A CLEANER who taught Islamic morals at his local mosque was convicted yesterday of beating an 11-year-old pupil with a stick.

Mohammad Abdullah, a cleaner at Peterborough Crown Court who worked as a volunteer at the Alma Road mosque in the city, flew into a violent temper after one of his students drew an obscene picture in class.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was forced to the ground by his teacher and hit on the arms and neck with a stick after he was found to have sketched a picture of a naked caveman.

The boy described how Abdullah grabbed him by his shirt while instructing two other pupils to fetch his stick. Abdullah is alleged to have then told the boy to take the beating “like a man”. Photographs of the boy’s bruises were used as evidence.

Abdullah denied common assault and said that he merely grabbed the boy about the shoulders so as to restrain him from leaving the classroom.

The boy claimed in court that Abdullah, who will be sentenced next month, regularly used force to discipline his charges.

The boy told Peterborough Magistrates’ Court: “He hit me on one of my arms, then he poked me in the chest with the stick and pushed me down. It was very hard.

“He told me, ‘I hit you for your own benefit. Take it like a man’. He held me with one ear and hit the stick on my neck. I said, ‘Leave me alone, you’re hurting me’. Then he hit me again. He said, ‘Don’t tell your parents. If you do, we’ll hit you’, so I got even more scared.”

The boy’s father told the court his son had changed since the incident on April 6. He said: “I have lost my faith in the mosque and in the teachers. For somebody to cause those injuries to my child, no crime can justify a punishment like that.”

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