Court records offer glimpse into DDP programme, under which 116 convicted and suspected terrorists are living in the UK

Mother A was enrolled in the government’s clandestine desistance and disengagement programme (DDP) after returning to the UK from Isis-held territory in Syria with a 10-month-old baby in her arms.

Her story is revealed in court records, uncovered by the Guardian, that offer a glimpse at who is subject to the DDP, why they are enrolled and what – in part – the programme entails.

A sport-loving teenager with an active social life, the woman suddenly became devout and pious after leaving school and – through a family connection and well-known member of a banned extremist group – was married to a jihadist with whom she would travel to the heart of Islamic State.

After more than two years in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, she returned with her daughter to the UK in late 2017 where she was arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences – but no prosecution was pursued.

Extremists living in UK under secretive counter-terror programme Read more

She was, however, subject to family court proceedings when the local authority applied to place her daughter, now two-years-old, into care.

And those court documents reveal that around March last year, she was enrolled in the DDP and had been meeting with an “intervention provider”.

Little is known about the programme due to the sensitive national security space it occupies but the Guardian has revealed that at least 116 convicted and suspected terrorists are engaged.

The mother had completed six sessions of work with a DDP therapist, of which the first three concerned themselves with her anxieties about accommodation, the court process and the parenting assessment rather than matters of substance, according to a court judgement handed down in June last year.

Mother A, as she is referred to in the court records, accepted the local authority was right to be concerned about her radicalisation and she acknowledged to the therapist that she had been radicalised prior to travelling to Syria.

She was keen to be a good role model for her daughter and keen to have an ongoing relationship with her, the records said, and during a session in May last year, the mother told the therapist that her husband had suggested while they were on honeymoon that they should travel to Syria in order to live there.

During another session, which took place by telephone, the mother told the therapist that she knew from the start – that is from the time that she was in the UK – that her husband wanted to travel to Syria.

In a session in June last year, Mother A told her therapist that she understood she was extreme in her beliefs but said that she did not think she would have done anything to harm anyone at that time.

She stressed that, having done some personal research, she no longer believed in Isis and what it stood for, the records said.

The therapist formed the view that the mother was very vulnerable since she had a “limited understanding of her faith and needed support with developing her theological and political critical thinking skills”.

The British-born woman, now in her early 20s and a Muslim, left school at 16 and went to college to study, before working in retail and also as a receptionist.

In 2014, she volunteered to care for a grandparent who had significant health problems. She would help them wash and dress, to move around and would keep them company.

Caring for her grandparent appears to have coincided with her increasing religious devotion. She started wearing a veil and began to practice segregation within the family home – that is the separation of men and women whenever anyone outside the immediate family was present.

“The lack of contact outside the family home was, I find, part and parcel of the mother’s adoption of strict behaviours/practices to demonstrate her faith,” the judge, Justice Gwynneth Knowles, said.

By early 2015, Mother A’s Twitter account showed an interest in Isis with evidence that she was aware of the terrorist group’s declaration of a caliphate and the extremist mindset of its members. Her Twitter banner was a picture of a number of woman, several of whom were carrying the Isis black flag.

In January 2015, she tweeted “Muslim or non-Muslim the khilafah will rule over everyone“. Another tweet on 8 January 2015, the day after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, stated in reaction to a Sky News report: “put a leash on your mouths & actions. You can’t attack Muslims in all [angles] nd expect to get away with it. A Muslim will retaliate.”

She said Charlie Hebdo was responsible for the deaths at the magazine’s offices, and not those who carried out the killings.

It was around this time that Mother A met her future husband after she was given his phone number by a woman over Twitter.

The man, in his early 20s, was a British national raised as a Christian, who later converted to Islam. Prior to his departure to Syria he lived with his parents and sister in England. He had been radicalised and held Islamist extremist beliefs and wanted to travel to Syria to fight for Isis and to engage in terrorism-related activity.

But the court documents reveal that the marriage was “brokered” by the mother’s brother-in-law, her elder sister’s husband, referred to as Z, who is a member of the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun.

The brother-in-law met with the prospective husband in January 2015 and two months later, the young woman married the man in an Islamic ceremony – apparently without the knowledge of either of their families.

The judge in the family court case concluded that the marriage was arranged to facilitate the husband’s travel to Syria, as part of his plan to fight for Isis and live in the so-called “caliphate”.

Shortly after they married, Mother A and her husband were given a lift to Gatwick, dressed in “western style” clothes and left the country on an easyJet flight, for which her husband had booked return flights.

After a few days abroad, the couple travelled to Turkey, and from Turkey travelled to Syria by road into Isis-controlled territory. Shortly after, they went to Mosul, in Iraq, where they remained for several months before travelling to Raqqa in Syria, the de facto Isis capital, where they remained for eight months.

After moving to a town near the Turkish border, the woman gave birth to her daughter. The couple eventually presented themselves to Turkish authorities, where they were held in a detention camp. As of June last year, the father was imprisoned overseas on terrorism-related charges.

At the time of the judgment being published, Mother A was living in local authority-provided bed and breakfast accommodation. The judge found there was a risk she would radicalise her daughter and could seek to take her to an unsafe location in pursuit of extremism. The daughter was taken from her care.