TREMBLING as she entered the room, 14-year-old Rhianan Rudd said something no parent could be equipped to hear: “I’ve downloaded a PDF on how to build a bomb.”
It was a horrifying moment for mum Emily Carter, of Nottinghamshire, that tragically was just the beginning of her once “bubbly, lighthearted” daughter’s conversion to neo-Nazism.
Rhianan Rudd was groomed and radicalised to neo-Nazi beliefs from the age of 14[/caption]
US white supremacist Christopher Cook corrupted the British teen’s mind online[/caption]
Her testimony comes amid a horrifying rise in teens being groomed by these monsters – including three individually sentenced in recent weeks for stabbing three teachers, plotting a ‘death day’ massacre and planning to burn a mosque. One of them was just 13.
Rhianan, who had autism and mental health issues, nearly went down a similar path after being manipulated, exploited and radicalised online by American white supremacist Christopher Cook, four years her senior.
The neo-Nazi, from Columbus, Ohio, was later jailed in 2023 for a terrorist plot to attack power grids and had stewed the teen’s mind with Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and racist bile.
Rhianan, described as “the most vulnerable child” a social worker “had ever come across”, was the youngest teenage girl charged with terrorism offences in the UK.
The six counts, which were later dropped, related to downloading the bomb manual and sending WhatsApp messages stating she wanted “to kill someone in school or blow up a Jewish place of worship”.
It was all influenced by Cook, who has not faced any charges related to Rhianan and polluted her mind since lockdown when they met on messaging app Discord before embarking on a ‘relationship’.
His bile led her to carve a swastika into her head twice, threaten to become a suicide bomber and racially abuse a black person in the street – despite constantly being “shut down” by her mum.
Tragically, after being taken into a children’s home, Rhianan’s condition deteriorated further.
She spoke of having a three-day mental health breakdown and feeling as though she had “two minds in the same body”, before hanging herself, aged 16, in May 2022.
Terrifyingly, the teen is just one of many British children, some as young as nine, who are being targeted by neo-Nazis following scores of court cases in recent years.
Cook (right) recruited for a Nazi organisation online[/caption]
Another 15-year-old self-proclaimed ‘Nazi’ amassed a stash of deadly weapons to ‘shoot up’ his school[/caption]
Teen Felix Winter was converted to neo-Nazism aged 15 and plotted an attack inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre (above)[/caption]
It is this harrowing wave of indoctrination that has led broken mum Emily, 52, to bare all to The Sun in the hope of preventing any other family from facing the devastation and heartache she did.
“Knowing how prevalent this is makes me feel sick, it’s heinous and disgusting,” she tells us.
“There are grown men targeting vulnerable children and kids who are quiet or nerdy or spend a lot of time on their computers. They keep whispering in their ears until the change is made.
“They are being brainwashed and their lives and thoughts are being turned inside out, and why? Because these people want something from them.”
‘Explosives, napalm & massacre plots’
Two weeks ago, an Adolf Hitler-obsessed 13-year-old girl, from Camarthenshire, Wales, was sentenced to 15 years’ detention for stabbing three teachers.
The teen told police, “That’s one way to be a celebrity”, before boasting it would be on the news and lead to “more eyes… looking at me”.
That same week a Shropshire boy, 15, was sentenced after plotting his “death day”, timed for Hitler’s birthday in April, where he vowed to “shoot up” his school and “kill lots of people”.
He amassed a horror weapons stash of a crossbow, samurai sword, six knives and a stun gun; tried to make ‘cricket’ bombs, and downloaded manuals for napalm and a self-loading pistol.
And days earlier, a boy, 17, who idolised Anders Breivik, Norway’s neo-Nazi terrorist and mass murderer, was sentenced for plotting to burn down a mosque in Invercylde, Scotland.
I’m not a psychologist, I’m a mum. Children don’t come with a handbook that says, ‘Do this if your daughter turns to Nazism’
Emily Carter, Rhianan’s mum
Vile propaganda is penetrating the minds of teens across the UK, 80 years on from our troops’ brave sacrifices to defeat German Nazism in the Second World War.
