Brainwashing of 'Jihadi Jack': His parents are so respectable. But here we reveal how a very middle-class boy from Oxford was recruited by Islamic fanatics 

  • Jack Letts has reportedly become the first white British man to join ISIS
  • 20-year-old left Oxford and told his family he was going to study Arabic
  • Letts is thought to have been influenced by Abdullah, a shadowy Islamist

Jack Letts, dubbed Jihadi Jack, has reportedly become the first white British man to join Islamic State

Jack Letts, dubbed Jihadi Jack, has reportedly become the first white British man to join Islamic State

Ancient centre of learning and Christianity — and stamping ground of high-brow Detective Inspector Morse — Oxford has long been synonymous with the finest English traditions and values. Its image is that of a rarefied cultural oasis inured from Britain's modern-day ills.

This week, therefore, there was understandable consternation when it emerged that a bright young Oxford man had sneaked off to Syria, perhaps becoming the first white British man to join Islamic State.

Spend a few days in the city, however, and witness the huge social changes it has undergone in recent years, and you begin to see how easily someone as naive and directionless as Jack Letts (or 'Jihadi Jack', as he has inevitably been dubbed) could have fallen into their barbaric clutches.

Venture barely a mile from the maze of medieval colleges and you arrive in the dreary suburbs where 20-year-old Jack lived in a redbrick terrace with his family.

Once occupied by blue-collar workers, many of whom manned the thriving car production lines, today they accommodate a sizeable portion of the ethnic minorities who account for more than a quarter of Oxford's 160,000 population, making this one of our most multi-cultural communities.

As such, it supports no fewer than eight thronging mosques. The vast majority of those who attend are, of course, decent, peaceful Muslims. Doubtless most are patriotic Britons, too.

Lurking among them, though, is at least one malevolent Islamist whose mission is to seek out vulnerable young men, spirit them away from the mosques, and corrupt them with his hate-filled ideology.

Jack attended Cherwell School, one of Oxford's leading comprehensives, where 22.5 per cent of the 1,876 pupils speak English as a second language

Jack attended Cherwell School, one of Oxford's leading comprehensives, where 22.5 per cent of the 1,876 pupils speak English as a second language

He is a shadowy figure of East African extraction, named Abdullah. And, according to one young Oxford Muslim, who spoke to me this week on condition of anonymity, this is the dangerously plausible bigot who 'brainwashed' Jack into abandoning his comfortable existence for the living hell of IS-controlled Syria.

Whether he went there to wage war on Britain and the West, as some evidence suggests, or with the grotesquely misguided intention of carrying out 'humanitarian' work, as he and his parents insist, is a question we will explore. Whatever the truth, it was Abdullah who set him on his destructive path, says the source, who mingles with Jack's former friends.

Jack attended Cherwell School, one of Oxford's leading comprehensives, where 22.5 per cent of the 1,876 pupils speak English as a second language.

According to Dr Taj Hargey, a leading progressive Muslim who serves as a school governor, pupils are protected from radicalisation by a programme run under the auspices of the Government's Prevent scheme. There is no suggestion Jack's spiral into fundamentalism began at Cherwell.

However, the source says his early interest in the Islamic faith was sparked by his Muslim classmates. Free-spirited, and fired by TV images of the Arab Spring uprising, he embraced it zealously, attending various Oxford mosques but preferring the most conservative of them, Madina Masjid.

'His conversion to Islam was good,' said the source. 'He was with the right people, teaching him the right stuff. But he had always had his own strange, revolutionary ideas and spoke of wanting to find 'the true leaders'.

'Then, when he started learning the Koran and Arabic, this Abdullah came along and offered to help him.

'This is a guy with very extreme views. He goes to all the mosques in Oxford looking for young men to radicalise, but nothing happens there. He gets them to meet him privately at his house.

Another neighbour, who is disabled, fondly recalled how Jack, as a teenager, would mow her lawn and cut down her ivy. 'He was not a terrorist, he was a nice boy,' she said pointedly

Another neighbour, who is disabled, fondly recalled how Jack, as a teenager, would mow her lawn and cut down her ivy. 'He was not a terrorist, he was a nice boy,' she said pointedly

His father John, 55, was raised on a small farm in Canada, and came to this country to do a master's degree in archaeobotany. His mother Sally, 53, is a former books editor, with a Church of England minister and a baronet among her distant relatives.

His father John, 55, was raised on a small farm in Canada, and came to this country to do a master's degree in archaeobotany. His mother Sally, 53, is a former books editor, with a Church of England minister and a baronet among her distant relatives.

