How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State

Court finds counter-terrorism unit’s conduct fell ‘profoundly short’ of minimum standards expected of law enforcement officers
Nino Bucci Justice and courts reporter Sat 3 Feb 2024 01.00 AEDT Last modified on Thu 8 Feb 2024 13.08 AEDT

Counter-terrorism police encouraged an autistic 13-year-old boy in his fixation on Islamic State in an undercover operation after his parents sought help from the authorities.

The boy, given the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was later charged with terror offences after an undercover officer “fed his fixation” and “doomed” the rehabilitation efforts Thomas and his parents had engaged in, a Victorian children’s court magistrate found.

Thomas spent three months in custody before he was granted bail in October 2022, after an earlier bail was revoked because he failed to comply with conditions.

Thomas, an NDIS recipient with an IQ of 71, was first reported to police by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and then by his parents because of his fixation with Islamic State, which included him accessing extremist material online and making threats to other students.

On 17 April 2021, his parents went to a police station and asked for help because Thomas was watching Islamic State-related videos on his computer and had asked his mother to buy bomb-making ingredients such as sulphur and acetone.

Thomas was investigated and charged with two terror offences by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT), which comprises Australian federal police, Victoria police and Asio members.

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The court granted a permanent stay on the charges in October last year, but a copy of the decision has only recently been published.

“The community would not expect law enforcement officers to encourage a 13-14 year old child towards racial hatred, distrust of police and violent extremism, encouraging the child’s fixation on ISIS,” magistrate Lesley Fleming said in the decision.

“The community would not expect law enforcement to use the guise of a rehabilitation service to entice the parents of a troubled child to engage in a process that results in potential harm to the child.

“The conduct engaged in by the JCTT and the AFP falls so profoundly short of the minimum standards expected of law enforcement offices [sic] that to refuse this [stay] application would be to condone and encourage further instances of such conduct.”

Fleming found the JCTT also deliberately delayed charging Thomas with offences until after he turned 14, as it made it harder for him to use the defence of doli incapax, which refers to the concept that a child is not criminally responsible for their actions.

Police also inappropriately searched Thomas’s property shortly before he was charged, Fleming found.

“There was a deliberate, invasive and totally inappropriate search of [Thomas’s] bedroom without lawful excuse.

The operative gave evidence that Thomas was naive ... asking questions like whether he could join the kids’ section of Islamic State

“The search involved multiple Victoria Police members under the guise of attending to provide support to the family within the CVE [Countering Violent Extremism] framework.

“The conduct of the law enforcement officers involved subterfuge.”

Fleming, who noted that English was not the first language of Thomas’s parents, found his father told police “he was prepared to sacrifice my son for the safety of the Australian community”.

There was no evidence the AFP took any action in relation to the DHHS complaint, Fleming found. An online persona which later communicated with Thomas was activated a day earlier.
How the undercover operation unfolded

After Thomas’s parents spoke to Victoria police, Fleming found a decision was made by the force to manage Thomas “therapeutically”.

His parents provided Victoria police access to Thomas, their home, his phone, his mother’s phone, and to personal information about his school and psychologist.

Less than month after Victoria police started working with Thomas, a case manager was told by a psychologist who was working with them that Thomas’s “verbalisations need to be considered within the context of his ASD [autism spectrum disorder] and possible cognitive impairment.

“One of the key diagnostic criteria for ASD is highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus,” the psychologist told the case worker.

The rehabilitation of TC was doomed once the [operative] connected online…befriended TC and fed his fixation

Magistrate Lesley Fleming

“It is suggested that ISIS represents a circumscribed interest: an intense, narrow preoccupying interest that provides intense focus, social identity for him, a topic to be researched … as well as a topic of conversation that brings him attention.”

A police officer who performed a report based on information downloaded from Thomas’s phone found that he appeared fascinated with China and symbols of the Chinese Communist party and that there were no religious images or verses from the Qur’an present.

Victoria police also arranged for an Imam to meet regularly with Thomas to discuss Islam and answer any questions he may have had.

But three months after his parents went to police, the JCTT started an operation targeting Thomas, code-named Bourglinster.

It would run in parallel with the efforts to counter his violence extremism.

An online covert operative was tasked with communicating to Thomas using two personae: a 24-year-old Muslim man from NSW, and a more extreme person located overseas.

The purpose of the operation was to find Thomas online and “engage him in chat to ascertain his intent if any”, the operative told the court. The strategy was to gather intelligence and information that could be used to charge Thomas with terrorism offences.

On the first occasion Thomas spoke with the operative online, he asked the officer: “are you a spy” and “do you work with the Asio”, to which the operative, in the role of the first persona, responded “I hate these killab [dog]”.

The operative then wrote “should I ask the same of you akhi” to which Thomas replied “I am 13 years old”.

The operative chatted with Thomas on 55 of the next 71 days, including during breaks at school and late at night.

The operative told an operational psychologist, who was expected to provide advice to him about how to communicate effectively online with Thomas, that “this … is a kid on the spectrum, I’m letting him do all the talking [and] just building rapport”.

There were 1,400 pages of online chats between the pair, Fleming found.
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The first persona introduced Thomas to the second, more extreme, persona, who encouraged him to make a bomb or kill an AFP member.

But the operative gave evidence that Thomas was naive, and living a “fantasy life online”, including by asking questions like whether he could join the kids’ section of Islamic State.

On 8 August 2021, Thomas sent a photo to the operative which showed him wearing his school uniform, a hoodie and a face mask and holding a knife with “ISIS” written on it in marker.

His house was searched within days, and he was charged less than two months later.

Fleming found that AFP assistant and deputy commissioners had been involved in authorising the operation which resulted in Thomas being charged, and that “the AFP was at all times aware of TC’s age, his complex mental health issues, and his fixation on ISIS”.

A decision to arrest Thomas was authorised by an assistant commissioner after a detective superintendent failed to inform them that they had information the undercover operation was having a negative impact on therapeutically changing Thomas’s behaviour.

Fleming said the prospect of diverting and rehabilitating Thomas was always destined to fail once the operative started communicating with him, and the magistrate could not accept evidence given by police that these efforts had primacy over the criminal investigation.

“It is a nonsense to expect this Court to accept that an effective rehabilitation process can be undertaken when there is a seasoned covert operator online engaging TC, encouraging TC’s fixation and that TC’s rehabilitation team, his parents and his psychologist are oblivious to the existence of the [covert operator].

“The rehabilitation of TC was doomed once the [operator] connected online…befriended TC and fed his fixation, providing him with a new terminology, new boundaries and an outlet for him to express, what was in part, his fantasy world.”