Girl accused of terror took overdose days before charge, inquest told
Rhianan Rudd, 16, died in a children’s home in May 2022 five months after her terror charges were dropped.
An autistic teenager who was groomed by a neo-Nazi and accused of terror offences attempted suicide days before she was charged and had a far-right “alter ego” in her mind, an inquest was told.
Chesterfield Coroner’s Court heard that Rhianan Rudd, 16, took an overdose more than a year before her death after downloading a bomb-making manual and carving a swastika into her forehead.
Rhianan died on May 19 2022 when she was found with a ligature around her neck at Bluebell House Residential Home in Nottinghamshire, five months after her charges were dropped when evidence emerged to suggest she had been groomed by an American extremist.
Mr Carty said that the character “was akin to an alter ego in her mind and who used to talk to her and advise her about far-right ideals”.
“It was a good and a bad influence. She anthropomorphised them and gave them names”, he added.
After Rhianan attempted suicide on April 10 2021, by taking her mother’s medication, she told Mr Carty: “One of me in my head said why not and the other did not disagree, so I took them”, the court heard.
The inquest was told Rhianan took the medication “with the intention of ending her life” but she “got worried and told her mum” who rang for an ambulance.
Rhianan told her mother she “regrets the overdose” and was “grateful” to be alive after the incident, counsel to the inquest Edward Pleeth said.
The day before the overdose, Mr Carty had hypothesised that there was a “possibility there is going to be an incident” because of Rhianan’s deterioration, the inquest heard.
Emily Carter, Rhianan’s mother, had referred her daughter to the deradicalisation scheme Prevent in September 2020 because she had a “massive dislike for certain races”, before she was arrested by police and later investigated by MI5.
In February 2021, Rhianan told Mr Carty that she did not want to be deradicalised because she was “too far into this now”, the inquest heard.
After a home visit on March 7 that year, Mr Carty raised concerns about drawings in Rhianan’s diary which she had shown to him, including a figure with a “swastika face”, entries about “bleaching her skin”, and a double spread page where she called herself “crazy”.
When asked about the diary entries, Rhianan said they were her “schizo drawings” which she made when she was “feeling bad”, chief coroner Judge Alexia Durran heard.
The inquest was told that Rhianan “did not see the point” in her Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) sessions, which began in January 2021, and they “asked stupid questions” including about gender which “frustrated” her.
Rhianan had her fourth Chesterfield CAMHS session on March 30 2021, but these were then paused because the service recommended a “longer term therapeutic service”, the inquest was told.
The social worker worried that Rhianan might feel “more and more disillusioned in life” and that her mother was “distancing herself” from Rhianan because she was struggling to know how to help her daughter, the inquest heard.
Mr Pleeth asked the social worker why Rhianan was not removed from her family home at this point, to which he replied: “That’s a last resort. I think a secure environment would have been a negative experience for Rhianan.”
The teenager was charged with terror offences on April 15, more than a year before her death, after she was reported missing and arrested in Sheffield.
Rhianan appeared virtually at magistrates’ court and was then moved into the children’s home to be a looked after child in the care of Derbyshire County Council.
Mr Carty told the inquest that when she arrived at the children’s home, Rhianan made a comment about the ethnicities of the staff which had “distressed or upset her” but she “felt better to be there” instead of her family home.
Rhianan’s diary entries from June and July 2021, while living in the home, were “concerning” and were reported to the police including references to suicide and a swastika drawn in blood, but also included “discussions about the future” .
Mr Carty recorded that Rhianan had been “benefitting from the stability and consistency” at the children’s home but self-harmed on various occasions at the home until August 2021, the court heard.
The inquest continues.
