Grieving Bethany Haines will sit down with a member of the terror cell that beheaded her father and hand him an extraordinary letter.
In the note, she will remind torturer Alexanda Kotey how both of them will be missing loved ones this Father’s Day.
Bethany was robbed of her aid worker father David by Kotey and the so-called ISIS Beatles – four Londoners who turned jihadists and wreaked devastation in Syria.
Justice caught up with Kotey in 2018 so he and his daughter, too, will never again experience the joy Father’s Day brings.
And Bethany will ram home that point when she meets Kotey for up to four hours in a US prison in eight days’ time.
The mum of one is scared about the meeting – but knows it is necessary.
She tells the Sunday Mirror: “I have an opportunity to write him a letter and I’ll hand it to him when I sit down with him in the jail.
“I want to make him realise the devastating effects his actions have had on others, including his own 17-year-old daughter.
"It will say, ‘Just like my dad, you did not get to celebrate Father’s Day.
"I did not see my dad and you did not get to see your daughter. But for you that is by choice.
"You have the rest of the life to come to terms with that’.”
Kotey, 38, was sentenced to life in April after pleading guilty to terror charges against hostages in Syria – including Brit David in 2014.
In court, 24-year-old Bethany read a moving victim impact statement as she looked him straight in the eyes.
She has also written a heartfelt note to her dad and will bury it under a special tree, which her family use in lieu of a grave, to mark Father’s Day.
Bethany writes of her fears about meeting Kotey, how she still feels David could call at any moment to say he’s on his way home – and celebrates the fact that two of his tormentors have now been found guilty of his death.
It reads: “I guess we can now say we won! We got them! The monsters are gone and will never be free again.”
And vowing to find David’s remains in the hills in Syria and bring them back to the UK, she wrote: “I promise I won’t stop until I bring you home.”
Bethany also hopes to talk to security services and finally get to Syria to give David a proper burial.
He was abducted while at a refugee camp in 2013 and held for 18 months by El Shafee Elsheikh, Kotey, Mohammed Emwazi and Aine Davis – all from West London.
In 2014, a video of gaunt and pale David, 44, kneeling next to knife-brandishing Emwazi – dubbed Jihadi John – horrified the world.
It ended with his beheading – one of 27 the group is believed to have carried out.
Emwazi died in a drone strike in Syria in 2015 while Davis, 38, was held in Turkey in 2017 and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years for being a member of a terror organisation.
Earlier this year, Elsheikh was found guilty of hostage taking and conspiring to murder.
He will be sentenced in August.
Kotey was given life sentences for each of eight charges he admitted. Bethany, from Perthshire, says: “I’ve been putting together notes and have 200 pages which helped piece together my dad’s days in captivity.
“I learned about tough things in the trial – like how he was water-boarded.
“Kotey was the one who held a towel over my dad’s head. It was hard to listen to. When he was sentenced I walked across the court and told him to ‘go to hell’.
"I know my dad would want me to speak my mind and that’s what I did. Since then I feel like I am edging closer to getting closure.
“It feels like this year we achieved something for my dad by jailing Kotey and Elsheikh.”
Despite facing her dad’s tormentors in court, Bethany says meeting Kotey face-to-face is her biggest challenge yet. He is being held in Virginia and meeting victims’ loved ones is a condition of his sentence.
Bethany goes on: “I have mixed feelings about the meeting. I know it’s now or never.
“I want to coolly and calmly interrogate him, but know I’ll have to try hard not to get angry and go for him.
“I’m preparing a list of questions and will practise them with the police. I’ll rehearse scenarios of what I want to say to him. I have a letter from him that is 25 pages that we all got after sentencing.
“I will be picking that apart in detail. I don’t want an apology or him begging for forgiveness. Anything like that will be fake, I know it. He has had meetings with other families over the past weeks and he’s cried in one.
“I’ve also heard he’s admitted guilt to a small degree but hasn’t expressed any true remorse. If it was up to me he would’ve had the death penalty. I just want answers, I need to add them to my notes of what happened to Dad.
“My ultimate aim is to find Dad’s remains and get him home as soon as possible. I’ve been doing enough research that I like to think I’ll know how to press Kotey’s buttons.
“I want him to feel as uncomfortable as possible.”
Bethany says the court cases have allowed her to regain some positivity.
She adds: “Father’s Days are often difficult. For the past few years, I have taken a letter down to a tree in the woods my dad used to take me all the time as a kid to ride my bike.
"Without a grave, the tree feels like the best place to connect to him. I’ve got in the tradition of burying the letter under the tree. Often the letters are quite downbeat in tone.
“But this year I feel there is more I can share that is positive for Dad.”
The letter starts: “Daddy, It’s another Father’s Day without you. It still feels like you’re on an endless trip in some far-off country and that any day I’ll receive a text or a call to say that you’re on your way home.”
Of his tormentors, it goes on: “I stood up in court, looked them in the eye and told them what they’ve done to our family. I hope I made you proud and you would have rolled your eyes when I asked him to ‘go to hell’.
“I’m scared to face him in a room but I know it’s the right thing to do and the right thing isn’t always the easiest thing to do. He will regret the day he dared hurt our family.”
And the letter ends: “I see your face every time I look at the stars and know that you’re up there encouraging me to keep going. Till we see each other again. Your loving daughter, Bethany”.
She tells how she keeps David’s memory alive by talking about “Grandad” to her son.
Recalling their last Father’s Day together, she says: “I remember we did an early Father’s Day because he was going to Turkey, the trip on which he went missing.
“We went for coffee, saw a Disney film and I remember him saying, ‘Stay strong and look after your mum’. I never dreamed that would be the last one we shared together.
“Dad was a special man. There was the aid worker who people seem to know who was seen in the orange jumpsuit, but then there was the smiling, happy man I knew.
“The guy who wore cargo trousers, loved Disney films and made rubbish dad jokes. He was my hero.”
