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Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Youngest girl in Britain to be charged with terror offences killed herself after being groomed by American neo-Nazis, inquest hears
The youngest girl in Britain to be charged with terror offences killed herself at children's home after being groomed and radicalised by two convicted American neo-Nazis, a coroner ruled. Autistic Rhianan Rudd, 16, plotted to blow up a synagogue and scratched a swastika into her forehead after coming into contact with the two men, one of whom was dating her mother and moved into their Derbyshire home. Rhianan was found dead at Bluebell House children's home near Newark, Notts, on May 19, 2022, five months after terror charges against her were dropped. A four-week inquest into her death heard how Dax Mallaburn, a violent US neo-Nazi with a swastika tattoo on his forearm, moved into the family home in Clowne, Derbyshire, in 2017 after forming a relationship with Rhianan's mother Emily Carter via a prison pen-pal scheme. Chesterfield Coroner's Court heard Rhianan was also in contact with Christopher Cook, from Ohio, with whom she exchanged explicit photographs. Cook, 23, a member of the banned terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, was jailed in the US in 2023 over a plot to attack power grids. Rhianan, who had a history of self-harm, was charged with six counts of terrorism in April 2021, removed from school and placed on remand at Bluebell House. But terror charges against her were later dropped in December 2021 after the Home Office report made a formal finding that she was a victim of exploitation. Rhianan was referred to the Home Office's Prevent deradicalisation programme and underwent therapy sessions. The last of six sessions was held on May 16, 2022, days before Rhianan's death. She was found hanged in the shower fully clothed. In the hours before she had posted on Instagram the message: 'I'm delving into madness.' Rhianan's family believe that the teenager should have been treated from the outset as a victim of exploitation rather than a terror suspect. Jesse Nicholls, the family's lawyer, had told the inquest she had been 'subjected to an extraordinary and exceptional level of state involvement in the period leading up to her death' and adding that her 'known vulnerability' made her unable to cope. But Judge Durran concluded on Monday that there were no systemic failures by authorities which contributed to Rhianan's death, though did say delays to accessing mental heath support presented a 'missed opportunity'. The inquest heard evidence from agencies including MI5, the Crown Prosecution Service, NHS bodies and the police. Some material relating to MI5's involvement with Rhianan was withheld on security grounds. In her conclusion, Judge Durran said that it was 'not possible' to link Rhianan's death directly to her prosecution, and that she was 'not satisfied' that the teenager intended to take her life. She concluded: 'There were number of potential stress factors in Rhianan's life in the months and days before her death. 'She had voiced concerns about a possible reinstatement of criminal proceedings and, separately, her mother's prioritisation of and choice of partner, with whom her mother had recently spent a month abroad. 'She had GCSE exams. A number of staff who worked at Bluebell House and other professionals with whom she had formed close relationships were leaving. The Prevent intervention sessions may have triggered thoughts about extreme right-wing ideology. 'She was being given greater access to her mobile phone and the internet, and she had recently been allowed unsupervised time away from the home. She added: 'It is not possible to say whether any of these stress factors, individually or collectively, more than minimally or negligibly caused or contributed to her death. 'No person regularly in contact with Rhianan had any concerns around the time of her death that she would self-harm or take her own life.' Chesterfield coroner's court heard how Mallaburn gave Rhianan extremist reading material and was suspected by police of 'inappropriate behaviour' towards her before he returned to the US in 2020. Rhianan accused him of sexually touching her shortly after she turned 14 but later withdrew the allegation. The inquest also heard claims that Mallaburn sent himself an explicit recording of Rhianan that he discovered on her old mobile phone. Judge Durran said 'he played a material role in introducing and encouraging Rhianan's interest in extreme right-wing materials'. She sad she 'individuals in the United States who further encouraged and developed her extreme right-wing views' adding: 'In particular I find that the Covid-19 lockdown period was a time during which Rhianan, isolated and unsupervised at home, engaged extensively in online discussions that contributed to her radicalisation.' Cook sent bomb-making manuals and weapons instructions to Rhianan when she was just 14, with the teenager later telling police: 'I was scared before, then I kind of just moved onto the phase of 'I love you'.' Judge Durran branded Cook, from Ohio, a 'significant radicalising influence on Rhianan'. The inquest heard that Rhianan's mother had asked police for help in September 2020, warning them that her daughter had developed an 'unhealthy outlook on fascism' and had a 'massive dislikes for certain races and creeds'. Classmates told school leaders of her intention to 'kill someone in school or blow up a Jewish place of worship'. Drawings found in her school bag included sketches of a man giving a Nazi salute. Counter-terrorism police discovered computer files relating to bomb making and a manual on how to make firearm using 3D printing. In October 2020, Rhianan was taken to hospital after carving a swastika into her forehead using the blade of a pencil sharpener 'because she wanted other people to know her beliefs and hoped that the scarring would be permanent'. She later told a social worker: 'Basically, I do not like anyone who is not white.' Concluding the inquest he judge 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. Afterwards, Ms Carter, said she believes her daughter's death was preventable and the agencies involved in her case need to be held accountable. Ms Carter said Rhianan was not treated as a vulnerable child, despite her autism diagnosis, and she does not believe her daughter was ever a threat to other people. The mother said: 'She was five foot one, weighed seven stone. She was tiny. 'I don't know what people thought she could do, but I don't believe that she was ever a threat. It was just what people would put in her head - brainwashed her, basically. 'They (the agencies) treated her as a child, but I don't believe they treated her as a vulnerable child. 'If you've got vulnerable children, you take extra steps to watch them, to look after them, to make sure they feel safe, even from themselves, and they didn't. Obviously, she's dead.' The mother said the moment 19 police officers and two detectives came to arrest her daughter at their family home was 'mind-numbing' and she felt 'violated' when officers turned her house 'upside down'. She said: 'It hurt ... the fact that they thought that my daughter was some sort of massive terrorist. 'They were going to put her in handcuffs, but the handcuffs didn't go small enough. Even on the smallest ones, they just fell off her hands. That's how small she was.' Nick Price, Director of Legal Services at the CPS, said: 'This is a tragic case, and I want to send my sincere condolences and sympathy to Rhianan's family. We do not prosecute young or vulnerable people lightly. Terrorism offences are extremely serious, and these are decisions our specialist prosecutors take great care over.'
