MI5 officers investigating a schoolgirl who went on to kill herself after being charged with far-right terror offences had complained of a lack of guidance on handling the growing number of such cases, according to internal emails heard at an inquest.
A special evidence session in London heard that intelligence agents working on the case of Rhianan Rudd, who died at the age of 16, lamented the lack of national strategy in dealing with a proliferation of vulnerable young people holding violent far-right views.
The MI5 officer investigating Rudd said their initial instinct had been to try to help the young woman, who had spoken of wanting to blow up a synagogue and “slash throats” and who was the second such case to come across their desk in recent months.
The agent told a senior colleague in October 2020 that it was “understandable but frustrating” that they were unable to refer the young woman to an anti-extremism programme while she was under police investigation.
A senior investigating officer in counter terrorist police rejected the agent’s request for an exemption from this rule, the inquest heard.
An MI5 colleague responded to the concerns by saying there was “interest and concern at all grades” of the agency over a growing number of cases involving children.
“We are seeing more of these type of cases and it often doesn’t sit comfortably,” the officer said, adding that “wider conversation” was needed.
The inquest heard that 13% of individuals under investigation by MI5 for involvement in terrorism were under the age of 18.
In a rare example of an MI5 officer giving evidence in open court, a leading officer in the agency’s counter-terrorism operations, named only as Witness A, told the inquest there was understandable discomfort about investigating young and vulnerable people but that a risk to national security had been identified.
“No one joins MI5 to investigate children,” he told the inquest. “And the fact that we are seeing more and more minors in our casework doesn’t sit comfortably with any of us.”
Rudd, who was groomed by a 28-year-old American neo-Nazi, killed herself while staying at Bluebell House residential home in Nottinghamshire on 19 May 2022. She remained under MI5 investigation until the day of her death.
Rudd, who was autistic, had started showing signs of far-right radicalisation after being groomed by her mother’s boyfriend, Dax Mallaburn, a US neo-Nazi.
She was arrested by counter-terrorism police after the FBI found that a second US white supremacist, named Chris Cook, had supplied her with instructions for making homemade bombs and weapons.
A cache of WhatsApp messages revealed that Cook, then 28, had also encouraged Rudd to send him naked images of herself. He had described her as his “14-year-old girlfriend” to a friend, who responded that Rudd should be “taught properly”.
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Rudd’s infatuation with Nazi ideology led her to start talking with a German accent. She wore camouflage on Adolf Hitler’s birthday, the inquest heard. She was said by Witness A to have been a risk to herself and others.
Counter-terrorism police had first begun investigating the teenager in September 2020 after her mother, Emily Carter, reported her concerns to Prevent, the anti-radicalisation programme.
Rudd was arrested the following month and later charged at the age of 14 with downloading a bomb-making manual online and plotting a terrorist attack, becoming the youngest girl to be charged with terror offences in the UK.
The charges were dropped when the Home Office concluded that Rudd had been a victim of trafficking who had been groomed and sexually exploited. She was found dead five months later.
Witness A told the inquest that Rudd’s safety and history of self-harming was repeatedly discussed in meetings with counter-terrorism police but that she remained a risk. “We have to accept that minors can be threats,” he said.
