Seems the jihadi bride Shamima Begum might be coming back to stand trial in the U.K.

In regards to references as to the death of her mother, I think some people are confusing Shamima Begum with Sharmeema Begum. 2 separate women.

An opinion poll would be interesting wouldn’t it?

Views on here are divided but I suspect a nationwide poll would be overwhelmingly against her return.

Callistemon the arguments about what someone is permitted to do at 15 are of interest, but the discussion about the British Army is another subject. She wasn't 16. She was 15. She couldn't have married. Had a man targetted her on line, groomed and persuaded her to have a sexual relationship, he would have been classified as a paedophile.
The castigation of her attitude and the way she presents made me remember the Rochdale abuse case and the fact that most of the girls could not be used to give evidence in court for similar reasons. It says a great deal I think about our attitudes and expectations of women.

As has already been said, there is confusion here. It was another girl called Begum who lost her mother. No relation to Shamina Begum at all but they were at the same school.

Yes trisher and if we decide that 15 is not a child it has to apply across the board. So some of those abused in Rochdale would not be classed as children. You cant change legal definitions to suit an individual case.

Was she under 16 when she married an IS fighter? Was she under 16 when she sewed suicide bombers into vests? Was she under 16 when she condoned the Manchester bombing? Was she under 16 when she condoned the selling of Yazidi women and children as sex slaves?

Her reactions in interviews leads me to believe she is still a supporter of IS and is following the instruction to return to her home country and continue the fight.

I have no doubt she will return to UK and once here will stay (which other country would accept her?).

paddyanne her mother is alive. You’ve confused her with another radicalised girl with a similar name!

Galaxy

Yes trisher and if we decide that 15 is not a child it has to apply across the board. So some of those abused in Rochdale would not be classed as children. You cant change legal definitions to suit an individual case.

So, taking this at face value; SB was indisputably a minor when she stole a passport and went off to join ISIS with her 2 friends. It can, and will be argued, that she was below the age of criminal responsibility (assuming that criminal charges are sought) and that she didn't have full legal capacity to understand or appreciate the implications of her actions.

She willingly remained with ISIS, working as a Morality Police Officer and helping to stitch "volunteers" into suicide vests until she was captured at the age of 19. By then she was an adult. Her statement at that time was “I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago,” she told me. “And I don’t regret coming here.” By the age of 18, she had full legal capacity to recognise what she had done and be responsible for it.

Between the age of 15 - 19, she had sufficient time, experience and evidence to come to a conclusion that she had made a massive error of judgement and to make some atonement for those mistakes. She chose not to until it became clear to her that her lack of recognition was impeding her desired wish to return to the UK.

Others have said that she was the victim of online recruitment by men and so deserves the same sympathy and empathy as the young girls who were groomed online by paedophiles. This contradicts reports that she has admitted that she was recruited by 2 women that I never met.

I have no idea of the sex of those who recruited her online, am not sure it matters. She was 15 and was recruited by adults. It is why we have the prevent guidance in this country because security services know that adults target children.

Many of those in the Rochdale abuse case took a very long time to realise they were being abused they thought they were in relationships. It's very common in those who are groomed. It's part of the grooming process.

Some of the misguided who went to join the death cult were traumatised by what was happening and soon realised their mistakes. Some managed to flee, others were caught and punished or murdered. I have sympathy for them as they were naive, simple minded or so idealistic they were blinded to the truth. This woman and others were quite happy to live with and indulge in their campaign of terror and only wish to return because it all went wrong and they don’t like the repercussions.

However, I believe she’s coming back and once here she’ll be provided for, so not a great deal more to say unless, of course, we have a referendum!!

To be clear , I think it's likely that she is a danger but we cant ignore the fact that she was a child, and that she is British and we therefore have to take responsibility.

No argument with you there Galaxy but she was a legally recognised adult when she continued to stay with, support and enable terrorism. And, as a legally recognised adult she still had no regrets about coming here.

It's all academic anyway; she's our problem.

She’s coming back. I’m resigned to it.

She'll probably write a book.

I was under the impression that the age of criminal responsibility was 10 in the UK.

If this is so, she can and should be held accountable for her actions whist married to a Jihadi and herself a member of Daesh.

A discussion as to whether she has legal aid now---unbelievable !
Legal aid was restricted some 16/17 years ago only becoming available to those with mental disabilities to give them an advantage for their futures.

