Teachers, police, academics and community leaders said there was evidence that long periods of unsupervised online access, exacerbated during the Covid lockdown, had resulted in children and young people across the UK coming into contact with far-right groups in greater numbers beforehand. Gaming forums, private chat rooms, and impeccably produced online pamphlets or “study guides” are among the platforms and tactics used to indoctrinate young teens with ideas of racism, white supremacy, neo-Nazis, and involuntary celibacy (“incel”). “We are seeing cases of very young people ending up at the very end of the extremist spectrum where they have planned or even carried out attacks,” warned Julia Ebner, senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Det Supt Vicky Washington, who recently retired as national co-ordinator for the government’s counter-terrorism prevention programme, said social and physical isolation during the pandemic had created a perfect storm for far-right radicalisation. “There’s not one path, there’s no one type of child that’s particularly vulnerable, but I would say online, in different ways, it’s something we’re seeing more and more,” Washington said. Experts are concerned that while the absolute number is very small, the age profile of those referred and arrested in connection with far-right extremism is becoming progressively younger. There have been convictions for children as young as 13 – and in one case concerns about a nine-year-old being involved in extremism. In January, a schoolboy from Darlington became the UK’s youngest person to be convicted of terrorist offences. He was 13 when he was arrested as part of an investigation into right-wing terrorism and charged with possessing information useful to a terrorist, specifically manuals for making explosives. Prior to this conviction, the youngest UK terror offender was a 16-year-old from Cornwall who downloaded terrorist manuals, also when he was 13. According to Home Office figures, terror-related arrests across all ideologies have risen, with the biggest rise in the under-18 age group, from 21 to 29, the highest number since records began in 2001. Under-18s now make up 15% of all terrorism-related arrests. Last year, Prevent adopted record levels of children and young people on the Channel’s counter-radicalisation program for right-wing extremism, despite a huge drop in referrals during the pandemic. While the number of referrals fell by a third, the number of under-15s adopted at Channel – the youngest group – remained unchanged at 70. The concerns come as counter-terrorism officials prepare to publish a review of the government’s counter-radicalisation prevention strategy by Sir William Shawcross. A leaked draft of the review, revealed by the Guardian in May, claimed Prevent had over-addressed far-right extremism at the expense of Islamic extremism. But Prevent groups working with schools in England say they have seen a significant increase in the number of children and young people referred to them, often by their teachers, over concerns they are being drawn into far-right extremism. Nick Wilkinson, a former assistant chief constable who is senior lead for Prevent in Kent, said: “I can say we are extremely busy. We’ve seen a big increase in our work over the last year.” Although the number of young people radicalized by the far right remained small, Wilkinson warned: “I was on duty outside the Grand Hotel [in Brighton] on 12 October 1984 when the IRA bomb exploded. Terrorists only need to get lucky once. What we’re trying to do here is a needle in a haystack job.” Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, has warned that teenagers are being drawn into a toxic ideology of “online extremists and echo chambers”. Matt Jukes, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer, said 19 out of 20 children under the age of 18 arrested last year for terror offenses were linked to a far-right ideology. Exit Hate, a national charity supporting families affected by far-right extremism, said it had been asked to help a nine-year-old boy believed to have been recruited by his older brother. Parents were often unaware, or in some cases unconcerned, with many dismissing it as “just online, it’s not real,” Wilkinson said. In one case, a 15-year-old boy from Bootle was radicalized after befriending far-right extremists in virtual hangouts linked to the online game Fortnite. He had relationships with online personalities, described in court as “professional trolls”, who invited him to private online forums, provoking what the judge described as “some of the most disgusting behavior from a young person I have seen”. He pleaded guilty to racial hatred and possessing terrorist material and was given a 12-month referral order. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Teachers, meanwhile, who are at the forefront of efforts to identify and flag concerns about children they believe are at risk of radicalisation, worry that signs are missing as terms and symbols appear in the fast-changing online space and are feeling sickened. -equipped to challenge students on extremist views. A Home Office spokesman said: “We are committed to tackling those who spread views that promote violence and hatred and who radicalise others. Under internet safety legislation, tech companies will be required to quickly remove and curtail the spread of illegal content or face stiff fines. “The Prevent program is a vital part of our response. Through working with communities, frontline professionals and professionals, we work to ensure that people at risk of radicalization are provided with appropriate interventions.”
