‘Jihadi bride’ joins eco mob
‘Syria mum’ in court over Extinction Rebellion’s Press stunt
AN alleged ‘jihadi bride’ appeared in court yesterday in connection with the Extinction Rebellion blockade of newspaper printers.
Natalie Bracht, 45, was seen grinning and raising her fists in the air after being released on bail.
Two years ago, the mother of nine made headlines over claims she had fled the UK in 2014 and travelled to Syria where she married an Islamic State fighter.
She was among 81 people arrested in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and Knowsley, Merseyside. Home Secretary Priti Patel said that she was ‘disgusted’ by the attack on the Press.
Yesterday policing minister Kit Malthouse told MPs: ‘As a Government we will not stand by and allow the livelihoods of hard-working people to be undermined by a minority using the pretence of tackling climate change to impose an extremist world view.’
He said he and the Home Secretary would ensure police had the ‘powers required to deal with the disruption’.
Miss Bracht is the only person so far to have appeared in court. Those charged over the weekend’s XR protests include:
1. LIZZIE HAUGHTON
SHE grew up in novelist John Steinbeck’s old cottage in Bruton, Somerset, and is now one of Extinction Rebellion’s key organisers.
Arrested at Knowsley, the 24-year-old Manchester University student is listed as a director of Climate Emergency Action, said to be the company that runs XR. In 2018, when Miss Haughton was an officer of Manchester students’ union, she was arrested in the city for highway obstruction at a climate protest.
She and nine others sat on a pedestrian crossing holding a banner which read: ‘We’re all f ***** ’.
2. PATRICK THELWELL
BEING arrested for the first time in London in 2018 on what the climate group billed as Rebellion Day was ‘the single most rewarding and worthwhile experience of my life’, according to Mr Thelwell, 21.
Working as a gardener in between studying for a degree in politics and international relations at York University, Mr Thelwell – originally from the Wirral – was adopted as a Green Party candidate for May’s local elections, postponed by the pandemic. He was among those charged with aggravated trespass over the Knowsley blockade.
3. GABRIELLA DITTON
THE illustrator, who attended Wymondham College in Norfolk where boarding fees are £11,500 a year, says she has devoted herself to ‘non-violent direct action’. Miss Ditton, 26 – who posted an online photo of herself topless in an allotment to highlight another environmental cause – was among those arrested at Broxbourne.
4. HAZEL STENSON
THE registered childminder and mother of one, 55, of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was pictured on an Extinction Rebellion rally in London with the group’s hourglass symbol on her forehead. She has been charged with obstruction of the highway in Broxbourne.
5. NATALIE BRACHT
IN 2008, Miss Bracht was photographed in Islamic dress when she fled her home in Sunderland with five daughters over fears they were about to be taken into care. They were found in Munich waiting to board a bus heading for Turkey.
Then in 2014 she was reported to have disappeared again to go to Syria, before being imprisoned and asking to come home in 2018.
Miss Bracht said she had never even met the IS fighter and had never been to Syria.
Speaking to the Mail after she was released on bail yesterday, she said: ‘The mainstream media have made me a terrorist. I never had anything to do with it.’
Miss Bracht has been charged with blocking the highway and obstructing a police officer at Broxbourne. She appeared at Luton Magistrates’ Court via video link, but refused to enter a plea or confirm her name and smiled for most of the hearing.
She only spoke to confirm her address, which she gave as a ‘squat’. District judge Sally Fudge recorded her silence as a not-guilty plea. Miss Bracht told the Mail she was not ‘connected’ to XR, but said: ‘It looks like the people in this country need help to get their free speech again.’
5. JOEL & MIRIAM INSTONE
BROTHER and sister Joel and Miriam Instone were pictured enjoying a family holiday in Tuscany eight years ago, but today both are committed supporters of Extinction Rebellion.
At his parents’ home in Bury, Greater Manchester, Joel, 30, told the Mail yesterday: ‘This is about a system that exploits working class people in our country.’
He and his sister, 22, have been charged with aggravated trespass in Knowsley.