TV spotlight falls on Huddersfield suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay

Feb 8 2010 By Neil Atkinson

THE spotlight falls tonight on Huddersfield July 7 suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay.

A new documentary series will focus on the former Rawthorpe High School student who became one of the four suicide bombers to claim 52 lives.

Lindsay, 19, changed from a bright, sports-loving teenager to a man obsessed with religion and with politics.

Now Generation Jihad, which starts tonight on BBC2 (9pm), will examine his life and that of other young Muslim terrorists.

They include Hamaad Munshi, of Dewsbury, who at 15 turned from a well-educated child to Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist.

Investigator Peter Taylor examines the terrorist threat from young Muslim extremists radicalised on the internet.

He said: “Although they represent a tiny minority of the Muslim community some would argue they now constitute the single biggest threat to our national security.”

The case of Lindsay was a bizarre one.

The son of Maryam McLeod, he arrived in Huddersfield from Jamaica at the age of one and lived with his family in Newsome.

He attended Stile Common Infants School but later moved to Town Avenue, Leeds Road, and switched to Rawthorpe Junior School.

As a teenager, he attended Rawthorpe High School and fellow pupils – later dreadfully shocked by his role in the bombings – regarded him as a great, popular student.

At 15 Lindsay was bright, doing well in his lessons and very popular.

He was also a brilliant sportsman, especially in athletics and soccer.

But when he returned for his final year at the school, he had changed.

He had changed his name from Jermaine Lindsay to Jermaine Jahal and was obsessed by religion and politics.

He would pray several times a day in the prayer room at the school and studied Urdu. Friends described him as solemn and serious.