UPDATED: Teenage girls were being groomed as jihadi brides in Brighton and Hove

Talking exclusively to The Argus, the city council’s director of children’s services, Pinaki Ghoshal, said it was one of the problems the council has faced as it targeted 28 individuals identified as being at risk of exploitation and radicalisation.

A number of British girls from outside Sussex have travelled to Syria to become jihadi brides, where they become partners in arranged marriages.

Last year, three British girls who had travelled to Syria to become jihadi brides revealed the daily horror they endured before escaping the terror group – including being raped five times a day and sold as sex slaves.

When asked by The Argus if that was what Mr Ghoshal’s team was dealing with in Sussex, he said: “That’s something that’s been reported nationally and child exploitation refers to boys as well as girls.

“But that is one scenario we have been dealing with, yes.”

Mr Ghoshal would not be drawn on how many girls had been targeted for grooming or how many individuals the council was now working with.

But he did reveal that the group of 28 was made up of a range of genders, religions and ethnicities and that there was no one common denominator.

Following the Deghayes brothers Amer, Jaffar and Abdullah and their close friend Ibrahim Kamara leaving the city to fight in Syria, Brighton and Hove City Council has acted to stem the flow of teenagers travelling to Syria by imposing travelling restrictions and making them wards of court.

A joint initiative was also set up by the council and Sussex Police in a bid to tackle concerns over extremism.

This team identified 28 individuals at risk of radicalisation in the city, who were given support to stop them becoming involved in terrorism activity.

None subsequently travelled to the Middle East.

A serious case review is under way to learn how the Deghayes brothers and Ibrahim Kamara left the country, with some details already leaked to the national press.

The review has not yet been completed and is not likely to be published for a number of weeks.

PROMISE OF A LIFE AWAY FROM THE SUPERFICIAL WEST

WHILE men’s motivations for joining terrorist groups may by their desire to fight, the lure for women is more complex, according to an expert.

Elizabeth Pearson, of the defence studies department at King’s College London studying gender and radicalisation, said marrying a jihadi fighter is an appealing prospect for some women, who source a partner even before they arrive.

“For young women this is the lure of romantic adventure,” she said.

“But Islamic State (IS) also wants wives who are committed to the cause.

“A second lure then is the Utopian vision of society propagandised by IS. A chaperone to aid arrival, a home, a monthly allowance.

“This lure is practical but also ideological. It is an explicit rejection of the perceived superficiality of the West, of feminism, of gender equality.

“It is a rejection of a culture of ‘beauty salons’ and boutique stores. It is a land of shared purpose, with none of the complexity or confusion of British teenage life.

“For those feeling alienated from British society and seeking easy answers, this can be a powerful draw.

“So too for those women who are committed ideologues, who passionately believe in Isil’s brand of Sharia law.

“The question of a lure suggests entrapment, an innocence in the women joining Isil.

“But we should not assume that women’s motivations for joining Isil are any less political than those of men.”

The reality is anything but. One woman who tried to kill herself after she was sold to IS, said: “The man who had bought me took me to hospital.

“He told me he was going to rape me that same day, however ill I made myself. He took me home, tied up my hands and feet and raped me.

“He raped me about five times a day. My sister was barely 14 when they raped her. I could hear her screaming but I couldn’t do anything as I was tied up.”

She also told how one girl slit her wrists to escape the ordeal.

With her body wrapped in a blanket, she was thrown out with the rubbish.

The former jihadi bride said she was told lies about a lavish lifestyle and none materialised.

She said: “They say they have a nice house, a husband, money, everything a 15-year-old would want.”

“It is all lies. They promise them a nice house, servants and a car but they lie again.

“My message is, don’t go. You will be raped and beaten and sold to other men. They are criminals.”

JOINT APPROACH TO FIGHT RADICALISATION

IN a joint statement from Brighton and Hove City Council’s director of children’s services Pinaki Ghoshal and Sussex Police’s chief superintendent Nev Kemp, the authorities highlighted how they had worked with 28 individuals at risk of becoming radicalised.

The statement said: “Our concerns were not solely about radicalisation. They were as much about their vulnerability to criminal activity and in some cases sexual exploitation.

“We have worked in established partnerships with local community and religious groups to engage with these young people, hear their grievances and help them turn their lives around in a more positive direction.

