Lucy* thought her teenage son was busy playing video games in his room and chatting with friends online – in reality, he was being drawn into the far right right under her roof.

“He was 14, but I didn’t find out until a few years later,” she says The Independent“I had no idea. I just noticed a lot of changes in him – his attitude. His general well-being. Our relationship fell apart. His school performance began to suffer.”

Her comments follow an explosion of far-right violence against immigrants across the UK earlier this month. Rioters attacked mosques, ambushed riot police, set fire to a hotel housing migrants and torched a public library and Citizens Advice Bureau building after three young girls were fatally stabbed at a holiday club in Southport modelled on Taylor Swift in late July.

There have been numerous street attacks on ethnic minorities. Following the Southport stabbing, misinformation quickly spread online, falsely claiming that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat.

Describing her son’s process of radicalisation, Lucy says that for the first two years he was involved in the far right, he never expressed his opinion on politics or current affairs, but then his deeply disturbing views began to surface.

He has consistently consumed hateful material, so this obviously has an impact on the individual.

Lucy

“It was all about immigration and religion,” she adds. “I thought, this seems very, very out of character – not like him at all. He wasn’t making racist comments per se. It wasn’t so much anti-Islamic. He was questioning passages in the Koran – saying they meant something different, and as much as I argued with him, that just created a bigger gap between him and me.”

She says his speech started to sound very “rehearsed,” as this is one of the things parents are supposed to pay attention to. Lucy also remembers her son making misogynistic comments towards her, telling her to “go to the kitchen where you belong.”

“He was just agitated,” she says. “He was irritable. His whole personality changed. My son now has a very animated, very silly personality. But yes, he was just argumentative, irritable, angry. But of course I know now that it’s because he was constantly consuming hateful material, so that’s obviously going to have an impact on a person.”

His long-time friends “fell by the wayside” and he spent more time indoors and less exercise during this time, Lucy adds.

“He didn’t want to spend time with us at home,” she says. “Even simple conversations could lead to arguments. We couldn’t turn on the news or anything like that because that would lead to an argument because we disagreed.”

It took about two months of her son speaking openly about his views before he was referred to the government’s Prevent programme through his college and assigned to an ‘intervention provider’ to support him in the deradicalisation process.

“They can offer counter-narratives and expose radicalization,” says Lucy. “He actually left pretty quickly.”

She explains that her son’s far-right activities were mostly online, but that he started going to protests towards the end of his involvement. To this day, she is not sure which groups were behind the demonstrations, as her son did not want to go into the details of his activism for her protection, she adds.

“I found out when he was 17,” she recalls, after her suspicions were aroused and she saw him at a rally. “When I found out, I still didn’t fully understand what he was involved in. Coming from a provincial area, I thought extremism meant big attacks by the IRA and ISIS.”

She says she was incredibly confused by what had happened and that the ordeal had caused tension between her and her partner, her son’s stepfather, because she was so worried about her son that she couldn’t rest.

Lucy and her son now volunteer for an organisation called Exit Hate Trust, which helps people who want to leave the far right. Not only do they offer training, but Lucy also supports parents whose children have been radicalised.

If a child is not feeling well, these may be signs: He or she may be withdrawn, isolated, and lack interest in his or her usual hobbies.

Anne Craanen

“It’s hard to say, ‘My son or daughter has these extreme racist views and opinions,'” she adds. “And so often they are isolated from everyone and have no one to talk to. So I’m the first point of contact and can give them a little advice, for example on how to de-escalate arguments and explain the situation so they understand what radicalization is.”

Lucy explains that her son’s behaviour has returned to what it was before he became involved with the extreme right – and adds that he is unrecognisable from what he was then.

“The changes I see – and not just in my son, but in all my cases, where their children can change completely,” she says. “It’s a bit like brainwashing.”

Anne Craanen, senior research and policy manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says parents should look for certain signs to find out if their child is involved in the far right.

“Signs are there when a child is not well: they may be withdrawn, isolated and have no interest in their usual hobbies,” adds Ms Craanen, whose organisation deals with extremism and disinformation.

“This is accompanied by a reduction in identity. Their identity merges with a certain ideology such as the extreme right.”

She says parents should also make sure their child doesn’t engage in “othering.” She explains that extremism is about an “ingroup” and an “outgroup,” and that those who disagree with one’s views are made into the enemy.

“Your child may be seeing things more clearly and in a whiter light,” she adds. “Parents need to talk to their children about their online activities.”

When asked about the danger that could arise from the escalation of a child’s right-wing extremist activities, she says it is difficult to predict when an individual would put his radical ideas into action.

*Lucy’s name has been changed to protect her identity