Walsall terror trial: Mother found out via email son training to be ISIS 'soldier' in Syria

Muslim convert Jacob Petty, aged 25, sent the message to his Walsall family saying he had 'always dreamed of living in an Islamic state' and that he was not happy in England.

Giving evidence yesterday at the Old Bailey in London his mother Sue Boyce wept as she she had hoped the email was a 'nasty joke'.

You're probably wondering why on earth I would come here when I could have chosen any other place to go to. The reason is simple: since becoming Muslim I've never been happy living in the UK...

We aren't a load of backward, bloodthirsty terrorists, just normal people who want to live somewhere where religion is the most important issue and where society revolves around it and not the other way around.

Like I said, I haven't had a phone or internet for a while because I've been training to be a soldier.

It's something I wanted to do, nobody has brainwashed me to tricked (sic) me into this, I need to know hire (sic) to defend myself because the whole word is uniting to destroy us. You know I'm not bloodthirsty nor have a love of violence, it's just in Islam we are supposed to be one united community and whether my brother is being oppressed in Walsall or Iraq is no difference (sic) and we have to strive to ease their situation. Right now the whole world is against us but we're not afraid...

But more than a year later she identified his dead body on a video shown to her by security services, the jury heard.

Petty, of Slaney Road, Walsall, was going by the name of Abu Yaqoob Britany and had travelled to Syria via Athens and Cairo.

In October 2014, he sent an email saying he was going to Syria to be an aid worker.

"I was horrified," said Mrs Boyce. "We said 'don't go there' and he said he was going as an aid worker."

But two days later on October 26 he sent a second message admitting he had joined ISIS.

With a tissue in hand, Mrs Boyce told the court: "When it arrived we read it and wished we weren't reading it and that we were going to get another saying it was a nasty joke."

She said she contacted Mi5 because initially she could not get through to police.

Mrs Boyce and her husband were shown a video in October last year of a dead man which they identified as their son.

Petty had attended Blue Coat CofE Secondary School in Walsall but had converted to Islam when he was 15 or 16 years old, Mrs Boyce told the court.

Jurors heard previously how Petty had joined friends Sajid Aslam and Isaiah Siadatan, both of Walsall, to join Isis between July and December 2014.

The court heard Petty had travelled to Kenya with Aslam and another man in 2011 but had been deported back to the UK for being close to the Somali border.

She said it 'seemed' like he was monitored for the next year with extra security at airports whenever he left and came back into the country.

Ayman Shaukat, 27, of Pargeter Street, Walsall, is on trial accused of assisting Aslam, of Glebe Street, Walsall and another Walsall man Alex Nash to fight for ISIS by taking them to airports. Also in the dock is Muslim convert Lorna Moore, 33, the wife of Aslam, also of Glebe Street, who denies a charge of failing to inform Nash, 22, of Bentley Road, has pleaded guilty to preparing for acts of terrorism.

Siadatan's wife Kerry Thomason, 24, has admitted assisting her husband in preparation of acts of terrorism.

The trial continues.