‘Jihadi Jack’ was one of the more well known characters from the ISIS era – aside from ISIS bride Shamima Begum of course – after he upped sticks from Oxford back in 2014 and headed over to Kuwait and Syria in an attempt to join the terrorist organisation.

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Although he denied being a part of ISIS, he did later admit that he was an enemy to Britain and that he had made a big mistake after he was thrown in a Syrian prison in 2017 and stripped off his British nationality in 2019. His mother Sally Lane has now revealed that she blames herself for his actions and has wondered if his decisions had anything to do with her ‘over liberal parenting’.

Here’s what she had to say about it in her new autobiography – a book that I’m sure will be selling at as high a rate as Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’:

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I wondered if they thought Jack’s problems stemmed from his over-liberal parents who hadn’t taken a firm enough hand with him.

Later on, a portion of the general public certainly believed this to be the case.

I’ve wondered this myself during my constant internal discussions. Over and over again, I’ve raked over all the incidents of his childhood where I could have been better, or acted differently.

Was he given too much agency at an early age so that he grew up with the belief that he could, as an individual, change the world?

Or perhaps he had been traumatised when, at the age of three, his father and I separated for a couple of years and he had spent formative years in a chaotic household that he, his younger brother and I shared with a group of lodgers, including an aggressive heroin addict whose friends regularly robbed the place?

All these guilty thoughts and doubts I have lived with daily.

Yeah, that doesn’t really sound like an ideal environment for the guy growing up does it, but I’m sure there are countless other people who have faced similar situations and haven’t ended up running off to join ISIS, so there are probably some other factors at work here too at least. That’s what I would be telling myself if I found myself in that situation anyway.

Anyway, not sure if you remember this but Lane and ehr husband were actually found guilty of funding terrorism in 2019 after they were found to have sent money over to Jihadi Jack during the course of his Middle Eastern odyssey. Lane has now moved over to Canada and Jack himself is still stuck in a Kurdish prison, although a Canadian court ruled that he should be repatriated – a ruling that the Canadian government is planning to appeal.

What an absolute mess that all sounds like. Can we possibly blame it all on over liberal parenting though? I’m thinking probably not but I’m sure some people actually will attempt to do so.

For more of the same, check out this article about why our generation is having way less sex than our parents.