“This work has been very successful and as a result we do not consider these young people to be at risk of radicalisation." None of them have gone to Syria.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW

Here is the full transcript of senior reporter Gareth Davies’ (GD) interview with Brighton and Hove City Council’s director of children’s services Pinaki Ghoshal (PG) and Sussex Police’s superintendent James Collis (JC).

GD: Most of the coverage has come from a leaked report which I understand is being in the process of being compiled – can you tell me more about that?

PG: The report is being worked on by the local children’s safeguarding board, independent of the council.

It’s a serious case review.

When a young person dies or suffers a really serious injury, there is always consideration into whether a serious case review should take place.

With the youngster dying in Syria, we took the view collectively that we should take a look at the learning we can take from this.

There are young people in other parts of the country in similar situations who have died and the LSC have not conducted a serious case review.

We think we’re the only area doing that, but we’re doing it to learn.

That’s in process.

A lot of the reporting are referring to a draft report.

There is no draft report.

What’s happened is that as you do an investigation, you gather information, and some of that information has been leaked.

But that’s not the report.

Some of it may or may not be correct.

GD: Before we start is there anything you want to put on the record as completely incorrect?

PG: No, I think the process has got a long way to go, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to comment around that.

It will publish in the fullness of time.

What we thought was important, following the leaks, the reporting in the national and local papers had some inaccuracies and some alarmist stories.

The thing that’s really part of this is the 28 city jihadists, which is a quote from a piece in The Argus yesterday.

There are not 28 city jihadists, there have never been 28 city jihadists and it’s really important the residents are not fearful there are people out there wanting to attack them because that’s not the case.

GD: Where has that figure of 28 come from then?

PG: The 28 figure relates to a number of young people we identified nearly two years ago as having concerns that they were vulnerable to exploitation, and that’s in terms of radicalisation and sexual exploitation.

There were at that point 28 identified, we working with those 28 young people and there are now not 28 young people. I know you’re going to ask me about that number now, but I’m not going to answer that question.

I can say that of those 28, not one of those went to Syria.

GD: How were those 28 identified to yourselves?

PG: Through a range of agencies.

The police were involved.

Just give me an example of how someone would go from not being on your radar to being identified to be at risk.

We’ve had examples of schools being worried about what youngsters are saying, what members of the family are saying.

We’ve actually had members of the family contacting us about a young person within that family.

So there’s not a single route, but what happens is when someone identifies a youngster they’re concerned about, we do a risk assessment.

It might be that we have a look and we see no evidence of risk.

It’s not a case that someone says they’re concerned and it automatically becomes a case, there’s more to it than that.

GD: What sort of things specifically are we talking about? You mentioned saying certain things – like what?

PG: They’re accessing stuff on the internet.

You’ll know there’s things out there nationally on social media which is unsavoury.

There’s content out there being promoted by groups out in Syria and elsewhere and if youngsters n this city are accessing that material and giving any credence to this material, then that is of concern./

That’s a narrative that is not correct and one of our responsibilities is to address it and give a counter-narrative.

JC: It could be that they withdraw from their group of friends.

It might be that they’re starting to hang around with others that are falling out of school and getting involved in small criminal behaviour.

It’s that change of behaviour we really want to get on top of so we can see where they’re looking, put a diversion in place and have a conversation to see what their issues are.

It’s not purely about radicalisation – it’s about a set of behaviours that could end up in a number of different places.

PG: If there are people out there looking to exploit youngsters, regardless of what that exploitation may be, we have a duty to safeguard that young person.

GD: The Deghayes brothers (Amer, who is still fighting the Assad regime alongside al-Nusra Front, an affiliated branch of Al Qaeda, Jaffar and Abdullah who both died alongside Ibrahim Kamara in Syria fighting with the same group) came over with their family from Lybia and Ibrahim Kamara’s mother was originally from Sierra Leone - is the general trend foreign families coming over?

PG: No.

GD: Give me an idea of the make-up of that 28 then.

PG: I don’t think we can do that.

One thing I can’t do in this interview is unveil operational details, which I’m sure you’re aware.

JC: It doesn’t matter about backgrounds.

They could come from different families and ethnicities – it’s the behaviour that’s important to us.

GD: One national paper stated that radicalisation was happening within the schools – specifically Amer Deghayes along with another student taking people into the prayer room. Is that something you were made aware of?

PG: The prayer room, I’m not aware of that incident, and therefore cannot comment.

