On a Friday evening late in July a small group of young Asian men gathered secretly in the grounds of a Victorian manor house on the edge of Epping Forest, east of London, to listen to their master.

Debden House, a property run as a bed-and-breakfast and campsite by Newham borough council, was chosen because they were running scared.

Earlier that day police had arrested the remaining three suspects for the failed 21/7 London bombing. While millions of Britons watched the dramatic final siege on television, members of the Saviour Sect had come to hear a different interpretation of the day’s events.

Among them was an undercover reporter from The Sunday Times. He joined a football kickabout as they waited for their leader. Others practised kick-boxing.

As they chatted the reporter was asked if he would be willing to wear a “strap” — slang for a suicide bomb belt. He laughed the suggestion off nervously and was relieved when everyone smiled.

At 8pm a bulky figure with a long beard and flowing white robe picked his way across the open field in the twilight with the aid of a walking stick. Two hours late, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed had finally arrived.

A Syrian with seven children who has lived on benefits for 18 years, this extremist cleric has been investigated by police for using inflammatory language but he has never been prosecuted.

Now, sitting cross-legged and picking at a bag of fried chicken and chips donated by one of the group, Bakri addressed his followers. He was perturbed by the day’s events.

Rather than express relief that the bomb suspects were in custody, he was disgusted that two of the men, arrested in Notting Hill in west London, had been made to strip down to their underwear.

There was, however, some consolation. Referring to the capture of the first bomb suspect in Birmingham two days earlier, he suggested the freak tornado in the city that followed was divine retribution for the police action. “It was so close to the area of arrest,” he said with a flicker of glee.

The meeting then took a more serious — and revealing — turn.

Referring to the speed with which police issued closed-circuit television pictures of the suspects in the London attacks, Bakri suggested that they should have covered their faces to conceal their identity from prying CCTV cameras. This sparked a discussion with his right-hand man, Anjem Choudhury, which was taped by our reporter.

Choudhury: “It’s CCTV, sheikh; that’s the killer. You can’t go anywhere without them monitoring you now: down the street; out the station.”

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