Actress, dental nurse and carer who turned to terror

BOMB plotter Safiyya Shaikh had worked as an actress, dental nurse and trainee mechanic.

When she was radicalised after becoming a Muslim, she started living on benefits and focussing on converting others.

Born Michelle Ramsden in Hounslow, west London, she converted in 2007 and became more pious – adopting Islamic dress.

But she was spotted leaving her flat in Hayes, west London, in Western clothes and full make-up in the days before her arrest last October.

In a varied career, Shaikh previously worked as a carer, pirate radio DJ and actress – playing a forensic photographer in a 2017 film. The 36-year-old set up online groups for Muslim converts in which she boasted of ‘helping three other Brits come to Islam’. She arranged Islamic events and asked for donations to be made to her personal bank account to raise money for children in Syria and the Palestinian territories. She also raised cash to create a women’s refuge.

Shaikh previously lived in a council flat in Isleworth, west London, from where she ran a pirate radio station. Neighbours said she once had her door broken down by paramedics after a suspected drug overdose.

One said: ‘She started wearing a burka after two strange women, also in burkas, started visiting her in 2017. When I first moved here in 2011 she didn’t wear a hijab and she took drugs, but since these two women lived with her she changed.’

Another said: ‘Once, paramedics smashed down her door because she had taken too many drugs.’