An interest in history kickstarted the path to Rhianan’s radicalisation.
She liked a German character on the online game Fortnite and dreamed of opening a café in the country, but her fascination took a dark turn after connecting with Cook.
“Her fixation became deeper, deeper and deeper to the point where it was no longer a fixation, she was being groomed,” her mum says.
“You can’t sit next to them all the time on the computer, but it became grooming. Her whole persona changed – she became moody, quiet, and didn’t want to leave her room.
“Before she was very bubbly, very intelligent, would do anything for anybody and didn’t care what colour, religion, or anything. She also stood up to bullies.”
Horror groomer
Rhianan had befriended Cook before falling for him romantically, telling her mum that he was in the year above at school.
He instructed her to download the bomb-making manual before vanishing from their online chats. Only then did Rhianan confess all.
Emily recalls: “I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’, told her to delete it and couldn’t find the file on her computer.
“I didn’t know she used a USB stick with an anti-tracking search engine downloaded at the library.
“Downloading the manual was one of the last things he told her to do before he disappeared. She was very upset and very hurt.”
Rhianan went from ‘caring’ and ‘bubbly’ to withdrawn, shy and angry[/caption]
Mum Emily constantly ‘shut down’ her daughter’s neo-Nazi beliefs[/caption]
Rhianan developed disturbing beliefs due to Cook, which Emily “shut down very quickly”. She tried to reeducate her and sought help from the deradicalisation programme Prevent.
“You don’t know what to say without causing more rebellion,” Emily says.
“I’m not a psychologist, I’m a mum. Children don’t come with a handbook that says, ‘Do this if your daughter turns to Nazism.’”
Rhianan’s views escalated. The young girl, who had three siblings, became a Holocaust denier and while out shopping spouted horrific racist bile, courtesy of her groomer.
Emily recalls: “I told her don’t talk like that, they are humans like you and me. She thought they were ‘dirt’.
“She said on her 16th birthday she wanted to bomb a synagogue and be a suicide bomber.”
Nineteen-cop raid
Police investigated Rhianan for malicious communications after she sent “Nazi-type texts” to pals and her mum contacted Prevent.
They seized her computer and phone and the teen voluntarily gave her diary and the USB stick containing the bomb manual, which Emily believes was a “cry for help”.
Nine days later, 19 cops stormed the family home and arrested Rhianan.
“It was outrageous,” Emily says. “My daughter was 14 years old, 5ft 1 and seven-and-a-half stone, yet they sent that many officers.”
On Christmas Eve, she had a row with someone, who said, ‘You’re just like Charles Manson’. She said, ‘Fine I’ll make myself look like him’
Emily Carter
Rhianan was charged with six terrorism offences, later dropped, and was bailed.
She refused to comply and ran away multiple times, leading Emily to stop taking her multiple sclerosis medication to watch her and staying awake for three days at a time.
“One time I passed out she tried to kill herself with my pills,” she says. “Other times she jumped out of windows to escape.”
Rhianan’s mental health spiral was evident from her scratching a swastika into her forehead twice.
“She did it because she wanted to be like Charles Manson,” Emily says, referring to ‘The Family’ cult leader and white supremacist whose followers murdered nine people.
“Then on Christmas Eve, she had a row with someone, who said, ‘You’re just like Charles Manson’. She said, ‘Fine I’ll make myself look like him’, went in the bathroom and did it again.”
Neo-Nazi Alfie Coleman was accused of buying guns to carry out a mass killing spree in London[/caption]
The 19-year-old was arrested in Stratford, London, ahead of his alleged plan to ‘spark a race war’[/caption]
‘Killed my daughter’
Eventually, Rhianan was placed in a children’s home, which Emily strongly opposed and told authorities: “You’ve just killed my daughter.”
She was described as “the most vulnerable child they had ever come across” by one social worker.
During her 15-month stay, she was once found “rocking backwards and forwards” in her room and suffered a “three-day schizoid”.
Authorities claimed the teen’s “disguised compliance” – saying what they wanted to hear – hid her suffering.