GD: These 28, had you not intervened, there is every chance they would have been radicalised and that they would have become jihadis. Is that not accurate?

PG: It’s difficult.

JC: It’s a bit of a stretch.

There are lots of positive influences out there and there’s every chance they could have intervened at any stage.

As part of our role, we’re looking to create spaces within Brighton and Hove where people can go and talk about these things and have those conversations and be challenged by the wider community.

PG: In the last two years, nobody from Brighton and Hove has travelled to Syria.

That’s not the case in other parts of the country.

I think we’re doing good work here.

GD: On Monday we published that there were five girls within that 28, is that figure accurate?

PG: You did publish that, and I have no idea where you’ve got that figure from.

GD: But there were girls within that 28?

PG: The 28 were of mixed gender, yes. There was at least one girl.

There were a number of inaccuracies in the story on Monday, but we can’t comment on them.

GD: The vulnerable girls, for example. Presumably they were at risk of travelling over to Syria to become trophy brides to terrorists groups?

PG: I know this is going to be frustrating for you as you want to speculate on individuals, but for very obvious reasons I can’t go into detail about them because we need to protect them.

I get it that you will want to ask those questions, and I know it’s going to be frustrating, but we cannot respond to the answers to those questions.

Because our duty is to safeguard those children and protect them.

GD: Give me an idea of the range of ages we’re talking about here.

PG: I’m not sure I can.

I mean, they’re all under the age of 18, so they’re not going to be five-year-olds.

We’re talking about teenagers.

GD: Predominantly in secondary schools then?

PG: Well, yes, that’s where teenagers are at school.

GD: Anyone younger than teenagers?

PG: I think we’ll stop at that point. Good try, though.

GD: Give me an idea of what you mean by radicalisation, because that’s a disputed word and there’s a bit of a grey area there.

PG: There are some young people who are accessing materials that is worrying, published by groups like Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

What these groups are trying to do is impose a world view on that young person and detach them from mainstream society here who view the world differently.

There are people being targeted by these people.

It’s happening here, it is happening everywhere else, but some of those 28 were being targeted in that way.

GD: How are they doing it?

PG: There are lots of different social media routes.

JC: Once I think I’m up to speed with the social media young people are using, someone tells me there’s a new one.

Part of their role as recruiters is being one step ahead of people like me, but hopefully not the experts.

But it’s internet based.

GD: We’ve done our own research into how youngsters are radicalised, and we’ve found no trace of a hate cleric in the city rounding up vulnerable youngsters, but the fear is that teenagers at schools are prone to being easily swayed one way or the other. You mentioned they weren’t working together as a gang, but we know as a fact the Deghayes and Ibrahim Kamara were close friends. It would be foolish of us and of you as well to think that these 28 were not in some way branched out as a result of that group. That they were connected in some way.

PG: The 28 are not linked together, but there were people in that group that were associated with that family, but I won’t speculate on how many.

They’re not a group, they never met together.

JC: Because of the ways we’ve mentioned through the internet, it makes sense because you don’t need that physical proximity.

GD: The Deghayes brothers and Ibrahim Kamara – are we any clearer at the moment as to how they travelled to Syria?

PG: That’s part of the review.

GD: That family in particular were well known to the council and police, what has been done since then because presumably the other members of the family would have been at risk of exploitation?

PG: We’ve provided support, but it’s not appropriate to provide detailed commentary on the support given to them because it’s a personal matter for the family.

GD: There have been bans some youngsters in the city from travelling, can you expand on that for me?

PG: One of the legal routes we have is to apply to the court to make them a Ward of Court – that’s something we’ve done appropriately.

You would only do that in some circumstances.

JC: This isn’t’ a stand-alone issue.

Some of these people may be involved in other issues, so some bail conditions could help like curfews and handing passports in.

There are lots of different avenues and tools available.

GD: How many Wards of Court have you applied for?

PG: I’m not going to say that, but it’s not the figure you’ve reported.

What we have is an individual plan for each person, it’s very individual, we need to know what’s going on with that child, family and the issues.

GD: Why aren’t you willing to tell me how many you’ve applied for?

PG: Because it’s an operational matter.

These are issues that we discuss with a number of agencies national and I’m not at liberty to share them with you.

The figure you’ve quoted (three) is incorrect.

GD: Is it less or more than that?

I’m not going to say.

GD: This sexual exploitation will stand out to readers as we publish it, so just give us specifics of what you mean by what you’re dealing with.

