Aidan James has been jailed for training with a banned organisation when he went to the Middle East to fight against ISIS

A British Army reject who went to fight in the Middle East has been jailed for four years - despite battling against terror group ISIS.

Following a landmark trial, Aidan James, 28, was found guilty of training in weapons with the banned Marxist political organisation the PKK in Iraq.

But he was cleared of a second charge of attending a place of terror training with Kurdish YPG units, or 'People's Protection Units', across the border in Syria.

The court heard he was acquitted because the YPG charge because the group was working in defence of the Kurdish people against the threat of a lethal and 'genocidal' IS force, with British support.

He was given a four-year sentence but could be freed in weeks as he's already served a year and nine months and will be entitled to automatic release after two years.

James, of Formby, Merseyside, had been repeatedly turned down by British armed forces due to his mental health and had no previous military knowledge when he set out to join the war in 2017.

His mother, Tracey O'Connor said today she was 'disgusted' that he had been prosecuted for fighting against a 'barbaric regime'.

James posted a picture on Facebook in August 2017 showing himself holding a beer before he flew off to the Middle East

His mother, Tracy O'Connor, said she was disgusted he had been prosecuted for fighting against 'a barbaric regime'

Speaking to MailOnline, she said: 'I'm happy that we're going to have Aidan back but I'm disgusted in the system.

'He regrets nothing about what he did. He'd gone to Syria to save lives and fight a barbaric regime that was causing widespread murder.

'The savagery of ISIS was laid bare on the news all the time. To be convicted of a terror offence is very unfair, particularly when others have come back and seemingly got away with it.

'What he did took courage and I stand by him completely.'

Ms O'Connor, 50, said her son had been inspired to go and fight ISIS after the bombing of Manchester Arena in May 2017.

'We were watching the footage on the news at home and seeing how many of the victims were just young girls out to watch a pop concert,' she said.

'Aidan has got a young child himself and he turned and said "that's it now, I'm not going to stand back and let this happen without at least trying to do something about it".'

She hopes he could be released before Christmas.

James pictured during his time in the Middle East fighting against terror group ISIS

In court today, James's lawyer Andrew Hallsaid his client decided to travel to Syria amid significant personal troubles.

James had health and psychiatric problems and was in the middle of a 'turbulent separation' from the mother of his child when he decided to go to Syria.

Mr Hall said: 'There were serious access problems, causing him some distress.

'His state of mind during this period of time, as his journal explains, was that he felt his life was worthless and going to Syria was the only thing he felt was open to him, and at least he would feel he was doing something positive with his life for the first time.'

The lawyer said James's case was different because he had no intention of advancing the aims of the PKK group and was only focused on fighting IS.

He said: 'His intention was to go off to Syria and fight Isis and he maintained that intention both in his time in Iraq and his time in Syria.'

Unlike other cases, James was not a 'man driven by a terrorist ideology who continues to pose a threat', he added.

Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Edis highlighted video evidence of James learning to fire an AK47 rifle and detailed descriptions of his time with the PKK in his journal.

He jailed James for 12 months for the terror training offence and a further three years for separate offences of possessing cocaine with intent to supply and possessing cannabis, to run consecutively.

He was cleared of a charge relating to the Kurdish YPG in Syria, but convicted of training in with the banned Marxist political organisation the PKK in Iraq

James admitted the charges after drugs were seized in a search of his mother's home around the time he posted his intention to travel on Facebook in April 2017.

It is the first time a Briton has been put on trial for going to Syria to oppose IS, after charges were dropped against ex-soldier James Matthews, 43, from Dalston, east London.

The earlier trial heard how James was in contact with the anti-terror Prevent programme before he left Britain for Iraq in August 2017.

While there, he wrote in his diary that sitting on a roof with a 50-calibre machine gun was like something out of Mad Max.

By December, he wrote the situation with Turkey was worsening, saying: 'Daesh (IS) is the biggest threat the world has seen since Hitler so anything I can do in these operations is good.'

Later, as he prepared to come home, James wrote in his diary of his 'amazing time'.

He wrote: 'Lost good friends, met great ones, fought on front line numerous times, killed Daesh soldiers, been shot at many times by ISIS and our own guys.

'Drove humvys, sat on roof as drove through desert, attacked by suicide vehicles many times, mortar fire, sniper RPG, drones, chilled with donkey.'

The court heard he finally returned to Liverpool John Lennon Airport on February 14 last year on flights via Baghdad, Amman and Amsterdam.

James declined to give evidence but denied training with PKK terrorists in Mahkmour, Iraq, on or before October 1 2017 and attending another place for training in Syria with YPG units on or before November 4 2017.

James has already spent one year, eight months and 24 days in custody as he awaited trial and retrial at the Old Bailey, which will count as time served.

Aidan James: The Liverpool fan who learned how to use sniper rifles, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades against ISIS

James as a young man growing up in Liverpool

The mother of the first Briton jailed for fighting ISIS said he was an 'idiot' but insisted she was still proud of him, adding: 'He'd do it all again tomorrow'.

Aidan James, 28, was found guilty today of one count of attending a terror training camp in Iraq in order to fight ISIS.

