Boy planning terrorist acts wanted ‘white supremacist utopia’, Leeds court told | UK news
A white teenager who allegedly hated Jews and black people collected weapons and scoured local synagogues as he prepared to carry out acts of terrorism, a jury heard.
Prosecutors said the Northumberland boy, now 16, was proud to hold Nazi beliefs and was a member of a banned terrorist group that aimed to create a “white supremacist utopia”.
The boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, denied the charges of preparing terrorist acts, being a member of a banned organization, possessing terrorist documents and sharing terrorist publications.
Michelle Heeley KC, on trial at Leeds crown court, said on Tuesday the defendant “wanted to be a terrorist”.
He said police raided the boy’s home in February last year. “They found weapons. They found explosives and keys ideal for nail bombs, white supremacist flags, knives, crossbows and nails. In short, they found an arsenal, an arsenal worthy of any young right-wing terrorist.”
They found notebooks expressing racist beliefs, jurors heard. Heeley said the boy would say everything he wrote was empty words, but the prosecution would point to his “active research” and collection of weapons and materials to create explosives.
“These were more than just words,” he said. “This was a young man who was actively preparing for a terrorist attack, and who knows what he would have done if the police hadn’t gotten there in time.”
The jury was told the boy spent too much time online. Heeley said most of the evidence would come from what police found when they raided his home; These included weapons, explosives, military uniforms, notebooks, telephones and computers.
Heeley said the evidence suggests the boy “believed in white supremacy, that whites were the superior race, and that all other races were inferior…He had hatred of Jews, of blacks, of anyone who did not conform to his racial ideals.”
Heeley said the boy was 13 when he reached out to a neo-Nazi paramilitary hate group called The Base, which has been banned by the UK government.
“They encourage murder and acts of terrorism and seek to bring about the collapse of society through race war,” Heeley said. The ultimate goal is “a white supremacist utopia born of destruction.”
The court heard the boy said he wanted to be “part of an active group, active in real life”. The jury heard he was “willing to travel when necessary”.
Heeley said that on Christmas Eve before his arrest, instead of watching festive movies, he watched “videos of mass stabbings, school shootings, acts of terrorism.”
Heeley said he began researching local synagogues. “The prosecution is that he collected weapons and identified targets.”
He was researching how to make homemade ammunition and printable guns on New Year’s Eve, jurors heard.
Heeley described the teenager’s “obsession” with extremism and how he collected videos of terrorist attacks and ranked killers who committed atrocities against minorities.
The court heard the defendant bought chemicals online to make explosives and discussed blowing up a power transformer or mobile phone mast near his home.
The trial continues.