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Yahoo
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK's youngest female terror suspect
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler. She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children's home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority. Rhianan had been diagnosed with autism as a child. Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists. By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. Her short life raises profound questions for society about how the authorities deal with children who pose a threat but are also deeply damaged themselves. Rhianan was radicalised by an American white supremacist called Dax Mallaburn who was dating her mother, Emily Carter. Mallaburn has since fled the UK, having left Rhiannan's mother for a family friend, Ann, who had been helping to care for the troubled teenager. Ann Mallaburn, as she now calls herself, has defended her partner in a rambling 3,000-word email sent to The Telegraph, the contents of which could not be revealed for legal reasons, until now. The month-long inquest into Rhianan's death, which concluded at the end of March (the Coroner's ruling is expected in June), was told that authorities had suspected Mallaburn of sexually grooming the schoolgirl while living with Carter in the home they all shared in Bolsover, Derbyshire. The coroner was told that Mallaburn's influence on Rhianan was 'not known' to her mother. So how on earth did this tragedy unfold? Rhianan's case – first reported by The Telegraph – has exposed the terrifying pull that extreme Right-wing ideology has on young people, both here and in the US. MI5's director general, Sir Ken McCallum, revealed last year in a rare public speech that 13 per cent of UK terror suspects – close to one in seven – are now under the age of 18. The vast majority support extreme Right-wing causes. 'Young people,' said Sir Ken, were being 'driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture'. He recognised the difficulties for the intelligence services and counter-terrorism police in tackling the threat posed by vulnerable children. Rhianan Rudd's bizarre descent into a world of neo-Nazi terrorism highlights that dilemma better than any other. Rhianan was born in Brentwood, Essex, on September 16 2005, spending her early years on a nondescript suburban housing estate in nearby Basildon. Her family was fractured: her parents separated when Rhianan was young, although her father – who only had sporadic contact with her – still lives in the area. Rhianan had two older sisters and a brother. In a heart-rending statement read out at the start of the inquest, Carter – who called her daughter 'Rhirhi' – asked for her to be remembered as a child who had 'brought so much joy', not the one who had become hate-filled and notorious. 'She was a little giggler,' said her mother, 'generous', with 'a kind heart' but also 'different'. Rhianan loved animals and baking and collected Japanese manga comic books. Her walls were covered with drawings and pictures of My Little Pony, and she dressed, her mother says, 'goth style one day, prim and proper the next'. For a time in 2016 and 2017, one of Rhianan's older sisters looked after her. Her autism meant she 'got fixated on things,' says her mother, but she was a child who never lost her temper or became irritated and 'I felt blessed having her'. And then it all began to go wrong. 'Her being groomed was huge, and I saw Rhianan change,' her mother said in a statement read out by her lawyer at the start of the inquest. She didn't say who had groomed her daughter or when. But the inquest would go on to hear that both Mallaburn and another neo-Nazi called Christopher Cook had been involved in her radicalisation. Mallaburn, 50, a convicted criminal jailed in the US for possession of weapons, came to the UK in 2017, having met Rhianan's mother through a pen-pal prison scheme in which women exchange correspondence with US inmates. In 2022, Carter said she had been unaware of Mallaburn's involvement in radicalising her daughter. 'He [Mallaburn] wasn't involved, to my knowledge. He was involved in that [extremism] in the US, but not while he was with me,' she told The Telegraph. She emphasised that they had split up and she had severed all ties with him. 'I have got nothing to do with him now, because anything to do with him brings trouble.' Carter declined to elaborate further. Mallaburn's past history is a nasty one. While serving time in jail in South Carolina in 2005 on firearms offences, he circulated a 'hit list' that included the name of an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated the Hells Angels gang and whose life was at risk as a result. US court papers described Mallaburn as a 'known associate' of the Arizona branch of the Aryan Brotherhood, a notorious neo-Nazi prison gang with thousands of members across the US. His gang nickname, according to court papers, was 'Whitey'. By May 2017, Mallaburn had been released under supervision from prison, but an Arizona court ordered his detention over fears he would either flee or 'pose a danger to the safety of the community'. It is unclear why Mallaburn was suddenly sent back to jail. But by now he had been in contact with Carter through an organisation (not named in the inquest) that connected prisoners to pen pals. By November 2017 Mallaburn had won her over, relocated to the UK and moved in with her and Rhianan in their home in Bolsover. How a convicted criminal with known links to a neo-Nazi group, who had circulated a hit list naming an FBI agent, managed to evade UK border controls and inveigle himself into a family with a vulnerable child seems scandalous. The Home Office has declined to offer an explanation about what went wrong at the border. It insists that officials 'have robust safeguards in place' to keep out 'those who intend to sow hatred and division'. Despite the rhetoric, Mallaburn got in. Within two years, he was suspected of inappropriate behaviour. Social workers already involved with Rhianan's care had become concerned that Mallaburn was sexually grooming her. Rhianan complained to them in 2019 that he had touched her sexually. She had just turned 14. But when police visited the girl at her home she retracted the allegations. Behind closed doors, Mallaburn was teaching her his version of the Second World War. In the days before she took her own life, Rhianan would tell a counter-terrorism official that Mallaburn had explained to her 'what really happened', describing her mother's partner as a 'literal Nazi'. By September 2020, Rhianan had developed a 'fixation' with Hitler and far-Right material so alarming that Carter reported her to Prevent, the Government's anti-extremism programme intended to stop vulnerable people becoming terrorists. 