Sunday Times reporter Ali Hussain spent six weeks in Beeston, where three of the 7/7 bombers came from, and filed a highly disturbing report on the community’s hatred for Britain: Undercover on planet Beeston.

Jabbar, clean shaven and in his thirties, ran a DIY shop on the Dewsbury Road. On the face of it Jabbar, who lived nearby with his young family, was one of those responsible, hard-working people who weave communities together. He insisted I stay for tea, and then rice and curry.

As I brought up 9/11, I was taken aback when he began to talk about a “western conspiracy against Muslims”. I had been in London on the day of the 2001 attacks and like everyone else had watched in amazement and horror as the twin towers fell. I had never doubted that Osama Bin Laden had inspired the atrocity and that Islamic terrorists had perpetrated it.

Jabbar doubted it. He told me the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy and that he had a DVD which proved it. So were the London bombings, he said.

I found myself in a ferment of mixed emotions. Here was a man who had shown great courtesy and kindness, yet believed the West was so corrupt it had staged terrorist attacks against itself. How could he be so deluded? Jabbar, however, was far from alone. One of the sternest advocates of conspiracy theory was Imran Bham, a shopkeeper running Idoo PC, a computer equipment shop.

“You don’t get anywhere with the dirty kuffar (infidels),” he told me, claiming there was a widespread conspiracy against Muslims and that the 7/7 bombings were part of it. “These brothers never did it,” he said. “And understand this. In order for America and Britain to go to Iraq they have to have reasons and sometimes, I’m afraid, if you haven’t got a reason, you make up that reason.”

He showed me pictures of the bomb blasts from the BBC on his computer, claiming ID documents must have been placed at the scene by officials because the blasts would have destroyed them.

He offered me �5 to go and buy a piece of beef, telling me to place the meat in the oven alongside my credit card, passport and other ID and then turn the temperature up. After half an hour at medium temperature, he said, the documents would melt but the beef would only be sweating. I could then draw my own conclusions.

Once again, I felt as if I had entered a strange bubble, a world where the reality I had known before had been suspended. Bham then asked me if I would ever blow myself up for Islam. I replied that the Koran says you should not harm innocent people.

“What Koran was that?” he countered. “Don’t fool yourself by saying jihad is a struggle within, to get on with life, to motivate myself to get up for prayers and that sort of thing,” he said. “That’s not jihad. Who told you that?”