‘I was so ashamed I hid my son’s death from family for 6 months’… secret pain of mums losing Brit boys to extremists

IT was an unlikely meeting of two British mums whose teenage children had been groomed by terrifying extremist groups on the polar ends of the spectrum. 

Nicola Benyahia’s son was 19 when he flew 2,900 miles to fight for ISIS, where he tragically died in a drone strike, while Sarah’s 14-year-old boy was seduced by dangerous far-right ideology.

Nicola (right) spent months trying to convince her son to leave terror group ISIS

Rasheed Benyahia was 19 years old when he flew to Syria to fight for ISIS

Exit Hate UKRasheed’s parent Nicola (right) had an emotional chat with Sarah, the mum of a former far-right extremist[/caption]

Both had led secret lives, encouraged by manipulators that twisted concerns and vulnerabilities to turn happy, loving children into aggressive, bile-spouting weapons for their causes. 

Sitting opposite each other in a coffee shop, an emotional Nicola and Sarah retraced their steps in a recent heartbreaking meeting, wondering what they had done wrong, unable to understand how their kids fell victim to extremists.

Increasing numbers of teenagers are being manipulated by these dangerous groomers, with charity Exit Hate UK telling us it’s a particularly “scary time” after a worrying spate of cases – sometimes leading to acts of terrorism.

In June last year alone, 252 people were held for terrorism-related offences – the highest since 2020 – and in the year to March 2024, 6,922 referrals were made to deradicalisation programme Prevent. 

Sarah* says her home became “a battleground” due to teen son John’s volatility and deeply concerning anti-Muslim, racist and hateful views. It left her feeling like she was “living in a vortex and in misery all of the time”.

In an interview with The Sun, she recalls the moment she realised her son had become radicalised by far-right extremists.

Sarah tells us: “I’d agreed to drop him off at a demonstration but hadn’t thought to research what it was about. John* had been so cagey and angry that he wouldn’t disclose anything. 

“At that point I was just so embroiled in everything going on. It felt like I was living in a vortex. But on the way to the rally, John was more chatty and engaged than he’d been in months.

“He got out and I saw him approach a group of men in expensive suits. I thought, ‘Maybe you’re overthinking things’. Five minutes later, they started marching and the penny dropped.

“He was singing racial slurs and abhorrent things about grooming gangs, wrongly linking it to race and religion. He spotted me and came over. He was really excited and so proud.

Rasheed died in a drone strike along the Syrian border

AlamyThe teenager was groomed by extremists and coaxed into flying 2,900 miles to join their fight[/caption]

“The shock on my face was apparent. I felt sick, I felt disgusted, I felt shocked. Seeing him so proud was something I’ll never forget. It spliced my heart in half.

“All hopes and dreams of my son being a lovely person were smashed to smithereens. I was scared, confused and in utter shock, thinking, ‘How have we got here?’ It was awful.”

‘He despised me’

Both Nicola and Sarah noticed a gradual change in their sons’ behaviours as they became radicalised by wicked groomers that took advantage of their emotions and vulnerabilities.

For Nicola, it started weeks before John’s 15th birthday. He went from “a fun-loving, cheeky chappy and gentleman” to being moody and withdrawn and spending increasing time alone in his bedroom. 

At first, Sarah brushed it off. She believed pals who told her: “He’s growing up, becoming a man. He isn’t going to be your little boy forever.” 

They put it down to a typical, hormone-fueled “Kevin and Perry phase” – in reference to the emotionally-charged comedy teen characters played by Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke. 

But it progressed. John started being “very disrespectful” to Sarah and then to teachers too, as well as being “very disruptive” in class.

“There was nothing that would scream alarm bells, but it was snowballing,” she says. “He became very agitated and very vocal with his views and opinions.

“He used to have a diverse group of friends, so there was nothing that gave me major concern at first. I thought he was going through normal life struggles.”

Soon Sarah was receiving weekly phone calls from John’s school, over an 18-month period, raising concern about his behaviour and regularly probing: “Is everything OK at home?”

Their relationship “completely broke down” and “he despised me”, she tells us, but she didn’t know why. 

Their home was “like a battleground”, which took such a toll on Sarah that she started medication and regularly cried on the bus home from work.

Secret extremist trips 

One saving grace was that he started talking about plans to watch football matches with pals, which she encouraged but in reality he wasn’t going there at all.

“I thought, ‘Brilliant, it will be good for him to get out of his room and see friends’,” she recalls. “But later one day, he stormed into the house and told me, ‘I’ve been to a demo.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean? A demo about what?’ John told me I wouldn’t understand and called me every name under the sun – thick, stupid, everything.

Nicola says she was too embarrassed to tell her siblings about her son’s death for six months

Rasheed begged his mum not to tell police about his defection, fearing it would make her ‘life hell’

“He said, ‘The only reason I’m telling you is because I was detained by police and they took my details. I don’t care what you say, I’m going to more of them.’ He was 17 by then.”

Any time she tried to probe John “became angry”. She offered to drive him to a demo, with the intention to spy on him. It was then that she saw him marching and proudly spouting bile. 

“At that point, I didn’t know what to do. I thought about going to the police but I was scared of getting him in trouble,” Sarah says.

“I didn’t want him to lose his place at college, which he was hanging onto by a shoe string because of his behaviour.”

John also started posting aggressive views online, which was met by Sarah’s pals giving “unhelpful advice” like “challenge him”, “give him a slap” or “tell him you can’t say that”.

“It was heartbreaking,” she says. “He was still my son and I loved him. But I barely recognised who he was. I felt a lot of judgement and so isolated. I was ashamed.

“It was like living in a vortex. You’re just surviving and hoping you can get through to them. I used to cry on the bus home knowing I had to go home.

