Shemima Begum.

maddyone

nahsma the teachers would not have been covering their backs! Let’s have less blaming of the teachers. A teacher’s job is to teach, Maths, English, Art, Geography, History etc. That is the primary job of a teacher. Of course the welfare of the pupils is of paramount concern, and schools do their very best to ensure that pupils are safe. However these girls were deceitful, scheming, devious, and clever. They were not five year olds. They were capable of organising all this without the knowledge of anyone, including their parents. This shows the level of their ability to deceive.

SB and her two friends were very close friends with another schoolgirl, from the same school, who had travelled to Syria in December 2015. The school was concerned about them also being radicalised and reported it to the police. The police came to the school in Feb 2016 and gave the girls letters to take back home alerting their parents to the fact that one of their friends had gone to Syria to join ISIS. Unsurprisingly, those letters never made it home and the girls who had been in contact with their friend in Syria had no further contact with the police. I can't help thinking that more could have been done as they had already been identified as "being at risk of radicalisation". I bet their "friend" in Syria was assuring them that everything in Syria was wonderful and what was in the UK press was a load of rubbish and that ISIS was a great organisation. We know how easy it is to manipulate people, just look at all the conspiracy rubbish that pulls people in and these were teenage girls probably desperate for a bit of glamour and excitement. ISIS had a very sophisticated media machine and was pulling in people from all over the world. Evil in the extreme and keen to get young girls to Syria for basically sexual abuse! Anyway, that's how I see it, it just makes me sad that an extremely foolish decision made at 15 becomes basically a life sentence.

I wonder how many people who think she should be returned to the UK realise just how soon she could be walking among them, free to do whatever she wants and meet whomsoever she wants and spreading the ISIS propaganda?

That would be my fear too.

Thank you GSM, I’ve had a quick look and it seems there would be quite a number of mitigating factors, not least her age at the time of the offence.
I’m going to have a longer look at your link later.
Whatever sentence she received, it would be halved no doubt.
And where would she serve her sentence since she was a minor at the time?
I’m sure she would indeed soon be walking among us.

Foxie48, winterwhite and nashma: Yes, Yes and Yes.....

Jackiest

She was born here, she grew up here she is our problem no matter what she did or did not do. We should not be pushing our problems onto another country. No other country wants her and why should they.

But unfortunately for her she is not a British citizen

maddyone

Thank you GMS.
I don’t know what the penalties are for that crime, but I imagine that if that is the only offence, she wouldn’t get a very severe sentence.

You are correct. Here are the sentencing guidelines - you can see that she could soon be walking amongst us.
www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/proscribed-organisations-membership/

nahsma the teachers would not have been covering their backs! Let’s have less blaming of the teachers. A teacher’s job is to teach, Maths, English, Art, Geography, History etc. That is the primary job of a teacher. Of course the welfare of the pupils is of paramount concern, and schools do their very best to ensure that pupils are safe. However these girls were deceitful, scheming, devious, and clever. They were not five year olds. They were capable of organising all this without the knowledge of anyone, including their parents. This shows the level of their ability to deceive.

She was born here, she grew up here she is our problem no matter what she did or did not do. We should not be pushing our problems onto another country. No other country wants her and why should they.

As this latest court hearing found that the original one was lawful it’s difficult to see where she can go from here.

Thank you GMS.
I don’t know what the penalties are for that crime, but I imagine that if that is the only offence, she wouldn’t get a very severe sentence.

maddyone

Has she committed a crime here in the UK that she could actually be prosecuted for GMS?

She was (and maybe still is) a member of a proscribed organisation, ISIS.

She’s certainly devious.
I seem to remember she took her older sister’s passport when she left.

Would those who feel she should return to this country be willing to have this person live close by their own family, given the connections she must have made after so many years of exposure to a regime devoid of any recognisible humanity? Together wth the knowledge that there is information of a deeply concerning nature that has not been revealed, regrettably Miss Begum seems to have settled her own destiny.

Primrose53

nahsma

foxie48

So much misinformation, her mother made a statement in 2022 and is in this country, her parents were, as already corrected, Bangladeshi. I haven't changed my mind about this. She should be allowed back into the country, she was a naive 15 year old, trafficked by older men and women and she has had an utterly vile life at the hands of ISIS. We should accept responsibility for her because frankly, if her school and other agencies had not failed in their duty of care towards her, she would never have left the country in the first place.

