Penny and Ron Jones say they were not told Isis had trained Ahmed Hassan to kill

The foster carers of the Iraqi teenager who carried out the Parsons Green tube bombing in September 2017 are suing their local council for negligence because they were not told that Islamic State had “trained him to kill”.

Surrey county council told Penny and Ron Jones, who have fostered 269 children over 47 years and received MBEs for their service in 2010, that Ahmed Hassan was “merely … a troubled young person”.

Hassan, who claims to be 19, was sentenced last year at the Old Bailey to a minimum of 34 years for the attack, which injured 51 passengers on a District line train. He came to the UK illegally in 2015, and was placed with the Joneses in 2016.

He told officials he had trained with Isis, but the council did not pass the information on to the couple, who have not been asked to foster any more children since.

The couple say the council was negligent in not telling them the full story about Hassan’s past.

Penny Jones, said: “We want to make sure that no other foster carers are ever treated like we have been. They told me that he had tried to kill himself and would only be released if he was fostered into a stable home so we took him in.

“On the surface he was a lovely boy. He wouldn’t let Ron mow the lawn and he would always carry the shopping in from the car. So when it came out he was building a bomb in our home it was a real shock.”

Hassan assembled the bomb on the kitchen table of the couple’s Surrey home while theuy were away on holiday.

Ron Jones said: “We were told that the amount of explosives he had was enough to blow up this entire block of six houses. It’s terrifying.”

Penny Jones said: “When Ahmed’s trial was going on, I was asked if I knew if he had said he was trained to kill by Isis and I said no, we would never have taken him if we’d known.”

Jocelyn Cockburn, a civil liberties solicitor who represents the couple, said: “Surrey county council owed Penny and Ron a duty to disclose key information about the danger Ahmed posed … before asking them to invite him into their home. Instead he was presented merely as a troubled young person. Had the appropriate disclosure been made, Penny and Ron would not have agreed to foster Ahmed.”

A spokesman for the council said: “We are defending this claim. However, we acknowledge this has been a very difficult time for Mr and Mrs Jones and their family. We place a high value on openness with all our foster carers, share information about any risks with them from the outset and continue to keep them informed. This was our approach with Mr and Mrs Jones.”