'The imams probably don't know what he's doing. Some of the East African community must know, but they ignore it.

'Abdullah is not a true brother. He doesn't even pray properly. He's always looking around, which is one of the worst things you can do.

'If your prayers are wrong, you are not following the truth. He twisted the meanings of the Prophet so they seemed to coincide with Jack's own revolutionary ideas.

'When you are new to Islam, you are quite vulnerable. There are a lot of dangers.'

While Abdullah's poison seeped into Jack, friends tried to warn him away from the radicaliser, but he refused to listen.

'I don't know much about Abdullah — not even his second name,' the young Muslim told me angrily. 'But if I did, I would go to the police because he's spreading lies.'

Yes, indeed. And he is doing so effectively, for Jack Letts is the least likely jihadist one might imagine. John, his 55-year-old father, was raised on a small family farm in Ontario, Canada, and came to this country to do a master's degree in archaeobotany — the study of ancient plant remains — at University College London.

His mother Sally, 53, is a former books editor, with a Church of England minister and a baronet among her distant relatives. They have a second son, Tyler, 18, who looked perfectly unremarkable as he cycled home with a female friend this week.

John's business got a £25,000 grant from the Prince's Countryside Fund — set up by Prince Charles to promote sustainable farming methods — and in August last year he featured on the BBC-TV's flagship rural affairs programme, Countryfile

John's business got a £25,000 grant from the Prince's Countryside Fund — set up by Prince Charles to promote sustainable farming methods — and in August last year he featured on the BBC-TV's flagship rural affairs programme, Countryfile

John Letts began his career helping to produce agricultural chemicals for U.S. multi-nationals. Perhaps significantly, given his son's rebellious streak, he says he became disillusioned with these money-driven companies and their 'fake arguments about feeding the world' and dropped out of the industry.

Ingeniously, by analysing straw taken from old thatched roofs, he later identified types of grain grown in Britain centuries ago, and began cultivating them to make 'heirloom' flour, which he now sells to organic bakeries and upmarket chefs.

His business got a £25,000 grant from the Prince's Countryside Fund — set up by Prince Charles to promote sustainable farming methods — and in August last year he featured on the BBC-TV's flagship rural affairs programme, Countryfile.

What presenter Matt Baker didn't know, as he 'took a step back in time to learn how the crops we grow evolved', was that his subject's son had sloped off to a land where stepping back in time means kidnapping girls as sex-slaves and pushing homosexuals off buildings to their deaths. 

Telling his parents he was travelling to Kuwait to improve his Arabic, Jack appears to have left for Syria sometime in September 2014, when he was 19.

Though neighbours describe his father as 'eccentric' (an assessment borne out this week when he opened the door to me holding a home-made animal mask to his face and speaking in a high-pitched, cartoonish voice), one finds nothing in his background that explains his son's defection.

Raised in a secular household by these liberal-minded parents — who said this week they had left Jack to choose his religion, if he so wished — he was nevertheless baptised and attended a local CofE primary school.

A former school governor, who lives nearby and would call at their rented terraced house each Friday to buy a home-made loaf, remembers a 'loving' if rather chaotic home that was always over-filled with kittens.

The Letts, she says, were 'nice people — a bit alternative'. Jack's father sold his flour at the school fete, and once cultivated his ancient wheat on a patch of land near the school so the children could harvest it and bake bread.

Another neighbour, who is disabled, fondly recalled how Jack, as a teenager, would mow her lawn and cut down her ivy. 'He was not a terrorist, he was a nice boy,' she said pointedly.

Could he, perhaps, have turned to Islam after being rejected by a girlfriend?

Jack was too slight and gentle-natured to get into fights. He loved football. He supported Liverpool and played for a local team, whose coach, Steve Carter, told the local paper that Jack was 'just one of the boys'

Jack was too slight and gentle-natured to get into fights. He loved football. He supported Liverpool and played for a local team, whose coach, Steve Carter, told the local paper that Jack was 'just one of the boys'

There was also vile comments, mocking those who mourned the Paris terrorist attack victims as 'bloody fools', praising IS fighters for killing British soldiers, and making cheap jibes about beheading

There was also vile comments, mocking those who mourned the Paris terrorist attack victims as 'bloody fools', praising IS fighters for killing British soldiers, and making cheap jibes about beheading

It seems not, for no one can remember Jack having a girlfriend. Yes, he fooled around too much at school (where former friends say he achieved averagely good GCSE results) and he would drink and smoke the occasional cannabis joint, as young lads will.

But he was too slight and gentle-natured to get into fights. He loved football. He supported Liverpool and played for a local team, whose coach, Steve Carter, told the local paper that Jack was 'just one of the boys'.

