Website shame of extremist teacher

By Shahid Naqvi | Thursday, 29 April 2004 Source: Birmingham Post

Teacher Simon Smith and BNP election candidate ran an extremist website which described the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust as a "lie" and claimed photographic evidence of Nazi gas chambers had been doctored.

The Solihull maths teacher was suspended yesterday from his job at St Peter's Catholic School in Solihull after it emerged he was standing as a BNP candidate in June's Euro elections.

His website, which was closed down a year ago, contained links to web-based editions of Hitler's Mein Kampf and sites on white supremacy and eugenics.

He also used it to review rightwing literature, including one titled The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilisation.

The site was closed last March following a complaint lodged by search engine Yahoo.

Yahoo objected to the site's "inflammatory materials which include racist, anti-Semitic, and white supremacist views" and the similarity of its name - www.yahho.co.uk.

Mr Smith was unavailable for comment in his Smethwick home last night.

Today he is facing an increasingly uncertain future professionally.

Yesterday afternoon he was forced to sneak out of his school to avoid the attention of the press and a gathering of pupils, some who were chanting "get him out".

Another teacher was forced to drive Mr Smith's car out of the main gates and round to a side exit where the BNP candidate was waiting to make a quick get-away to avoid being confronted.

His departure attracted mixed views at the school.

Sixth-former Philip Rogers, aged 16, said: "If he is bringing his views into teaching then I don't think he should have a job."

But Drew Peacock, aged 17, said: "If he is not promoting his views I don't see the problem. I bet there are teachers with views on all sorts of things but as long as they don't spread them it's OK."

Mathew Lisset, also 17, added: "The pupils who are black and Asian wouldn't be very happy about his background."

As Mr Smith's BNP role was revealed, more details emerged about his life.

While his former website demonstrates his links to extreme right-wing views, he is also a keen chess player, having represented Warwickshire.

Black Country-born Mr Smith, who still lives in Smethwick, was educated at Holly Lodge Grammar School for Boys, in Holly Lane, Smethwick.

He has been a teacher for ten years, but was relatively new to St Peter's where he was on a fulltime short-term fixed contract.

He is a member of the National Association of Schoolmasters & Union of Women Teachers, which has condemned his views.

However, as his union, it may have a duty to represent him under current regulations.

Simon Darby, regional organiser for the BNP, said: "The union accuse us of intolerance and fascism - can they not see the super irony in the way they are behaving, by threatening to throw people out whose views they don't agree with?

"Simon is a maths teacher, a professional. He's been working for ten years in schools and there's never been a problem."

But the deputy general secretary of the union, Chris Keates, said: "NASUWT will write to any member who is identified as being a member of the BNP, pointing out that this is in breach of the objects of the association and is, therefore, incompatible with membership.

"Where the name of NASUWT is published or associated with a BNP candidate in the elections, NASUWT will invoke its internal disciplinary procedures for bringing the association into disrepute, that can lead to a range of sanctions including a ban from membership.

"We have a clear policy on this issue endorsed at our national conference last month."