She told officers that she had been radicalised after “learning more about Islam” online. She said she had dowloaded more than a hundred hours of sermons by Anwar al-Awlaki, the terrorist cleric described by the US as the spiritual leader of three of the 9/11 hijackers. Awlaki, an American citizen living in Yemen, has been singled out by the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, as a figure “of particular concern” to the security services.