A 16-year-old girl who fled her home to travel to Syria with the view to joining Islamic State ought to be removed from her parents' care, a judge has ruled.
In contextualising the issue, Mr Justice Hayden commented that this was one of a number of similar cases that had been brought before him in recent weeks. He said that all of the cases involved “intelligent young girls, highly motivated academically, each of whom has, to some and greatly varying degrees, been either radicalised or exposed to extreme ideology promulgated by those subscribing to the values of the self-styled Islamic State”.
The incident involving the teenage girl from Tower Hamlets, London - named B in the case - dates back to December 2014, when she was reported missing amid fears she was going to join Islamic State. The Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command were alerted and they were able to intercept B just before her plane left London.
An investigation into the case found that the family were guilty of “possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets v B case also uncovered that the parents played a major role in influencing their child’s decision to attempt to flee to Syria.
The local authority has since sought the removal of all the children of the family, including the boys, stating: “So corrosive and insidious are the beliefs in this household, it is argued, so pervasive is the nature of the emotional abuse, so complete is the resistance to intervention, and so total the lack of co-operation, that the emotional safety of the boys, the Local Authority says, cannot be assured.”