It'll be interesting and also an annoyance to see what the end result will be.

Chewbacca

In regards to references as to the death of her mother, I think some people are confusing Shamima Begum with Sharmeema Begum. 2 separate women.

Oh, my source must have been wrong because I do know the difference between the two names. It gave this as a possible reason for her actions. Apologies for any confusion then.

I was confused when I saw posts about her mother having died as well Callistemon. But when I checked back I found this from the BBC news website, 11th March 2019

The mother of Shamima Begum has urged the government to reconsider the decision to revoke her daughter's British citizenship.
A letter to the Home Office from the family's lawyer - written on behalf of Asma Begum - asked the Home Office to do so as "an act of mercy.

I then checked on Sharmeena Begum and found:
Sharmeena Begum was friends with Amira Abase, Shamima Begum (unrelated) and Kadiza Sultana. All four went to Bethnal Green Academy. She was raised by her mother until her father joined them in the UK in 2007. Begum's mother died, of cancer, in January 2014. Her father remarried in September 2014, and Begum left for Syria in December 2014

2 young women with very similar names, same school and both went to Syria to join ISIS.

I tripped up on the two girls Callistemon, but after further research found the other girl who went there a few months earlier was actually friends with the three girls. They were all at Bethnal Green Academy. Realising what was then going on between the girls far and wide, (probably on social network), that was when the authorities sent the letters home.
The other girl was actually very clever at deceiving everyone and getting herself over there, so my suspicions are she organised everything from her end to get the other three across.

X post Chewbacca

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There were multi agency meetings about Ms Begum and her friends at the school because of the belief they were being radicalised by Isis people on line. I think by two women. Police, social workers and teachers all kept these meetings secret. This flies in the face of all the guidance about safeguarding and working together.
The Police and social work teams (presumable working together) decided eventually that the parents should be informed about the concerns their daughters were regularly communicating with Isis supporters. They reached the (unbelievable) conclusion the best way to do this, would be to inform the girls and ask them to give letters expressing these concerns to their parents. No surprise that the letters went in the bin and were never seen by parents.
I stress, I'm not seeking to dismiss the concerns expressed here about the potential threat posed by Ms Begum and other young men and women who chose to go and support/fight for the caliphate. Most rebellious 15 year olds wouldn't choose that course of action. Young Muslim children might though, if subjected to relentless images of Muslim children killed by bombs from Western countries. I stress here - I don't seek to minimise the worry about radicalisation.

If this was my daughter and the agencies charge with safeguarding her, had failed to inform me of her on line activities, I'd be justifiably livid.
If children are playing truant, or acting out in lessons, the response isn't to ask the child to take a letter home. What on earth was going on in this academy, or this police/social work investigation.
Safeguarding concerns are always discussed with parents unless there is a real and present risk to the children concerned. Why was this situation different?

You raise some salient points Iam64; and considering that Sharmeena Begum had left shortly before Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase and there were then 5 further young women who attempted to follow them, the Academy was certainly slow to act. I found this extract from an article in the New Statesman which tries to explain and make sense of why teenage girls are so attracted:

Friendship played a big role. In December 2014, Sharmeena Begum (no relation to Shamima), who was friendly with the trio, ran away to Syria. She had been deeply unhappy following the death of her mother and her father’s remarriage. It appears that Sharmeena played a key role in convincing her friends to follow. “They were schooled into it by the first girl who’d gone,” Akunjee says. “It’s all about the friendship circle and that bond. The psychology around teenagers is that their friends are everything and their families are nothing.”

Radicalisation is a complex and poorly understood phenomenon; grooming may have played a role with the Bethnal Green girls, but the group psychology of this close-knit group was also crucial. One of the reasons the case made such a huge impact was that it was the first widely known example of a group of women radicalising together offline. “For some reason, the authorities were very aware men would go in groups but they hadn’t thought the same thing about women,” says Smith.

Iam64 The Headmaster at Bethnal Green Academy issued the following statement at the time........ "This situation follows an earlier disappearance of a student in December of last year. The police spoke to that student’s friends at the time and further to this, they indicated that there was no evidence that the girls were at risk of being radicalised or absconding." How could the police, the school and the parents and siblings all be unaware of what was going on?