What did I do wrong?
Anguish of Westminster terrorist’s mother, 70
THE mother of the Westminster terrorist broke down yesterday as she asked herself: ‘What did I do wrong?’
Janet ajao, 70, told the relatives of her son’s victims that she had no idea he would commit such an attack.
Mrs ajao said she was ‘utterly ashamed’ of her son Khaled Masood.
The inquest into Masood’s victims heard he visited her at her Welsh home six days before the atrocity. as he left, he said: ‘They will say I am a terrorist. I’m not.’
asked if she missed an opportunity to stop the attack, she said: ‘With hindsight, yes… but at the time … terrorism didn’t enter my head.’ Masood, who had a violent criminal record, blamed his failings on not having gone to grammar school like his two stepbrothers. In 2013, he sent his mother an email in which he said: ‘you didn’t fight for me as you should have done. I became an awful teenager. I felt so angry, frustrated and unloved. I began smoking, taking drugs and getting drunk.’ Mrs ajao wept as she was shown the email and said: ‘I spent a long time thinking, “what did I do wrong?”.’
Masood’s wife also cried as it was revealed that he sent her a jihadi-themed text message minutes before his attack. rohey Hydara said: ‘I can’t believe I was married to someone that evil.’
after receiving the text with a picture of Masood inserted into a jihadi document, his wife tried to call him. When she heard of the atrocity, she rang police and said: ‘I think my husband is involved in what’s happened at Westminster.’
Gareth Patterson, QC, representing the victims, said she ‘must have known full well’ she was ‘living with an extremist’.
Miss Hydara, 41, from Gambia, told the Old Bailey hearing Masood was often violent and on several occasions she secretly recorded him ranting about IS members being ‘genuine Muslims’ – but she claimed she had no idea he would do what he did.
Masood knocked down and killed Kurt Cochran, 54, Leslie rhodes, 75, aisha Fade, 44, and andrea Cristae, 31, before stabbing PC Keith Palmer, 48, in March last year. Masood was shot dead by a plain-clothes officer.
The inquest continues.