A Collective Consciousness and TJP Production

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Editorial Staff in Editor’s pick, Education, Exclusive

       Nicholas Clayton was formerly employed as a principal at the Duhok British                  International School, between 2015 and 2017 Photo: Ekurd.net/Merseyside  police/credits to Max Fischer/pexels

Vanessa Powell | Exclusive to Ekurd.net

Recent UK media reports, including one on the BBC, have drawn attention to the past activities of a sexual predator who was operating from Duhok in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The sex offender, Nicholas Clayton, was formerly employed as a principal at the Duhok British International School, between 2015 and 2017.

According to the National Crime Agency Clayton was using Facebook Messenger to contact up to 131 potential victims, children in different countries around the world, including Iraq, soliciting images, and even making arrangements for a 13-year-old boy from Cambodia to travel to Malaysia to meet him.

Clayton pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual communication with a child under 16 and one charge of inciting sexual exploitation of a child in a UK court in August. He was sentenced on September 20th to a period of 20 months in prison and put on a sexual harm prevention order which will prevent him from reoffending.

A representative for Duhok British International School, General Director Idris S. Mohammed has been in contact with the writer after seeing the name of the school posted online. I was initially asked to take my posts down from social media – censorship.

Duhok British International School, Duhok city, Iraqi Kurdistan, 2021. Photo: DBIS’ fb

The school’s representative confirmed that Nicholas Clayton joined the school in February 2015 and left on the 25th of October 2017, coincidentally around the time of the Kurdistan region independence referendum and border closures.

According to Mr. Mohammed, Clayton was recruited from Qatar along with another teaching colleague, Shaun Pender. They took up the Vice-Principal and Principal positions within the school, respectively, and were both quickly promoted within months, Clayton to School Principal and Deputy Director, and Pender to Chief Executive Officer of Rast Education.

Both went from being teachers to holding senior leadership positions in the school and the company within a matter of months. Neither was particularly well qualified to work as a school principal, a position that usually requires a master’s degree in educational leadership. Clayton held qualified teacher status in the UK, and Pender was a design and technology teacher in Qatar. Pender left the company and the Kurdistan region in 2020.

In a report in the Liverpool Echo, it’s explained that Clayton’s offending could be attributed to this small dose of “success” going to his head, empowering him in his offending.

Mr. Mohammed explains that this was during the ISIS times when many international guests were leaving the region, so it was an opportunity for Clayton and his colleague to secure leadership positions within the company. The school, owned by Rast Education company was new at the time only opening in 2014 with only 98 students.

Mr. Mohammed says, that since this time most of the students and families have moved on. I asked Mohammed if any parents have contacted the school since seeing the news –“No”, no parents have contacted the school, and “until this time we don’t have any cases”, he said. Mr. Mohammed welcomes parents to contact the school – their contact details are available online.

      Nicholas Clayton’s police clearance certificate from Qatar, 2013. Click on image to enlarge. Photo: Vanessa Powell/handout to Ekurd.net

“The school has acted legally”, Mohammed said, providing copies of Clayton’s police clearance and his bachelor’s degree. His police clearance from Qatar was clear and he was recruited and referenced by the incoming principal, Shaun Pender, who knew each other from Qatar.

Mr. Mohammed who has been in his position since 2021 said that he only became aware of the case like everyone else, seeing the story in the UK media. He added, “I’m not defending him, but he [Clayton] was well-liked as a principal by Duhok people…he was very strict”, he said, explaining that he implemented a policy where parents were required to make appointments before coming to the school.

Bashdar Mawlud an employee at the Ministry of Education, has confirmed that Clayton’s case has been investigated. “Fortunately, he left Kurdistan in 2017 and never came back.” Mawlud said, “The school where he worked terminated his contract”.

Sometime towards the end of 2017, Clayton’s other teachers at the school noticed that something was awry with Clayton’s behaviour.

Helena Schulenburg, a former teacher at the school said she became concerned when he noticed children were being taken into Mr. Clayton’s apartment, by another female teacher. At first, she thought it might be Mr. Clayton’s girlfriend, but the constant flow of children into his apartment left her feeling so uneasy, she made a complaint to the school’s management at the time but wasn’t believed.

 Then one day, “he just disappeared, but it was after I reported everything”, Schulenburg said.

Another former teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous said that she became concerned that standard child safeguarding procedures at the school were not being followed. She said she saw Clayton at Family Mall with a group of children from a local refugee camp, treating the children to ice cream. She thought it was odd that he would be on an outing with a group of children as the sole adult. She too felt so strongly that something was wrong she contacted the police in the UK and gave an interview.

