Rhianan Rudd: 'Terrotist' teen who killed herself was radicalized and exploited online, new docu claims
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LONDON, UK: 'Groomed, Radicalized, Gone,' a new documentary, claimed that Rhianan Rudd, a British teenager and terror suspect who ended her life by suicide in 2022, was radicalized online by American white supremacists prior to her arrest in 2020.
Rudd, who at 14 was the youngest person to ever face terrorist charges in the UK, fell under the sway of two US radicals and reportedly even exchanged sexually explicit texts online with one of them. Rudd's mother, Emily Carter, claimed in the documentary that after being penalized by British authorities for obtaining bomb-making instructions, the law continued to treat her autistic child unfairly. Carter reportedly stated, "They should have seen her as a victim rather than a terrorist," according to the BBC.
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Carter said, "She's a child, an autistic child. She should have been treated as a child that had been groomed and sexually exploited." The accusations against Rudd were dropped in December 2021, but Carter claimed that she was so traumatized by the experience that she ended her life in a nursing home in May 2022, as per NY Post.
Rudd apparently became more radicalized after starting an internet conversation with Christopher Cook, an American neo-Nazi. Carter claimed Rudd absorbed the radical message like a sponge and would later carve a swastika into her forehead.
Carter stated, "[She thought] if you didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes- Aryan as they say — she didn’t want to know you, you were an inferior race, you shouldn't have been alive." Carter enrolled Rudd in Prevent, a government deradicalization initiative, in September 2020.
Rudd later admitted to being sexually and emotionally influenced by Cook when questioned by police. Additionally, the FBI had obtained the pair's intimate conversations through Cook's devices, which they then gave to MI5, the UK's domestic security agency.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that Dax Mallaburn, who was reportedly Carter's romantic interest and a member of the Arizona Aryan Brotherhood, also radicalized the teen. Carter claimed that she and Mallaburn split up before Rudd was arrested, but the BBC's investigation showed that the two had been in touch, with Mallaburn pleading with Carter to raise her daughter in the "right way."
Rudd turned to self-harm, evading capture and trying to kill herself after being prohibited from attending school. She was placed in care by social services in Nottinghamshire. Carter claimed Rudd's appearance worried her so much during a visit just days before her daughter's death that she told the employees at the care facility that Rudd was "going to do something."
Rudd was later took her own life at 16 despite being assured that her complaints would be investigated, 12 hours after going to bed in her room. In a statement to the BBC, the MI5 denied accountability for the tragedy.
"MI5 takes its responsibilities in relation to those who may be at risk of harm very seriously. If in the course of work to protect national security someone in MI5 obtains information that an individual is or may become at risk of death or serious harm, this will be passed to the relevant authorities," a government representative reportedly stated.