Anguish of Tube bomb suspect’s foster parents
A PENSIONER couple who fostered the Parsons Green Tube bomb suspect are in shock over his arrest, their son revealed yesterday.
Spencer Jones said his parents Penny, 71, and Ron, 89, blame themselves for Iraqi-born Ahmed Hassan, 18, being charged with terrorism.
He said they have not been allowed back into their home after being frogmarched out by anti-terror police.
“It’s hard to believe that two people who have done so much have to suffer the indignity of having their lives dissected,” said the 45-year-old.
“I want people to know they are loving, caring people. They don’t deserve what’s happened to them.
“Their only crime has been seeing a child and wanting to love them, wanting to treat them as a human being.
“They’ve taken mum’s iPad, laptop and home computer.
“There are strangers going through every aspect of her life, her knicker drawer – a woman’s most private place.
“My parents have worked tirelessly for other people’s children in need.
“She’s a woman, the strong matriarch of the family. But I’ve also seen her, after she’s processed things, cry and be visibly shaken.
“She keeps telling me she’s shellshocked. She hasn’t been sleeping.”
Mr Jones said his parents were ordered out of their home in Sunburyon-Thames, south-west London, and told to leave everything behind, including Mrs Jones’s medication.
He said he now wanted his parents to give up fostering and let someone else “pick up the torch”.
But he added: “Knowing Mum and Dad, I wouldn’t be surprised if they take a respite then start again.”
Mrs Jones, an ex-prison guard, and her husband, a retired warehouseman, have been awarded MBEs by the Queen for their work. They had also fostered Yahyah Farroukh, 21, who was freed after questioning about the September 15 blast, which injured 30.
Hassan is charged with attempted murder and causing an explosion.
Westminster magistrates remanded him in custody.