Topic: Gillian Gibbons

The Sudanese teddy bear blasphemy case concerns the arrest, trial, conviction, imprisonment and subsequent release of British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons working at Unity High School in Sudan in 2007.

Gillian Gibbons was born in 1953 and gained a BEd from the CF Mott College of Education in Prescot in 1975 (the college closed in 1992). Teaching in a school in Sudan, she was arrested for allegedly insulting Islam by allowing her class to name a teddy bear "Muhammad". A boy in the class, also named Muhammad, later claimed that the bear was named after him.

Initially it was thought that the complaint had originated from a parent of one of the children at the school. However, it was later revealed that an office assistant employed at the school, Sara Khawad, had filed the complaint and was the key witness for the prosecution.