Durham neo-Nazi teenager convicted of planning terror attack
A teenage neo-Nazi who wrote about an "inevitable race war" in his diary and identified a series of possible targets has been convicted of preparing terrorist acts.
The 16-year-old boy listed the locations from his home city of Durham in his "guerrilla warfare" manual. He also described himself as a "natural sadist", Manchester Crown Court heard. The boy is the youngest person to be convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK. A jury found the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, guilty of preparation of terrorist acts between October 2017 and March this year. He was also convicted of disseminating a terrorist publication, possessing an article for a purpose connected to terrorism and three counts of possessing documents useful to someone preparing acts of terrorism. He was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on 7 January. The court heard the boy began drafting a "manual for practical sensible guerrilla warfare against the Jewish system in Durham City area". The manual listed "means of attack" and "areas to attack", which listed local venues "worth attacking" such as post offices, pubs and schools. A "things to do" list from August 2018 included the words "shed empathy" alongside a hand-drawn symbol of the Order of Nine Angles, which the court heard was a "self-consciously, explicitly malevolent" Satanic organisation. The boy also wrote of planning to conduct an arson spree with Molotov cocktails on local synagogues. Jurors heard, in the course of his internet searches, he looked for a "map of synagogues in the UK" and "Newcastle synagogue". He also visited websites on firearms and was in communication with a gun auctioneer. After his arrest in March, police found him in possession of instructions showing to make bombs and the poison ricin. They also found he had distributed firearms manuals online by uploading them to a neo-Nazi website. Giving evidence, the boy denied being a neo-Nazi and said he had merely created an extremist "persona" online and in his journal. Det Chf Supt Martin Snowden, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: "The extreme right wing views and hateful rhetoric displayed by this teenager are deeply concerning and we cannot account for those who may have been susceptible to his influence or how they may act in the future. "His extensive repetitious internet searches, diary entries and escalating behaviour combined with his desire for notoriety highlight how dangerous he could have become had he not come to the attention of the authorities."