The inquest into Rhianan’s death concluded in June that there was a “system failure” from authorities and “missed opportunities” to get her mental health support.
Emily recalls her daughter’s “depressed, sunken eyes”, noting that she had lost weight and was “really inside herself”.
She begged the home: “Please watch her, she’s showing you what you want to see. I know my daughter.”
They are isolated and trapped in that world. There is no escape and that leads to them getting into trouble where they could harm victims of hate and themselves
Nigel Bromage, Exit Hate UK
Days later on May 19, police told Emily that Rhianan had hanged herself.
Anna Moore, of law firm Leigh Day, who represented Emily at the inquest, tells us that authorities “continue to place their main focus on criminalising young people who have been exploited into radicalisation”, rather then providing support and rehabilitation.
She added: “As was evident from Rhianan’s inquest, the measures in place failed her, and mothers like Emily Carter remain very concerned that the system is not fit for purpose.
“Instead of treating Rhianan as a victim of grooming, she was dragged through the criminal courts, and the authorities were not aware that she could and should have been recognised as a victim of exploitation.”
‘Aspiring assassin’
Rhianan’s tragic story highlights the risk of British youngsters being radicalised and pushed towards acts of terrorism.
In July, Felix Winter, now 18, of Edinburgh, was jailed for plotting a “Doomsday” attack, inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, which killed 12 people.
A month earlier, Essex-born Alfie Coleman was accused of a terror plot to “spark a race war” after buying a Makarov pistol, five magazines and 188 rounds of ammo in a Tesco car park for £3,500.
The alleged “aspiring assassin”, then 19, also had a large stash of knives. He’s due to be retried in April after a jury failed to reach a verdict.
Scottish Felix Winter plotted a ‘Doomsday’ attack inspired by the Columbine High School massacre[/caption]
Alice Cutter and her ex Mark Jones were jailed for being members of far-right terrorist group National Action in 2020[/caption]
Last year, Mason Reynolds, 19, from Brighton, was jailed for plotting to “make Jews afraid again” by carrying out a suicide bomb attack on a synagogue.
And in 2023, a 16-year-old was sentenced over a plan to livestream an attack on his Jewish neighbours.
The Buckinghamshire boy, who can’t be named, tried to recruit others, telling them “join your local Nazis” online when he was just 14.
‘Isolated & trapped’
Deradicalisation charity Exit Hate UK believes there’s “definitely above a thousand” neo-Nazis activists on British soil and around 30 groups.
Their founder Nigel Bromage, 60, knows their harm, having spent 20 years in their clutches before turning away from extremism.
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.
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 warns us they “have always been there”, never reducing in number, but now targeting people in increasingly manipulative ways.
This includes utilising social media platforms, infiltrating video games popular with kids, while one of their newest tactics is offering ‘vetted’ members a QR code for a private chat group.
“This really concerns us,” Nigel tells us. “Nobody, other than members, know what they are talking about.
“It could be philosophy, criminal activity or direct action but with no chance for anyone to intervene and offer alternatives.
“They are isolated and trapped in that world. There is no escape and that leads to them getting into trouble where they could harm victims of hate and themselves.”
What we went through was all horrific, absolutely horrific. I don’t want another family to go through what we went through, it’s too painful.
Emily Carter
The youngest person the charity has helped was nine. He was recruited by his older brother, who played Nazi video games, used racist language and manipulated him.
“His sibling wasn’t racist but simply loved his older brother,” Nigel says. “He wanted to impress him so did whatever he asked.”
Horrified parents like Emily are calling for an urgent crackdown on groomers and better resourcing for deradicalisation programmes to save other young lives before it is too late.
The grieving mum tells us: “What we went through was all horrific, absolutely horrific. I don’t want another family to go through what we went through, it’s too painful.”
Paul Dunleavy, of Rugby, was jailed for preparing for acts of neo-Nazi terrorism in 2020[/caption]
Alice Cutter, holding a deadly weapon, was part of banned terror group National Action[/caption]
Cutter and Mark Jones had a worrying stash of weapons[/caption]