18 August 2019

GCSE student disqualified after examiner mistook hatred for halal meat for Islamophobia

A vegetarian GCSE pupil was disqualified after criticising halal meat in a Religious Studies exam, it has today emerged.

Abigail Ward, 16, was accused of making "obscene racial comments" in her test.

She was informed by exam board OCR after committing a "malpractice offence".

The practicing vegetarian said in the paper in June she found the idea of halal meat "absolutely disgusting", Telegraph reports.

But the disqualification was overturned when the board was told the teenager's distaste for halal butchers came from the fact she is a strict vegetarian.

Abigail took the exam at Gildredge House school in Eastbourne, East Sussex, which appealed against the decision on the grounds that their student had not made an Islamophobic or racist comment about Muslims, but was merely expressing her distaste for halal butchers. [Daily Mirror] Read more