15-year-old girl arrested on suspicion of terror offences
Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command arrested the teenager in east London
New Scotland Yard, London Photo: Alamy
By Camilla Turner
2:42PM BST 02 Jul 2015
A 15-year-old who was arrested in east London is believed to be the youngest ever girl in Britain to be held over terror offence.
The teenager was held when officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command attended an address in east London, Scotland Yard said.
She was arrested on suspicion of preparation of terrorism under section 5 of the Terrorism Act, 2006.
The girl is currently in custody at a central London police station.
In February, three school girls from east London, Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, fled their east London homes to join the Islamic State terror group in Syria.
Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum (Met Police)
All three were students at Bethnal Green Academy in east London.
It emerged the following month that a further four teenage girls from the same east London school had been made wards of court by a High Court judge, following concerns that they had shown an interest in travelling to Syria.
The move by Mr Justice Hayden prevented them from leaving the jurisdiction of England and Wales without the permission of a judge.
The head of Specialist Operations at Scotland Yard Mark Rowley said that counter-terror arrests in Britain were averaging at one per day.
He said that over 50 per cent of recent arrests related to Syria, and 56 of these arrests were teenagers, adding that the increase in teenage terror suspects was “an emerging trend.”
