A Muslim convert who showed his son videos of beheadings has received a lesser jail term for spreading terrorist propaganda after a judge cited the impact of the sentence on his children.
Gary Staples, 50, created videos glorifying Islamic State when he was on licence from a prison sentence for child cruelty, imposed after he exposed his nine-year-old son to terrorist material.
The Old Bailey was told that he had been given unsupervised access to his four children while on licence and that they had been allowed to visit him in jail. Yesterday the judge sentencing him for propaganda offences reduced the term in part so that he could see his children again.
On Monday Mark Rowley, the national head of police counterterrorism, expressed concerns that courts were not as quick in removing children from extremist parents compared with paedophile parents. [The Times (£)] Read more
