Whilst the ‘radicalisation’ of Islamic youth is much talked about in Britain’s media, there have been few credible explanations as to how the process takes place. Even politicians like Prime Minister David Cameron, who constantly warn of the dangers of Islamic radicalisation, urging parents and schools  to look out for warning signs that their children have become radicalised, are at a loss to explain the exact workings of the process. Indeed, when recently pressed on the issue by a Labour back bench MP, Cameron simply shrugged and mumbled: “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It involves, well, you know, reading subversive Muslim comic books and visiting radical porn sites on the web. Or something.” However, the latest secret terror trial may have revealed the astonishing truth behind Islamic radicalisation. Few details of the trial, in which two young Islamic men who cannot be identified, are accused of having been involved in planning something which might be terror-related – although some reports indicate that they might already have been acquitted of something else at another trial which the authorities refuse to confirm or deny actually occurred – have been released, on national security grounds. Nevertheless, court reporters – who had to hear most of the prosecution case with their fingers in their ears, so as not to compromise the intelligence gathering techniques of the Security Service – have been allowed to reveal details of the testimony of a key witness, (who gave evidence with a paper bag over his head so as to protect his identity).

“The witness claimed that he had actually seen one of the defendants being radicalised,” Daily Excess crime reporter Toby Froth told his readers. “Apparently it happened during a visit to the local mosque, where a notorious radical – and probably mad – Mullah was preaching. The mullah was inviting young men, including the defendant, behind a curtain for ‘individual spiritual guidance’ – when they came out they were radicalised. The witness claimed that he had managed to look behind the curtain and saw the Mullah ushering the defendant into something that looked like a magician’s cabinet. Once the door was closed, the Mullah fiddled with some knobs on a control panel, there was lots of buzzing and flashing lights, then the defendant emerged, clearly radicalised! He was spitting at white people, denouncing Christendom and extolling the virtues of beheading people for the greater glory of Allah!” News of this ‘radicalisation booth’ has sent shock waves through Fleet Street, with many newspapers speculating that the booths could be deployed to radicalise unsuspecting citizens. “They could easily be deployed in the guise of telephone kiosks,” noted the Daily Norks. “Leaving people too poor or socially maladjusted to own a mobile phone at risk of turning into a crazed Jihadist after trying to call a taxi, or a prostitute.”

Others have claimed that the booths could be disguised as tanning booths or photo booths. “It’s a terrifying prospect that anyone seeking a quick tan now risks not just cancer but the prospect of emerging from their session wielding a machete and gripped by an uncontrollable desire to behead the nearest journalist or aid worker,” bellowed an editorial in The Shite. “Already there are claims that a series of unclaimed photographs, showing some unsuspecting victim transforming from a clean shaven, mild mannered accountant into a heavily bearded and turbaned fanatic in just four frames, have been found in a photo booth at Charing Cross Station.” Most disturbingly, it has been suggested by the Catholic Herald that the booths could even be infiltrated into Catholic churches in the guise of confessionals. “Bejasaus and begorragh, it’s a horrifyin’ thought that some poor parishioner comin’ in to confess to a few lewd thoughts about Sister Agatha from the convent and that quick one off the wrist they had in the bath, could walk out of the church and board the first plane for Syria,” wrote Bishop Brendan O’Fugh in yesterday’s editorial. “Worse still, they’ll be signed up to some heathen faith which oppresses women and condemns homosexuals to hell.”

Not everyone is convinced by the ‘radicalisation booth’ explanation for the process of radicalisation. “I know it sounds plausible, but I’ve always thought it was done through administering some kind of ‘Mickey Finn’ to the victim’s drink,” Mick Bulb, father of a student who secretly travelled to Syria to join ISIS after unexpectedly converting to Islam, told the Daily Norks. “A bit like a ‘date rape’ drug, except that the victim wakes up to find themselves in a foxhole in Northern Iraq clutching a Kalashnikov.” According to Bulb, his son’s conversion to Islamic fundamentalism occurred after a night out drinking in a local pub. “His friends said that he’d been approached at the bar by a mysterious woman who insisted on buying him several drinks,” he recalled. “Next thing we knew he was on the front page of the Daily Mail, heavily bearded and waving an AK-47 amid the ruins of some Syrian town that ISIS had just razed to the ground.” Bulb is convinced that his son, dubbed ‘Jihadi Jason’ by the press – following in the tradition of ‘Jihadi John’, ‘Jihadi Jack’, ‘Jihadi James’, ‘Jihadi Jake’ and ‘Jihadi Giles’, only one of which is thought to have actually existed outside of fevered newspaper headlines – was slipped some kind of ‘date radicalisation’ drug by the mystery woman. “Although there was allegedly nothing suspicious about her, nobody had ever seen her there before,” he muses, “and nobody at the bar was able to give a description of her due to the full burqa she was wearing.”

Developments in the trial have cast further doubt on the existence of the ‘radicalisation booths’, with the defendant in question alleging that all of the evidence against him – which he hasn’t been allowed to see in order to protect the prosecution’s sources – has been entirely fabricated by the authorities. He has also claimed that he is a victim of mistaken identity, denying being a young Islamic man, instead claiming that he is actually a middle aged Presbyterian from Antrim, a fact that the jury would be able to verify for themselves if they weren’t forced to hear the entire case wearing blindfolds. Judge Julian Fruitnutt has adjourned the trial while he decides whether to allow jurors to lift one corner of their blindfolds for thirty seconds in order to take a look at the accused, who will, for his own protection, remain behind a screen. The Ministry of Justice has declined to comment on accusations that the trial represents a travesty of justice on the grounds that no one at the department has sufficient security clearance to be aware of whether such a trial is actually taking place.