Entirely this!

Rubbish. She was so clever she ran rings around her family, her school and everybody else to fund and plan her escape.

I remember seeing a teacher from her school on TV and she said those 3 girls were very bright, very streetwise and knew exactly what they were doing.

Primrose53 You don't think it possible that the the people who were supposed to be safeguarding her, and her friends, fouled up so badly that they might, just might, be trying to cover their backs?

pascal30

Germanshepherdsmum

She has been radicalised and appears to show no remorse so I doubt she would be rehabilitated. More likely that she would radicalise others, as we know often happens in prisons. It’s clear that the security services know she has become a very dangerous person.

I think this decision will have been made in light of information known only to the security agencies and limited others and will have been made for the safety of the UK..

Her legal team vow to continue. I hope they don't. Enough tax payer's money has been spent on her case. Today's decision was unanimous so they clearly feel she is a very real threat to the UK.

Has she committed a crime here in the UK that she could actually be prosecuted for GMS?

The fact that parts of the hearing took place in camera indicates that some of the information placed before the court was extremely sensitive.

Primrose, I am no fan of the way that human rights legislation is used by asylum seekers and people like Begum, nor of the lawyers who feed off the taxpayer to represent them.

Whitewavemark2

Most countries have taken back their citizens and dealt with them as thought appropriate.

The U.K. is becoming an outsider on this.

It is not done if it would make someone stateless, only if they have another nationality too, which Begum had through her parents until age 21.
However, Bangladesh said they would refuse her nationality if she applied and that she would face the death penalty if she went there.

I supported the original decision, but I do wonder, if SB were to be brought back to face imprisonment in the UK, how long would it be before we were discussing on here, whether or not the parole board were right to authorise her release?

I don’t think she was, or is, a monster, but I do think she was clever, deceitful, and scheming.
What ISIS was doing (beheading people, raping young women) was all over the news at that time, she obviously thought those things were glamorous. It’s a pity she didn’t just think lipsticks, hairstyles, and clothes were glamorous, like normal fifteen year old girls.

Most countries have taken back their citizens and dealt with them as thought appropriate.

The U.K. is becoming an outsider on this.

No obviously I don't think that the Security Services should divulge info useful to terrorists. Should have put that as a rider to my comments.
As we don't know what this information is we don't know whether it would be a security risk to divulge it.

I don’t think sensitive information such as this should be made public, and I don’t think any Home Secretary would do so.
However I would dearly like to know exactly how the school missed opportunities to prevent this happening. Did every teacher have their eyes and ears closed? Of course not. As I said earlier, schools work very hard to ensure the safety and well being of their pupils. These girls were clever, they carefully hid all signs from everyone, including their parents.

winterwhite

*GG13*’s point is unanswerable. I also think that dark mutterings of ‘‘if you knew what I know’ get us nowhere and should be substantiated or discounted. No one failed in their duty of care towards her. Young people do know their own minds at 15, tho they don’t know how limited their knowledge is.
So I don’t see a case for not allowing her back, to face trial and probably life imprisonment.
Calculating the cost of individual cases like this is pointless.

The girls were told a story of what their lives would be in Syria which made it seem exciting and attractive. They were given this information by an ex school friend who had travelled to Syria, no doubt she was under the control of ISIS. These were 15 year old girls, lots of girls of this age are easily influenced but once they got to Syria they would have lost any autonomy and would have been subject to ISIS rules. People, including young girls, were killed for not doing as they were told and return to the UK was not a possibility. Try putting yourself in her position, what would you have done? She's made a terrible mistake but she wants to survive, so she did as she was told. she married a jihadi fighter, had three children who all died, and knew the two friends she had travelled out to Syria with had died. It's a tragedy. If, when she was interviewed, she didn't react how people wanted her to react, perhaps she was completely "shut down" emotionally? She had been through and seen more horror than is imaginable and at a very young age with no-one to support her. Some may wish to paint her as a monster but I don't see it that way and tbh I doubt the British public have anything to fear if she came back into the country.