‘I don’t want to see him’ Ex-wife distances herself from London-born terrorist who ran Britain’s biggest ‘gun factory’ before converting to Islam

As Britain braced itself for the return of the convicted terrorist Aine Davis, his ex-wife Amal El-wahabi, 35, said she did not want him back in her life.

Ms El-wahabi, who is divorced from Davis, said she had not been informed of his imminent release and feared the consequences of his return.

“I’ve distanced myself from him completely and don’t want to see him,” she said. “I’m focusing on bringing up my children and on giving them a good future.”

In 2014 Ms El-wahabi was convicted of funding terrorism after a trial at the Old Bailey in which she was accused of trying to send €20,000 (£17,200) to her then husband who had travelled to Syria to join Islamic State. She said last night: “I’m different and have sorted my life out.”

Davis, the son of a school dinner lady and a father who briefly worked for John Lewis, was born in Hammersmith, London, in 1984 and spent his early years in Fulham. He was one of 13 children his father had by four different mothers. Aged five, he was sent to Gambia to live with his grandmother because he was “driving his mother crazy”. He returned to live in the UK aged 17.

In London, he became involved in local gangs, adopting the nickname “Biggz”. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to possessing a firearm after being caught by police travelling in a taxi with a handgun. At the time he was working for gangsters running Britain’s biggest “gun factory”, selling a handgun a day to gangs. At some stage, he is thought to have converted to Islam and became increasingly radicalised while in prison.

Between 2002 and 2010, he was convicted on six occasions of possessing cannabis and on each occasion given a fine.

His private life was also chaotic. He had two children with one woman before marrying El-wahabi. The couple met at a mosque in west London in 2006. Davis, by then a convert to Islam, was calling himself Hamza.

In 2009, he travelled to Yemen, enrolling at a religious Islamic school and later embarked on further travels to the Middle East, visiting Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, and then Yemen, Egypt and Qatar. He had two children with El-wahabi before leaving in 2013 to go to Syria via Turkey. In text messages and calls to his wife, he threatened to take another wife unless she agreed to join him. She stayed in the UK but was convicted of trying to send money to him through a friend who stuffed cash in her underwear but was caught trying to leave the country. The friend was acquitted. Robert Mendick and Patrick Sawer