When I saw the location of the Synagogue killings alongside the home address of the terrorist, I knew that Jihad Al-Shamie must have attended one of two schools: either Prestwich High (as it was known until it became Heys School in 2020) or, my own high school, Parrenthorn, one mile away.
I instinctively knew it would be the former – a school that my own father had attended in the 1940s - but which had deteriorated so badly in the past 40 years that in one year alone it was used as a case study by the Government because it had 600 suspensions and 10 exclusions (the number of pupils is less than 850).
As I was considering how such violence could happen on the streets I remember so fondly, a former classmate sent me Jihad Al-Shamie’s entry into the Prestwich School Yearbook.
There he is aged 11, entering the school in Year 7 and again 5 years later, aged 15 or 16.
What would happen in the following 20 years that would turn the Syrian-born immigrant into the type of man who would attack his local Synagogue on Yom Kippur to leave so much pain and death in his wake?
Whilst I was growing up, Prestwich was a relatively wealthy suburb, less than 3 miles from Manchester City Centre, yet with a semi-rural feel due to the several large parks - including Heaton Park by which the now infamous Synagogue sits - and the large swathes of undeveloped green sites and golf courses.
A town of 31,000 people, since as early as the mid-19th century, Prestwich has housed many of Greater Manchester’s 30,000 jews (the second largest group outside of London) and remains largely unchanged by migration since their arrival from Eastern Europe (especially Lithuania, Poland, and Russia) as they escaped pogroms, persecution, and economic hardship.
As the Jewish population grew, space in the city centre became limited and expensive, prompting families to look for residential suburbs with more room for housing and community facilities – hence the appeal of leafy Prestwich.
GB News has seen Jihad Al-Shamie’s entry in the Prestwich School Yearbook
|GB NEWS/BEV TURNER
The 2021 Census data for the area confirms that 93.5 per cent of residents are white British; 5.5 per cent are Asian with other demographics at about 0.5 per cent.
The Prestwich Village Jewish Cemetery is one of the oldest in the country, established in 1841. From my bedroom, I could see the top of Butterstile Lane Jewish Cemetery, which features a memorial board commemorating Jewish personnel who died in both World Wars.
My father’s car repair garage - and our home opposite - on Rainsough Brough, sat between the two, and he’d come home from work, washing oil from his hands, talking about how much he loved his Jewish customers, “They’re the ones who always pay their bills on time” he would say with affection.
I know that since Thursday’s attack, the tight-knit Jewish families will be a huge source of support to one another.
Jihad Al-Shamie launched a car and knife attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall on Thursday morning
|Prestwich was a lovely place to grow up - back doors were always open and kettles were always on. Everyone knew their neighbours and many still do. Prestwich has seven synagogues, which provide spiritual, social, and educational anchors for Jewish families. We had the best bagel shops in the UK. The local Jewish children who attended state school would all go to King David’s in nearby Crumpsall (extremely impressive as it had its own indoor swimming pool in which we would race against them).
But as with so many British towns, the benefits of migration (Manchester’s world-famous curry-mile near the University being one such positive) have been muddied by a lack of social cohesion as multiculturalism has grown steadily over the last 30 years. Manchester’s South Asian population rose from 17.1 per cent in 2011 to 20.9 per cent in 2021. Rather than streets becoming a harmonious blend of cultures, a stark ghettoisation has occurred: muslims settling around the mosques; jews living adjacent to the synagogues.
Ten minutes down Bury New Road from Prestwich sits Cheetham Hill - an area of significant social deprivation which now has the highest concentration of South Asian residents in Manchester: 67.3 per cent identifying as Asian, predominantly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent.
And Prestwich High – a short journey on the Metrolink tram system - became the school of choice for immigrant pupils from poor households.
Armed police shot and killed Al-Shamie at the scene
| PAI would have been a pupil there myself had my own mother not launched a one-woman campaign in the 1980s to keep local rival school Parrenthorn High open. In no small part thanks to her role as School Governor for over 30 years, that school has thrived.
One mile down the road, however, Prestwich High went from bad to worse. 35-year-old Jihad Al Shamani would have attended between roughly 2001-2006. It is baffling to see how the unremarkable-looking child in the school photo yearbook would become one of the UK’s most notorious terrorists.
During his time at Prestwich High, the school shifted from being a more locally-rooted demographic to drawing a larger, more ethnically diverse roll with Ofsted inspectors explicitly noting a much larger proportion with ‘English as an Additional Language’ than nationally. The school’s proportion of disadvantaged pupils eligible for free school meals rose and became above average for England — a key factor in the school’s challenges and Ofsted assessments.
According to Ofsted reports, detentions had to be scheduled during lunchtimes but monitoring and tracking of who should attend was poor. The system of sanctions wasn't well-enforced.
Some students wouldn’t follow through, or there was uncertainty over when and how sanctions are applied. Some staff did not view behaviour management as their responsibility. Uniform rules and expectations outside class often were not enforced or were unclear. Disruption in lessons affected learning and students did not follow instructions from staff. It is a litany of low-level disruption and rule-breaking that typifies so many British schools, and if left unaddressed, can create criminal adults.
Two people were killed in the terror attack
|PA
Whilst Al-Shamie was at the school, it was renamed in an attempt to change its identity: first as Prestwich Community High, then Prestwich Arts College. It received investment with new buildings and morphed into a Specialist Arts school, but official inspection evidence from the period points to modest attainment targets and ‘room for improvement’.
Attendance was lower than the national average, with absenteeism often linked to behaviour issues or disengagement. Ofsted inspectors noted that pupils did not feel safe, in part due to behaviour problems. As recently as 2019, welfare and behaviour were judged as inadequate.
In July 2005 (a year before Jihad would have left), a model pupil from nearby catholic school St Monica’s, 14-year-old Carl Neill, was nearly blinded by a gang of 40 thugs from Prestwich High who surrounded him as he walked home and repeatedly booted him in the face, shattering his right eye socket. At the time, Carl told a local paper, "I'd done nothing wrong. I was walking home with three friends when I saw a group from Prestwich High. A lad barged into my shoulder and pushed me to the ground. They were kicking me in the face. I must have fainted. Drivers were stopping and honking their horns to get the attention of teachers. Some staff ran out, and the gang ran off."
Three other pupils targeted by the mob luckily escaped without injury. The Head of Prestwich High at the time, Geoff Barlow, said: "We fully support the victim's family. We are looking at exclusions, one permanent."
We don’t know if Al-Shamie was involved in that incident. We don’t know how he travelled from Syria aged 6 to be welcomed into one of the warmest and most open communities in the UK. We don’t know why or how he was radicalised into the type of Islamic extremism which would see him attack innocent worshippers surrounded by their family and friends.
In 2018, when Al-Shami’s headmaster Mr Barlow passed away, the mourners at his family said, "His motto was ‘Be Proud, Be Passionate and Be Prestwich.’
Al-Shamie was not Prestwich. The Jewish families who will pick themselves up and recover from their grief, very much are.
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