People don’t like it... and neither do I
Minister’s hard-hitting verdict on jihadi bride’s legal aid:
DEFENCE Secretary Gavin Williamson yesterday called for a review of legal aid, saying it was a ‘shame’ public money is being spent on Shamima Begum’s fight to return to Britain.
Mr Williamson said he did not like the fact that taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the jihadi bride’s legal challenge against Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to remove her citizenship.
He said the runaway London schoolgirl had ‘turned her back on this country’.
His comments come after the Daily Mail revealed that Begum, who ran away to Syria aged 15, will get public funding for her legal battle.
Mr Williamson told ITV News: ‘It is something that people cannot see as to why she is getting legal aid when she turned her back on this country. People make a choice and she made a choice in terms of turning her back on this country. The Home Secretary has made a judgment, it was a fair judgment, and it is a shame public money is going this way.’
Asked if legal aid rules should be changed, he said: ‘This is something that needs to be looked at afresh.’
Begum, 19, is living in a refugee camp in Syria and is eligible for funding because she has no income.
Her family launched a legal challenge on her behalf after the jihadi bride surfaced at the camp in February begging to come home after four years with the terror group.
Mr Williamson’s concern echoes that of Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who said the prospect of Begum getting legal aid made him feel ‘very uncomfortable’.
But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has defended Begum’s right to apply for legal aid, saying: ‘She is a British national and, therefore, she has that right, like any of us do, to apply for legal aid if she has a problem.’
Begum’s brother-in-law Muhammad Rahman, 36, said: ‘She should face the charges against her and if she and the family wants that to happen in Britain, then I support that. I can imagine they are celebrating after hearing legal aid is going to be granted.’ He added that he was not surprised by reports that Begum stitched suicide bombers into their explosive vests.
Mr Rahman said: ‘I’m not surprised to hear she was more involved than we first thought. She was in a toxic environment full of injustice.’
It came as it was revealed more than £400,000 of legal aid was given to three child rapists who were ringleaders of a grooming gang.
Basharat Khaliq, Saeed Akhtar and Naveed Akhtar were jailed for more than 57 years at Bradford Crown Court in February after being convicted of rape and child prostitution. Lawyers acting for the trio, from Bradford, received £425,495 in legal aid from the taxpayer – more than ten times the maximum compensation available to their two teenage victims.
Harry Fletcher, director of the Victims’ Rights Campaign, said: ‘It is a scandal that these child abusers were given half a million of legal aid, yet the victims received less than 10 per cent of that.’
A Legal Aid Agency spokesman said: ‘We are unable to comment on individual cases.’