Jihadi Jack’s parents ‘wired him £1,700 despite knowing he had joined ISIS in Syria’, jury hears
JIHADI Jack's parents sent their son £1,700 despite knowing he had joined ISIS in Syria, a court heard today.
John Letts and Sally Lane are accused of wiring the money after there were "clear warnings" the money could end up funding terrorism.
The 58 and 56-year-old allegedly sent their son, Jack, now 23, a total of £1,723 between September 2015 and January 2016.
They are on trial today at the Old Bailey charged with three counts of funding terrorism.
Despite airing concerns to a family friend that Letts wanted to fight in Syria, Lane paid for her son to travel to Amman, Jordan on May 26, 2014, the Old Bailey heard.
He was due to return on June 5, but he did not, and began to study Arabic in Kuwait, having received £350 from his mother using his real name.
Jurors heard Jack started asking his parents to give money to contacts he had made in Lebanon.
Alison Morgan, prosecuting, said: "It is alleged that in 2015 and 2016, the defendants sent or attempted to send money to him at a time when they knew or had reasonable cause to suspect that the money would or might be used for the purposes of terrorism.
"They knew or had reasonable cause to suspect that because it was clear from the information available to them that their son, Jack Letts had joined Islamic State and was in Syria."
The court was told the couple, from Oxfordshire, are "not alleged to be terrorists" and have never been in trouble with the police before.
PARENTS 'IGNORED WARNINGS'
John Letts sent emails to his son begging him to come home, jurors were told.
He wrote: "A father should never live to see his son buried. Please, I beg you my son, come home or at least leave where you are and do not get so involved."
Letts told his son his mother was "collapsing with fear and sadness", as his father added: "You haven't told us anything. You have misled us.
"You were supposed to be studying in Kuwait. Where are you? What are you doing?"
Ms Morgan continued: "At the age of 16, Jack Letts decided to convert to Islam.
"None of the other members of his family were Muslim, but the defendants supported Jack's decision.
"It is clear that the defendants were supportive parents, who were also concerned at times about Jack's well-being, in particular how he was affected by obsessive compulsive disorder.
"By at least early 2014, Jack started to demonstrate an interest in events in Syria.
"On 5 March 2014 he sent an article from The Guardian newspaper to his father, John Letts, which was about British people fighting out in Syria."
You haven't told us anything. You have misled us.
John Letts
Prosecutor Ms Morgan QC said: "It is not suggested that the defendants supported the ideology or actions of Islamic State, nor that they sent the money to provide positive support to Islamic State.
“However, they sent money to their son, with knowledge or reasonable cause to suspect that it might be used by him or others to support terrorist activity, or that it might fall into the hands of other people who would use it for that purpose.”
Their son fled the UK in 2014 when he was 18 to join ISIS in war-ravaged Syria.
A friend organised a meeting between Letts and his son, which was “a clear warning to the defendants about Jack’s radicalisation and his intentions, before he even left this country.”
Ms Morgan told the court the parents still sent him the money despite warnings from the friend and a string of police officers.
'TOOK LAW INTO THEIR OWN HANDS'
She added: "It is inevitable that you will have sympathy for them as parents of a man who took himself to Syria, against their wishes.
"The law applies equally to them as it would to anyone else in their position. The law is focused on the greater good, stopping money flowing into terrorist groups.
"The prosecution will allege that it was not open to these defendants to take the law into their own hands and to send money to their son, whatever their own reasons and motives may have been.”
While in Syria, Jack reportedly changed his name to Abu Mohammed and married an Iraqi woman with whom he has a son, Muhammed.
In February, he begged to come back to the UK after being left to rot for two years in a Kurdish prison.
The Muslim convert, originally from Oxford, said he misses pasties and watching Dr Who.
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He created a life for himself in the country - learning Arabic in Jordan before moving to Kuwait, then to Iraq and Syria living on "the Oxford Street of Raqqa".
Letts once admitted that during his time in Raqqa, he was behind the devastating 2015 Paris attacks after he saw children being killed by coalition air strikes.
But he claimed earlier this year that he has changed his mind and the deaths of innocent people are wrong.
John Letts and Lane deny three charges of entering into a funding arrangement for the purposes of terrorism.
The trial continues.
