Jihadi Jack: Isis suspect says he wants to come home to UK but ‘no one cares’

The British terror suspect known as “Jihadi Jack” says he wants to come home to the UK five years after running away to Syria.

Oxford-born Jack Letts, who is being held in a Kurdish prison accused of being a member of Isis, told ITV News that he is missing his mother, pasties and episodes of Doctor Who.

“If the UK accepted me then I’d go back to the UK, it’s my home. But I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said. “No one really cares.”

It comes after Isis bride Shamima Begum, a former London schoolgirl who left the UK for Syria aged 15, also appealed to be allowed to return with her newborn son. She was stripped of her British citizenship on Tuesday.

While Mr Letts holds dual nationality through his Canadian father John Letts and British mother Sally Lane, he has not received a reply from either nation’s officials.

Mr Letts travelled to Syria after dropping out of school aged 18, in 2014. The Muslim convert first travelled to Jordan and learned Arabic before moving on through Kuwait and Iraq.

He ended up living on ”the Oxford Street of Raqqa” and claimed that seeing children killed by coalition air raids led him to welcome the 2015 Paris terror attacks that left 130 people dead

“To be honest at the time I thought it was a good thing,” he told ITV News security editor Rohit Kachroo. ”Genuinely, at the time, we had this idea that when you’re living in Raqqa getting bombed every five minutes by coalition jets and you see... literally, I’ve seen children burnt alive.”

Asked about the Bataclan concert victims he said: “At the time, you have this sort of – and this is what war does to you – you have this idea of ‘why shouldn’t it happen to them?’ But then I realised, they have nothing to do with it.”

Mr Letts was captured by the Kurdish-led YPG as he tried to leave Syria and has spent the last two years in a Kurdish prison. Censored letters from his family, delivered by the Red Cross, are his only contact to his homeland.

Asked what he missed about life in the UK, he said: “I miss people mostly. I miss my mum. I know that sounds a bit toddler-ish.”

He added: “Even if I could just see my mum... I would like just a phone call, I don’t know if Britain can do that for me here, but I’d like just a phone call to my mum – it’s been two years.

“If I could make a request. I’m probably not in a position to make requests. That’s it all, really. I miss my mum.

“What else do I miss? I miss pasties. It’s not really English – sort of Scottish, isn’t it? I miss pasties. And Doctor Who. Sounds a bit stupid… that’s all.”

He said he has never seen his son from his marriage to an Iraqi woman and is unaware of her present location, but hopes that the women and children held in Kurdish camps will be allowed to return home.

“The women who are in the camps, there’s kids who die in the camps,” he said.

“If I have to stay here two more years – I’m not trying to make myself seem like some sort of hero – if I have to stay here for two more years and they have to take back the women in the camps, I don’t mind.

“But it feels a bit ridiculous now – if my request is anything, is that they change this policy, they do something here.”

However he remained pessimistic of his chances of being brought back to Britain or taken in by Canada.

“I don’t think I’m going to be given... back to Britain, for example... or some Canadian official is going to come and help me because like I said – no one really cares,” he said.

Asked if he felt British or Canadian, he said: “I feel British. I’m British. My dad’s Canadian. If the UK accepted me then I’d go back to the UK, it’s my home. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

A Home Office spokesperson told ITV News: “In recent days the home secretary has clearly stated that his priority is the safety and security of Britain and the people who live here.

“In order to protect this country, he has the power to deprive someone of their British citizenship where it would not render them stateless.

“We do not comment on individual cases, but any decisions to deprive individuals of their citizenship are based on all available evidence and not taken lightly.”

Mr Letts’ parents face a trial in the UK over claims they funded terrorism by sending their son money. The couple deny the charge and insist their son went to Syria to help refugees.