A woman from Leeds has been sentenced to three years in jail for failing to report that a friend of her son was planning a terror attack.

Nabeela Anjum, 49, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Monday after being found guilty in May.

Jurors were shown messages proving that Anjum knew her teenage son was in touch with Al-Arfat Hassan, a radical drill rapper who admitted to possessing chemicals with the intention of using them for a terror attack.

Anjum, a biomedical scientist at St James’s Hospital, attempted to convince her son, Sameer, who was 15 at the time, to turn his friend into the police. When Sameer rejected his mother’s plea, she failed to report the threat to the authorities herself.

Anjum became aware that her teenage son had become radicalised, held extremist Islamist beliefs and was viewing terrorist propaganda. She also knew Sameer was in contact with a London-based man who had obtained chemicals which he intended to use to construct a bomb.

In February 2022, Sameer realised that his friend was planning to go through with his plan to launch a terror attack in central London and asked his mother to buy him a train ticket so he could go to London and talk Hassan out of his plan, according to news reports.
Anjum refused her son’s request and told him to call the police. But when her son did not call the police, neither did Anjum.

The jury were shown detailed messages where the mother pleaded with her son to stop communicating with Hassan. In one message following Hassan’s arrest, she told Sameer: “Please get rid of everything from your phone...”

A chronological timeline of WhatsApp messages and calls between Anjum and Sameer was used as evidence against the mother.

Judge Tom Bayliss KC told the mother, according to The Times: “You are a university graduate of impeccable character. You of all people must have realised, and I am quite sure did realise, the potentially catastrophic consequences of keeping quiet, as you did, but your loyalty to your son overrode that.”
Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said after her conviction: “This demonstrates how important it is to report serious information to the police. We are all under a legal duty to report to the police any information which we know or believe might be of assistance in preventing an act of terrorism.

“You may think that you are helping and protecting someone by withholding information, but you are not, and it can make things worse.

“Family and friends are best placed to know when something doesn’t feel right. By seeking support at an early stage, together we can prevent them from being drawn into harmful groups or activities and help them choose a different path.”