Teacher's anguish over doctored video racism row

A teacher wrongly accused of racism after a doctored video of her was shared on social media has recalled the "panic" and tears as the situation escalated and led to death threats.

Cheryl Bennett, a teacher at a secondary school in Wednesbury, West Midlands, was recorded on a doorbell camera while canvassing for the Labour Party in support of a colleague last spring.

However, footage which police said was manipulated to make it sound like she was saying a racist slur was uploaded to social media. It gained traction once shared by a lawyer standing in the general and West Midlands mayoral elections as an independent.

Ms Bennett told the BBC such was the worry, she thought about "ending it all".

At the height of the row, her school - from which she took a short break - received 800 complaints about her, and there were demands she be sacked.

But the professional turmoil was compounded by huge emotional stress, and also fears for her safety.

"I started getting abuse from every direction," she said. "I received death threats."

She said: "I didn't feel safe leaving my house, I couldn't go shopping because I was in fear of people seeing me."

Ms Bennett has been recalling the events of last year after it emerged she had reached a settlement with the lawyer Akhmed Yakoob, who paid her an undisclosed figure for damages.

He told the BBC he apologised for sharing the material, and suggested his campaign team had been victim of a "set-up".

It remains unknown who was responsible for doctoring the material, but several months ago, things seemed even more opaque to the teacher caught up in a situation she initially knew nothing about.

Ms Bennett said she only learned of the doctored video when her phone was bombarded with emails from students and parents alike, some of whom accused her of being a racist.

Those messages, Ms Bennett said, included: "I didn't expect a teacher of your standards to be using such racial slurs."

But she did not know to what they referred until a parent sent her the video which was already circulating online.

On viewing it she recalled: "I literally just panicked and broke down in tears."

Ms Bennett was canvassing in the Black Country ahead of local elections when she was recorded. Footage showed the slur seemingly being uttered shortly after asking a resident about their voting intentions.

When the footage was shared by Mr Yakoob on TikTok, where he has a following of more than 210,000, he accused the initially unnamed woman of racism. He also urged those "still in the Labour Party" to leave.

People then suggested who it was that was featured. Mr Yakoob, standing at the time as an independent candidate in the West Midlands mayoral election and also for Birmingham Ladywood in the general election, went on to share Ms Bennett's name and where she worked.

Ms Bennett said people who claimed to be journalists, but refused to show identification, turned up at her family members' homes, demanding to know her whereabouts and saying they were trying to "hunt her down".

She told the BBC: "To begin with I tried being strong but there were still days where I felt it wouldn't get any better.

"There were times where I did question, if I were to just end it all, would it be easier? Because I felt like my life, my career, my reputation, would never be the same again.

"I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel and it was a struggle to get through each day."

But then there was a light.

The footage was analysed by West Midlands Police which released a statement in May 2024 saying it was satisfied Ms Bennett had not used an offensive slur.

That began to clear her name, she said, and she started to receive apologies.

However, it did not convince everyone.

"Lots of the community still thought it was true or that I knew someone in the police or paid them to try [to] cover for me," she said.

Ms Bennett returned to work after a fortnight.

"I didn't want people to think I was hiding," she said.

"I've got nothing to hide, [and] there's children out there that rely on me on a daily basis. I'm their support mechanism every single day."

Ms Bennett said analysis of the video and audio wavelengths therein showed her voice had been manipulated, with the volume not changing for the "slur", despite her moving further away from the camera recording her.

But that does not mean she knows who is behind the faked material, something she says will continue to weigh on her mind.

"Who would go out of their way to maliciously edit a video to such extent knowing full well it was going to damage somebody's life?" she said.

While Ms Bennett received damages from Mr Yakoob, she said: "There's nothing that can be done that can ever change what I went through.

"I don't think there will ever be any form of vindication that will make me feel satisfied with the outcome.

"You can't put a figure on the damage that you've caused somebody internally. So although, yes, he's paid an amount, it will never cover the trauma that he put me through, or my family. Never."

Mr Yakoob came third in the mayoral election and second in the parliamentary constituency. Labour won both contests.

He told the BBC: "It's been put behind us now and I'm glad it's been put behind us. I'm glad it's over and Cheryl's moving on. I wish her the very best of luck.

"I do regret my actions about everything. It was a mistake.

"It was never anything personal against Cheryl. Sharing it was a mistake, of course.

"I believe someone sent it to my campaign team and it was a set-up."

Ms Bennett is now urging people to think twice about the content they see on social media and be mindful about what they share.

And she warned that as artificial intelligence became more sophisticated, other people would undergo similar experiences to her ordeal.

"Even Akhmed Yakoob said the footage got sent to him and he fell for it," she said.

"That is somebody who is of high intelligence, he's a criminal defence lawyer and he still didn't do his background check before sharing the footage to his wide platform."

But amid the warning, she said would seek to look forward rather than back, viewing the events as "not something that happened to me, but something that happened for me, to make me a better educator for the next generation".

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