Family’s pain over ‘Jihadi Jack’, organic farmer’s son who ran off to Syria
By Tom Whitehead SECURITY EDITOR THE family of a man feared to be Britain’s first white convert to join Isil last night claimed he was the victim of a “Right-wing” conspiracy.
Jack Letts, 20, has been nicknamed “Jihadi Jack” by friends after leaving his Oxford home and travelling to Syria, where he is suspected of having joined the terror group.
He has posted photographs of himself on social media, thought to have been taken near the Tabqa Dam in Syria. In one he is wearing combat-style clothing. But a man who identified himself only as a close family member insisted there had been “an avalanche of misinformation” about Jack in the media.
Jack’s father, John Letts, who is Canadian, is a leading organic farmer who has appeared on BBC’s Countryfile and won a grant from the Prince of Wales to help preserve crop biodiversity. Mr Letts is a leading figure in reviving traditional crops that were in common use hundreds of years ago. He produces heritage flour from wheat grown around Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Neighbours said Mr Letts and Jack’s mother, Sally Lane, were left devastated after their son ran off to Syria in 2014 aged 18. One said that he was encouraged to convert to Islam by Muslim classmates and was radicalised by local extremists.
But, speaking at the family home last night, the close family member said: “There has been an avalanche of misin-
‘His father was very depressed when we last spoke, it must be terrifying for him’
formation. We don’t want to comment on all of this, but what I will say is that 95 per cent of what has been published is incorrect, it is desperately wrong.
“The only truth is that Jack is a Muslim and he is overseas. But everything else is made up and it is just getting worse.”
The man, who refused to confirm his identity, said the “Right-wing” media were only “interested in a snappy line like ‘Jihadi Jack’ and ‘Jihadi John’ that rolls off the tongue, but it is all wrong”.
Jack was once a keen sportsman and Liverpool football fan who had been the “class clown” when a pupil at Cherwell School in Oxford, according to former classmates.
It is believed he lied to his parents before leaving for Syria and told them he was moving to Kuwait to study Arabic. Since arriving in Syria, he is thought to have married and had a son.
Neighbours on the terraced street where the family live in Oxford spoke of their “utter sadness” that the “polite and lovely” boy they had seen grow up had allegedly joined Isil.
A Muslim neighbour, who asked to remain anonymous, said she became concerned after Jack converted to Islam.
“He told me he had started visiting a Wahhabi mosque. I believe he started going there with his classmates and I knew this could be bad as Wahhabi is not Islam, it is very bad,” she said. “His father was very depressed when we last spoke, it must be terrifying for him to have a son going into a war zone.”