Today's BBC news item was on Batley's hounded teacher yet it failed to mention the Muslim mob - disgusting! Says Kelvin MacKenzie

You probably know the story but it’s worth repeating.

Three years ago the head of religious studies at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire, was taking a lesson when he showed a cartoon taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo of the Prophet Mohammed to his class as he done in the previous two years.

Batley is 41% Muslim and some of the parents objected and protested outside the school gates. Instead of standing up for one of their own the school distanced themselves from him.

As the protests become more fearsome the teacher, a father of four, was hounded out of his job, forced to flee his home and has now even changed his name. Were it not for a local fundraiser, he and his family would have been penniless.

Nobody, outside a few commentators, stood up for him. Not the school. Not the police. Not the local council at Kirklees which has a number of Muslims elected to it. And certainly not the local politicians, Tracy Brabin or Kim Leadbeater. Disgusting.

Presumably their main concern was for themselves and their £100K-a-year jobs. They feared that they would be voted from office by the Muslims if they spoke up.

Imagine the other way round, somebody of brown skin in trouble. The queue of white Liberals to defend them would have reached twice round the school.

Now a spotlight has fallen on the cowards of Batley and it comes from Dame Sara Khan, an anti-extremist adviser employed by the Home Office who has produced a devastating report massively critical of the school, the cops and the council. A bit late, but better than nothing.

Dame Sara is a Muslim and was raised in Bradford yet she hits out in all directions.

First the teacher himself. She spoke to him and he reveals that he felt ‘’totally isolated’’, ‘’abandoned’’ and suicidal’’. Notice there was no sign of support from the National Education Union.

Secondly Batley Grammar itself. The school cleared the teacher of wrongdoing (that was big of them) but the trust said the showing of the cartoon was inappropriate. Dame Sara challenges that.

She said that ‘’protecting pupils from offence, which is often subjective, should not be the priority’’, and suspending the teacher, ‘’a victim of harassment’’, gave the impression to some protesters they had secured a win ‘’against a blasphemer.’’

She said they should simply have paused the lessons until an investigation had been carried out. No they shouldn’t, they should have said anybody offended should take their children elsewhere. We are in a Liberal Western Europe democracy not a dictatorship in Pakistan.

Anyway her review calls on the government to recognise victims of this type of harassment as being on par with victims of crime. Further she said that no protest should be allowed from now on within 150 metres of the school gates. Not a bad idea but doesn’t it just shift the problem down the road?

Thirdly the police. Dame Sara says it was clear West Yorkshire police didn’t understand the threat he was under. I don’t accept that. The police decided not be involved. That teacher should have been better protected, even to the point of being escorted into school every day.

I remember when I was Editor of The Sun being protected by literally hundreds of officers which allowed me to come to work, plus a security detail. Without them the Wapping strikers would have won. It was the same in Batley. In effect, the Muslim mob won.

Finally, the politicians. The local council didn’t get involved. Why not? You know why not. They had a number of Muslims on the council and they would not have won a majority to support the teacher.

That is also true of the local MP Kim Leadbeater who hasn’t said a word about the affair since she was elected. I would think it impossible for her to say nothing this time and I will be studying her words – or lack of them- very, very carefully.

That teacher should receive massive compensation so that he and his family can lived in comfort and peace. We owe them that.

For the Muslim mob they must be told next time they stage such a protest they will be arrested.

And for the politicians they must learn that religious extremism must not be tolerated and they must learn to stand up and be counted.

They are supposed to be democrats. Be grateful if they acted like them.

Kelvin MacKenzie was the most successful Editor of The Sun, taking its circulation to a record 4.3 million. He was also founder of the radio station talkSPORT.