Following the Trustees' response to this petition (which can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vMLF1i3sNV2bKhmgbwWU0xS9CVB8UOx4/view?usp=sharing), where the trustees admitted to accepting money from the Grand Mufti of Libya, Sheikh Sadiq Al-Ghariani, the community has responded with a comprehensive dossier with evidence, calling on the Trustees to resign, effective immediately, so that the community can repair the damage they have caused. The dossier, evidence and response to the Trustees can be found in the following link in PDF format, with the text below (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fkx5KY5fnc4yJwaY4A2NrmjzT-Yxa3QT/view?usp=sharing): ------ Mr Shaheed Ul Hassan Exeter Mosque & Cultural Centre 12-13 York Road Exeter EX4 6PG 18 January 2018 Dear Mr Hassan RE: Your response to the community’s online petition and complaint against you and the Board of Trustees dated 15 January 2018 Firstly, thank you for your response to the online petition that has now garnered 111 supporters as at the time of writing. Your response was dated 15 January 2018, but was in fact only received by the petitioners as a PDF document via various WhatsApp groups on 16 January 2018 – if there are any other copies available online, kindly direct us to them. Secondly, and after consulting with members of the community who have come together to hold you to account for your reprehensible and damaging conduct that has brought the mosque and the charity into disrepute, your response has been deemed lacking, insufficient, and in fact verifies many of the allegations arrayed against you and the rest of the Board of Trustees. Our response is as follows, and will largely correspond to the layout of your response, to make it easier for those wishing to understand the problems this community faces to follow: Structural changes in management: Firstly, and although not strictly anything to do with the petition, you mentioned that two new trustees had been appointed recently, Mr Taha Hassan (your son), and Mr Mohammed Tellesy (your son’s personal friend). These were unelected, and appointed unilaterally by you without the knowledge of the community. Mr Taha Hassan has been described in your response as an “educational leader”. If he is an educational leader, then he has only led the schools that he has worked at in senior leadership positions to ruin. On his personal LinkedIn page (Appendix, p.1-3), Mr T Hassan says that he worked at Bristol’s only Muslim faith school, Andalusia Academy, between 2015 and 2017 as the “Head of Secondary”. On 16 May 2016 – during Mr T Hassan’s tenure as head – The Bristol Post reported that the Academy’s secondary school, which Mr T Hassan was responsible for, was closed down after failing an Ofsted inspection (Appendix, p.4-6). Ofsted raised concerns “over safeguarding, leadership and governance”, things that Mr T Hassan was all responsible for according to his LinkedIn account. The failures of this school where he was a supposedly an “educational leader” are highly concerning, particularly as the mosque’s Islamic school is now in his decidedly unsafe hands. This hardly shows leadership, but in fact shows the kind of failure we do not need in a leadership position at our mosque, particularly when we look at Mr T Hassan’s litany of failures as a safeguarding lead at this school according to Ofsted – we do not want him near our children. Similarly, Mr Mohammed Tellesy is described as being a “businessman” further adding that both he and Mr T Hassan “bring brilliant experiences and skill sets” to the mosque. This, however, is nothing more than a mere smokescreen. Mr Tellesy’s experience as a businessman is verifiably and on the record as having been – like Mr T Hassan – nothing but failure. A simple glance at Companies House shows that Mr Tellesy has not once, but twice been compulsorily struck off. His balance sheet shows that he had creditors of more than £70,000 while making a loss of almost £35,000 (Appendix, p.9). Mr Tellesy’s repeated failures as a businessman places the mosque’s significant assets – numbering well over £1.5 million – as well as its not insignificant annual income under great risk of being squandered by a man who could not even file legally required documents properly. Mr Tellesy is not a businessman – he is a showman, and a failed window salesman. Further, and as regards “Mr Tellesy’s olive branch” and so that we do not have to waste any further time discussing someone who is clearly of high risk and concern to this community, please see attached letter with personal and private information of the victim redacted (Appendix, p.13). This document was provided to the victim by PC 6142 Nestor Costa, which shows that Mr Tellesy engaged in “restorative justice” and apologised for assaulting a member of our community. The official document describes Mr Tellesy as an “offender” and Mr Tellesy’s signature (also publicly available on Companies House) is under a declaration where he admits liability for the offence of assault. The UK’s official Restorative Justice Council defines restorative justice as: “Restorative justice brings those harmed by crime or conflict and those responsible for the harm into communication…Restorative practice supports people [like Mr Tellesy] to recognise that all of their activities affect others and that people are responsible for their choices and actions and can be held accountable for them.” Therefore, by engaging in restorative justice, Mr Tellesy admits to the offence of assaulting a member of our community. The fact that he is changing his tune now shows that his apology was insincere, and that he meant harm to a member of our community, but only engaged with restorative justice to ensure the Crown Prosecution Service did not take him to the magistrates for criminal proceedings. Such behaviour is unacceptable