PG: Child sexual exploitation – there is a range of activities that includes.

It includes rape, but not always rape. 

Any youngster is exploited under the age of 18 would be someone we would have concerns about.

The sexual exploitation and other exploitation often overlap.

If you’ve got a vulnerable young person, if they are exploited, they can go down a number of different routes.

They all overlap with each other, but in extreme cases we’re talking about rape.

GD: And does that overlap with the radicalisation?

PG: Again, I’m not going into detail, but I can say exploitation has been a key feature of those incidents.

GD: Now to me reading your statement, my immediate thought was that there are young girls out there in the city being targeted by terrorist groups or someone in the community and that these girls would be your classic trophy wives to be sent over to Syria or wherever to the terrorist groups.

PG: That’s something that’s been reported nationally, but child exploitation refers to boys as well as girls.

GD: But is that an accurate picture of what you’re dealing with?

PG: That’s one scenario, yes.

GD: You mentioned there is more than one case - is that the main type of issue you’re dealing with across the 28?

PG: Again, I’m not going to go into the detail of it.

I think the really important thing is that whether we had 28 city jihadis, they are not 28 jihadis, we had 28 people being exploited in variety of different ways.

And we should always be concerned if a young person is being exploited now.

GD: There were 28 young people 18 months ago, how many are you dealing with now?

PG: I’m not going to give that number.

GD: Is it more or less than 28?

PG: (No comment).

GD: While you were going about your work, how many arrests were made during the process of working with the 28 individuals?

JC: I don’t know, and even if I did, I don’t think we’d comment.

PG: I do know, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to respond.

GD: You’ve mentioned there is no cell in the city where radicalisation is happening, but I’d argue there was two years ago.

PG: I wouldn’t say there was a cell.

GD: Well you have five teenagers (The Deghayes brothers, Ibrahim Kamara and an unknown teenager) going to the same schools, living in close proximity to each other – it’s up to you how you define a cell – but they travelled to Syria and three of them are now dead. That was clearly an issue back then.

PG: But what do you mean by a cell radicalising others?

GD: They were living together, they were socialising together, they were going to school together, they were going to the mosque together – presumably those 28 have come as a direct result of that group of people.

JC: You have to be really careful with that terminology, because that relates to a lot of families within Brighton and Hove.

To me a cell is a term of a group ready for action and that kind of thing.

It sounds very American TV-ish.

What we had was a group of people, some of them knew each other, some of them didn’t.

As you quite rightly point out, some of them overlapped, but that was not a cell, that was a group of young people.

GD: They were very closed off with the people around them as to what they were doing. Ibrahim Kamara stole his brother’s passport to get out of the country and then ended up dying fighting alongside Al-Qaeda terrorists. That group in particular was so insular that even their parents had no inkling as to what was going on. How difficult is that to penetrate and there must be fears that this is still going on within the city?

JC: It goes straight back to the behaviour.

Parents can challenge that and if they’re not satisfied by the answers they have got then they can be referred to the various agencies.

We take these referrals very seriously, act as quickly as we can and it’s done in an individual way.

W carry out a risk assessment and then we push forward with a bespoke programme if that risk assessment is met.

That would be my view on that, one of the key factors is their friends, their family.

If they notice something different, they must report it to us, otherwise you’re right – it does stay under the radar.

PG: The work we do with the community is very important.

GD: How many of those 28 were linked to that group? Are you able to tell me that?

PG: No, and to be frank, without checking I wouldn’t know that figure.

JC: That’s the difficulty with linked – I don’t know the details so this is hypothetical.

You could say they’re linked because they go to the same school, but they might not even know each other.

PG: They certainly didn’t go to the same school.

I think that’s why any figure is going to be difficult because it generates this feeling of a group.

There wasn’t a group.

What there were referrals made, assessments taken place and as a consequence a number of young people being identified as at risk.

It wasn’t the process that they all came through the same route.

GD: Is there a common denominator at all when it comes to that group of 28 then?

PG: No.

GD: Nothing at all?

PG: No.

JC: That’s the complexity of this.

This isn’t a straightforward issue for any of the agencies involved and it’s very sensitive.

It’s intensive, but that tailored approach is so important.

GD: And have all of those 28 have now been successfully re-integrated into society?

PG: None of the 28 have gone to Syria.

GD: How many are you still working with and how many have you crossed of your list, so to speak?

