Why weren’t we told Tube bomber had Isil links, ask his foster parents
Couple feel ‘betrayed’ as officials admit multiple missed opportunities to prevent terrorist attack
THE foster parents of the Parsons Green Tube bomber last night criticised authorities for failing to warn them that he had been “trained to kill” by militants.
Ron and Penny Jones took Iraqi refugee Ahmed Hassan, now 18, into their home in Sunbury-on-thames, Surrey, and cared for him like a son.
They say they were never told of his links to Islamic State of Iraq and the Le- vant (Isil) and have accused the Home Office and social services of putting their lives at risk.
Hassan, who arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry in 2015, was found guilty yesterday of attempted murder after causing a blast that injured 51 people on a packed London underground train. He had plotted to cause carnage under the nose of the anti-terrorism Prevent scheme and despite telling Home Office officials he had been trained by Isil.
Hassan had expressed a desire to wreak his revenge on Britain for the death of his father, who was killed in an explosion in his native Iraq when he was 12. That revenge took the form of a bomb comprising 400g of “Mother of Satan” explosives packed in a bucket with 2.2kg of screwdrivers, knives, nuts and bolts, which was planted on the packed District Line carriage on Sept 15 last year.
It was last night claimed that Prevent did not make contact with Hassan for eight months despite him being referred shortly after he arrived in the UK. Authorities have apologised for repeated failures to stop him carrying out the attack, which could have killed dozens of people.
Social workers, mental health professionals and charities had all witnessed warning signs that he was depressed and unstable.
Mrs Jones said last night: “The Home Office should have been honest. He still needed somewhere to live, he still needed to be looked after, but I would have liked to have known because we could’ve been looking out for signs of radicalisation.
“It feels like a total betrayal. I can’t believe he would do something like that. I’m just so grateful he didn’t succeed. I don’t think social services even realised, because they never told us. If they had been aware they would have said something to us.”
Surrey county council apologised to Mr and Mrs Jones for the perceived lack of support but claimed they had been informed of his background.
“We place a high value on openness with all our foster carers, share information about any risks with them from the outset and continue to keep them informed,” a spokesman said. “This was our approach with Mr and Mrs Jones and our social workers also gave them regular updates.
“Supporting Mr and Mrs Jones continues to be a priority for us as we acknowledge this has been a very difficult time for them.”
David Munro, the Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner, admitted that opportunities had been missed to tackle Hassan before he made his attack, which he said was “very worrying”.
“As far as Surrey is concerned, it is obvious we were too slow – all the organisations involved,” he added.
Ben Wallace, a security minister at the Home Office, also said there were “lessons to be learnt” from the case.
A review into the Prevent programme in Surrey is now taking place.
In January 2016, three months after arriving in Britain illegally, Hassan told Home Office officials he had been recruited by Isil and forced to train with them. During an immigration interbring
view he said: “They trained us how to kill. It was all religious based.”
Hassan later told jurors he lied about having contact with Isil to get asylum in Britain and have the chance of a “better life”.
While in the care of Barnardo’s, the children’s charity, he was caught listening to an Arabic song with a call to slaughter to people’s homes. He was also seen to look at a picture of balaclava-clad fighters holding machine guns and the black Isil flag.
That April, he was given a place at Brooklands College in Weybridge, where he studied media and photography. Katie Cable, his mentor, helped find him a foster home.
Ms Cable referred Hassan to the Government’s de-radicalising Prevent programme after he told her it was his “duty to hate Britain” when she saw a Whatsapp message thanking him for making a donation to Isil.
Two months before the bombing he texted her: “But your country continues to bomb my people.”
And in early September he told her: “It’s almost better to be back in Iraq. It’s better to die because you have heaven.”
The jury heard that the teenager had appeared traumatised when he arrived at the college, was secretive, had selfharmed and contemplated suicide. In the summer before the attack, his foster parents, who did not give evidence at the trial, expressed “significant concerns” about his mental deterioration and urged social workers to make contact with him. He was said to have gone around their home with a black marker writing “bored” on the walls.
Hassan assembled the ingredients for homemade explosives in his bedroom while the couple were on holiday in Blackpool. He used a £20 Amazon voucher, which was his prize for winning the student of the year award, to buy one of the key chemicals online.
The teenager claimed he was “certain” it would not explode, having tested a sample on the kitchen table.
Prosecutors said the student wanted to cause “maximum” carnage.
On the morning of Sept 15, he caught a train to Wimbledon carrying his bomb inside a Lidl bag. In the Parsons Green station lavatory, he set the bomb to blow in 15 minutes and then boarded the District line train, getting off one stop before it partially exploded.
Twenty-three passengers suffered burns and many suffered crush injuries in the stampede to get off the platform.
Hassan destroyed his phone and changed into a Chelsea shirt as he fled with more than £2,000 in cash, but was arrested in Dover the next day.
Giving evidence about why he planted the bomb, he said: “It became kind of a fantasy in my head.” He was convicted by a unanimous verdict and will be sentenced next Friday.