This is not the first case of sexual offenders finding their way into the Kurdish educational system though.

       Anthony Solloway was as employed as an English lecturer at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr (UKH), 2020. Photo: UK police

Anthony Solloway – sharing an office with a psychopath

The UK media also reported on Anthony Solloway, a paedophile who had already served 5 years in jail for abducting a woman at knifepoint and photographing schoolgirls from outside his bedroom window in the 90s. Solloway was as employed as an English lecturer at the University of Kurdistan Hewlêr (UKH) and was arrested at the airport returning to the UK and found trying to dump a USB stick. In his possession on his hard drive were hundreds of sick images described as depicting the cruelest forms of abuse.

I shared an office with the Solloway for about a week where I was also employed as an ESL lecturer.

In my personal experience:

I remember during the first week of his employment at UKH he was paraded around the university, from office to office, door to door, introduced by the Department Chair, as a Ph.D. holder in Education. Not many legitimate academics want to teach in Kurdistan for a variety of reasons, so he was a rare find. He had conducted his doctoral research on female ESL students’ attitudes towards English-medium language instruction in the UAE and had published on topics related to linguistics, second language acquisition, and education.

Now how I ended up in an office with him. I was asked to move from my female only I shared with another female academic to a mixed-gender office with all men, other than me, to accommodate an incoming Turkish female academic who wore a strict hijab, so strict she had covered up the office door’s glass window to prevent anyone looking in and secure complete privacy. It was thought that, as a non-hijab-wearing woman, I might be able to tolerate the discomforts of sharing an office with men in a relatively conservative Kurdistan. I packed the things from my desk and moved, at which time I sat at a desk right next to Solloway. I stayed in that office for about a week before I was summoned back to the Dean’s office to be informed that I was moving again, another desk had been freed up for me in a more appropriate office shared with another female.

There were always inklings of something being not quite right Solloway. His manner could be very standoffish, and he would react aggressively to even the slightest challenge to his authority, but his fleets of unpredictability were put down to the mood swings of a middle-aged male. Despite it being noted by students and co-workers that something was a little off about him, no one questioned Solloway’s authority. When men find themselves in positions of authority no one questions them, not like they would tear women down in similar positions. He told people that he was married and had a wife in Cambodia, and he didn’t socialise outside of work, so he was left alone.

Sinan Hadi – an on-the-run fugitive employed by the British International School of Kurdistan (BISK) in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo: Canada’s Edmonton Police

Sinan Hadi – an on-the-run fugitive employed by the British International School of Kurdistan (BISK) in Erbil

In 2019, it came to parents’ attention that on the run fugitive Sinan Hadi, wanted on a Canada-wide warrant Hadi working as a science teacher at the British International School of Kurdistan in Erbil. Parents posted on the school’s Facebook page, angry that Hadi, who had no educational qualifications had been employed to teach physics at the school. The then principal Frano Ivezaj had hired Hadi despite him having no educational qualifications and his convictions being easily searchable on Google.

When his criminal convictions were discovered, Ivezaj fired Hadi on the spot but failed to alert the authorities, ultimately allowing Hadi to get away. The victim in Canada is still waiting for justice.

Screenshot of principal Frano Ivezaj’s reply. Photo: Vanessa Powell handout to Ekurd.net

Rebaz Ibrahim, a representative for the school wished to provide the following statement:

“Our school [has] taken the strictest measurements when it comes to hiring staff”, he said.

“We do complete criminal record checks and background checks”, he said.

 The Future of Education in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region

It seems that Kurdistan is becoming a magnet for attracting a bunch of misfits, anti-social personalities, and bottom-of-the-barrel types who slip through the cracks to come and work as teachers in the region.

In all countries, developed and undeveloped, predatory types tend to work their way into positions of power and roles working with children. However, improvements could be made in the recruitment and screening practices of organisations to prevent this. This would involve things such as establishing the suitability of job candidates through behaviour interviewing and background checks. The implementation of child safe environments policies and child safeguarding procedures in educational settings is crucial.

Kurdistan should look at the type of people they want to attract to the region as teachers. Since 2015 teachers have been faced with pay cuts and non-payment of wages due to a perceived economic crisis. Not many qualified applicants are attracted to such conditions leaving only young people with no experience, the unqualified or people unable to find jobs anywhere else. If Kurdistan wants to attract high-quality professional educators, they need to pay people accordingly and offer competitive salaries, benefits, and favourable working conditions.

The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.