Published: 00:01 BST, 12 August 2026 | Updated: 07:54 BST, 12 August 2026
She was at first portrayed as a dangerous teenage far-Right extremist, having become Britain's youngest girl to be charged with terrorism offences aged 15.
Friends saw Rhianan Rudd draw pictures in schoolbooks of swastikas and Adolf Hitler, claim the Holocaust did not happen and suggest Jews were controlling banks.
But the story behind how this vulnerable autistic girl from Derbyshire became drawn into that dark world through online grooming also soon became hugely troubling.
Rhianan was investigated by MI5 after she downloaded a bomb-making manual, said she wanted to blow up a synagogue and carved a swastika onto her forehead.
It later became clear the girl had been exploited, but she tragically died aged 16 in May 2022 at a children's home five months after her charges were discontinued.
Now, Rhianan's friends and mother Emily Carter have revealed in a new documentary what led up to one of Britain's most controversial youth counter-terrorism cases.
In 'The Schoolgirl Terrorist?' on Channel 4 tomorrow at 10pm, Ms Carter said Rhianan was speaking online to someone she thought was a school friend called 'Chris'.
Chris Cook was in fact an American neo-Nazi who was jailed in 2023 for terrorism over plans to attack power grids. The white supremacist met Rhianan in an online gaming group and had been grooming her during the pandemic lockdown in 2020.
Rhianan Rudd died in May 2022, five months after terrorism charges against her were dropped
Rhianan Rudd with her mother Emily Carter, who says she should have been treated as a victim
Ms Carter said: 'One day she came down and we were just sitting talking. She went "oh, my friend Chris from school, we've been doing this history thing on Germany".
'And she became obsessed with Germany, but she did speak to this "Chris" a lot. So I checked everything on the computer. She had an attic room, so we had to go, open the door and up a flight of stairs to get to her room.
'So she would hear me coming, and every time I would get up there she was gaming. She would watch YouTube, or if it was in the morning, it would be her school work.
'She did chat to her friends from school. And I couldn't see anything on there that would make your hair stand up on your neck. So I used to think to myself, "you're just being paranoid, she's just a teenager".'