'I need help with my 15-year-old daughter,' Carter wrote in a letter to counter-terrorism police, pleading for support. 'She has a very unhealthy outlook on fascism – she also has massive dislikes for certain races and creeds.' Counter-terrorism police didn't delay. By the end of the month, officers had interviewed Rhianan, who told them she 'wanted to blow up a synagogue'. During the course of that interview it emerged that Rhianan had been in regular contact with Christopher Cook. Cook was 18 or 19 and Rhianan just 14 when they first communicated, and they were both infatuated with the Third Reich. They had met on an instant messaging platform called Discord that is largely used to discuss computer games. Using coded language, Rhianan and Cook – who called himself Coo – discussed Nazi ideology. He encouraged her to read books by James Mason, an American neo-Nazi described as the 'godfather of fascist terrorism', and supplied her with manuals on bomb-making, guerilla warfare and the targeting of black, Jewish, gay and trans people. The pair had also been in contact through WhatsApp, where they exchanged sexually explicit images. In the background, Mallaburn was egging Cook on. An MI5 officer, reading from a statement given behind a screen at the inquest, told the coroner's court: 'The police were also informed that Cook had been in contact with 'US Person 1' and they had briefly discussed Right-wing extremist ideology. 'US person 1' indicated to Cook that Rhianan should be 'taught properly'.' The Telegraph has established that 'US person 1' was Dax Mallaburn. A child protection team with Derbyshire County Council found that Cook and Mallaburn 'had encouraged Rhianan to look at violent material'. Counter-terrorism police passed to MI5 their 'suspicion of radicalisation' of Rhianan by Mallaburn. At the inquest, Supt Stephen Riley, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing East Midlands was asked if his officers were satisfied that Mallaburn had been 'largely responsible' for her radicalisation. 'He was one of the most significant contacts,' the superintendent replied. MI5 contacted their counterparts at the FBI over their concerns about Rhianan and her links to Cook. As it transpired, Cook had been on the radar of US authorities a whole year earlier, prompting their inquiries in October 2019. Christopher Cook's story is by turns terrifying and pathetic. He was just 17 when he first dreamt up a plot to cripple the US power grid, spread chaos and cause a race war. He aimed to recruit 40 like-minded fanatics to attack power stations with assault rifles and home-made bombs. Cook's ultimate goal was grandiose: to create an Aryan homeland through a white supremacist revolution. A handbook written by Cook and his three co-conspirators declared that they would not desist 'until every enemy of fascism has a rope around their neck'. Cook, like Rhianan, had issues while growing up. By the age of four, his parents were struggling to cope and he was subsequently diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication by the start of first grade (equivalent to year two in the UK). By 13 he had started to dabble in neo-Nazi ideology and was becoming radicalised online. His mother, Diane, a lifelong Democrat voter, has been left distraught. 'He chose a very dark path,' she would later tell a judge at her son's sentencing. Cook met his fellow plotters in a chat room, before launching The Front, a combat terror cell. Despite being its youngest member, he was its de facto leader. Cook was in charge of recruitment and, according to sources close to his family, became infatuated with Rhianan, and she in turn clearly fell under his spell. It is not certain when they first came into contact, but at the same time Rhianan was dreaming of blowing up a synagogue in the UK, Cook was criss-crossing the US, travelling through Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee and Texas in search of recruits for The Front. Its 'joining requirements' included the demand for a 'physique photo' to demonstrate a 'fitness for action'. Recruits had to be white, and couldn't be 'obese or deformed', according to promotional material. The cell – fortunately, given its murderous intent – was sloppy. The FBI appears to have infiltrated it early on and at every turn police followed the movements of Cook and his two co-conspirators, who had made 'suicide necklaces' with the drug fentanyl to be ingested if caught. But even that failed. When one of The Front's leaders was pulled over by a traffic cop, he swallowed the suicide pill but survived. The FBI finally made arrests in August 2020, and in February 2022 Cook pleaded guilty to terrorism offences. He was 20. He remains out of reach of UK authorities. Now 23, he is serving a 92-month sentence in Bennettsville federal prison in South Carolina for orchestrating a plot to blow up power stations in a failed attempt to spark a race war. Emily Carter sent a victim impact statement to the US judge for consideration in sentencing Cook, although none of the charges related to the grooming of her daughter. The letter remains sealed and it's unclear whether it contributed to the 92 months handed down to Cook, with 30 years supervised release. Cook, according to his family, has now rejected his far-Right views and is trying to reform. They are distraught at what happened to Rhianan. In emails sent from prison to two investigative reporters in Ohio, Cook declined to answer any questions about Rhianan. Asked about the allegation that he had exploited and radicalised her, his response was terse. 'No comment,' he wrote. By contrast, his replies to everything else were often rambling and, at times, pretentious. He stressed that he no longer espoused white supremacist views. 'Most fascists,' he told the Ohio journalists, 'are fat rejects who'd be killed in their own dream states… and communists still don't understand economics. I don't care what society has to offer, I'm not interested in it. But I've changed, I'm not bitter or angry at it either… I can't be angry at everyone anymore. I can only be an aristocrat in my own little world.' Cook's lawyer, Peter Scranton, based in Columbus, Ohio, says his client was, like Rhianan, both 'depressed and isolated', adding: 'Obviously their mental health wasn't good and they weren't helping each other.' Scranton points the finger at Mallaburn, whom he refers to as the 'stepfather'. 'She was already on the path,' he says of Rhianan's infatuation with the far Right prior to meeting Cook online. 