- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
The sister of a jihadi fighter was on Wednesday (30) handed a restraining order after she developed an obsession with a journalist who produced a documentary about her brother.
Konika Dhar developed a crush on Sunday Times security correspondent Richard Kerbaj. She is the sister of Siddhartha Dhar, also known as Jihadi Sid, who fled the UK with his wife and four children to join the Islamic State.
Konika met Kerbaj when he interviewed her for the documentary My Son the Jihadi, which features the families of Islamic terrorists.
She has been sentenced to a 12-month community order and also made subject to an indefinite restraining order. Konika is prohibited from contacting Kerbaj and his new partner, his ex-girlfriend Katie Gibbons, their friends, families and work colleagues. She is also banned from going within 200 m of The Times’ London Bridge HQ.
She will also have to unfollow the complainants on Twitter and Facebook.
Prosecutor Terence Curtis told the court that Konika harassed Kerbaj by sending him heart emojis.
“In mid-2016 her behaviour changed and she began sending him heart emoji’s and inappropriate messages and he told her they were inappropriate and asked her to stop,” explained Curtis.
When she discovered that Kerbaj had dated Gibbons in the past ‘she became obsessed about this and contacted Katie Gibbons and her family.
“She set-up a fake twitter account pretending to be Katie Gibbons.”
Probation Officer Patrick Acres told the court: “Quite clearly Ms Dhar, at the time of committing these offences, was not well.
“The diagnosis is schizophrenia and these symptoms were present before the diagnosis.
“She first engaged with mental health services in 2016, but rejected the diagnosis due to the stigma and didn’t feel it matched her self-image.”
Dhar now receives four anti-psychotic injections a week.
Acres added: “She feels that has completely changed her way of thinking and she recognises her actions were obsessive.
“Now she is able to think straight she has no intention of contacting these people again.
“If she had been well she probably wouldn’t have behaved in this way.”
