome here in Scotland” because of his past involvement with al-Qaida.
The couple said they complied with the change in their daughter’s school schedule. When they tried to get their autistic son into nursery school in March this year and offered to pay for extra support in class, they allege staff said it would be better to go back to the Middle East for the his education and “the well-being of your two children”.
In her lengthy complaint to O’Neill, Dean said the “toxic environment” at St George’s made her daughter feel the school “hated” her. She told the Guardian she was shouted at by a member of staff to sit down for being late to class, and was often made to wait outside the school gates before being buzzed.
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After an outburst on the parents’ WhatsApp group, Dean said he was banned from school. This caused “significant damage to my daughter’s educational, emotional and psychological well-being”, she told O’Neill.
Dean has also exposed his allegations against St George’s on the Blethered with Sean McDonald podcast, produced by thebiglight.com in Glasgow.
British intelligence sources have confirmed that Dean became one of Britain’s most important and highly regarded spies, whose MI6 leaks were shared with the Prime Minister’s security advisers in Downing Street, the CIA and the presidents of the United States.
After the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he helped Western intelligence locate al-Qaida bases, arms dumps and safe houses in Afghanistan while working undercover inside the terrorist organization His intelligence led to the assassination of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia’s leader, Yusaf al-Ayeri, and the revelation of a plot to detonate a chemical bomb on the New York subway in 2003.
Two former British intelligence officers who saw Dean’s intelligence while he was undercover, and have since worked with him, said they were surprised and upset that Dean and Saadia had decided to abandon their plans to settle permanently in the UK.
One said the UK owed “a permanent debt” to Dean. “His commitment to democratic states with secular values in which people of faith can live in comfort and safety … one could not ask for a greater commitment, literally risking his life for years,” the former official said.
St George’s said it could not respond in detail to Dean’s allegations while O’Neill investigated. “We are co-operating with the investigation and have every confidence that once the registrar has considered the matter, it will be found that St George’s has acted fully in accordance with all relevant safeguarding and regulatory procedures,” he said.
Hems, who is now a principal at another school, would not comment on Dean’s allegations, but it is understood he will vigorously deny his allegations.
In 2017, following an unrelated investigation by the registrar, ministers ordered another well-known Edinburgh private school, George Watson’s, to improve its complaints handling and governance after it was found to be risk of being objectionable after a case of “sustaining”. ” Bullying against a student there.