Britons Who Planned To Join IS In Syria Jailed

A group from Walsall who wanted to travel to Syria to bring their children up under the so-called Islamic State have been jailed.

Muslim convert Lorna Moore was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for failing to alert authorities that her husband, Sajid Aslam, was about to leave for Syria in 2014.

She was planning to take her three young children - including an 11-month-old baby - to Syria to join him, prosecutors claimed.

Ayman Shaukat, 28, was sentenced to 10 years in prison with five on licence for driving a number of people to the airport to help facilitate their travel to Syria and engage in terrorism, including Aslam.

The day after dropping him off at the airport, Shaukat sent a photograph of himself on his mobile phone posing with an IS flag.

Judge Charles Wide, who sentenced the group at the Old Bailey, said that Moore, 34, was a "very strong character" and told her she "knew perfectly well of your husband's dedication to terrorism".

Judge Wide said she had a "troubling ... facility for telling lies", and described Shaukat as "committed" to terrorism.

West Midlands Police have said 12 people from Walsall went to Syria or attempted to do so in 2014.

Jake Petty, 25, also known as Abu Yaqoub Brittany, was the first from the West Midlands group to make the journey.

His mother Sue Boyce told jurors she begged him not to go and had to identify his body on social media after he was killed in December 2014.

Soon after leaving for Syria, Petty was joined by former schoolmate Isiah Siadatan, who is believed to have been killed in 2015, though his death is unconfirmed.

His wife Kerry Thomason was handed a two-year suspended sentence, subject to a curfew order between 6pm and 6am, after admitting helping him to travel to Syria and engage in terrorist acts.

The 24-year-old was pregnant when she was prevented from flying out with her children to join her husband, which he had urged her to do.

She was described as "naive" during sentencing and will have to wear an electronic tag.

Alex Nash, a 22-year-old Muslim convert, was given a five-year jail term after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to preparing acts of terrorism.

He was arrested by Turkish authorities and sent back to the UK in January, having also been driven to the airport by Shaukat.

Sky's Mark White says the case provided an "important insight into the draw that the so-called Islamic State continues to have" in attracting hundreds of recruits from the UK.