Former dinner lady Farishta Jami, from Stratford-upon-Avon, had saved up £1,200 to pay for one-way flights to Afghanistan for herself and her children after planning to join Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Warwickshire Police told proceedings.

The force also told the court the 36-year-old was planning to “martyr herself” and her four children ahead of her sentencing, which was scheduled for Friday, February 14. However, it was adjourned in order for a pre-sentence report from the probation service to be prepared about her.

Ahead of the sentencing, the court was told Jami had shared graphic and violent extremist material between September 1 2022 and January 10 2024 on social media.

Police officers said she had researched weaponry and gathered information relating to the assembly and disassembly of an AK-47 rifle. Jami also had around 7,000 videos stored, several of which showed children being used as suicide bombers.

She was convicted at Leicester Crown Court on Thursday on charges brought under section 5 of the 2006 Terrorism Act. The court also heard she was an administrator on several social media groups. Some had more than 700 members who shared instructional videos to make devices for ISKP.

Detectives searching Jami’s home seized several devices, 30 SIM cards in a bag stuffed down the side of her bed. They also found she was trying to conceal passports.

Superintendent Darren Webster, Head of specialist operations for Warwickshire Police, said: “This was a complex case interlinking terrorism and serious criminal offences, and we welcome the outcome today.

“Jami’s actions had the potential for real-world implications, and the harm they could have caused cannot be underestimated. Thankfully, with an excellent partnership between West Midlands Counter Terrorism Police and ourselves, we were able to prevent this.”

Head of Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands Detective Chief Superintendent Alison Hurst added: “We welcome today’s verdict, Jami was determined to travel to join ISIS, despite claiming she was planning to visit family, but we found no evidence of any contact with her family to arrange a visit to see them in Afghanistan or Pakistan.”

It came to light on Thursday that concerned police removed her children from her care after making the horrifying discoveries which could have cost them their young lives.

Yesterday, police issued a second mugshot of the convicted ISIS terrorist after she complained the first picture showed her without a head covering, The Mail reported.

Police released a fresh custody image of Jami wearing a niqab with just her eyes visible after defence barrister Matthew Brook KC told the judge she’d been upset to see the earlier mugshot.

He told Leicester Crown Court: “Reports of the verdicts yesterday used an image of my client, released by the police, in which her head wasn’t covered.

“This has caused her some considerable distress, and the police are going to release a different image. We would request that is used instead.”

The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, stated she could not make an order and left it to the media to decide which image to use in publications.

Jami was born in Afghanistan and moved to the UK in 2008 to live with her husband, the court was told. They lived in a city in the North West, but she moved south in 2023 after the marriage turned violent.

She will now be sentenced on a date to be fixed.

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