Britain’s youngest terrorist who plotted to kill police to be released from jail
The boy was jailed for life in 2015 after admitting inciting terrorism overseas
Britain’s youngest terrorist, who plotted to murder police officers in Australia, may be freed from jail, it has been ruled.
The convict, who can only be identified as RXG, was 14 when he sent encrypted messages instructing a jihadist to launch an attack on the Anzac Day parade in 2015.
The boy was jailed for life at Manchester Crown Court in October that year after admitting inciting terrorism overseas.
But RXG, from Blackburn in Lancashire and now 20, is set to be released after serving the minimum term of five years.
In a document detailing the decision, the Parole Board said: “After considering the circumstances of his offending, the progress made while in detention and the evidence presented at the hearings, the panel was satisfied that RXG was suitable for release.”
At the age of just 14, the teenager took on the role of “organiser and adviser” and suggested beheading or using a car to kill officers during the annual 25 April commemoration of Australians and New Zealanders killed in conflict, which that year marked the centenary of the First World War battle in Gallipoli.
A court heard in March 2015 that RXG swapped more than 3,000 encrypted messages with Sevdet Besim, encouraging him to carry out the brutal attack.
The plot was prevented by Australian police. Besim, then 18, pleaded guilty to a terror-related charge and was handed a 10-year prison sentence.
Justice Michael Croucher said in his sentencing remarks in 2016: “To the vast majority of the community, it’s unfathomable an 18-year-old boy planned to kill a law-enforcement officer, to crash into him with a car and then behead him with a knife.”
RXG, who was radicalised by online Islamist propaganda, was granted lifetime anonymity by a judge in 2019 after ruling that identifying him would be likely to cause “serious harm”.
The British state rarely confers this order for convicted offenders, with other notable examples in recent years being Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the killers of toddler Jamie Bulger, who were both given new identities.