MI5 ‘monitored’ teenage terror suspect who committed suicide

MI5 monitored a teenage girl who committed suicide after being manipulated by a far-right US extremist and arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences, a criminal investigation has heard.

At the age of 15, Rhianan Rudd was the youngest person to be charged with terrorism offences in the UK, but the prosecution was later dropped.

She was 16 when she committed suicide on May 19, 2022.

At a pre-inquest hearing it was reported that although MI5 had provided intelligence to the police, MI5 had had nothing to do with Rhianan’s arrest and charges.

Rhianan, born in Essex but moved to Derbyshire in 2012, was a child in care when she died.

In October 2020, she was arrested for downloading a bomb-making manual. In April of the same year, she was charged with several offenses.

The teenager, who has autism, was due to appear in court in March 2022, but charges were dropped in December 2021 after evidence emerged she had been manipulated by American extremist Christopher Cook.

A BBC research, published last year, found evidence which alleged the sexual exploitation and grooming of Rhianan was handed over to MI5 months before she was charged.

Edward Pleeth, the barrister for the inquest, told Chesterfield coroner on Friday that lawyers had written to interested parties, including the Home Office, the chief constable of Derbyshire police and the Crown Prosecution Service, in July to inform them of the case.

“MI5 have confirmed that they provided intelligence to the police during the police investigation into Rhianan Rudd,” he said.

“MI5 did not take the decision to arrest or charge anyone, nor the subsequent decision to discontinue the prosecution.”

The full investigation will start on February 26 next year and is expected to last approximately three weeks.

The court heard that about 600 files were handed over to the coroner as evidence, totalling about 17,000 pages.

Jesse Nicholls, representing Rhianan’s family, called for the extent of MI5 monitoring to be discussed as part of the proceedings.

He told the court she was “a child who died in circumstances related to an exceptional period of state intervention prior to her death”, adding that the public interest in investigating the role of the state is “compelling”.

“It appears she was being monitored by MI5 while being exploited online,” he said.

Neil Sheldon KC, representing the Home Office, including MI5, said: “We accept that you will examine sensitive material very carefully to see whether there is any information known about the risk of self-harm or suicide, and whether anything has been done with that information.

“We do not consider that this is a case where it is necessary to assess the content of the underlying intelligence gathered by MI5.”

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