Investigation: MI5 confirms Britain's youngest terror suspect monitored 16-year-old girl before she took her own life after being sexually abused by right-wing extremists

A teenager who is believed to have taken her own life after being manipulated by right-wing extremists and later arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences was placed under surveillance by MI5 during an investigation.

Rhianan Rudd, 16, was found dead in a children's home on May 19, 2022, about 18 months after she was arrested for downloading bomb-making instructions from the internet and accused of planning a terrorist attack.

The teenager was the youngest person to be charged with terrorism offences in the UK.

At the pre-trial hearing into Rhianan's death, a security service statement was read out at Chesterfield Coroner's Court confirming that MI5 had “provided information” to police as part of their criminal investigation.

The autistic teenager was charged with various offences in April 2021 and her trial was due to begin in March 2022. However, the charges were dropped after the Home Office ruled that she was a victim of sexual exploitation by two American right-wing extremists, Christopher Cook and Dax Mallaburn.

Rhianan Rudd's mother says she should have been viewed as a victim, not a terrorist, when it emerged she had been manipulated by American right-wing extremists.

Mallaburn had met Rhianan's mother, Emily Carter, through a pen pal program for prisoners.

It later emerged that the police and MI5 had known for at least a year that Rhianan might have been a victim of child sexual exploitation – even before she was arrested.

Edward Pleeth, the lawyer involved in the inquiry, read the statement to the court, which said: “MI5 confirms that it has provided information to the police in the course of the police investigation.”

“MI5 did not take the decision to arrest or charge, nor the subsequent decision to discontinue criminal proceedings.”

Jesse Nicholls, representing Rhianan's mother, said: “Rhianan was a child who died in circumstances resulting from an extraordinary period of state interference preceding her death.”

“It appears that MI5 was monitoring them and the information about what steps they took as a result is relevant and should be investigated.”

Neil Sheldon KC, representing the Home Office, including MI5, told the hearing: “We accept that you will examine sensitive material very carefully to find out whether, and if so, information about the risk of self-harm or suicide was available and what, if any, action was taken on that information.”

“We consider that this is not a case where it is necessary to assess the content of the information collected by MI5.”

Senior Coroner Alexia Durran also heard that while MI5 “takes matters such as mental health into account” in its duties, “providing care and support is not part of its statutory functions or role.”

Charges against Rhianan were dropped after evidence emerged that she had been abused by US neo-Nazi Christopher Cook (pictured) and Carter's former partner Dax Mallaburn, also an American white supremacist.

Mallaburn, pictured, met Rhianan's mother through a pen pal system for prisoners

Mr Sheldon continued: “There is also an important difference between the obligation to protect individuals from a real and immediate threat to their lives and the general obligation to provide care and support.”

The full investigation will begin on February 26 next year and is expected to last three weeks.

At a preliminary hearing in May, Nicholls also said that “the conduct of the State may have been a contributing factor in her actions before she took her own life in a children's home in May last year.”

He called for the investigation to also examine “possible state responsibility” in relation to the “impact on Rhianan's mental state”.

The Chesterfield Coroner's Court heard that the police and MI5 had known for at least a year that Rhianan might have been a victim of child sexual exploitation – before she was even arrested.

However, they continued to prosecute the alleged offences. Rhianan was charged with terrorism offences in April 2021 and was due to stand trial last year. The charges were only dropped in December 2021.

Rhianan, who moved to Derbyshire from Essex with her family in 2012, was investigated by police in September 2020 after her mother referred her to the anti-radicalisation programme Prevent. The teenager was studying for her GSCEs and living in a residential home in Nottinghamshire at the time of her death.

Speaking to Mail Online in January, Rhianan's mother said of the police and MI5: “They should have seen her as a victim rather than a terrorist.”

Mrs Carter said: “She became very withdrawn, very withdrawn. If you asked her 'what were you doing up there' she would say 'nothing', whereas before she would always say 'searching, doing this, doing that'.”

“She wasn't racist at all, and then, all of a sudden, she didn't like black people, didn't like Jews, didn't like anyone who wasn't white.”

“If you didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes and were, as they say, Aryan, she didn't want to know you. You were an inferior race and shouldn't have been alive.”

Ms Carter recounted how her daughter developed an obsession with neo-Nazism and soaked up people's views “like a sponge”.

It was also revealed in May that when officers last spoke to Rhianan in April 2022, a month before her death, she was concerned about being trolled online and that an old Telegram account had resurfaced. However, police told her they would not take any further action on the matter, according to Claire Palmer of Derbyshire Police.

Palmer had also said that Rhianan was “in crisis to some extent.”

“What the police found was a vulnerable, complex young lady with very serious issues.”