Aymen Dean, who spied for British intelligence inside the terror network for eight years, has lodged a formal complaint against St George’s School in Edinburgh, claiming it was singling out his five-year-old daughter because other parents feared she was a safety risk. The Independent Schools Secretary is investigating whether St George’s failed to adequately protect or promote his daughter’s welfare after Dean complained about a “toxic environment” at the school, using powers under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. If the secretary, Alex O’Neill, finds that St George’s was either “unacceptable” or at risk of becoming unacceptable, Scottish ministers could impose strict conditions on the school, ordering it to improve its policies and governance. It could also be subject to official inspection. St George’s said it “strongly disputed” Dean’s version of events and was confident the registrar would reject his claims. Dean told the Guardian that as a result of their 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, despite being granted British citizenship in exchange for his service. in the UK. Dean and his wife, Saadia, claim the school insisted on different drop-off and pick-up times for their daughter after some parents complained last October that Dean was a safety risk. Several weeks earlier, he had told a Channel 4 documentary about the 9/11 attacks that he was a former member of Al Qaeda. Dean said he had spoken to the school about his past in December 2019 when he received assurances from MI5 that he did not pose a security risk to the school. After other parents complained, the couple understand that the headteacher, Alexandra Hems, again sought and received reassurances from MI5. Even so, they claim he said: “Don’t expect a welcome here in Scotland” because of his previous involvement with Al Qaeda. The couple said they complied with the change in their daughter’s school hours. When they tried in March this year to admit their autistic son to nursery school and offered to pay for extra support for him in the classroom, they claimed staff said they would be better off returning to the Middle East for his education and “welfare”. of both your children.” In his lengthy complaint to O’Neill, Dean said the “toxic environment” at St George’s made their daughter feel the school “hated” her. She told the Guardian that she was told to sit down by a member of staff for being late to class and was often made to wait outside the school gates before being dunked on. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. After an angry outburst in a parents WhatsApp group, Dean said he was banned from the school. This led to “significant harm to my daughter’s educational, emotional and psychological well-being”, she told O’Neill. Dean has also laid out his allegations against St George’s on the Blethered with Sean McDonald podcast, produced by thebiglight.com in Glasgow. British intelligence sources confirmed that Dean became one of the UK’s most important and valuable spies, whose MI6 leaks were shared with the Prime Minister’s security advisers in Downing Street, the CIA and US presidents. After the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, he helped Western intelligence agencies locate al-Qaeda bases, weapons dumps and safe houses in Afghanistan while working undercover inside the terrorist organization. His information led to the assassination of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Yousaf 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 information while he was undercover and have worked with him since then said they were shocked and upset that Dean and Saadia had decided to abandon their plans to settle permanently in the UK. One said the UK owed “an enduring debt” to Dean. “His commitment to democratic states with secular values where people of faith can live comfortably and safely … you couldn’t ask for a greater commitment, literally risking his life for years,” the former officer 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 secretary has considered the matter, St George’s will be found to have acted fully in accordance with all relevant safeguarding and regulatory procedures,” it said. Hems, who is now a principal at another school, has not commented on Dean’s allegations but is understood to strongly reject his claims. In 2017, following an unrelated inquiry by the secretary, ministers ordered another well-known private school in Edinburgh, George Watson’s, to improve its complaints handling and governance after it was found to be at risk of being inadmissible following a case ” of prolonged bullying against a student there.
