'She should come home and serve her time': Filmmaker Andrew Drury lambasts Shamima Begum

25 November 2022, 11:08 | Updated: 25 November 2022, 11:12

Journalist Andrew Drury lambasts Shamima Begum

By Madeleine Wilson

Journalist Andrew Dury says Shamima Begum should come back to the UK to relieve the Kurds from the burden of her.

Journalist Andrew Dury spoke with Nick Ferrari at Breakfast on LBC about his interviews with Shamima Begum over the last "two years", and how he had been texting her whilst she is in the camp up until six weeks ago.

It comes as Begum is challenging the Home Office's decision to remove her British citizenship, with her lawyers arguing that the department had a legal duty to investigate whether the then-teenager was a victim of trafficking when the decision was made.

Andrew said the last time he saw her she had a "tantrum" because he was interviewing another ISIS woman in the camp, taking his attention elsewhere.

Andrew said he is "furious" at the appeal Begum has made.

He said: "It's changed my opinion completely about her.

"I don't defend her at all now, completely the opposite."

Nick asked: "Why have you changed so dramatically?"

Andrew told Nick: "Firstly, trafficking would describe her as a victim straight away.

"The only trafficking she did was the way that she got there.

"She wanted to go there.

"We all defend her as being a fifteen-year-old girl, all fifteen-year-olds are different in person.

"You have to judge her on her personality and not her age.

"I don't know what she's like as a fifteen-year-old but I certainly know she wanted to go there."

Read more: Met Chief told LBC Shamima Begum should not return to UK - but ex-MI6 chief claims she poses 'bigger risk' in Syria

Shamima Begum cannot return to the UK to pursue appeal

Read more: Shamima Begum's mother Asma says her 'world fell apart' when she ran away to join ISIS

Andrew told Nick the reason his opinion has changed is that she has now labeled it "sex trafficking".

He said: "She was clearly not sex trafficked.

"She spent time there.

"She went to get married, she wasn't coerced into it.

"She wasn't radicalised, she wanted to go."

He later added: "She is a narcissist that wanted to be a somebody and this made her a somebody in her eyes."

Andrew concluded: "I think she should come home and serve her time."