The youngest person to be convicted of
planning a terror attack in the UK has been detained for more than six years.
The now 17-year-old wrote about an "inevitable race war" in his diary
and listed locations from his home city of Durham in a "guerrilla warfare"
manual.
A jury had found the boy, who cannot be
named for legal reasons, guilty of preparation of terrorist acts between
October 2017 and March 2018. He was sentenced to six years and eight months at
Manchester Crown Court. Judge David Stockdale QC told the boy: "These are
offences of the utmost seriousness.” He also ordered the detention be followed
by an extension period on licence of five years.
The six-week trial heard he was an adherent
of "occult neo-Nazism", and described himself as a "natural
sadist". His attack preparations included researching explosives and
trying to obtain the dangerous chemical ammonium nitrate. He also wrote of
planning to carry out an arson spree targeting synagogues in the Durham area
using Molotov cocktails.
Addressing the defendant, the judge
described him as a widely-read "young man of high intellect", adding
this made it a matter of "infinite regret" that he had persisted on
"such a twisted and - many would say sick - ideological path". He
said the evidence in the trial "tells its own macabre story", and
while his young age was a powerful mitigating factor, it was also a "most
disturbing" aspect of the case.
"You suffer from an autistic spectrum
disorder", he told him, saying it was common ground between experts. The
judge also said the teenager had written him a letter expressing
"remorse".
Teen neo-Nazi became 'living dead'
As well as being found guilty of
preparation of terrorist acts, he was also convicted of disseminating a
terrorist publication, possessing an article for a purpose connected with
terrorism and three counts of possessing a document or record containing
information likely to be useful to a terrorist. His trial heard he had visited
websites on firearms and was in communication with a gun auctioneer.
After his arrest in March 2019, police
found him in possession of instructions showing to make bombs and ricin - and
that he had distributed firearms manuals online by uploading them to a neo-Nazi
website. Earlier in the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Michelle Nelson QC
described it as "a gamut of offending across the terrorism
legislation".
Mitigating, Nigel Evans QC said the
teenager's lack of contrition may be "interpreted as part of his autism,
his ADHD", and his parents, who previously "didn't believe anything
was wrong", were "now fully engaged".
Speaking after sentencing, Det Ch Supt
Martin Snowden from Durham Police said: "It is never an easy decision to
investigate, to arrest and prosecute children of this age. "We only do
this when we think it is the last resort for us to go down that line.
"Prevention is always better than prosecution - we would have always
preferred to engage earlier and divert him away from these beliefs and this
activity."
Source: BBC News – 07 January 2020
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