Teenage girl claimed bomb recipe in notebook was from Blue Peter
Sixteen-year-old girlfriend of boy who plotted jihadist attack in Australia admits terrorism charges
THE teenage girlfriend of Britain’s youngest terrorist drew up “Blue Peter” bomb recipes in a sketch book and researched terrorism on computers at school.
The 16-year-old girl exchanged thousands of messages with a 14-year-old boy who last month admitted plotting an attack on an Anzac Day parade in Australia.
The pair contacted each other more than 2,000 times a day, declaring their love for one another and talking about getting married and travelling to Syria.
The girl, from Manchester, also used her school computers to look up the jihadist killer known as Jihadi John and the murderers of the soldier Lee Rigby.
She pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing documents likely to be of use to a terrorist, including an explosives recipe. The girl, who cannot be named, admitted the charges at the youth court at Manchester magistrates’ court flanked by her mother, an uncle and her solicitor.
No evidence was found that she was aware of the Anzac Day plot or any other plan to harm others or incite terrorism, the court heard.
The girl was held in April following an investigation which also led to the arrest of the boy, from Blackburn.
Papers from a previous court hearing told that when police searched her home, they found a sketch pad which she said was hers for school work. It contained a recipe for extracting ammonium nitrate from cold packs in order to make explosives, which an expert confirmed was viable.
The girl told police the recipe was in response to a Blue Peter programme on fireworks and denied it was part of any attack plan.
A Blackberry contained instructions for producing a timed circuit, a document about DIY bomb-making and an “Anarchist Cookbook” that included explosives recipes.
The girl also possessed publications by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, images of guns, knives and grenades, and photographs of terrorists including Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Bakr al-Bagh- dadi and Osama Bin Laden. Images of Isil symbols and flags and quotes including “I love that I should be killed in the way of Allah” and “Only Jihad No Democracy” were also found, as well as photographs of a dead child, an execution and people about to be beheaded.
Files from her school’s IT network contained searches for the Taliban, Isil, Jihadi John, balaclavas and searches for images of Michael Adebolajo, one of the murderers of Lee Rigby. Another image of a girl carried the words: “I will be the one who slaughters you, o kuffar, I will be a mujahid.”
Police found that over eight days in March this year, the girl and the boy exchanged 16,260 messages on Whatsapp.
Last month, the boy, now 15, admitted directing a plot with teenagers in Melbourne to attack an Anzac Day parade there and behead a police officer. He is to be sentenced in October.
The girl was granted bail by District Judge Khalid Qureshi, who agreed to adjust the condition of her reporting to police to allow her to attend college. She will not be allowed to travel outside England and Wales. The girl will be sentenced on October 15 and could face custody.