The former firefighter and military reject left behind his family - including his six year old son - in Formby, Merseyside to fight for six months alongside Kurdish militants in 2017.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, his devastated mother Tracy O'Connor said: 'At first I thought Aidan was an idiot for leaving his young son behind to go and fight for people he's never met - and part of me still does.

'But another part of me is so proud of him for being brave enough to go somewhere like Syria and fight against such a brutal and evil regime.

'He knew that had he been captured by these monsters they'd have cut his head off and played football with it, yet he still plucked up the courage to go and fight them.

'And if asked to do it all again he would - in a heartbeat.'

James, pictured as he heads through security checks at Manchester Airport in 2017

His determination to fight saw him meet Pamuk Koor, a young Iraqi woman who he had helped to set free from the fanatical extremist group.

The couple 'married' in Mosul in a small ceremony and James had hoped to bring her back to Britain but their relationship broke down while he was in custody in the UK.

James's path from firefighter to foot soldier against ISIS was far from obvious.

The mother-of-four told how he had a lot of friends and would often play the 'joker' and do stunts for laughs.

'He's never had much fear of danger, which I think has been half his problem and why he puts himself at risk.

'When he was about seven years old he jumped nearly 20 feet from the first floor of a block of flats war to where we used to live. Just decided to do it.

'The ambulance was called but miraculously he didn't suffer so much as a scratch.'

James had previously been turned down from joining the Army

But tragedy struck in 2005 when at the age of 14, his elder brother Lee was killed in a tragic work accident on a nearby farm.

Clutching an old school picture of James aged 9, Ms O'Connor said: 'He never got over that.

'It hit him hard but he never really spoke about it and kept all that emotion bottled up for so long.'

Struggling to find his purpose in life, James trained to be a firefighter and was turned down by the military but gave it up to become a bodyguard only to quit the course through a lack of money.

He split with the mother of his son after the child's birth in 2013.

At the start of 2017 he became interested in the PKK, which had risen up to fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Ms O'Connor, a communications support worker, described his as a happy childhood, growing up in Liverpool and then Formby where he developed a deep passion for Liverpool Football Club.

His research online alerted the police who raided the semi-detached home he shared with his mother and sisters Manish, 22 and Lucy, 20 in Formby in April 2017.

He was quizzed by counter-terror officers about travelling to Syria but he told them he had only planned to support the PKK and had no wish to be on the frontline.

An online post of James and two others in Rojava, Syria, wishing his family Merry Christmas

But the Manchester attacks the following month spurred him on.

Ms O'Connor said: 'At the time, I thought he was just angry... but he'd go off and do hours of research at the library and managed to contact 'fixers' who were able to eventually recruit him into the YPG and helped him sneak into Iraq and Syria.'

It wasn't until she came back from holiday in August of that year that she realised he had gone.

'It was only when I came back from the U.S and saw an image on his Facebook of him holding up his plane ticket to Turkey that I twigged and knew exactly where he was going to end up.'

James's mother Tracy O'Connor

Once in Syria and Iraq, James received training using sniper rifles, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades and later became a 'squadron commander' meaning he was prepared to 'sacrifice himself for the boys'.

In a second camp he was taught how to fire guns by by Marxist rebels belonging to Kurdish organisation, the PKK, recognised as an illegal terrorist organization in the UK.

The YPG, the armed wing of the Kurdish leftist Democratic Union Party, and the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party, are fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.

Speaking to MailOnline before his conviction, Ms O'Connor said once in the Middle East her son would call her once every three weeks and would send her updates via WhatsApp.

'The whole time he was out there, I was sick with worry,' she said.

She said he had difficulty walking after having a tumour removed from his hip shortly before he left to go to Syria.

'I couldn't understand how he was going to be able to move around and escape danger. In my mind I'd started to prepare for being told that he'd been killed.'

She added that he had suffered mental health problems which have only been exacerbated by what he saw in Syria and Iraq.

'What he saw over there was horrific and enough to scar anyone for life,' she said.

'He told me that he'd been going through towns and villages in Syria that had been cleared of ISIS and found children, including babies, murdered in the most appalling ways.'

An airport security image of Aidan James taken at Manchester airport on 26 August 2017

James continued his fight against ISIS despite becoming disillusioned with large elements of the YPG just six weeks through his stint.

On one occasion he told his mother he had seen the YPG torture a 17-year-old boy whose whole family had been murdered because they believed he was an ISIS spy.

'He was strapped to a bed by his arms and legs and a commander of the YPG - a Kurd - was beating him on the soles of his feet with a blank of wood with a nail in it.

'They were trying to force information from him about where ISIS had gone but Aidan tried to stop it as he thought the lad had suffered already.

'The result was that he was punished and taken out of a unit he'd been in full of other Britons and Westerners and instead placed in one full of locals who only spoke Arabic.'

Having finally served his term, James returned to the UK in February last year where he was immediately arrested. He was found guilty today after 20 months in a top security prison and will be sentenced on November 7.

Ms O'Connor said: 'He fought against an evil regime that belongs in the Stone Age.

'He was never taken in by any of the political ideology spouted by YPG or the PKK.

'They just gave him the means to take up arms against a group of bloodthirsty terrorists responsible for the deaths of thousands.'