Arshad Mohammed, headteacher of Al Hijrah School in Birmingham

An Islamic school that tried to suppress its critical Ofsted report can finally be named after a legal challenge by the Daily Mail.

Al-Hijrah School in Birmingham was criticised for segregating pupils and keeping books in its library that advocated beating wives.

Inspectors said the state-funded school needed to be put in special measures for issues including a breach of equality law.

But, in the first case of its kind, the school challenged Ofsted in the High Court, meaning the report is still being withheld from parents a year on from the inspection.

Judges ordered the name of the school be kept secret over fears of a ‘media storm’ – but following a challenge by the Daily Mail’s parent company, Associated Newspapers Limited, the reporting restriction was lifted last night.

Ofsted’s appeal against the school’s High Court challenge, listed in the Court Of Appeal today, has serious implications for the watchdog’s ability to give parents transparent information.

Sir Terence Etherton, the Master of the Rolls, ordered that the school could be named to preserve the principle of open justice.

He said: ‘We have reached the clear decision on this application that we consider anonymity should be raised so that Associated Newspapers Limited will be able to name the school.’

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said: ‘This is a victory for open justice. The Daily Mail has worked on behalf of the pupils, the parents and the people of Birmingham, to inform them what is happening. I am grateful to the paper for taking this battle up.

‘The anonymity order was absurd. It is imperative that parents are informed about issues to do with the school. If they are not, they will be none the wiser and they cannot hold people to account. It is disgraceful that they are trying to hide these issues.’

Al-Hijrah, an Islamic voluntary aided school in Bordesley Green, was previously investigated over its finances and has a connection with the Trojan Horse schools.

Today’s case centres around an inspection in June last year, in which inspectors accused the school of breaching the Equality Act 2010. The school, for pupils aged four to 16, separates girls and boys from Year 5 onwards for religious reasons.

Ofsted carried out the inspection after receiving an anonymous email claiming to be from a pupil, saying any interaction between genders was forbidden.

It said: ‘I am worried about going to college and not having the social skills to be able to speak normally to the opposite gender.’ During the inspection, a girl told Ofsted that segregation was ‘dumb’ and she did not know ‘how to have any relationship/friendship with boys’.

Inspectors also criticised the school for library books that ‘included derogatory comments about, and the incitement of violence towards, women’.

One said a wife was ‘not allowed to refuse sex to her husband’ and another said ‘women are commanded to obey their husbands and fulfil their domestic duties’.

In addition, two books said a husband could beat his wife as long as it was not done ‘harshly’. Headmaster Arshad Mohammed told inspectors he had not realised the books were available and called them ‘abhorrent’.

The school’s appeal against Ofsted’s report led to a judicial review hearing at the High Court last year. In November, Mr Justice Jay ruled Ofsted was right to criticise the school over the offensive books, which should still produce a result of ‘inadequate’.

But he said segregating pupils did not breach the law if both genders were treated identically. He ordered Ofsted to rewrite the report with these points omitted.

The appeal’s outcome will affect whether Ofsted can mark down Islamic schools for segregation.

In one High Court hearing, Mr Justice Stuart-Smith banned the naming of the school, claiming this would ‘generate a media storm and tensions and fears for parents and the local community’.

Yesterday the Daily Mail successfully argued in a special hearing that there was no proper legal basis to give the school anonymmity. Adam Wolanski, representing Associated Newspapers, called the restriction an ‘unusual approach’ which was at odds with the principle of open justice as the information was not private.

Sir Terence, sitting with Lady Justice Gloster and Lord Justice Beatson, found in favour of the newspaper and ordered that the school could be named.

Ex-Birmingham Yardley MP John Hemming said: ‘The school has a right to challenge Ofsted, but parents have a right to know.’

Al-Hijrah was not inspected in connection with the Trojan Horse plot to oust secular heads and governors at state schools. But it is understood Tahir Alam, the alleged ringleader, used to be secretary to the Al-Hijrah Trust, which owns the school.