Page 26 QQQ Daily Mail, Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Fury as judge rules youngest
terrorist can never be named
A JUDGE’S decision to
grant lifelong anonymity
to Britain’s youngest ter-
rorist sparked uproar
yesterday.
The jihadi, from Blackburn,
was just 14 when he plotted
to murder police officers in
Australia during an Anzac
Day parade.
The schoolboy was also
researching targets in Britain
and learning to make bombs,
after being recruited by IS online.
He was given a life sentence in
2015 and ordered to serve a mini-
mum of five years, making him
eligible for release next year.
A ban on identifying him
expired on his 18th birthday, but
the High Court has now backed a
bid by his lawyers that he should
never be named.
Dame Victoria Sharp accepted
fears the teenager could become
a ‘poster boy’ for Islamic extrem-
ists, may be at risk of ‘re-radicali-
sation’ and that he and his rela-
tives could face reprisals.
But the brother of an IS victimslammed that ruling last night.
‘It’s disgusting,’ said Reg
Henning, whose aid worker
brother Alan was murdered by IS
after joining a convoy to Syria.
‘Terrorists get more protection
than the families of their victims
do. This is a ridiculous decision,
he should be named and
shamed. He’s made his bed, he
should lie in it.’
The teenager joins a handful of
people who have been given such
lifetime anonymity orders –
among them Mary Bell, who
killed as a child, and Maxine Carr,
who lied to police investigatingthe Soham murders. At the age of
just 14, the Blackburn terrorist sent
encrypted messages instructing an
Australian jihadi to launch attacks
during a 2015 Anzac Day parade.
Over nine days he sent thousands
of messages to 18-year-old Sevdet
Besim, instructing him to behead
police officers or run them over with
a car at the annual remembrance
ceremony in Melbourne.
Australian police were alerted to
the plot after British officers discov-
ered material on the teenager’s
mobile phone. He was also research-
ing UK terror targets and teaching
himself how to make bombs.
On his hit-list were a police sta-
tion, a town hall and BAE Systems,named. A number of media organi-
sations made representations to
the court, arguing that he should be
named. But Dame Victoria Sharp
rejected their opposition, saying
that identifying him was likely to
cause him ‘serious harm’.
Sitting with Mr Justice Nicklin,
she said the case was ‘an excep-
tional one’ but that experts had
concluded that identifying him
would ‘fundamentally undermine’
his rehabilitation.
She added: ‘The position is exac-
erbated by his autism, which mani-
fests itself in his obsessive behav-
iour. This, combined with his need
for recognition and status, makes
him very vulnerable to exploitation
and potential re-radicalisation.’
Only a handful of lifelong anonym-
ity orders have been made, includ-
ing those granted on the new iden-
tities given to Jon Venables and
Robert Thompson, who murdered
Liverpool toddler James Bulger.
Maxine Carr was jailed in 2003 for
providing a false alibi for Ian Hunt-
ley, her then boyfriend, after he
murdered the Soham schoolgirls
Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
She was given a new identity and
lifelong anonymity on her release
after receiving multiple death
threats online.
Two brothers aged 10 and 11 who
tortured, beat and stabbed two
boys in a rural area of Edlington,
South Yorkshire in 2009 were given
lifelong anonymity after serving six
years behind bars. A judge ruled
that both were ‘committed to the
path of rehabilitation’.ALASTAIR Campbell last night
said he no longer wanted to
be part of Jeremy Corbyn’s
Labour Party.
In bombshell comments, Tony
Blair’s former
spin doctor
wrote a letter
to the party
leader saying
that he would
no longer fight
his expulsion.
He had been
controver-
sially thrown
out for revealing he had voted for
the Lib Dems in the European
elections.
In the letter, Mr Campbell, pic-
tured, warned Mr Corbyn he was
poised to lose the next election
against Boris Johnson.
In excoriating comments, he
also said Mr Corbyn risked
destroying the party as a ‘political
force capable of winning power’.
He wrote: ‘With some sadness
but absolute certainty, I have
reached the conclusion that I no
longer wish to stay in the party,
even if I would be successful in my
appeal or legal challenge.’
The letter was published in full in
the New European.A TURKISH bee that was acciden-
tally brought home from holiday
by a British family is to be
destroyed because it might endan-
ger British species.
The insect, pictured, has been
busily building cocoons in the Toy
family’s con-
servatory since
they returned
from a summer
break in Dala-
man last week.
The family say
the exotic bee
waits by the
back door of
their Bristol
home every
morning and, as soon as it’s let
inside, starts creating intricate
nests out of flower petals.
However, the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) confirmed yesterday
that it plans to catch and kill the
creature, after experts warned it
could endanger native British spe-
cies by spreading deadly viruses or
outcompeting local rivals.
A Defra spokesman said: ‘We are
making arrangements to collect the
bee for formal identification and
destruction.’
Ashley Toy, 49, and his daughter
Amelia, 19, contacted the British
Beekeepers Association after spot-
ting the bee, later identified as
Osmia avosetta – a solitary species
found only in Turkey and Iran.Campbell:
I can’t be
in Labour
with Corbyn
Call the swat
team! Order
of execution
for exotic bee
‘Should be named
and shamed’By James TozerBy Henry Goodwin By Larisa Brown^
Political Correspondentthe global defence and aerospace
company. A combat knife and an
Islamist flag were recovered from
his home, along with a phone hold-
ing a martyrdom message. It
emerged he had been groomed
online by experienced Islamic State
recruiters soon after being given his
first smartphone. His lawyers
argued at a hearing last November
that there was a ‘significant risk of
attacks or retaliation against him’ if
his identity was made public.
They also said that the teenager –
who is autistic and can only be
referred to as RXG – would be at
risk of ‘re-radicalisation’ by extrem-
ists and that his relatives would be
likely to face reprisals were he