'Chris [Cook] felt her stepfather was the whole problem.' In October 2020, just as Rhianan was handing a USB stick with damning evidence on it to counter-terrorism police, Mallaburn had decided to leave the UK. His application to remain in Britain had been turned down by the Home Office in March of that year. And by now he had split with Carter and begun a relationship with the family friend who was helping to care for Rhianan. Ann Mallaburn (the name she now uses) had met Rhianan through the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chesterfield. (Dax Mallaburn was also a member and attempted to use his connection to the Mormon church to bolster his application, which failed, to remain in Britain.) Mallaburn was quizzed by counter-terrorism police at Heathrow prior to boarding his flight back to the US. He was interviewed again by Homeland Security on arrival and allowed into the country. He eventually settled in Cancun, the Mexican resort that is a favourite of US tourists. Ann, who is 40, joined him in August 2021, taking a flight from London to Mexico City. Ann Mallaburn's father, who did not wish to be identified, had contacted The Telegraph, concerned about her welfare. He said: 'My daughter completely fell under his [Mallaburn's] spell. She has since joined him in what I think is a country in South America.' The Telegraph contacted Ann Mallaburn in November 2022, six months after Rhianan's death. She replied with a lengthy email in which she supports Mallaburn, for whom she left her husband and two children, and is adamant that he was not responsible for Rhianan's death. She acknowledged his far-Right links but insisted he was no longer involved. 'Due to Dax's past, while in prison, he was aligned with what is perceived in England to be the far-Right,' she wrote. 'Dax renounced this many years ago. Attempts were made against his life as a direct result of him leaving the gang. You should also note that the Aryan Brotherhood are a criminal organisation not a terrorist organisation, primarily within US prisons, which are divided along racial lines. 'Dax has never been charged with any race crime. He was interviewed by the FBI about Rhianan and her online relationship with a man in Ohio. On October 7 2020 [he was] interviewed at Heathrow by anti-terror and by Homeland Security in the US about, not Rhianan, but her online 'boyfriend' in Ohio.' She cast light on Rhianan's own torment, which she had witnessed first hand. A source at Derbyshire County Council says, 'Ann was a family friend who did help look after her [Rhianan], but it wasn't foster care or any other kind of official care arrangement.' Ann Mallaburn wrote that 'Rhianan was aligned with a number of groups, not just Atomwaffen Division, but also Order of Nine Angles, among others, which I understand to be a strange, quasi-Christian/Muslim/Pagan neo-Nazi organisation.' She maintains that Rhianan was courted by 'what I can only call a melting pot of neo-Nazi sympathisers'. She added: 'If I for one second believed Dax had those same leanings as Rhianan, I would not be with him today. It is my opinion that Rhianan was failed by Social Services on multiple occasions, right back to [when she lived in] Essex.' By the autumn of 2020, Rhianan's behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic. Her school in Derbyshire also reported her to Prevent after being made aware of disturbing WhatsApp messages she had shared. One fellow student who saw the messages told teachers: 'It was getting to the point where she wanted to kill someone at school and blow up a Jewish place of worship.' Then, in October 2020, she carved a swastika into her forehead, which led to her being admitted to Chesterfield hospital. She subsequently told a social worker she wished she had 'done it bigger to make more of a statement'. (Later in the children's home Rhianan would try to scratch the swastika out.) Derbyshire County Council opened a child protection inquiry while police, working alongside MI5, decided to arrest her, alarmed that she now posed a risk to national security. On October 21 2020, counter-terrorism police raided Rhianan's home and arrested her. Her bedroom, they discovered, had become a shrine dedicated to Hitler. The arrest forced Prevent to cease its de-radicalisation work with her. There was no turning back. Rhianan was finally charged in April 2021 with six separate terrorism offences, including the possession of instructions to make a bomb and another on how to 3D-print a gun. At 15, she had become the youngest female ever charged under the Terrorism Act. The decision to prosecute was hugely controversial. It is not unusual for terror suspects also to be suffering from serious mental health problems, but even inside MI5 there were concerns that entering a young, mentally unstable girl into the criminal justice system was unwise. 'We're seeing more and more of these cases and it doesn't sit comfortably,' one intelligence officer wrote in an email which was made public at Rhianan's inquest. But another officer justified the investigation. 'Opening an investigation is sometimes the only way of understanding the threat and the necessity to investigate them in the interests of national security,' wrote the MI5 agent, adding: 'No exception can be made in Rhianan's case.' The prospect of dragging such a damaged child – Rhianan had a history of self-harm – through the courts was clearly problematic. But by December 2021, all charges against the girl, now aged 16, were dropped. Theresa May, when home secretary, had put in place a unit within the Home Office to identify victims of trafficking and slavery. It concluded that Rhianan, having been groomed and exploited by Cook in Ohio, had been trafficked, even though she was born in the UK and had never left Britain. But the threat of imprisonment and the stress of a full-blown counter-terrorism investigation had taken its toll. 'In our submission, Rhianan was subjected to an extraordinary and exceptional level of state involvement in the period leading up to her death,' said Jesse Nicholls, her family's lawyer, at the inquest, adding that her 'known vulnerability' made her unable to cope. Not long after the charges were dropped, in January 2022, Rhianan was placed in the care of Bluebell House children's home in Nottinghamshire. Pradeep Manaktala, who founded Blue Mountain Homes (which ran Bluebell House), says Rhianan appeared 'a very happy child but felt conflicted'. Her mood continued to fluctuate wildly – at times she suffered a recurrence of disturbing thoughts, at others she felt more hopeful and focused on her GCSE exams. Manaktala blamed her radicalisation on Mallaburn. 'He taught her to look at the world that way,' he says, 'but at the same time she was being cared for and given unconditional love here by our black and Asian staff. She found it difficult to reconcile this with what she was being told by this white supremacist preacher.' Rhianan at times appeared to be responding. 