The Times is reporting that a former councillor who was banned from serving on any local authority has been be given a top post at England’s second largest police force.
Waheed Saleem, 40, who played a prominent role in the “Trojan horse” scandal when schools in Birmingham were feared to be introducing hardline Islamic practices, has become a deputy police and crime commissioner (PCC).
Mr Saleem’s rise raises questions about how appointments are vetted. He once mocked someone who committed suicide but was then chosen as director of a mental health trust, an investigation by The Times discovered.
Mr Saleem has been nominated by David Jamieson, a former transport minister who is PCC at West Midlands.
The local Express & Star said of the appointment:
Waheed Saleem was named by West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson as one of eight Strategic Policing and Crime Board members.
But his suitability for the role – which attracts a £7,500 salary for up to four days a month service – has immediately been questioned.
In 2004 Mr Saleem was banned from being a councillor anywhere in the country for a year after leaking commercially sensitive information concerning the sale of council-owned property in Walsall.
He tipped off Abu Bakr Girls School that the highest bid for the Butts Centre, in Butts Road, had been £205,000 after he had sought and received the information from the authority’s property and development manager.
This took place before the sale of the land and allowed the school to submit a higher bid.
His actions were deemed to amount to serious misconduct by a tribunal run by the Independent Adjudication Panel for England.
A spokesman for Mr Jamieson’s office said: “We are aware of the issue from 12 years ago – and Waheed’s excellent work in the community since then.
“As Waheed says himself, he was a newly-elected councillor at the time and has learned from this mistake and moved on.”
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