to this community, and Mr Tellesy must stand down, along with the other trustees who have facilitated and defended this and other damaging behaviour, both to our community and to its reputation. Financial management: As regards the alleged police investigation into Exeter Mosque, the community disputes this. A letter posted to the mosque’s noticeboard on 7 June 2016 was signed by Acting Police Sergeant 13580 David Cropp who, according to Devon and Cornwall Police’s own website, works with another two staff members to “deal with low level crime, safety issues and [trying] to find long term solutions to issues in St Leonards”. This hardly sounds like a police officer working the fraud department of our local police force, as that would require an officer trained as a detective, with specific training to investigate financial crimes and fraud. Further, the Trustees have not been “transparent about the outcome, holding a meeting to raise awareness of the situation”. No meeting was ever called, and this has been confirmed by numerous witnesses who were all members at the time. As you may also recall from the original petition, no AGM has been held at our mosque for decades, not since you took control and began your tyrannical and corrupt reign. The community is concerned that you are able to afford 1 Queens Crescent despite not having been in business for decades, with no record of you existing on Companies House. The community is concerned that you may be using the mosque to finance your private enterprises, particularly as you still have not answered us about the missing cash donations (which will be discussed further on). You, Mr Shaheed Ul Hassan, earn £17,688.46 per month from Exeter City Council by renting out that property to the Council so they may provide accommodations for those with housing needs. This is apart from the income that you earn from Farzana Court, annexed to 1 Queens Crescent, and let out to students. However, and although you have signed documents showing that you own and control the property, the title deed for the property itself (Appendix, p.14-16) is under the name of your son, Mr M. N. Hassan AKA Anas, yet another failed businessman. This pattern of people who are failures being recruited into the Board of Trustees or being used by you so that you may shift your taxes onto others could have major implications for our community. As we already stated, an enormous sum of money was accepted by you and the Trustees from the mufti of Libya, Sadiq Al-Ghariani, and you admitted that you had accepted donations from him before in your response. However, you failed to disclose precisely how much, or why these cash donations do not clearly appear in the accounts. The fear among the community is that cash donations have gone missing, while you – a man who has not owned a business or worked – has managed to mysteriously accumulate large amounts of wealth over the years. Further, documentary evidence bearing your handwriting shows that you allowed 1 Queens Crescent to be used by Sun Contractors while the new mosque premises was being built by them in 2009 (Appendix, p.17), but without declaring this as a conflict of interest to the Board of Trustees, while you earned thousands from several such instances. In other words, the community has reason to suspect that you have been using the mosque to personally profit while failing to declare this to the community. This is why we have reason to believe that you are continuing in this behaviour with possible involvement in these missing cash donations or else were negligent in your duty to account for them. We again call on you to resign with immediate effect, along with the rest of this compromised Board of Trustees. The Petition and Mr Sadiq Al-Ghariani: You claim that no one in the community raised these issues with you before in writing or in person. That, sadly, is yet another flagrant lie as you well know that community members have repeatedly emailed you or spoken to the Board of Trustees about various issues and complaints only to be ignored entirely, or even attacked in the community. Other members of the community, including former trustees, even attempted to prevent your corruption, only for you to arrange a coup against them and attempt to smear their good name in our community. You further claim that the petition is “based on false information” yet have categorically been unable to show that that is the case. In fact, you simply refer the petitioners to the Charity Commission (which has no information on Exeter Mosque beyond what you provide them with), and the Police who, until now, have had no reason to investigate and would not discuss any active criminal investigation with members of the public anyway. Further, you have done nothing to address the concerns raised about the trustees not consulting with members of the community regarding the proposed plans to get rid of our communal hall without our consent; you have lied about Mr Tellesy’s history of violence and unsavoury past in our community that makes him a character of poor Islamic standing unfit for office; and you have ignored blindingly clear evidence from Exeter City Council that shows that Mr Mohammed Abdullah is involved in the alcohol trade, and therefore is in breach of the constitution as well as your own words in your response where you state that you run the mosque “in strict adherence to the Qur’an and Sunnah”. Allah specifically said that alcohol is haram in the Quran, and no Muslim who knows the basics of his faith would ever dispute this. