- Jade Campbell, 26, was arrested after police received an anonymous message
- Claimed Westfield and Victoria Station were being targeted with explosives
- The IP address for message was traced to her home in south west London
- Police discovered she had a bomb-making manual and searched 'how to how to marry someone from ISIS'. She has now been jailed for 18 months
Jade Campbell, 26, was arrested after an anonymous message was sent to the Anti-Terrorism Hotline claiming Westfield shopping centre and Victoria Coach Station
A would-be jihadi bride who was caught with an Al-Qaeda bomb making manual and researched how to join ISIS has been jailed for 18 months.
Jade Campbell, 26, was arrested after an anonymous message was sent to the Anti-Terrorism Hotline claiming Westfield shopping centre and Victoria Coach Station were being targeted with explosives.
The message was from a ‘Tracey McCartney’ but the IP address for the message was traced to Campbell’s home in south west London.
When her mobile phone was seized, officers found a copy of Al-Qaeda’s in-house publication ‘Inspire 1,’ as well as forms for acquiring a new passport.
One article was titled ‘Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,’ contained ‘detailed, step-by-step instructions as to how to make a homemade bomb, accompanied by diagrams and pictures,’ said Karen Robinson, prosecuting.
She said the article showed ‘how to prepare the device, set a clock timer and include shrapnel within it’
Instructions were ‘clear and easy to follow,’ and ‘could produce a viable explosive device.’
Campbell had followed the advice of another article, on ‘sending and receiving encrypted messages,’ and had installed the Wickr, Telegram and Surespot applications to her phone.
She had applied for a replacement passport after police confiscated it but Campbell claimed it was because she ‘wanted to get away’ and was ‘feeling lonely, hopeless and isolated.’
But internet searches found on her phone included ‘how to join ISIS’ and ‘how to marry someone from ISIS,’ as well as searches for flights to Istanbul and land border crossings between Turkey and Syria, Woolwich Crown Court heard.
She claimed she had arranged to travel to France to meet a man by the name of Bilal, who she intended to marry before moving back to the UK, but she did not go through with the plan.
Campbell accepted she had downloaded Inspire because she was ‘curious,’ but denied carrying out any ‘internet research on how to make a bomb.’
She added that she ‘does not support ISIS and rejects everything that they stand for.’
The screen saver on one of her two Samsung phones featured Abdulhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of the Paris attacks in 2015.
Wearing a grey t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘wear pink, live pink, love pink,’ black jeans and white Adidas trainers, Campbell told Woolwich Crown Court that she simply had ‘an interest in what was going on in Syria.’
Kate O’Raghallaigh, defending, referred to entries in Campbell’s web history for Channel 4 documentaries such as ‘ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled’ and ‘My Son the Jihadi.’
She asked: ‘Did you watch these documentaries because you like ISIS?’
Campbell replied: ‘No, I watched them because I just thought it would be interesting, not because I like ISIS.’
She accepted reading Inspire, but said: ‘I didn’t agree with it and I didn’t think it was pleasant.’
Campbell admitted that a Google search for ‘how to marry someone from ISIS’ was by her, but said: ‘[It is because] in the past I have had friends who have done that. I wanted to see how they did it.’
Judge Christopher Kinch QC rejected Campbell’s explanation she had downloaded some material by accident.
He said Campbell ‘did not or could not provide answers to certain questions,’ such as why flights to Turkey had been searched on her phone.
Judge Kinch said that Campbell’s research included ‘not just membership of ISIS or women’s role and position... but the practical measures in relation to the obtaining of a replacement passport, timescales and the means of travelling.’
He said that the volume and the range of searches and visits, quite apart from the bomb making material’ pointed to an ‘overwhelming and clear’ interest in extremism.
‘It does not prove that there was a clear, identifiable or concluded plan to go there, but it does demonstrate the context in which the defendant downloaded the material.
Referring to Inspire magazine, Judge Kinch said: ‘There is an article on sending and receiving encrypted messages,’ before adding: ‘There is some evidence you took steps in that regard.
‘I am sure that downloading and retaining it was not simply borne out of curiosity.’
‘The activities that you engaged in were deliberate and, to an extent, they were sustained even though you did not in the end follow through.’
Campbell, of Wandsworth, admitted one count of possessing materials likely to be useful to a person planning or committing an act of terror and one count of making a false statement to obtain a passport.
She was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for possessing materials likely to be useful to a person planning or committing an act of terror and six months consecutive for making a false statement to obtain a passport.
A further charge of disseminating false information about a bomb hoax was left to lie on file.
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