“We couldn’t have a conversation any more, it was just horrendous. If I challenged him, he became very angry.

“He would make sweeping statements about Muslims or other groups, then when I tried to show him it was wrong, he would say I was ‘naïve, thick, vulnerable and government controlled.’”

‘Something was ignited’

That desperation and anguish is recognised all too well by fellow mum Nicola. Her son Rasheed took a 2,900-mile flight from Birmingham to Syria to fight for ISIS in May 2015.

She feared he would be killed and tried “to get him to change his mind, to see this was wrong” during panicked WhatsApp calls after he joined the terrorist organisation. 

Before Rasheed vanishing without any warning, the 19-year-old was “very bright and focused”. He gained 13 GCSEs and was at college on an engineering apprenticeship. 

Nicola suspects the groomers took advantage of her son at a vulnerable time – she and his father were having “marital difficulties” and temporarily were living apart. 

Around that time Rasheed had “turned inward on himself”, was displaying “more challenging” behaviour and was fixated on news about Syria, conflicts and injustice.

“You would see that excitement, that emotion in him, something had ignited him.” mum-of-five Nicola told The Independent. 

The first time she became aware of his plans was two days after he disappeared in May 2015, when she received a WhatsApp message and she alerted police.

instagram/nicolabenyahiaNicola, who founded charity Families for Life, was made an MBE in 2022 for services to education[/caption]

The family still don’t know exactly where their son died

It read: “Please know that I would never put anything through this if I didn’t know the reward… Please do not worry, I love you more than ever and again I am sorry.”

Rasheed, who died six months later, begged her not to contact police or media fearing they would make her “life hell”. They kept in touch via WhatsApp as she tried to talk him around.

Tragically, Nicola started to see a “shift” in his attitude around two weeks before she received earth-shattering news from an ISIS fighter during a five-minute call. 

He was killed in a drone strike “somewhere on the Syrian-Iraq border”. Nicola felt so ashamed, she didn’t tell her siblings about Rasheed’s death until six months later.

“When Rasheed left, he never said goodbye,” she said. “We missed out on all those goodbyes which made the grief a lot more complicated. 

“You go into disbelief thinking he must be out there still. I remember walking through city streets feeling I was half a person and I was just existing.”

‘Lifetime of misery’

Fortunately for Sarah, there was intervention. John’s college teacher referred him to deradicalisation programme Prevent after spotting the warning signs. 

“I’ll never forget that call,” she says. “I remember feeling this coldness running through me. I knew I had to say something. I couldn’t protect him any more.

“It was almost a feeling of relief but there was a really deep fear too. John was deemed a serious enough case to get an Intervention Provider (IP).”

The Prevent expert challenged John’s views including about the Quran – the Muslim faith’s holy book – Shariah Law and other beliefs that had been twisted by his groomers.

“The IP got him to research passages of the Quran to discuss at their meetings and after, he realised he’d been taught disinformation, he had been manipulated and he realised all they told him was massively taken out of context,” Sarah says.  

It was the start of a lengthy journey of John rebuilding his life, disavowing his extremist views and condemning those who had groomed him.  

Thankfully he didn’t give the extremists a lot of personal details, meaning the family, based in the North West, didn’t have to move house. But he feared retribution from the far-right group.

“Something I only found out recently was why he had this weird ritual of closing my door at night when he thought I was asleep and deliberately leaving his door open.

“He was doing it because he was scared of someone breaking in to commit a revenge attack. He knew typically attackers go for open doors before trying closed ones. 

“He was putting himself in harm’s way to protect me, which is mad and made me desperately sad. Thankfully nothing happened.” 

Exit Hate UKNicola and Sarah spoke out in a powerful video in the hope to show other families they are not alone[/caption]

nicolabenyahia/InstagramBoth Nicola and Sarah have worked tirelessly to support families of loved ones groomed by extremists[/caption]

‘Victim & perpetrator’

John shut down all social media accounts, changed his phone number, cut-off all extreme-far right pals, and has since sought to rebuild his life. 

He uses his story to help others. Both John and Sarah have used pseudonyms in The Sun’s piece to avoid any threats from far-right extremists.

“It took a few years for some friends and family members to trust him again. Initially they thought he was duping us and would go back to the way he was.,” says Sarah.

“He was doing positive things but constantly getting knocked back, left, right and centre. It took time for them to realise he had changed. 

“It must have been very hurtful and difficult for John, because when you’re in the far-right that becomes your whole life. It would have been easy for him to fall back in with them.  

“Eventually they realised John isn’t a racist or a bad lad. He was radicalised, manipulated and exploited because he was vulnerable.

“But he wasn’t solely a victim, I think you can be a victim and a perpetrator at the same time.”

Both Nicola and Sarah have gone on to help people whose loved ones have been lured to extremists’ causes. 

Nicola, who founded Families for Life, told her fellow mum during a meet-up to raise awareness of the issue that she hoped to “save someone else from a lifetime of misery”.

“These extremists want to divide and conquer,” she says. “Time is just crucial in it all really. And acting because the earlier you catch it, the better the outcome for the young person.”

Sarah volunteers with Exit Hate UK, where she has counselled at least 50 families affected by extremism just like her.

She knows she’s among a lucky minority whose children escape without harming others, themselves or being radicalised into carrying out acts of terror. 

Now 28, John’s story is proof anyone can change. He’s settled down, in full-time work and leads a happy life, while also sharing his struggles with extremism to help others. 

Sarah tells us: “I don’t say I’ve got the old John back, I feel I’ve got an improved version because he’s a lot wiser now and very compassionate. 

“He went through a lot but accepts and owns his mistakes. Like anyone, he has his faults – he’s not very tidy – but I couldn’t be any prouder of the man he’s become.”

*Names changed to protect identity

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