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) also did not run his holy mosque in Medina by selling alcohol on the side, or by allowing his friends to do so, as your friend and fellow trustee Mr Mohammed Abdullah does as proven with direct photographs and links to his alcohol license from Exeter City Council’s website. All you said in Mr Abdullah’s defence is that there is no evidence that he owns the property – although he obviously does (Appendix, p.18-19) – and that he is “lovely”, which has absolutely no bearing on his level of religious practice and his suitability to hold the office of trustee. Many non-Muslims drink, sell and serve alcohol, and are similarly lovely people, but they would never be appointed as trustees of a mosque. Mr Abdullah is in breach of the constitution and should be removed from his post, post-haste. With specific regard to our communal social hall, you also lie when you state that, “This change will not affect, nor compromise any services Exeter Mosque offers to the community.” The plans submitted to Exeter City Council and which you acquired approval for specifically shows how you will entirely remove the already busy car park that is used by the Muslims of Exeter, forcing them to pay for parking elsewhere or, if there is no space, simply not come to prayers. How are you serving the aims and objectives of the mosque, as outlined in the constitution, by making it hard for Muslims to come and pray? This is particularly important to those in the community who operate taxis, and frequently attend to pray but will now be unable to do so. Also, the petition raised a complaint against how you did not consult with the community – why have you failed to answer this point? Finally, and on page 3 of your response, you definitively state that “Mr Ghariani has donated money in the past”, meaning that the petition is accurate yet again in what it has alleged. You, Mr Shaheed Ul Hassan, have known Mr Ghariani for approximately four decades, and have had business dealings with him as well as a personal friendship many in the community are fully aware of. It is simply beyond the scope of reason that you would not have known about his views and his activities, which therefore makes you liable for allowing a man who has been banned by the UK Home Office into our community. If you did not know, then you are simply negligent. Either way, this means that you have failed this community, brought us into disrepute, and placed us all in danger, and you and the other trustees need to resign effective immediately before you cause even more damage to us all. Diver-City: Finally, no one is disputing the fact that Diver-City do good work for the wider community in Exeter, and we are not in any disagreement there. However, we are against the Trustees unilaterally allowing our mosque’s logo to be used to promote the consumption of alcohol and public displays of dancing that is inappropriate and impermissible in our religion, as you should well know. This poster clearly shows the mosque’s logo on a flyer advertising the consumption of alcohol and folk dancing (no one mentioned “belly dancing” so we are not certain why you mentioned that in your response). While we accept that it is not the mosque’s place to dictate what other communities do, it is your duty to ensure that our name and logo is not used to advertise things that go against our religion and your own constitution. Rather than making up excuses, you ought to do the decent thing and apologise to the community before you resign your post. Conclusion: Sadly, you have failed to address anything beyond offering platitudes, tired tropes and clichés about how you have made our community a great example of what a British Muslim community ought to be like. You have not addressed a single one of this community’s serious concerns, but have instead launched a defence of trustees who – as outlined above – possess compromised characters, and/or are failures and therefore should not be in office. This is all quite apart from the fact that you admitted to accepting money from a cleric whom the Home Office has banned due to potential links to extremists. The community therefore demands that you, Mr Shaheed Ul Hassan, Mr Taha Hassan, Mr Ahmad Al-Jannati, Mr Mohammad Abdullah, and Mr Mohammed Tellesy all resign, effective immediately. The evidence arrayed against you is damning, and the longer you stay, the more damaging it will be to our entire community. We are unwilling for you to continue to serve as a trustee, particularly as you have personally been on the Board of Trustees for decades now, no AGM has been held during that entire time, and there has been no transparency, accountability, or even democracy anywhere to be seen in our small but extremely tight-knit community. Your individual and collective failures are legion, and are clear for all to see. Your recruitment of people of low calibre, low skill and low public standing who are known failures just to bolster your votes on the Board of Trustees is both obvious and immoral. Your associations with people of questionable conduct and who have potential links to dangerous groups in the Middle East has exposed this entire community to being unfairly maligned and targeted by a media that we know are generally Islamophobic. The behaviour of trustees like you merely gives the media ammunition to prove their falsehoods, despite the vast majority of the British Muslim population being peaceful, law-abiding, and upstanding members of society, and particularly so in Exeter. In light of the original complaint and petition, and in light of all the above, the community now repeats its call upon you all to resign, and to allow this community to heal, develop and flourish without your negative influence standing in the way any longer. It is time for a new generation of civic-minded and selfless individuals with skills, good character and moral standing to take the lead into a brighter future, and allow Exeter Mosque to stand as a beacon of social integration that is loyal and true to its Islamic roots. Yours sincerely, Mr Talal El-Sayed For and on behalf of the petitioners and the community