PG: Again, we’re going back into operational detail, which I don’t think we can do.

It is the case that none of them went to Syria, it is the case that we have safeguarded all 28 people and it is not the case that magically the issues that they came to us in the first place have gone in all of the cases.

GD: Ok, let’s have a look back at what you’ve said then. Of the 28, none of them had links to each other and or a single group?

PG: That’s not quite what we said, is it?

What we said was that they are not a single cohesive group.

You have said that one or two of them may be connected to a particular family, that may or may not be correct.

GD: So there were pockets across the city?

PG: I don’t have the information in front of me, but that’s operational detail.

GD: And of a wide variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, races?

PG: Absolutely, there is no common denominator.

JC: It’s important to say that anyone is susceptible to this.

It’s not one race, gender, age, or indeed religion.

GD: So you’re seeing various religions, races and genders?

PG: Yes.

GD: Give me an idea of the timescale of what happens if a parent comes to you worried about their child.

JC: It really varies as it’s bespoke.

We need to work with the person for a certain amount of time to get to a place where they’re happy and we’re happy and that will vary from person to person.

GD: Are we talking days, weeks, the same day?

PG: Yes, it really depends on the case and the circumstances, but there are times that response time can be very, very fast.

If you go back to our wider safeguarding practice.

If a referral is made, then we have an operating procedure to respond within four hours.

It can be a very, very fast response or it can be a longer process depending on the circumstances.

JC: But the police could intervene even quicker.

If there’s a threat to life or a crime, we would respond immediately.

GD: Just coming back to your point of reacting straight away, colleagues of mine were in contact with the Ministry of Justice and they were told if Amer Deghayes should come back to the UK, he wouldn’t necessarily be arrested. That’s surely not the case, is it? If you saw him knocking about in town, you’d arrest him, surely?

JC: I couldn’t possibly say without knowing the full details of Amer Deghayes.

PG: It’s not a question for us to answer.

GD: The Terrorism Act states that it’s a criminal offence to be affiliated with a terrorist group.

JC: The scenario you’ve put to me is not one that will happen.

To come back in, he’ll come through a port and we’d anticipate the experts would pick him up.

And that would be dealt with by experts, rather than the hypothetical scenario of our neighbourhood team picking him up.

They would react to anything, but they’d pick up the phone and seek specialist advice.

GD: It staggers me that a guy who’s openly admitted on his social media pages that he’s been involved in groups related to terrorism that government officials said he wasn’t wanted.

JC: It’s difficult because he might well have been talked to, conditions applied to him, and then we go and jump on top of him – in your scenario.

That’s not going to be a very welcome message to him.

PG: It’s not our call, we’re just specialising.

GD: This topic has never been more prevalent – so looking at radicalisation – what is the landscape now compared to two years ago?

PG: I think now we have much better systems in place to support young people.

Prior to two years ago, I don’t think we had those systems and we were different to other parts of the country.

We have now very clear mechanisms to identify risk and to provide support, challenge – whatever the intervention needs.

Those processes weren’t there two, three, four years ago.

What is positive about this city is that we haven’t seen anyone go to Syria in the last two years and you only have to open the paper to see this is happening elsewhere in the country.

So I think what we’re doing here appears to be working.

We can never say categorically that this won’t be an issue in the future, that would be a foolish thing to say, it’s a really difficult area of work.

But I think it’s got to be thought of through the lens of exploitation, and not the lens of crazy jihadists who are out there to bomb people.

These are young people who have difficulties in their lives, who are getting sucked into things they don’t really understand and we have a duty to protect them from the harm that would follow.

That’s what we do, and that’s what I think we’re doing well.

JC: We’re not sitting still on this.

There’s an independent review that’s been commissioned and that’s all about learning

GD: Any ideas when that review will be published?

PG: No – there’s no date yet.

In one of the papers I saw that it would be published next month, I can categorically say that’s not the case.

We’re talking about some time.

GD: And, finally, is there anything you want to take from The Argus’ coverage to put on record as inaccurate?

PG: The only thing I want to say is that there are not 28 city jihadists.

That’s really important because I think readers will see that and be alarmed, and they shouldn’t be.

There are not 28 city jihadis seeking to attack them in some way.

If anyone is worried about an individual being exploited by radicalisation, they can call the Anti-Terrorist Hotline on 0800 789321 or contact Sussex Police locally on 101 or 999 if it’s an emergency.