Denis Mac Eoin - Allegations of Forgery

Allegations of Forgery

On 12 December 2007, two months after the publication of The Hijacking of British Islam, BBC's Newsnight presented material which the programme suggested showed that some of the receipts purporting to prove the sale of extremist material had been forged, and that some of the literature had come from bookshops purportedly unconnected to the mosques named in the report. Newsnight's claims were as follows:

• Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, West London - forensic analysis showed there was a possibility that the receipt had been written by the same person as one purporting to be from Masjid as-Tawhid in Leyton, ten miles away.
• Masjid as-Tawhid, Leyton - two different receipts were linked to the mosque, one for one set of extremist material purchased from a bookshop close to the mosque but, it is claimed, independent of it, and a second completely different receipt printed on an inkjet printer, but in the name of the mosque.
• Euston Mosque - books were said to have been purchased from "Euston Mosque 202 North Gower Street", however this is actually the address of UK Islamic Mission (which is not a mosque). Euston Mosque is 204A North Gower Street, which claims it has never sold any books of any kind.
• Finsbury Park Mosque - the mosque disputed that it sold the books at all. Analysis showed that the receipt, as with all the other disputed receipts, had been printed on an inkjet printer.
• Al-Muntada Mosque - although the books listed are sold by the mosque on its website, the mosque said that the receipt supplied was fake. Forensic analysis showed the receipt had been printed on a home inkjet printer, and that the receipt from High Wycombe Muslim Education Centre could have been written out resting on top of it.
• High Wycombe Muslim Education Centre - it was "concluded with absolute certainty that this receipt was written out while resting on the receipt from Al Muntada mosque, which is 40 miles away in West London".

The Guardian's Seumas Milne found other examples when he investigated further, and concluded that "all nine receipts so far investigated either fabricated or inaccurate." The Guardian reported that: "examination of receipts provided by the researchers to verify their purchases showed some had been written by the same person - even though they purported to come from different mosques ... Several receipts also misspelled the names or addresses of the mosques where the books were supposedly sold." When comment was sought from the researchers, Policy Exchange claimed the "researchers were unavailable for comment because they were all on a religious retreat in Mauritania".

Policy Exchange responded to the individual cases cited by the BBC, arguing that there was still evidence to link each of the institutions to extremist literature. They have said 'The receipts are not ... mentioned in the report and the report’s findings do not rely upon their existence'. The BBC have suggested this is a tacit admission that some of the receipts were forged, and that it draws into question the whole testimony in the report. As a result of the BBC Newsnight investigation of the The Hijacking of British Islam report, both Policy Exchange and MacEoin were later sued for defamation by the Board of Trustees of the North London Central Mosque Trust (NLCM) concerning the allegations made in MacEoin's report against the Finsbury Park Mosque. A statement released by the NLCM Board of Trustees on 3 November 2010 stated: "In 2007, a claim by NLCM was issued against the Policy Exchange, and the author of the Report, Denis MacEoin, for defamation".

The case was initially dismissed on a legal technicality. The NLCM subsequently appealed that ruling. In April 2010 the Court of Appeal gave the NLCM permission to appeal against the initial decision striking out their claim of defamation against Policy Exchange and Denis MacEoin. The appeal was listed for October 2010, but before the appeal could be heard the NLCM accepted the defendants offer to settle out of court. Policy Exchange later removed MacEoin's The Hijacking of British Islam from its website.