Rhianan Rudd Wiki – Rhianan Rudd Biography
Prosecution of Rhianan Rudd was later dropped after the Home Office concluded that she was a victim of exploitation. Rhianan, who was 15 when she became the youngest girl charged with terrorism offenses in the UK, committed suicide at a children’s home in May 2022.
Her mother says investigators should have treated her daughter “as a victim and not as a terrorist.” The case raises questions about how the UK deals with children involved in extremism, according to the lead lawyer responsible for reviewing anti-terror laws. At the age of 14, Rhianan Rudd became sucked into right-wing extremism.
Rhianan Rudd Age
Rhianan Rudd’s age is Unkown.
Incident Detail
Her mother, Emily Carter, remembers her as a “lovely little girl” who adored horses. But she then began to express racist and anti-Semitic beliefs, Carter says. “If you didn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes – Aryan as they say – she didn’t want to meet you, you were an inferior race, you shouldn’t have been alive,” recalls her mother.
She says her daughter was taking extreme views “like a sponge.” “She was changing herself, that’s not Rhianan,” she says. “She was a girl who noticed things.” Rhianan, who was born in Essex and later moved to Derbyshire, had difficulty building relationships and “struggled in life”, says Ms Carter. She was also diagnosed as autistic.
Rhianan had run away from home in the past and had social service involvement with her family. Her mother acknowledges that she made mistakes but that she “always tried to do her best.” By September 2020, Ms Carter was so concerned about Rhianan’s mentality that she referred her to Prevent, the government’s de-radicalisation scheme, after admitting that she downloaded a bomb-making manual.
Within a month, Rhianan was arrested by anti-terrorist detectives and her brief engagement with Prevent had to end. She was questioned about her, she was bailed out on suspicion of terrorism and she was no longer able to attend school. For some time, she had been speaking to older people online, including American Christopher Cook, who promoted a terrorist form of neo-Nazism and formed a combat cell to carry out attacks.
Evidence shows that Rhianan’s mother’s then-partner also had an influence. Mrs. Carter says this was kept from her. Her partner, American Dax Mallaburn, had been part of a white supremacist prison gang in the US. He met Rhianan’s mother through a pen pal system for prisoners.
Before Rhianan was arrested, Mallaburn’s relationship with his mother had broken down and he returned to the United States. But the BBC discovered that Cook and Mallaburn had been in contact, with Cook telling him to teach Rhianan the “right way”. . The abuse he described would eventually result in a formal declaration of exploitation by the government.
Under modern slavery laws, certain public bodies such as the police are required to notify the Home Office of any possible victims of exploitation they find. However, in the months leading up to Rhianan’s indictment, none of the organizations involved referred her to the specialized unit of the Home Office that considers such cases.
This was not due to a lack of information. The BBC found that, at the time of Rhianan’s arrest, MI5 received evidence showing that Cook had exploited her, including sexually. An FBI investigation uncovered messages and images from Cook’s devices showing Rhianan being manipulated, coerced and exploited. The FBI turned the material over to MI5.
Rhianan spent more than six months on bail awaiting a charging decision. Her mother says this period led to a deterioration in Rhianan’s mental health, with cases of self-harm, running away and suicide attempts. Derbyshire social services were involved and she was transferred to a care facility.
In April 2021, more than six months after her arrest, she was charged with six counts of terrorism for having previously had instructions to manufacture explosives and weapons. Prosecutors alleged that a set of instructions was related to a possible planned attack.
Days after she was charged, when newly appointed defense lawyers intervened, Derbyshire Council referred Rhianan to the Home Office as a possible victim of exploitation. Another seven months passed before a decision was made. When she arrived, the Home Office concluded that she had been trafficked and exploited.
At the end of December 2021, the prosecution was halted. Rhianan is part of a trend of growing numbers of children, often involved in right-wing extremism online, who are being investigated by MI5 and the police. Convictions in the past two years include a Cornish boy who ran his own online terror cell aged 14 and a Darlington boy arrested aged 13.
In the case of another child, a pre-sentence report by experts said it was “likely that she did not see the broader ramifications of his activities, now seemingly smoothly replaced by interests like Dad’s Army.” Cases involving children are complex. A child may have been manipulated and exploited, but nevertheless poses a real risk of harm to other people.
Debates about trafficking and exploitation are also taking place in immigration cases involving young women who are appealing for the removal of their British citizenship after they went to Syria to join the Islamic State group. In the case of Shamima Begum, who traveled when she was 15, the government has argued against the trafficking charges and said she is a security threat. Her lawyers say she was trafficked and sexually exploited.
Few children accused of terrorist offenses end up in prison. The process of investigation, arrest, and prosecution can take many months, and in some cases, more than a year. Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, says that in 2020/2021 only one child who committed a terrorism offense was jailed, with all the others “ultimately receiving non-custodial sentences”.
He says the question must be asked whether the current approach is effective. He suggests changes to the law that would allow police to tell a child terrorism suspect that they would be prosecuted or could accept a warrant. He says these could, for example, limit mobile phone use, require the use of monitoring software and engagement with a mentor.
“That can be done very quickly and keep them out of the criminal justice system altogether,” he says. Rhianan’s mother believes that her daughter should never have been charged. She says the police “obviously” have to investigate and look for evidence, but thinks they should have treated him “completely differently” afterwards.
“They should have seen her as a victim instead of a terrorist. She is a child, an autistic child. She should have been treated as a child who had been sexually manipulated and exploited.” A government spokesman told the BBC: “MI5 takes its responsibilities very seriously in relation to those who may be at risk of harm. “In accordance with long-standing government policy, MI5 cannot confirm or deny its involvement in individual cases.
“More generally, if in the course of working to protect national security someone in MI5 obtains information that an individual is or may be at risk of death or serious harm, this will be passed on to the relevant authorities.” Cook, the American who exploited Rhianan, pleaded guilty in the US to a neo-Nazi terrorist plot along with others to destroy a power grid. He had been out on bail pending sentencing.
But the BBC has established that the Ohio court only recently learned of Cook’s predatory behavior towards Rhianan, who had not been part of the original case against him despite the FBI’s longstanding knowledge of the abuse of him. After the court learned of his behavior, Cook was taken into custody in December before sentencing.
After Rhianan’s prosecution was dropped, she opted to continue living at the Nottinghamshire Children’s Home and began participating in the Prevent scheme. But there were signs that all was not well. In the weeks before her death, Rhianan asked her mother to help her contact a neo-Nazi extremist in the United States. Her mother informed the children’s home, which is run by the private company Blue Mountain Homes.
She says that they then told social services and that the police had decided to let the contact take place. It is not clear if she did. Her mother had warned Derbyshire Council about the risk of Rhianan taking her own life. In emails to a social worker in 2021, she wrote: “I hope she doesn’t attempt suicide when she’s alone in her room.”
She said in the emails that Rhianan had access to the ligatures. Mrs. Carter says that she saw Rhianan days before her death and she was so concerned about her appearance that she contacted the house.She says that she warned her staff that her daughter was “going to do something” and asked them to keep an eye on her. The manager said they would “find out what’s going on” and told her not to worry, she says.
But later that week, she says, three police officers were “standing in my living room telling me that my daughter was hanged to death.” In Rhianan’s room at the children’s home, access to items that could be used as ligatures was prohibited due to the risk of self-harm and suicide, but she did gain access to one.
At 16, she was found dead in May, more than 12 hours after he had retired to her room the night before. An inquest into her death is scheduled to take place. No date has been set. Organizations contacted by the BBC said they could not comment on the details of our investigation until the inquiry is complete.
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