AS A YOUNG girl, Rhianan Rudd was full of energy, dancing, laughing and riding her beloved ponies, with dreams of becoming a professional jockey.
She ended her life at just 16, having turned into a Hitler and Nazi obsessed extremist after being groomed by an older man online.
Rhianan Rudd (pictured) became a teen terror suspect was at 14. Credit: Family handout
Chris Cook (pictured) sent Rhianan racially motivated, violent extremist material Credit: MONTGOMERY CITY SHERIFF
A complicated personality disorder and teenage emotions left Rhianan, from Derbyshire, vulnerable to 18-year-old Ohio-based far-right extremist Chris Cook, who began messaging her with links to racially motivated, violent extremist material when she was 14.
It was to lead her to carve a swastika on her forehead, downloaded bomb manuals and guides on guerrilla warfare and develop a hatred of Jewish people.
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In 2020, then 15, Rhianan became the youngest girl in Britain to be charged with terrorism offences.
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Rhianan was speaking to Chris Cook for up to 15 hours a day during lockdown Credit: PA
Emily (pictured above with Rhianan) was “bewildered” by her daughter’s changing beliefs Credit: Supplied
Cook (right) recruited for a Nazi organisation online Credit: US Justice Department
YOU’RE NOT ALONE
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost to suicide.
It doesn’t discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society – from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It’s the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes.
Yet it’s rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Jattvibe launched the You’re Not Alone campaign.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let’s all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others… You’re Not Alone.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
Earlier in her life Rhianan’s obsession was not with Nazis but anime – a love for the Japanese animation that remained with her to the end.
A talented artist, she was also into the “furry culture” and was talented at making her own animal costumes to wear.
“Rhianan had undiagnosed autism,” says her mum, Emily. “She would fixate on something and then another.”
Her creative mind saw her switching personalities where she would be happy one moment and sad the next.
“When she was about three, she would wake up in the morning and I’d say, ‘Come on Rhianan, get dressed and she would be like, ‘I’m not Rhianan.’ And it was a totally different person that I was talking to,” recalls Emily.
In 2012, when Rhianan was seven, she moved with her mum and her brother Brandon, to a women’s refuge for victims of domestic violence.
“Rhianon and Brandon were like two peas in a pod,” says Emily. “They argued like cat and dog but, at the same time, they would protect and help each other.”
There was a marked change in her from the age of 11.
“She didn’t seem happy anymore,” says Brandon. “She was really depressed a lot of the time.”
After watching a TV documentary about UK women writing to prisoners in the US, Emily, a jaded stay-at-home single parent, got in touch with Dax Mallaburn.
“I checked him out to make sure he had no history of domestic violence or was a sexual offender,” she says.
“His crimes were mainly weapons related. I went over to America and met him when he got out of prison and we had a connection and it became a romantic relationship.”
She was aware that he had been part of right-wing extremist gangs in the past but that he had left them and considered himself a changed man.
He came over to visit her in Derbyshire and stayed for a while but she decided that he was not the man of her dreams and he flew home.
The family settled into a house of their own and Rhianan seemed happy at her new school and made friends there.
But her fondness for disturbing gifs and images that she found and circulated online – the burning twin towers in the 9/11 terrorist attack, overlaid with the picture of a cat and the slogan, ‘Never Purrget,’ a gif of Hitler twerking – caused friends and family concern.
Rhianan became the youngest girl in Britain to be charged with terrorism offencesCredit: Refer to source
Emily said watching her daughter be handcuffed and walked out was like a movieCredit: Refer to source
“The personality of ‘Jessica’ came around when she was 12,” says Emily. “Jessica was very diva, dramatic-like. You knew she was in the room. She would be in your face. It was very strange watching Rhianan swich between personalities.”
During the covid lockdown of 2020, when Rhianan was 14, Emily agreed to let her have a computer in her bedroom.
“One day she came down and said, ‘Oh, me and my friend Chris, from school, are doing this history thing on Germany.’ And she became obsessed with Germany,” says Emily.
“I knew she spoke online to this Chris a lot so I checked her computer and I couldn’t see anything on there that made the hair stand up on your neck. So, I would tell myself that I was being paranoid and that she was just being a teenager.”
But a few months later she started telling her shocked brother that the holocaust didn’t happen and that, “The Jews control all world banks.”
“I was bewildered and wondered why she was suddenly saying this,” he says. “She was so locked into these beliefs that there was just no reasoning with her anymore.”
She also told her school friends she wanted to bomb a synagogue.
Worryingly, Dax had messaged Emily to say that he had been contacted by police to ask if he knew Rhianan Rudd and Chris Cook.
“I remember Rhi came downstairs, crying, saying that Chris was her boyfriend at school and after saying that he loved her, she had not been able to get in touch with him for a few days,” says Emily.
“I asked him why he had disappeared and she replied, ‘I don’t know. He’s probably been arrested.’ I was shocked and asked her what for, but she just said, ‘I don’t know.’”
That afternoon, Emily filled in an online form to the deradicalisation programme Prevent, saying: “I need help with my 15-year-old daughter. She has a very unhealthy outlook on fascism. She also has massive dislikes for certain races and creeds. I have done my best to deter her from any such ideologies, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears”.
But before she heard back, Rhianan was arrested at their home in Bolsover, Derbyshire by counter-terrorism officers.
Emily says her daughter had so much to offer to the world and had a good heart Credit: PA
Rhianan had previously shown an interest in anime rather than extremism Credit: PA
Two days earlier, her school had informed police about malicious texts she had been sending friends.
