00:00Hi, my name's Sarah. At the age of 14, unbeknown to me, my son got involved with the far right.
00:09Over the next three years, I watched my happy-go-lucky, fun-loving son disappear and be
00:17replaced with an angry, hateful young man that I barely knew anymore. Those three years were
00:27extremely difficult. You never knew what each day was going to bring and I looked for answers to what
00:35could be causing it. I considered, was it teenage years? Was it exam pressure? Was he hanging around
00:42with the wrong crowd? Was it girls? I considered everything, or so I thought. Because when John was 17,
00:50he came home one day from a day out. I believed he was at a football match and he actually
00:57told me
00:57it was at a demonstration. I asked him more about that, what was the demonstration for,
01:03and he wouldn't tell me. And he said, the only reason he told me that it was at this demonstration
01:09was because the police had detained him and took his details and he was concerned that the police
01:16may knock at the door. And he told me there was another one coming up and regardless of what I
01:22thought, it was going. The only thing I could think of, because I knew there was more to it,
01:28was to take him to the next demonstration because it was quite a distance away. I made it clear to
01:33John
01:34that I was never going to participate. I'd just drop him off and then pick him up later.
01:39That fateful day soon came around and a day that was going to destroy my life for a long time.
01:48I dropped John off that day. I went and sat in a bush shelter opposite. And five minutes later,
01:55I watched my son start walking down the road and singing racial slurs. And it destroyed me,
02:03absolutely destroyed my soul. I was numb. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
02:10After the demonstration ended and John was in the car, I asked him what on earth he was playing at,
02:18which resulted in screaming at each other all the way home. After that, John was very vocal
02:25about his opinions. And as much as I tried to challenge them, he'd shoot me down in a second.
02:31And I've never felt so alone. I thought the last three years were bad. The next few weeks was
02:38just horrendous. I didn't know what to do. I considered phoning the police. I considered
02:44phoning school, college, but he was already in so much trouble. I just, I've never felt so alone.
02:52However, college intervened. They'd recognise some signs, something that happened. And John was referred
03:00through the Prevent and then channel. He was given an IP officer. Unfortunately, with their support,
03:08John was able to leave the far right and turn his life around. Now, I work for Exit UK, and
03:16I support
03:16other parents who have got children involved in extremism, because I know how life changing and how
03:23damaging that time can be, how isolating and how alone those parents feel, the guilt and responsibility
03:31that they feel. And no parent should suffer that alone. And so here I am today, helping those parents
03:39through their dark time and hoping it has the same outcome for them. Thank you very much.
