An English mother of five children who works for the state health care system as a nurse secretly “married” Manchester synagogue terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie after converting to Islam, according to a report.
Elizabeth Davis, 46, had told her family about the relationship only after Al-Shamie carried out last week’s Yom Kippur attack that left two people dead and several others wounded, The Sun reported.
Relatives said they were “horrified” to learn she was involved with the 35-year-old Syrian-born extremist, who was shot dead by armed police after ramming worshippers with his car and stabbing bystanders outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue.
A source told The Sun: “Liz converted to Islam four years ago.”
“Her conversion caused tensions with her family, they say she became a totally different person after that. She stopped communicating with relatives and friends,” the source said.
“It was like she had been brainwashed,” the source added. “The family only found out that she had got married to Al-Shamie after the synagogue attack on Thursday.
“The family are horrified that she has been involved with someone like that. It’s possible she got married to him in an Islamic law ceremony.”
Davis, a resident of Bolton, worked for the National Health Service, the UK’s publicly funded medical system, but it was unclear whether she still works there.
Police have not said whether Davis faces any criminal scrutiny.
Greater Manchester Police said their counter-terrorism investigation is “continuing at pace,” with “significant resources” deployed to “establish the full picture into what has happened.”
Authorities confirmed that three men remain hospitalized with serious injuries — including a security guard struck by the terrorist’s car and a Community Security Trust volunteer who suffered stab wounds.
Al-Shamie, who came to Britain as a teenager from Syria and became a citizen in 2006, had worn what appeared to be a suicide vest during the attack.
Investigators later determined the device was fake.
Two men — identified by police as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66 — were killed. At least one of them was accidentally hit by police gunfire during the confrontation, according to officials.
Al-Shamie had been free on bail for alleged rape when he carried out the deadly rampage, according to reports.
Greater Manchester Police were investigating a sex-assault case involving him earlier this year, the British newspaper the Guardian reported.
“He was on nobody’s radar for terrorism, but he definitely had a criminal record,” a police source told the paper.
Investigators are also examining whether Al-Shamie sent death threats to a British politician more than a decade ago.
In 2012, Conservative MP John Howell received an email signed “Jihad Alshamie” stating: “It is people like you who deserve to die.”
The email was allegedly sent after the lawmaker defended Israel’s right to protect itself, The Times reported.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said officials had been struck by the assailant’s unusual first name — a term used by Islamist extremists — but confirmed it was his birth name.
Al-Shamie’s father previously posted social media messages expressing support for Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of around 1,200 Israelis, according to reports.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch visited the synagogue over the weekend and warned that British Jews “must be given greater security” as some families are leaving the UK “to go to Israel.”
She said: “Israel is at war. How can people be leaving the UK to go to a war zone and think that they’ll be safer there?”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who toured the scene on Friday, urged demonstrators planning marches in Manchester and London to “respect the grief of British Jews.”
Forensic teams continued to search multiple homes across Manchester on Sunday, while officers maintained an armed presence outside Jewish institutions nationwide.