'I wish life could be normal. I just want to be myself,' she wrote in her diary while in the children's home. But her life was anything but normal – to the extent that on a day trip to Alton Towers, accompanied by a support worker, she donned a German military uniform; she also celebrated Hitler's birthday on April 20 2022 by speaking in a German accent and wearing combat gear. With charges dropped, Prevent began working with her again in Bluebell House. But any intervention was perhaps too little, certainly too late, and possibly 'too challenging', according to her family's legal team. Nicholls, a barrister at the human rights chambers Matrix, suggested the final Prevent session may have had a 'causal connection' to her 'self-inflicted' death just a few days later. Rhianan scrawled a note declaring 'Kill the Jews' that was found by care home staff; and told her mother on a home visit that she wanted to contact yet another American extremist, who had previously sent her photographs of himself in camouflage clothing and holding a gun. Despite the madness, care home staff became convinced her behaviour was showing signs of improvement. But on May 19 2022, Rhianan was found dead in her shower in the children's home. She was dressed all in black. In the hours before taking her own life she had posted on Instagram a simple, heartbreaking message: 'I'm delving into madness'. Three years on from Rhianan's death, Emily Carter's pain is still evident. 'I miss her more than life itself. I miss her smile, her laugh and her conversations,' she said in the statement read out at the start of the inquest, 'I will see her again one day and I know she will be the same Rhianan I have always loved and cherished.' She believes her daughter was badly let down – by everyone from social services to MI5 and the police. 'It's been devastating,' she says, 'how everything has gone and the way it was handled. It was wrong in every aspect.' Three days after Rhianan's death, Ann Mallaburn posted a manga-style self-portrait by Rhianan on her Facebook page, with the message: 'Rest in Peace. You deserved so much more. None of it was ever your fault.' Dax Mallaburn commented: 'She will be missed dearly and never forgotten.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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Telegraph
25-04-2025
- Telegraph
The tragic tale of Rhianan Rudd, the UK's youngest female terror suspect
In the autumn of 2020, Rhianan Rudd gouged a swastika into her forehead in a declaration of her love for Adolf Hitler. She had just turned 15. A little more than a year later, she killed herself in a children's home in Nottinghamshire while in the care of her local authority. Rhianan had been diagnosed with autism as a child. Hers was a disturbing and disturbed life; a life which presents a chilling insight into the ease with which a teenager can be sucked into the hate-filled world of white supremacists. By the time of her death at the age of 16, Rhianan was an adherent of two far-Right terror groups: the Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, a bizarre neo-Nazi satanist cult. The youngest girl in the UK ever to be charged with terrorist offences, she had planned to build a bomb and blow up a synagogue. Her short life raises profound questions for society about how the authorities deal with children who pose a threat but are also deeply damaged themselves. Rhianan was radicalised by an American white supremacist called Dax Mallaburn who was dating her mother, Emily Carter. Mallaburn has since fled the UK, having left Rhiannan's mother for a family friend, Ann, who had been helping to care for the troubled teenager. Ann Mallaburn, as she now calls herself, has defended her partner in a rambling 3,000-word email sent to The Telegraph, the contents of which could not be revealed for legal reasons, until now. The month-long inquest into Rhianan's death, which concluded at the end of March (the Coroner's ruling is expected in June), was told that authorities had suspected Mallaburn of sexually grooming the schoolgirl while living with Carter in the home they all shared in Bolsover, Derbyshire. The coroner was told that Mallaburn's influence on Rhianan was 'not known' to her mother. So how on earth did this tragedy unfold? Rhianan's case – first reported by The Telegraph – has exposed the terrifying pull that extreme Right-wing ideology has on young people, both here and in the US. MI5's director general, Sir Ken McCallum, revealed last year in a rare public speech that 13 per cent of UK terror suspects – close to one in seven – are now under the age of 18. The vast majority support extreme Right-wing causes. 'Young people,' said Sir Ken, were being 'driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture'. He recognised the difficulties for the intelligence services and counter-terrorism police in tackling the threat posed by vulnerable children. Rhianan Rudd's bizarre descent into a world of neo-Nazi terrorism highlights that dilemma better than any other. Rhianan was born in Brentwood, Essex, on September 16 2005, spending her early years on a nondescript suburban housing estate in nearby Basildon. Her family was fractured: her parents separated when Rhianan was young, although her father – who only had sporadic contact with her – still lives in the area. Rhianan had two older sisters and a brother. In a heart-rending statement read out at the start of the inquest, Carter – who called her daughter 'Rhirhi' – asked for her to be remembered as a child who had 'brought so much joy', not the one who had become hate-filled and notorious. 'She was a little giggler,' said her mother, 'generous', with 'a kind heart' but also 'different'. Rhianan loved animals and baking and collected Japanese manga comic books. Her walls were covered with drawings and pictures of My Little Pony, and she dressed, her mother says, 'goth style one day, prim and proper the next'. For a time in 2016 and 2017, one of Rhianan's older sisters looked after her. Her autism meant she 'got fixated on things,' says her mother, but she was a child who never lost her temper or became irritated and 'I felt blessed having her'. And then it all began to go wrong. 'Her being groomed was huge, and I saw Rhianan change,' her mother said in a statement read out by her lawyer at the start of the inquest. She didn't say who had groomed her daughter or when. But the inquest would go on to hear that both Mallaburn and another neo-Nazi called Christopher Cook had been involved in her radicalisation. Mallaburn, 50, a convicted criminal jailed in the US for possession of weapons, came to the UK in 2017, having met Rhianan's mother through a pen-pal prison scheme in which women exchange correspondence with US inmates. In 2022, Carter said she had been unaware of Mallaburn's involvement in radicalising her daughter. 