A teacher allegedly ordered a 10-year-old boy to take off his Help for Heroes wristband because it could cause offence.

Tracy Tew was shocked when her son Charlie was put on a report card at Maldon Primary School in Essex after he refused to take off the charity rubber bracelet sold to honour injured soldiers.

Charlie wears the wristband – bought at the Colchester Military Festival – in honour of murdered solider Lee Rigby and service personnel in his family, including his great-granddad and uncle.

Mrs Tew, 38, a domestic service assistant at a hospital, said: ‘We are really proud of Charlie for sticking to his guns. He wanted to keep it on and he didn’t agree with the reasons why he shouldn’t.

The mother of two added: ‘When the teacher said she was worried it was going to offend people, I thought it was disgusting. Our family are up in arms because we are all military minded.

‘With what happened with Lee Rigby, Charlie really wanted to wear a wristband.’

Drummer Rigby, 25, was killed by two Islamic fanatics in Woolwich, south-east London, in May last year. Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, were jailed for the murder last month.

Headteacher Tracy Thornton insisted wearing wristbands is against the school’s jewellery policy.

She said: ‘They are not allowed to wear jewellery, and that includes wristbands, for health and safety reasons because they could get caught.

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One day after two Islamic extremists were found guilty of the bestial murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, the BBC thought fit to interview the ‘hate preacher’ who had inspired both of them. At the very least it seems a crass piece of timing, and I’m not surprised that many people have complained.

But the appearance of Anjem Choudary on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning did serve to remind us of how pernicious and destructive this man really is. Pressed again and again by presenter John Humphrys, he declined to condemn Lee Rigby’s murder, taking refuge in the barely legal formula that he would not do so while British soldiers were killing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan.

Most people, including many Muslims, will have drawn the conclusion that Choudary has again revealed himself as being beyond the pale of civilisation. He doesn’t have the decency or humanity to say he is sorry that Lee Rigby was hacked to death by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.

Though Choudary was careful not to let slip anything that would incriminate him with the law, he managed to incriminate himself at the bar of public opinion by declaring that he doesn’t believe in democracy. Even the thugs in the British National Party would not admit that.

Choudary believes in sharia law, which is supposedly handed down by Allah, and should be imposed on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In his twisted moral universe, only preachers like himself can interpret Allah. That would give them power to do whatever they liked.

This is fascism. No, it is worse, since at least fascism pretends to reflect the will of the people. Choudary and other Islamist extremists can do what they want because they think they know the will of God. That is exactly what Adebolajo and Adebowale claimed at their trial at the Old Bailey. They had murdered Lee Rigby in Allah’s name.

Such beliefs seem so idiotic, so utterly wicked in fact, that normal minds will struggle to understand what attraction they could possibly have. It seems incredible that a man like Choudary could appeal to any young people in modern Britain.

But he has, of course. Michael Adebolajo first met Choudary in 2005, who with Omar Bakri Mohammed (the so-called ‘Tottenham Ayatollah’) was one of the leaders of the now banned extremist group Al-Muhajiroun.

Bakri, who is no longer resident in Britain, and therefore freer to speak his mind, told BBC One’s Panorama on Thursday night that he was ‘proud’ of what Adebolajo had done.

Choudary was also known to Michael Adebowale. New video footage of a demonstration outside St Paul’s Cathedral last Christmas Eve shows Adebowale claiming that Islam will take over the world even if people hate the religion, with Anjem Choudary also present.

Given what he has done, it remains mystifying that Choudary has escaped prosecution. As a British citizen he can’t be deported, but are the police really correct when they say he hasn’t broken the law?

What is clear is that his message is seized on by many more disaffected young people than the two young men who ended up at the Old Bailey. The authorities warn that we should expect future attacks, and that not every plot can be thwarted. I am afraid we must brace ourselves for further outrages.

The great unanswered question is why Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who were born into decent Christian families, should have acted so barbarously. We must try to understand the reasons for their behaviour.

And here I am going to say something which some people may find hard to accept. There are aspects of recent British and U.S. foreign policy which make the response of young Muslim militants explicable, though not at all defensible.

Look, for example, at America’s appalling record at Guantanamo Bay, where suspected Muslim terrorists, including nine British citizens, have been held without trial since 2002, and in some cases still are. The absence of proper legal procedure has been a shameful betrayal of our values.

Moreover, there is plenty of evidence from the International Red Cross and other reputable organisations that torture was carried out at Guantanamo on a vast scale. Methods of torture included chaining prisoners, beating them, depriving them of food and water, and exposing them to loud noise or extreme temperatures.

Even as I write these words, I find it difficult to believe that these things have been done in our name — or at any rate that of the United States — in recent years.

I am ashamed to say that they have. The terrible truth is that we have sometimes let ourselves sink almost to the inhuman level of the terrorists who want to destroy our civilisation and against whom we went to war.

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A prosecutor outlined the chilling near-decapitation of an unarmed British soldier on a London street, as two men went on trial Friday in connection with the suspected extremist attack.

Prosecutor Richard Whittam told jurors that Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, drove their car directly at Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. They then dragged his body to the middle of the road, where the public could watch, Whittam said.

“They both attacked the motionless body of Lee Rigby,” Whittam said. “He was repeatedly stabbed and it appears it was Michael Adebolajo, the first defendant, who made a serious and almost successful attempt to decapitate Lee Rigby with multiple blows to his neck made with the meat cleaver.”

The two men have pleaded not guilty to murder charges, though jurors were told that both men have admitted possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. The defense will present its case later in the trial.

The two are also accused of attempting to murder a police officer on the same day, and conspiracy to murder a police officer on or before May 22 — the day Rigby was attacked.

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