A woman who practised knife fights with her jihadist brother as he plotted a terrorist attack in London has been given a suspended prison sentence after a judge said she acted out of “misguided loyalty”. Former Uber driver Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 29, was last month jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years after planning a gun, knife and van massacre in the capital. His sister, Sneha Chowdhury, 26, was handed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, on Tuesday for failing to tell police about an imminent attack. Her brother was arrested after unwittingly revealing to undercover police officers his plans to target popular tourist attractions, including Madame Tussauds, the Pride parade and an open-top sightseeing bus. He also bragged about deceiving an Old Bailey jury that cleared him of a sword attack on police outside Buckingham Palace in August 2017. A Woolwich crown court trial heard that his sister knew he was training with wooden swords, known as bokkens, practising knife fighting and rehearsing beheading attacks at the family home in Luton. She was sentenced by Judge Andrew Lees on Tuesday after a jury found her guilty in February of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism between 13 April and 3 July 2019 following a trial alongside her brother. He said he had decided to take the “exceptional” step of suspending her prison sentence, imposing a 60-day rehabilitation requirement and notification order, after finding that she did not “present a risk or danger to the public”. “I accept you were subject to controlling behaviour by the male members of your family,” the judge told her. “Nevertheless, your relationship with your brother is very close. There is no evidence that you shared or had any interest in his extremist views. I accept you didn’t do what you should’ve done out of a misguided loyalty to your brother.” The defendant, dressed in black, was supported by her husband and cousins in court. She sobbed in the dock, smiled, then hugged her family members and barrister after she walked free from the courtroom. Her brother was befriended by four undercover officers, posing as like-minded extremists, after he was freed from Belmarsh prison when jurors cleared him in December 2018 of slashing at police with a sword outside the palace while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The evidence gathered led to convictions for engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, collecting information likely to be useful to someone preparing an act of terrorism, and disseminating terrorist publications. The prosecutor, Duncan Atkinson QC, said Sneha Chowdhury knew her brother had bought training equipment and was planning to launch another terrorist attack, as conversations between the pair were captured in secret recordings. Chowdhury told her he had “looked at bare [a lot of] terrorist shit on the internet” and planned on “doing another attack”. Atkinson said: “Ms Chowdhury was aware of his training, that it was training relating to violence, the use of weapons, in particular a knife or sword, and a further attack by him was imminent.” He said there was no evidence she had extremist views, and she acted out of “loyalty to her brother rather than a shared ideological position with him”. Another bugged conversation captured Chowdhury telling his sister how to stab someone as he demonstrated his technique on a canvas wardrobe. Marion Smullen, defending, described her as a “perfectly normal young woman” who had been studying education at Brunel University in the hope of becoming a teacher. She had also been working part-time at Sainsbury’s as well as acting as a carer for her mother, who has bipolar disorder, the barrister said. Smullen told the court her client had twice given evidence for the prosecution at an Old Bailey trial and the retrial at which he was acquitted. She added: “This is a wholly extraordinary case – somebody who had never put a foot wrong before her brother came back to live in the house after he was released from Belmarsh.” Commander Richard Smith, head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism command, said: “There is no acceptable reason for listening to someone say they are planning to kill innocent people, and watching them practice how they will do that, then not reporting it to police. “Sneha Chowdhury wilfully kept her brother’s horrific secret, but not every case has to end this way. If relatives report indications that a loved one is becoming radicalised early on, there is an opportunity for authorities to intervene and help them before they become too deeply entrenched. All it takes is a phone call.”