'He [Mallaburn] wasn't involved, to my knowledge. He was involved in that [extremism] in the US, but not while he was with me,' she told The Telegraph. She emphasised that they had split up and she had severed all ties with him. 'I have got nothing to do with him now, because anything to do with him brings trouble.' Carter declined to elaborate further. Mallaburn's past history is a nasty one. While serving time in jail in South Carolina in 2005 on firearms offences, he circulated a 'hit list' that included the name of an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated the Hells Angels gang and whose life was at risk as a result. US court papers described Mallaburn as a 'known associate' of the Arizona branch of the Aryan Brotherhood, a notorious neo-Nazi prison gang with thousands of members across the US. His gang nickname, according to court papers, was 'Whitey'. By May 2017, Mallaburn had been released under supervision from prison, but an Arizona court ordered his detention over fears he would either flee or 'pose a danger to the safety of the community'. It is unclear why Mallaburn was suddenly sent back to jail. But by now he had been in contact with Carter through an organisation (not named in the inquest) that connected prisoners to pen pals. By November 2017 Mallaburn had won her over, relocated to the UK and moved in with her and Rhianan in their home in Bolsover. How a convicted criminal with known links to a neo-Nazi group, who had circulated a hit list naming an FBI agent, managed to evade UK border controls and inveigle himself into a family with a vulnerable child seems scandalous. The Home Office has declined to offer an explanation about what went wrong at the border. It insists that officials 'have robust safeguards in place' to keep out 'those who intend to sow hatred and division'. Despite the rhetoric, Mallaburn got in. Within two years, he was suspected of inappropriate behaviour. Social workers already involved with Rhianan's care had become concerned that Mallaburn was sexually grooming her. Rhianan complained to them in 2019 that he had touched her sexually. She had just turned 14. But when police visited the girl at her home she retracted the allegations. Behind closed doors, Mallaburn was teaching her his version of the Second World War. In the days before she took her own life, Rhianan would tell a counter-terrorism official that Mallaburn had explained to her 'what really happened', describing her mother's partner as a 'literal Nazi'. By September 2020, Rhianan had developed a 'fixation' with Hitler and far-Right material so alarming that Carter reported her to Prevent, the Government's anti-extremism programme intended to stop vulnerable people becoming terrorists. 'I need help with my 15-year-old daughter,' Carter wrote in a letter to counter-terrorism police, pleading for support. 'She has a very unhealthy outlook on fascism – she also has massive dislikes for certain races and creeds.' Counter-terrorism police didn't delay. By the end of the month, officers had interviewed Rhianan, who told them she 'wanted to blow up a synagogue'. During the course of that interview it emerged that Rhianan had been in regular contact with Christopher Cook. Cook was 18 or 19 and Rhianan just 14 when they first communicated, and they were both infatuated with the Third Reich. They had met on an instant messaging platform called Discord that is largely used to discuss computer games. Using coded language, Rhianan and Cook – who called himself Coo – discussed Nazi ideology. He encouraged her to read books by James Mason, an American neo-Nazi described as the 'godfather of fascist terrorism', and supplied her with manuals on bomb-making, guerilla warfare and the targeting of black, Jewish, gay and trans people. The pair had also been in contact through WhatsApp, where they exchanged sexually explicit images. In the background, Mallaburn was egging Cook on. An MI5 officer, reading from a statement given behind a screen at the inquest, told the coroner's court: 'The police were also informed that Cook had been in contact with 'US Person 1' and they had briefly discussed Right-wing extremist ideology. 'US person 1' indicated to Cook that Rhianan should be 'taught properly'.' The Telegraph has established that 'US person 1' was Dax Mallaburn. A child protection team with Derbyshire County Council found that Cook and Mallaburn 'had encouraged Rhianan to look at violent material'. Counter-terrorism police passed to MI5 their 'suspicion of radicalisation' of Rhianan by Mallaburn. At the inquest, Supt Stephen Riley, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing East Midlands was asked if his officers were satisfied that Mallaburn had been 'largely responsible' for her radicalisation. 'He was one of the most significant contacts,' the superintendent replied. MI5 contacted their counterparts at the FBI over their concerns about Rhianan and her links to Cook. As it transpired, Cook had been on the radar of US authorities a whole year earlier, prompting their inquiries in October 2019. Christopher Cook's story is by turns terrifying and pathetic. He was just 17 when he first dreamt up a plot to cripple the US power grid, spread chaos and cause a race war. He aimed to recruit 40 like-minded fanatics to attack power stations with assault rifles and home-made bombs. Cook's ultimate goal was grandiose: to create an Aryan homeland through a white supremacist revolution. A handbook written by Cook and his three co-conspirators declared that they would not desist 'until every enemy of fascism has a rope around their neck'. Cook, like Rhianan, had issues while growing up. By the age of four, his parents were struggling to cope and he was subsequently diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication by the start of first grade (equivalent to year two in the UK). By 13 he had started to dabble in neo-Nazi ideology and was becoming radicalised online. His mother, Diane, a lifelong Democrat voter, has been left distraught. 