'Lyrical terrorist' has conviction quashed

Former Heathrow shop assistant Samina Malik, who called herself the "lyrical terrorist", today won her appeal against conviction.

Malik, 24, was the first woman to be convicted under the Terrorism Act. She was found guilty last December at the Old Bailey of collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism and was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months.

She had scrawled extremist thoughts on WH Smith till receipts and wrote poems entitled "How to behead" and "The living martyrs." Today, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, sitting in the Court of Appeal with Mr Justice Goldring and Mr Justice Plender, quashed the conviction after the Crown conceded that it was unsafe.

He said: "We consider that there is a very real danger that the jury became confused."

The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not seek a retrial.