Neo-nazi teenager who planned to bomb synagogues and other targets and who became UK’s youngest ever convicted terrorist is jailed for 6 years
A sixteen-year-old neo-Nazi teenager from Durham has been jailed for six years and eight months by Manchester Crown Court after being found guilty of preparation of terrorist acts between October 2017 and March 2019.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is the youngest person ever to be convicted in the UK for planning a terrorist attack.
Reportedly a follower of far-right ideology since the age of thirteen, the boy had hoped to follow in Adolf Hitler’s footsteps and listed numerous targets “worth attacking” with Molotov cocktails, including synagogues, which were listed under “Areas to Attack” in his manifesto, which was titled “A Manual for practical and sensible guerrilla warfare against the kike system in the Durham City area, Sieg Heil”. Other items seized from his home included a copy of Mein Kampf and material on explosives and firearms.
During the trial, the prosecution claimed that the defendant had become “an adherent of neo-Nazism – the most extreme of right-wing ideology”, noting that he had written in his diary on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday that the Nazi leader was “a brave man to say the least. Although maybe having written proof that I admire their number one enemy isn’t such a wise idea. I will however say that I one day hope to follow in his footsteps.”
The jury did not believe the teenager’s claims that his far-right musings were for “shock value” only, and he was found guilty of preparation of terrorist acts, 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.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crime than any other faith group.