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Counter Terrorism Police NE
The teenager had a list of weapons he wanted to buy
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.”
‘Natural sadist’
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 obtain the dangerous chemical ammonium nitrate.
He also wrote of planning to conduct an arson spree targeting synagogues in the Durham area using Molotov cocktails.
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Counter Terrorism Police NE
The boy had started writing a “guerrilla warfare” manual
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”.
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Counter Terrorism Police NE
The teenager drew up a “hit list” of areas he wanted to attack
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”.
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