A HEADTEACHER handed a suspended sentence for false accounting has been stripped of his knighthood.
Alan Davies led Copland Community School in Cecil Avenue, Wembley - which is to convert into ARK Elvin Academy from September following Ofsted branding the school ‘inadequate’ - from 1988 until his resignation in 2009.
The Grants Close, Mill Hill, resident was awarded a knighthood for his services to education in the 2000 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Campaigners set up a petition to rescind the 67-year-old’s honour after he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, suspended for two years, following his admission of six counts of false accounting at Southwark Crown Court in October 2013.
A short notice appeared in the London Gazette on May 14 to say: “Letters Patent dated 9 May 2014 have passed the Great Seal of the Realm cancelling and annulling the Knighthood conferred upon Alan Seymour Davies on the 22 February 2000 as a Knight Bachelor.”
This means the Honours Forfeiture Committee must have recommended the honour was withdrawn - a recipient getting a minimum of three-month jail term is just one reason - and the decision to annul was rubberstamped by The Queen.
Whistleblower Hank Roberts, Brent branch secretary and past president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers union, said: “This is brilliant news.
“At least there is some justice in the world even though getting him to court and getting to this stage has taken a very long time.
“I know that not just myself but an overwhelming majority of staff, parents and pupils
will be glad this action has been taken.”
Five of Davies’ co-defendants and former colleagues all walked free from crown court after charges against them were dropped.