By April 2014, however, when he travelled to America with his family to visit his aunt, Julie Lovely, his conversion to Islam was well-advanced. Speaking from her home in Georgia, she recalled how he would sometimes wear a flowing robe and wouldn't eat meat.

She heard later that he had 'moved to Iraq' but was shocked when I told her that he was suspected of being an IS fighter.

'He's headstrong but he's a pacifist,' she said. 'I don't believe he'd hurt anybody.'

It is a view echoed by Jack's parents. This week they attempted to restore his reputation by giving a series of interviews to selected newspapers. The Mail was not included as it was among those which they accused of concocting 'Jihadi Jack's' story for the sake of an alliterative headline.

His mother couldn't deny that he is now in Raqqa, the Islamic State's HQ. She said she was in frequent contact with her son, and spoke to him as recently as last Monday. However, she insisted he had 'never had a weapon in his life' and that there was 'no evidence he's been near a battle zone'.

She maintained that he'd gone to do humanitarian work, and said he had helped in a hospital. It did not necessarily follow, she insisted, that someone who had opted to live in IS territory was an IS fighter.

Reminded that Eccles taxi-driver Alan Henning also ventured to Syria with noble intentions, and was beheaded, Jack's father replied that his son was different because he 'is integrated in day-to-day life with Syrian people'.

Experts say these views are staggeringly naive. To IS, a white Englishman would be such a valuable commodity that they would do one of three things: force him to fight, parade him in a propaganda video, or very publicly execute him for spying.

'There is no way Jack Letts, a white Muslim convert, could do this [remain peacefully in Islamic State],' said Fiyaz Mughal, director of the anti-extremist group Faith Matters. 'You cannot stand aside and live a quiet life there. It is not Oxford.'

Photographs and messages posted in recent months on Jack's Facebook page — which was hastily shut down this week — would seem to support this assessment.

Telling his parents he was travelling to Kuwait to improve his Arabic, Jack appears to have left for Syria sometime in September 2014, when he was 19
Though neighbours describe his father as 'eccentric' (an assessment borne out this week when he opened the door to me holding a home-made animal mask to his face and speaking in a high-pitched, cartoonish voice), one finds nothing in his background that explains his son's defection

Telling his parents he was travelling to Kuwait to improve his Arabic, Jack appears to have left for Syria sometime in September 2014, when he was 19

His mother couldn't deny that he is now in Raqqa, the Islamic State's HQ. She said she was in frequent contact with her son, and spoke to him as recently as last Monday (picture from Jack Lett's facebook

His mother couldn't deny that he is now in Raqqa, the Islamic State's HQ. She said she was in frequent contact with her son, and spoke to him as recently as last Monday (picture from Jack Lett's facebook

One picture shows him wearing combat trousers (which his mother claims to have bought from an Oxford sportswear shop) and raising the one-fingered Islamic State salute as he poses by Syria's iconic Tabqa Dam, where many battles have been waged and besieged IS commanders are currently holding civilian hostages as human shields. 

Then there are the vile comments, mocking those who mourned the Paris terrorist attack victims as 'bloody fools', praising IS fighters for killing British soldiers, and making cheap jibes about beheading.

Before the Facebook account was closed, Jack denied writing these messages and claimed his account had been hacked.

He also dismissed reports that he is married with a child, and appealed for the chance to tell his true story via a 'sincere Muslim journalist'. But what is the truth? My source says even his trusted handful of old friends in Oxford find it hard to know, for he tells one version to them, when he communicates by private Facebook message, and quite another to his parents.

'The feeling among his friends is that his views have changed a lot since he left,' says the young Muslim. 'Jack may have been radicalised but violence is completely out of his character. He went there with the best intentions, genuinely wanting to help people, but now he has realised what it's like and he wants to come back.'

Perhaps this friend is right. Then again, Jack might be bluffing, either to suit his own ends or those of his ruthlessly manipulative new masters. What is certain is that he is being monitored closely by counter-terrorism police, who have twice raided his family home, seizing computers and mobile phones.

Should he return to Britain, the Home Office says he will face rigorous questioning.

Even if he avoids being hit by a drone or otherwise killed, and somehow escapes the tyrannical enclave he entered with such starry-eyed abandon, the future for Jihadi Jack looks grim.

Is he the first white Briton prepared to draw blood for Islamic State — or merely their gullible stooge?

Either way, Oxford's Muslim community should do everything in their power to root out the sinister Abdullah who set him on his misguided path. Before he poisons more fertile young minds.

Additional reporting: Dominik Lemanski