Terror charge against schoolgirl dropped because she was trafficking victim
The youngest girl charged with terrorism has had her case dropped after the Home Office decided she was a victim of trafficking.
An expert Home Office unit decided the 16-year-old schoolgirl had been groomed by a US extremist after she was charged with possessing instructions for homemade firearms and explosives.
It is the first time a terrorism prosecution has been halted following such an intervention by the Home Office but a government adviser suggested there could be more similar cases amid a sharp rise in the number of young people drawn into extremism online.
“Online exploitation is the flip side of online radicalisation,” Jonathan Hall QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation told the BBC.
"The internet is not only pulling more and more young people into criminal liability for terrorist offending, but may yield defences to criminal liability, or powerful public interest reasons why a child should not be prosecuted,” he said.
The Derbyshire teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested in October 2020 and alleged to hold extreme right-wing beliefs. She was due to stand trial at Nottingham Youth Court in August last year on six charges relating to when she was 14.
But the case was delayed after the Home Office was asked to formally consider whether she had been exploited. This involved her being referred to an official framework for identifying potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery, called the national referral mechanism.
The referral was made by defence barrister Gerard Hillman after the girl had been charged. The police had not made a referral when they arrested her months earlier.
The Home Office's Single Competent Authority decided there were "conclusive grounds" she had been groomed and exploited sexually, particularly by an older male extremist in the US. That conduct amounted to trafficking under modern slavery laws.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) discontinued the case after a review assessed there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. The six terror charges have been left to lie on file.
'Clear evidence' she had been exploited
During a hearing in July 2021, which scrapped the original trial date, the chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, said there was "clear evidence she's been exploited" and it was "fairly horrific if true".
Prosecutors had alleged the girl had a bomb-making video and written instructions as well as a guide for making 3D-printed firearms in circumstances which generated a suspicion it was linked to the "commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.”
The growing number of children becoming embroiled in extremism was highlighted last week when a 14-year-old schoolboy became the youngest person in the UK convicted of terror charges. He was arrested when he was only 13.
Home Office figures in December showed 13 per cent of those arrested for terrorism offences were aged under 18, the highest proportion in any annual period.