'He chose a very dark path,' she would later tell a judge at her son's sentencing. Cook met his fellow plotters in a chat room, before launching The Front, a combat terror cell. Despite being its youngest member, he was its de facto leader. Cook was in charge of recruitment and, according to sources close to his family, became infatuated with Rhianan, and she in turn clearly fell under his spell. It is not certain when they first came into contact, but at the same time Rhianan was dreaming of blowing up a synagogue in the UK, Cook was criss-crossing the US, travelling through Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee and Texas in search of recruits for The Front. Its 'joining requirements' included the demand for a 'physique photo' to demonstrate a 'fitness for action'. Recruits had to be white, and couldn't be 'obese or deformed', according to promotional material. The cell – fortunately, given its murderous intent – was sloppy. The FBI appears to have infiltrated it early on and at every turn police followed the movements of Cook and his two co-conspirators, who had made 'suicide necklaces' with the drug fentanyl to be ingested if caught. But even that failed. When one of The Front's leaders was pulled over by a traffic cop, he swallowed the suicide pill but survived. The FBI finally made arrests in August 2020, and in February 2022 Cook pleaded guilty to terrorism offences. He was 20. He remains out of reach of UK authorities. Now 23, he is serving a 92-month sentence in Bennettsville federal prison in South Carolina for orchestrating a plot to blow up power stations in a failed attempt to spark a race war. Emily Carter sent a victim impact statement to the US judge for consideration in sentencing Cook, although none of the charges related to the grooming of her daughter. The letter remains sealed and it's unclear whether it contributed to the 92 months handed down to Cook, with 30 years supervised release. Cook, according to his family, has now rejected his far-Right views and is trying to reform. They are distraught at what happened to Rhianan. In emails sent from prison to two investigative reporters in Ohio, Cook declined to answer any questions about Rhianan. Asked about the allegation that he had exploited and radicalised her, his response was terse. 'No comment,' he wrote. By contrast, his replies to everything else were often rambling and, at times, pretentious. He stressed that he no longer espoused white supremacist views. 'Most fascists,' he told the Ohio journalists, 'are fat rejects who'd be killed in their own dream states… and communists still don't understand economics. I don't care what society has to offer, I'm not interested in it. But I've changed, I'm not bitter or angry at it either… I can't be angry at everyone anymore. I can only be an aristocrat in my own little world.' Cook's lawyer, Peter Scranton, based in Columbus, Ohio, says his client was, like Rhianan, both 'depressed and isolated', adding: 'Obviously their mental health wasn't good and they weren't helping each other.' Scranton points the finger at Mallaburn, whom he refers to as the 'stepfather'. 'She was already on the path,' he says of Rhianan's infatuation with the far Right prior to meeting Cook online. 'Chris [Cook] felt her stepfather was the whole problem.' In October 2020, just as Rhianan was handing a USB stick with damning evidence on it to counter-terrorism police, Mallaburn had decided to leave the UK. His application to remain in Britain had been turned down by the Home Office in March of that year. And by now he had split with Carter and begun a relationship with the family friend who was helping to care for Rhianan. Ann Mallaburn (the name she now uses) had met Rhianan through the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Chesterfield. (Dax Mallaburn was also a member and attempted to use his connection to the Mormon church to bolster his application, which failed, to remain in Britain.) Mallaburn was quizzed by counter-terrorism police at Heathrow prior to boarding his flight back to the US. He was interviewed again by Homeland Security on arrival and allowed into the country. He eventually settled in Cancun, the Mexican resort that is a favourite of US tourists. Ann, who is 40, joined him in August 2021, taking a flight from London to Mexico City. Ann Mallaburn's father, who did not wish to be identified, had contacted The Telegraph, concerned about her welfare. He said: 'My daughter completely fell under his [Mallaburn's] spell. She has since joined him in what I think is a country in South America.' The Telegraph contacted Ann Mallaburn in November 2022, six months after Rhianan's death. She replied with a lengthy email in which she supports Mallaburn, for whom she left her husband and two children, and is adamant that he was not responsible for Rhianan's death. She acknowledged his far-Right links but insisted he was no longer involved. 'Due to Dax's past, while in prison, he was aligned with what is perceived in England to be the far-Right,' she wrote. 'Dax renounced this many years ago. Attempts were made against his life as a direct result of him leaving the gang. You should also note that the Aryan Brotherhood are a criminal organisation not a terrorist organisation, primarily within US prisons, which are divided along racial lines. 'Dax has never been charged with any race crime. He was interviewed by the FBI about Rhianan and her online relationship with a man in Ohio. On October 7 2020 [he was] interviewed at Heathrow by anti-terror and by Homeland Security in the US about, not Rhianan, but her online 'boyfriend' in Ohio.' She cast light on Rhianan's own torment, which she had witnessed first hand. A source at Derbyshire County Council says, 'Ann was a family friend who did help look after her [Rhianan], but it wasn't foster care or any other kind of official care arrangement.' Ann Mallaburn wrote that 'Rhianan was aligned with a number of groups, not just Atomwaffen Division, but also Order of Nine Angles, among others, which I understand to be a strange, quasi-Christian/Muslim/Pagan neo-Nazi organisation.' She maintains that Rhianan was courted by 'what I can only call a melting pot of neo-Nazi sympathisers'. She added: 'If I for one second believed Dax had those same leanings as Rhianan, I would not be with him today. It is my opinion that Rhianan was failed by Social Services on multiple occasions, right back to [when she lived in] Essex.' By the autumn of 2020, Rhianan's behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic. Her school in Derbyshire also reported her to Prevent after being made aware of disturbing WhatsApp messages she had shared. One fellow student who saw the messages told teachers: 'It was getting to the point where she wanted to kill someone at school and blow up a Jewish place of worship.' Then, in October 2020, she carved a swastika into her forehead, which led to her being admitted to Chesterfield hospital. She subsequently told a social worker she wished she had 'done it bigger to make more of a statement'. (Later in the children's home Rhianan would try to scratch the swastika out.) Derbyshire County Council opened a child protection inquiry while police, working alongside MI5, decided to arrest her, alarmed that she now posed a risk to national security. On October 21 2020, counter-terrorism police raided Rhianan's home and arrested her. Her bedroom, they discovered, had become a shrine dedicated to Hitler. The arrest forced Prevent to cease its de-radicalisation work with her. There was no turning back. Rhianan was finally charged in April 2021 with six separate terrorism offences, including the possession of instructions to make a bomb and another on how to 3D-print a gun. At 15, she had become the youngest female ever charged under the Terrorism Act. The decision to prosecute was hugely controversial. It is not unusual for terror suspects also to be suffering from serious mental health problems, but even inside MI5 there were concerns that entering a young, mentally unstable girl into the criminal justice system was unwise. 