Groomed terror suspect not treated as a ‘vulnerable child', says her mother
In the 18 months before she died, Rhianan was diagnosed with autism, investigated by counter-terrorism policing and MI5, and prosecuted over terrorism charges after she had been groomed and allegedly sexually exploited by extremists.
Senior coroner Judge Alexia Durran concluded that she was not satisfied that Rhianan intended to end her own life at Chesterfield Coroner's Court on Monday.
She said that 'missed opportunities' in Rhianan's case were 'not systemic' and she will not make a prevention of future deaths report.
Rhianan was charged with terrorism offences (Family handout/Leigh Day Solicitors)
In an interview, Rhianan's mother, Emily Carter, said she believes the teenager's death was preventable and the agencies involved in her case need to be held accountable.
Ms Carter said: 'They need to recognise that the way they dealt with things was not the correct way, because she's dead.
'I don't ever want this to happen to another family. This has been devastating.
'If I could save just one child from these people making all their changes and making sure they follow through with everything, there's justice in my eyes – my daughter didn't kill herself for no reason.
'It was just one thing after another basically, but all of them should learn from Rhianan's death, all of them.'
Ms Carter said Rhianan was not treated as a vulnerable child, despite her autism diagnosis, and she does not believe her daughter was ever a threat to other people.
The mother said: 'She was five foot one, weighed seven stone. She was tiny.
'I don't know what people thought she could do, but I don't believe that she was ever a threat. It was just what people would put in her head – brainwashed her, basically.
'They (the agencies) treated her as a child, but I don't believe they treated her as a vulnerable child.
'If you've got vulnerable children, you take extra steps to watch them, to look after them, to make sure they feel safe, even from themselves, and they didn't. Obviously, she's dead.'
Rhianan Rudd was found dead at a children's home (Family handout/Leigh Day Solicitors)
The mother said the moment 19 police officers and two detectives came to arrest her daughter at their family home was 'mind-numbing' and she felt 'violated' when officers turned her house 'upside down'.
She said: 'It hurt … the fact that they thought that my daughter was some sort of massive terrorist.
'They were going to put her in handcuffs, but the handcuffs didn't go small enough. Even on the smallest ones, they just fell off her hands. That's how small she was.'
The inquest heard that the police did not refer Rhianan to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which identifies victims of human trafficking or modern slavery, when they began investigating her in 2020, but the referral was made by Derbyshire County Council in April 2021.
Her mother says the NRM referral should have been done 'at the very beginning' because 'they could see that she was vulnerable'.
Ms Carter added that she thinks Rhianan should not have been charged, and said: 'She was a child, a vulnerable child. A child with mental health issues.
'She should have been treated as a victim more than anything.'
The mother also said it 'angered' her that Rhianan was investigated by MI5 before her death and added: 'If they knew that my daughter was being groomed and sexually exploited online, and then you're investigating at that time, why did nobody come and stop it?
'Why watch a child be completely humiliated, sexualised, trafficked, brainwashed?'
Speaking about her daughter's autism diagnosis, Ms Carter said Rhianan would get fixated and 'sucked into' something until it was the 'be all and end all of everything'.
She said Rhianan's fixations began with My Little Pony before she became interested in German history, wanted '1940s German furniture in her bedroom', and eventually made contact with extremists on the messaging apps Telegram and Discord.
Ms Carter said: 'Finding out that she'd been groomed, and the way these people talked to her … it really changed her wholeness as a person, the way she thinks, the way she feels, everything.'
She said that Rhianan was a 'bubbly' girl but she became withdrawn after she was radicalised, and added that the extremists 'took away an innocent child' and 'took away her substance as a person'.
She said: 'After she started talking to her so-called friend online – I thought she was talking to gamer friends and friends from school – she started withdrawing.
'She stopped talking about normal things. She wasn't very bubbly, and I'd literally have to drag her out the house.'
Rhianan Rudd (left) was aged 16 when she died (Family handout/Leigh Day Solicitors/PA)
Ms Carter said she believes Rhianan's death could have been prevented if she was placed in a mental health unit, rather than the children's home, to 'deal with her mood swings, her brain going mad'.
She said: 'They don't know a child like a mother does. Even when she was at home, I would wake up two or three times throughout the night and go and check her. These houses aren't guaranteed to do that.'
The mother added that it was 'scary' when she referred her daughter to Prevent but she 'knew it had to be done'.
She said: 'I was hoping that it was just going to take her two or three times a week to work on her mind, unpick her head, and turn her back into Rhianan.
'Not end up with all these police officers turning up arresting her and pulling my house apart. You don't expect that at all.'
The inquest heard that Rhianan took an overdose of her mother's medication after being encouraged to by the 'two competing individuals' in her mind a week before she was charged and moved to the children's home.
Recalling that moment, Ms Carter said: 'I go down the stairs and Rhianan was laying on my living room floor. And I actually thought she was dead, but she wasn't.
'She basically called them (an ambulance) when she decided that she changed her mind and didn't want to die.'
Ms Carter continued: 'I've made mistakes, and I want the organisations to put their hands up and admit they've made mistakes and to rectify their mistakes so it doesn't happen again.
'And then that way everybody can be happy, except me, because I've already lost my daughter.'
Ms Carter described Rhianan as 'loving, kind' and a 'really beautiful soul'.
She added: 'Her brother, Brandon, and Rhianan were like two peas in a pod, and he just feels completely lost without her.'
Following the inquest, Ms Carter said the family's anguish was increased by hearing that Rhianan was 'let down by the police, the Prevent anti-terror programme, Derbyshire County Council and the mental health bodies'.
In a statement read outside Chesterfield Coroner's Court on behalf of Ms Carter by Anna Moore of Leigh Day Solicitors, she added: 'The chief coroner has found that Rhianan was denied access to services which should have supported and protected her and, I believe, could have saved her life.
'Looking at the number of missed opportunities recognised by the coroner, it's hard to see how they cannot have had an impact on Rhianan's state of mind.'
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