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Shabana Mahmood has vowed to fight back against attempts by a European court to allow Shamima Begum to return to the UK. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has demanded answers over the case of Begum who was stripped of her British citizenship after she fled the UK for Syria to join the Islamic State (IS).

Ms Begum travelled at the age of 15 from Bethnal Green, east London, to territory held by IS a decade ago. She was “married off” to an IS fighter and was stripped of her British citizenship in February 2019 on the grounds of posing a threat to national security and remains in a Syrian camp. In a document published by the European court earlier this month, it states Ms Begum is challenging the decision under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights – prohibition of slavery and forced labour.

Attempts by European judges to challenge the decision could open up a potential route back into the UK for Ms Begum, a move described by her lawyers as an “unprecedented opportunity.”

However, sources suggest that the Home Secretary would “robustly defend” the Government’s position, paving the way for a clash with the court.

A Government source told the Telegraph: “The Home Secretary will robustly defend the decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship, which has been tested and upheld time and again in our domestic courts.

“The Home Secretary will always put this country’s national security first.”

The row threatens to add fuel to the fire of those within the UK who want to reconsider the country’s relationship with the ECHR.

One such person is Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick, who told the Daily Express: “Under no circumstances should Shamima Begum ever step foot in the UK again. She chose to get into bed with ISIS terrorists and must now live with the consequences.

“We don’t need a foreign court in Strasbourg to tell us who can or can’t come into this country. This is yet another glaring example of why we must leave the ECHR and take back control of our borders.”

The case was lodged in December last year, after she was denied the chance to challenge the removal of her British citizenship at the UK’s Supreme Court in August.

Among four questions posed by judges in Strasbourg to the Home Office, it asked: “Did the Secretary of State have a positive obligation, by virtue of Article 4 of the Convention, to consider whether the applicant had been a victim of trafficking, and whether any duties or obligations to her flowed from that fact, before deciding to deprive her of her citizenship?”

Responding to the move, Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, which is representing Ms Begum, said the court’s communication “presents an unprecedented opportunity” for the UK and Ms Begum to “grapple with the significant considerations raised in her case and ignored, sidestepped or violated up to now by previous UK administrations”.

Lawyer Gareth Peirce said: “It is impossible to dispute that a 15-year-old British child was in 2014/15 lured, encouraged and deceived for the purposes of sexual exploitation to leave home and travel to Isil-controlled territory for the known purpose of being given, as a child, to an Isil fighter to propagate children for the Islamic State.

“It is equally impossible not to acknowledge the catalogue of failures to protect a child known for weeks beforehand to be at high risk when a close friend had disappeared to Syria in an identical way and via an identical route.

“It has already been long conceded that the then Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, who took the precipitous decision in 2019 very publicly to deprive Ms Begum of citizenship, had failed entirely to consider the issues of grooming and trafficking of a school child in London and of the state’s consequent duties.”

Tney added the challenge comes as the current Government has made protections for victims of grooming and trafficking a national priority.