Ibrahim Hewitt, an Islamist fundamentalist who says homosexuals should be lashed

A school run by a Muslim hardliner was citing sharia in its child protection policies, it emerged yesterday.

Ofsted inspectors found that Al-Aqsa school in Leicester operated on the basis that ‘Ulama’ – Islamic scholars – should be consulted in child abuse and welfare cases, as well as ‘relevant outside agencies’.

The school – founded by Ibrahim Hewitt, an Islamist fundamentalist who says homosexuals should be lashed – declared ‘sharia and the law of the land will be the prime arbiters in child protection concerns’.

This raised the prospect of a different level of protection for Muslim children, said critics.

Ofsted made it clear only British law should be followed.

The school then revised its protection policy to exclude references to sharia law.

Ofsted had been sent into the £1,800-a-year independent school, which has 260 pupils aged three to 13, after the Department for Education ordered an inspection following the exposure of Hewitt’s extremist views by The Mail on Sunday earlier this year.

Last night Maryam Namazie, of anti-extremist pressure group One Law For All, said: ‘It is an outrage when children of Muslim parents cannot have the same protections as other children.’

The Department for Education, which can shut the school, said it was keeping it under scrutiny.

The school said it had always given priority to UK law and its action plan has been accepted by the Department.