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

And the security services here have failed in their monitoring on more than one occasion.

Shamima Begum has been trying to get back to the U.K. for some time now and there are people in the U.K. who want that to happen. I would be 50--50 to say that at fifteen years old she was still a minor and a child and the mind of a fifteen year old is easily swayed thinking they will go to a different country and live an ideal life. The infrastructure of I.S is almost like child trafficking and these young girls were going to become child brides to the fighters and they thought they would have glamorous lives. It must have been
unpleasant and horrible to find out that was not the reality.
She has made disastrous choices so far and look how she has ended up and now at 20 years old she is looking for something of a future.
Really would like to know who is paying for all the legal costs as most types of cases done in the family courts have cut all legal aid funding and many people cannot get funding to take up cases they want to proceed with. Who has the money for her?
Going off the topic but John Letts is still being held in prison abroad and he has also claimed he had been brainwashed and had no idea about IS killings. If Shamima Begum is coming here perhaps they can get a seat on the plane for John Letts so he also can come and plead his case.

I think Jack Letts was more aware than Shamima Begum.

Remember the IRA, one word and you were 'toast'! I think we should make it quite clear that we are prepared to take back people who were underage (18) when they fled. Adults? not necessarily!

Jabberwok I was about to say that too. Only I would include all the terrorist groups in NI. Many young men were persuaded to join when they were too young to know better. She deserves a chance.

There is no doubt Begum is mostly a British criminal .

I suppose psychologists could discover whether or not she could be taught how to be a good British citizen.

I agree with Trisher her indoctrination is deeper than that of some romantic girl who wanted to escape from her restrictive Muslim family.

Callistemon ; was Jack Letts more aware because he was 18 years old when he went? He said exactly the same as Shamima
Begum, and that was I was leaving the old life because I thought I was going to something better. Like I the IS group promotes a lifestyle of doing good to help others but the reality is so different. I watched a long documentary of Jack
Letts done from his prison and he looked frightened. It is probably possible that he had to say certain things while filming it. He told of being taken to a beheading and how terrible it made him feel and anyway he was caught when he tried to escape them and get into Turkey as also the lifestyle had now lost it's appeal. So why can't he come back and ask for his citizenship to be reinstated? What is good for one is good for all.

Urmstongran, criminals are always a nuisance and a drain of the public purse. And criminals commonly are a bad influence on each other. Those are not sufficient reasons not to try to deal with home grown criminals.

I don't think her indcoctrination is deeper and I doubt very much that she would pose any sort of threat. I'm just posting possibilities and asking who if the country where she was born and raised is not responsible for her should take that responsibility. No one has yet answered that question. The argument seems to be that if we just leave her where she is and disown her everything will be fine and I question that.

3nanny6 whether Jack Letts was any more mature than Shamima Begum is a moot point.
But she was still a child when she went whereas he was an adult.
However, she and her friends were clever and cunning enough to get there in the first place.

She will never be able to lead a normal life again, whatever happens.

Callistemon ; I do agree with you because yes she was a child and her and her friends were clever and cunning and managed to deceitfully get to their destination.

Whatever happens about her returning to the U.K. I do not think it will be the last we hear of her and if she comes back there will be many that want to see her rehabilitated to lead a normal life and considering how clever people can be that could certainly happen. The big question is should she even be given that chance.

If it’s our responsibility then we should face up to it. No one is supporting this young woman’s actions. Interestingly there were 9 girls from the same school who ran off to Syria - we should ask what was going on in that school.

Vegansrock if nine girls from the same school ran off to Syria there definitely should be an enquiry as to what, why and how this happened.

I wonder what her family wants? I personally do not think she should be given free legal aid.

This woman is potentially dangerous. Why can so many of you not see that?

Would you want her living next door to you?
It could happen as once she is here we are stuck with her.

She will undoubtedly be given a new identity and housed.

Don’t forget how she said she wasn’t fazed seeing her first severed head in a bin as it was from an enemy of Isis.

vegansrock As I know a teacher at that school, ( non Muslim)I can tell you that nothing was going on, it’s a school that has a high proportion of ethnic minorities, a state secondary school, not a Muslim run school.

Boat I think we may agree on many subjects, (just disagree on political ones) I think we all have more in common than we sometimes think.?

Many who went out to support the IS cause have slipped quietly back into the UK, I think that they are the more dangerous ones, than those who are known about.

I would rather have her in the UK, try her in a British court and keep her in prison in the UK, if she's found to have broken British laws rather than the alternative.

The alternative is for her to stay in a refugee camp, being a focus for all sorts of anti-British groups with a grudge. I don't suppose it's that difficult for people to get into the UK. At least the UK authorities know about her and would be able to keep her under surveillance.

We will await the book and the the TV interviews .

Everyone who supports this 'poor girl' coming back should be prepared to put their hand in their pockets to pay for her for the rest of her life including her legal expenses. Why should British taxpayers pay for her?

These judges who make stupid decisions like this one need to be sacked or made to have these returning terrorists living in their own house with them and the UK should stop handing citizenship out to people who do not embrace the British way of life

I can't believe some of the comments on here.

Please think about your own GC as teenagers. there will be some who have fantasies, or who don't like the society in which they live, or who are easily swayed by the peers. If they went astray, what would you do? Condemn them?

There will be reasons why she and her friends did what they did. Some we can understand and some we find difficult or even abhorrent. But she needs to be in the UK, subject to UK justice.

I don't think she will need legal aid I would imagine there are a lot of human rights lawyers willing to take on the case and make a name for themselves.

I’m sorry, but for anyone, especially one so young, to be ok with what they were seeing and hearing over there, is very disturbing.

I saw her interviewed a few times and it was all about her. When asked about the various atrocities she’d witnessed she was so matter of fact about it. I could go along with the naive schoolgirl not fully realising what she was doing but any teenage girl arriving in that hell hole and witnessing heaven knows what barbarity would or should be terrified, not all right with it. I’ve seen documentaries on Netflix and I’ve had to turn them off because they’re so disturbing - people being run over with tanks, slave markets, crucifixions.......It’s the stuff of nightmares.

On a point of law maybe she’ll have to return but I’m very uneasy about it and the precedent it sets.

I'm in two minds as well, some fifteen year old girls are naive and easily led which is probably the case with SB. However we don't know much about her mind set now, and the intervening years may have seen her more radicalised.

I do agree with your last sentence though tickingbird on a point of law she will have to return but I'm very uneasy about it and the precedent it sets.^
^

I saw her interviewed too, and I agree she seemed to be okay with beheadings and atrocities. However, how could she say anything else when being interviewed by the ‘infidels’ in the middle of a camp full of IS supporters? I don’t feel sorry for her at all because she chose to go there, but I do feel that Britain has a certain duty of care towards her. What I would really like to know is how did British authorities allow three fifteen year old girls to leave the country together? I thought minors needed parental consent to travel abroad. It’s quite frightening to think that any fifteen year old can collect their passport and arrive at an airport and travel anywhere in the world with absolutely no parental agreement in place. I’ve always thought this since the girls left. It’s quite shocking.

I think she stole her 17 year old sister's passport, maddyone.
I'm not sure about the other two girls, but one was 16.
My DC travelled overseas at that age to visit family or friends, but not to Turkey.

The security services missed the fact that Shamima had been in touch with another jihadi bride before she left the UK.
Police did go out to Turkey ttry to find them but were too late.

That's a good point about her not expressing any dismay at the atrocities she witnessed. She could have been scared. However, she seemed emotionless, probably brainwashed.

When I say that age, I mean 17.