How mother's boyfriend played 'significant' role in radicalising youngest UK girl to face terror charges

Rhianan Rudd, who took her own life at the age of 16, was the youngest girl in the UK to be charged with terrorist offences.  The inquest into her death, which concluded today, revealed shocking details about her radicalisation by two American white supremacists, one of whom was her mother's boyfriend, who the coroner said "played a material role in her radicalisation".

Rhianan gouged a swastika into her forehead, downloaded a bomb-making manual and told her mother she planned to blow up a synagogue. Investigated by anti-terrorism police and MI5, charges against her were later dropped, but five month later on 19 May 2022, she was found dead in her shower in a children's home in Nottinghamshire.

Hours earlier she had posted on Instagram: "I'm delving into madness." The evidence heard in Chesterfield Coroner's Court from police, social services and even an MI5 operative, raised questions over the state's part in her death - and whether, despite her obvious radicalisation, this vulnerable, autistic girl should have been treated with more care by the authorities. Judge Alexia Durran said: "I'm not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, Rhianan intended to take her own life.

Rhianan's death... was the result of a self-inflicted act but it is not possible to ascertain her intention.

"Rhianan was known, to family and professionals, to be vulnerable, to have autistic traits and have a history of self-harm." The coroner added: "I find she was highly affected by her arrest and was concerned about being sent to prison." It was not known what Rhianan was told by her legal team when the charges were dropped but this may have had a "psychological impact" on her, the coroner said. In an interview released at the verdict, Rhianan's mother Emily Carter said her daughter "should never have been charged.