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A British teacher faces a jail sentence in Sudan for insulting Islam by letting her class of seven-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad as part of a school project.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, has been accused of blasphemy — an offence punishable by 40 lashes under Sharia — and could be imprisoned for up to six months.

She had asked the children to pick their favourite name for the new class mascot, which she was using to aid lessons about animals and their habitats. In a class vote, the pupils rejected her own suggestion of “Faris”, with 20 out of 23 deciding to call the cuddly toy Muhammad — also the name of one of the class’s most popular boys.

Ms Gibbons had left Liverpool for Sudan in July, after leaving her job as a primary school deputy head in the city. An experienced traveller whose MySpace entry talks of her passion for learning about other cultures, she took up the challenge of a new job in Khartoum after the break-up last year of her 33-year marriage.

Yesterday she was in isolation in a cell in Khartoum, and colleagues and the consular authorities were desperately trying to negotiate her release.

Unity High School, the British school where she taught the children of Sudanese professionals, expatriates and oil workers, stood empty, amid fears of adverse reactions from Islamic extremists.

Robert Boulos, the school’s director, said that on Sunday police had barged into the school grounds, where Ms Gibbons was living. “We tried to reason with them but we felt they were coming under strong pressure from Islamic courts,” he said in his study lined with sepia photographs of the school’s colonial heyday.

“There were men with big beards asking where she was and saying they wanted to kill her."

A similar crowd gathered at the police station where she is being held.

Mr Boulos said the school would remain shut until January to protect the safety of staff and children. “This was a completely innocent mistake," he said. “Ms Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam.”

He said that a seven-year-old girl took the teddy into class in September. It was dressed in old clothes and was sent home each weekend with different pupils who were asked to keep a diary of its activities.

Each entry was collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover, next to the message “My name is Muhammad”, although the bear was not marked or labelled with the name in any way.

Islamic law forbids images of the Prophet Muhammad, lest they give rise to idolatry.

It is understood that Sudanese police have now seized the book and had asked to interview the toy’s seven-year-old owner.

The extreme circumstances of the case have led colleagues to believe that the British teacher may have been caught up in a personal vendetta.The bear’s name was chosen within weeks of Ms Gibbons’s arrival in September, but objections were raised only last week.

The Sudanese Media Centre — closely associated with the Sudanese Government — reported that the teacher could be prosecuted under Article 125 of criminal law, which covers “faith and religions” legislation. It also stated that the Briton’s actions had “met with wide condemnation by guardians of the students”.

However, colleagues of Ms Gibbons told The Times that no such complaints had been received by any of the children’s parents. They pointed to a disgruntled fellow teacher as the possible source of the complaint. The woman, understood to be a member of a well-known, conservative family, is believed to have a grudge against Unity High School, set up 100 years ago by a Christian bishop.

Bishop Ezikiel Kondo, chairman of the school council, said: “It’s a kind of blackmail.”

One Sudanese woman whose seven-year-old son had hosted the bear for a weekend, said: “I didn’t complain and neither did any other of the other parents. Anyway she didn’t name the bear — it was the class. Really we think she is a good teacher.”

Another colleague told The Times: “I think the complaint came internally. The police are suggesting maybe it was from another member of staff.”

She added that Ms Gibbons was still awaiting to be charged formally. “A lot of staff have been in to see her. She is upset but fine.”

Yesterday staff at Unity huddled together in the shade of the courtyard, discussing whether religious leaders would call their faithful on to the streets in anti-Western protests.

Press agencies reported that young men had started to gather outside the police station where she was being questioned.

Officials from the British Embassy visited the teacher in police custody yesterday. “She was clearly shaken up but otherwise well,” one said.

In the Liverpool suburb of Aigburth, where Ms Gibbons lived until her divorce, residents waited to hear her fate. Peter Sorensen, a former neighbour , said: “We all thought it was a tremendously brave move for her to go to Africa at her age. It seems that she wanted a new challenge and she was planning to stay there for two years.

“Gillian was a very nice person and wouldn’t harm a fly.”

Her ex-husband, Peter, a local headmaster, and their children, John, 25, and Jessica, 27, declined to comment, for fear of jeopardising negotiations.However, Mr Sorensen said that friends and relatives were extremely worried about the conditions under which Ms Gibbons was being held, he said.

Ms Gibbons had worked in primary schools in and around Liverpool as a supply teacher and then as a literacy adviser for the city council.

Response is ‘unusually harsh’

–– Gillian Gibbons, who taught at Unity High School in Khartoum, right, was arrested for supposedly “insulting the Prophet Muhammad”, a violation of Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal law that covers insults against faith and religion

–– There is no specific, or explicit, ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad – be they carved, painted or drawn

–– However, chapter 42, verse 11 of the Koran does say: “[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth . . . [There is] nothing like a likeness of Him”

–– The fear is that images could give rise to idolatry, but experts said that in this case the response in Sudan, which has been governed by strict Sharia (Islamic law) since 1983, has been unusually harsh

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