Britain’s youngest female terror plotter jailed for life after planning Isis-inspired attack on British Museum

A teenager who planned an Isis-inspired terror attack in London after being prevented from joining the terrorist group in Syria has been jailed for life. Safaa Boular was just 16 when she started the plot, and she is the youngest woman to be convicted of attempting an atrocity in Britain.

She was jailed for a minimum of 13 years at the Old Bailey after a judge said she had been “old enough to make her own decisions” and still posed a high risk of harm to the public.

Ms Boular had discussed using guns and grenades to attack potential targets including the British Museum with her online boyfriend, who was an Isis fighter from Coventry. She originally hoped to marry Naweed Hussain in Raqqa but was prevented from travelling to the Isis stronghold by police, and became even more determined to carry out the atrocity after learning the 32-year-old been killed in an airstrike.

Judge Mark Dennis QC said there was no proof of claims by the defence that Ms Boular?, now 18, had been deradicalised and no longer considered herself a Muslim. “In my view there’s insufficient evidence to say at this stage this defendant is a truly transformed individual … her views were deeply entrenched,” he told the court.“However much she may have been influenced and drawn into her extremist mindset, it is apparent that she knew what she was doing and acted with open eyes.”

Prosecutors had called for Ms Boular to be jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years, telling the Old Bailey she would have committed an attack if she were able to acquire weapons.