Terror boy set to go free with lifelong anonymity
BRITAIN’S youngest terrorist, who plotted to behead a police officer, could be cleared for release in weeks.
The inmate, who completed his minimum sentence three months ago, has already been granted lifelong anonymity.
He plotted to behead a police officer when he was 14, but a parole board hearing next week is expected to be told the 20- year- old is “highly likely” to comply with licence conditions.
Known as RXG, he is one of only a handful of child criminals to be granted a protected identity for life.
Others include Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who were 10 when they abducted, tortured and killed two- year- old James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993.
Dr Louise Bowers, a forensic psychologist, said in a 2018 assessment: “RXG appears to have left his terrorist identity behind and he is well on the way to developing a new, stable and pro- social identity.”
The youngster, from Blackburn, Lancs, was jailed for life with a minimum of five years at Manchester Crown Court in 2015 after admitting inciting terrorism overseas. The teenager took on the role of “organiser and adviser” and suggested beheading or using a car to kill officers in Australia at a parade.
He used a phone app in a bid to persuade 18- year- old Sevdet Besim to commit mass murder and behead a policeman with a knife in Melbourne.
The pair would “in all probability” have succeeded had British police not found the messages and alerted Australian officers, the court heard.
A ban on identifying RXG made at the time he was sentenced would normally have expired on his 18th birthday but Dame Sharp granted him lifelong anonymity in a ruling delivered in July 2019. She said identifying him would “fundamentally undermine” his rehabilitation.
The youth’s lawyers had argued there was a “significant risk of attacks or retaliation against him” if his identity was made public.
They said he would be at risk of “re- radicalisation” by extremists and that his relatives would be likely to face reprisals were he named.
Officials are expected to decide on RXG’s release at the end of the month.