They had then turned up at the house and took away her computer and a USB memory stick.
On it they discovered a downloaded pdf about how to make a bomb.
Police then returned and arrested her on suspicion of six counts of terrorism charges.
“I watched the female officer put handcuffs on her and she did them up as small as she could but they just fell off, because she was that tiny,” says Emily.
“It was like I was in a movie. Watching her walk out that door felt like my soul had left me.”
Following Rhianan’s arrest, her case with Prevent was closed and Counter Terrorism Police took over, who passed on the information to MI5, which opened an investigation.
In police interviews she stated that she had met Chris Cook on an online gaming platform.
She said that he was an American Neo Nazi and that they were in contact for 15 hours a day during lockdown.
As part of her bail, Rhianan had to stay at home and not be allowed access to the internet.
Having carved a swastika on her forehead and told her mum she wanted to die a martyr after “taking vermin off the world,” she ran off to Sheffield where she was found by police and put into a children’s care home, Bluebell House.
In the run-up to her trial, her defence team insisted that she was referred to the Home Office’s exploitation register – the National Referral Mechanism, which helps identify people who may be victims of modern slavery and trafficking, including exploitative practices like online radicalisation.
In a diary entry of July 2021, Rhianan wrote. “I want death. It would be so much easier. I wish my life was normal. I genuinely want to commit suicide. I frequently find myself alone, despite the people around me.
“I want someone to love me, to just hold me tight, but of course this is impossible. Will I be a terrorist again? Who knows? F…it all. I don’t know how to be myself. I don’t know how to get me out.”
On 27 January 2022, when she was 16, the terror charges were dropped after the Home Office decided she was a victim of trafficking.
“I expected her to come home but she remained at Bluebell House, because she preferred it,” says Emily. “That hurt.”
“My sister thought mum had massively betrayed her in informing the authorities,” says Brandon.
“She told me she was staying at Bluebell House for the money, because they gave her a lot more than my mum could ever give her, for doing small things, like household chores.”
“They were telling me everything was hunky-dory now with Rhianan and that she had goals they could help her with, but I know my daughter,” says Emily.
“I knew she wasn’t deradicalised because it hadn’t gone away. She just supressed it.”
Standard procedure meant that Rhianan received no deradicalisation support from Prevent for nearly 13 months while the criminal investigation was ongoing.
Once the charges were dropped, Prevent started to have sessions with her in February 2022.
“She came home to see us that May,” says Emily. “She seemed solemn but was putting a smiley face on.
“We drank tea and talked, watched a bit of telly, and as she was leaving, she came over and hugged me and said, ‘I love you, Mum.’ And I said, ‘I love you, too, darling.’ She said, ‘I’ll see you soon,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll see you Wednesday.’ And I looked at her and thought to myself, ‘This is strange. She never hugs me in this way.’ It played on my mind all night.”
The next day Rhianan had another session with Prevent but this time there was a change of focus where they were delving deeper into the darker elements of her exploitation.
Three days later, police informed Ellie that her daughter had hanged herself.
“I broke down in tears,” says Emily.
“She had an apprenticeship as a jockey lined up, she was making costumes for charity. She had so much to offer the world. She had a good heart.”
At the inquest into her death, it was said that Dax Mallaburn likely played a role in introducing and encouraging Rhianan’s interest in extreme right-wing materials.
Emily and Brandon do not place him in any good light but are not convinced that he played a pivotal part.
It is Chris Cook, who the FBI arrested for Neo Nazi extremist offences in the US, who they blame.
How to get help
If you need help or are concerned about a family member of friend, you can contact charity Exit Hate UK, who offered support and guidance.
To get in touch with them follow the link here. The group also shares advice, information, podcasts and articles here and here.
For urgent help, please call 0800 011 3764 to speak to ACT Early for help. They operate a 24 hours a day helpline, manned by specially trained officers and concerns are shared in confidence.
For more information on ACT Early, click here. You can also reach out to the Anti-Terrorism Hotline on: 0800 789 321.
If you need to make a referral to deradicalisation programme Prevent, or for additional informal about their work, click here.
“He had groomed Rhianan to the point that she sent him sexual videos of herself nude,” says Emily.
She remains aggrieved after learning from a journalist that the FBI informed MI5 about her daughter’s connection with Chris Cook months before Rhianan was charged with terrorism offences in the UK.
“They knew Rhianan was being sexually exploited but they kept on treating her like a terror suspect,” says Emily. “Not one person did the honourable thing of just coming round and talking to her.”
The inquest found that late exploitation referral meant that Rhianan had been treated like a criminal, not a victim.
The Chief Coroner stated that she found the change in focus by Prevent, two days before Rhianan died, to have “not been not appropriate and likely resulted in a more challenging exploration of extremism-related topics than was desirable,” but that she did not believe it “more than minimally contributed to Rhianan’s death.”
Christopher Cook, now in prison, failed to respond to the allegations raised in the documentary.
MI5 said: “The findings concluded that, throughout the investigation, MI5 viewed Rudd as a vulnerable minor and that MI5 received information from the FBI after the Prevent referral.”
Bluebell House said: “Any reassurances provided to the family by staff at Bluebell House reflected the genuine, reasonable and professionally sound assessment shared by every professional across every agency involved in Rhianan’s care at that time.”
The Schoolgirl Terrorist? airs on Wednesday 13 August at 10.00pm on Channel 4.