'We're seeing more and more of these cases and it doesn't sit comfortably,' one intelligence officer wrote in an email which was made public at Rhianan's inquest. But another officer justified the investigation. 'Opening an investigation is sometimes the only way of understanding the threat and the necessity to investigate them in the interests of national security,' wrote the MI5 agent, adding: 'No exception can be made in Rhianan's case.' The prospect of dragging such a damaged child – Rhianan had a history of self-harm – through the courts was clearly problematic. But by December 2021, all charges against the girl, now aged 16, were dropped. Theresa May, when home secretary, had put in place a unit within the Home Office to identify victims of trafficking and slavery. It concluded that Rhianan, having been groomed and exploited by Cook in Ohio, had been trafficked, even though she was born in the UK and had never left Britain. But the threat of imprisonment and the stress of a full-blown counter-terrorism investigation had taken its toll. 'In our submission, Rhianan was subjected to an extraordinary and exceptional level of state involvement in the period leading up to her death,' said Jesse Nicholls, her family's lawyer, at the inquest, adding that her 'known vulnerability' made her unable to cope. Not long after the charges were dropped, in January 2022, Rhianan was placed in the care of Bluebell House children's home in Nottinghamshire. Pradeep Manaktala, who founded Blue Mountain Homes (which ran Bluebell House), says Rhianan appeared 'a very happy child but felt conflicted'. Her mood continued to fluctuate wildly – at times she suffered a recurrence of disturbing thoughts, at others she felt more hopeful and focused on her GCSE exams. Manaktala blamed her radicalisation on Mallaburn. 'He taught her to look at the world that way,' he says, 'but at the same time she was being cared for and given unconditional love here by our black and Asian staff. She found it difficult to reconcile this with what she was being told by this white supremacist preacher.' Rhianan at times appeared to be responding. 'I wish life could be normal. I just want to be myself,' she wrote in her diary while in the children's home. But her life was anything but normal – to the extent that on a day trip to Alton Towers, accompanied by a support worker, she donned a German military uniform; she also celebrated Hitler's birthday on April 20 2022 by speaking in a German accent and wearing combat gear. With charges dropped, Prevent began working with her again in Bluebell House. But any intervention was perhaps too little, certainly too late, and possibly 'too challenging', according to her family's legal team. Nicholls, a barrister at the human rights chambers Matrix, suggested the final Prevent session may have had a 'causal connection' to her 'self-inflicted' death just a few days later. Rhianan scrawled a note declaring 'Kill the Jews' that was found by care home staff; and told her mother on a home visit that she wanted to contact yet another American extremist, who had previously sent her photographs of himself in camouflage clothing and holding a gun. Despite the madness, care home staff became convinced her behaviour was showing signs of improvement. But on May 19 2022, Rhianan was found dead in her shower in the children's home. She was dressed all in black. In the hours before taking her own life she had posted on Instagram a simple, heartbreaking message: 'I'm delving into madness'. Three years on from Rhianan's death, Emily Carter's pain is still evident. 'I miss her more than life itself. I miss her smile, her laugh and her conversations,' she said in the statement read out at the start of the inquest, 'I will see her again one day and I know she will be the same Rhianan I have always loved and cherished.' She believes her daughter was badly let down – by everyone from social services to MI5 and the police. 'It's been devastating,' she says, 'how everything has gone and the way it was handled. It was wrong in every aspect.' Three days after Rhianan's death, Ann Mallaburn posted a manga-style self-portrait by Rhianan on her Facebook page, with the message: 'Rest in Peace. You deserved so much more. None of it was ever your fault.' Dax Mallaburn commented: 'She will be missed dearly and never forgotten.'
CBC
02-04-2025
- CBC
Ottawa neo-Nazi propagandist found guilty of inciting hate, helping terrorist group
Patrick Gordon Macdonald showed no emotion as he was convicted of participating in and facilitating terrorist activity by helping make and share propaganda for the now-defunct terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, and inciting hate against Jews.
CBC
02-04-2025
- CBC
Terror propagandist 'Dark Foreigner' guilty on all counts
Social Sharing WARNING: This story contains descriptions and images of racist online content targeting Jews, Muslims, the 2SLGBTQ+ community and others. An Ottawa man accused of trying to sow hate and fear by helping create racist recruitment videos and other propaganda for a now defunct far-right international neo-Nazi terrorist group has been found guilty on all charges Justice Robert Smith found Patrick Gordon Macdonald guilty of the three charges against him on Wednesday: participating in terrorist activity, facilitating terrorist activity and committing an offence for a terrorist group. Macdonald, 27, pleaded not guilty in Ottawa's Superior Court at the outset of his trial in November to participating in the terrorist activity of Atomwaffen Division. He was accused of helping produce the videos and other images, facilitating terrorist activity, and inciting hate against identifiable groups for one or more terrorist entities, including Atomwaffen Division and the neo-Nazi James Mason. He was alleged to have done it in 2018 and 2019 — when he was 20 and 21 — in Ottawa, Belleville, Ont., and Saint-Ferdinand, Que., among other places. Closing arguments were heard in early December, after which the judge retired to decide the case.
