Ex-altar boy locked up over bomb plot
A FORMER altar boy who planted a home-made shrapnel bomb on a London Underground train was jailed for 15 years yesterday.
Damon Smith, 20, who had an obsession with weapons, made the lethal device using ground down match heads, scrapings from sparklers and a Christmas tree light. Packed into a flask with a pound of ball bearings, it was designed to kill, mutilate and cause terror. Fortunately the bomb failed to go off, the Old Bailey heard. A holdall containing the device was spotted on the Jubilee Line train at North Greenwich, south London, near the O2 Arena in October last year.
Smith, a computer technology student and Asperger’s sufferer, was identified through CCTV and tracking the use of his Freedom Pass.
Detectives discovered Smith had been captivated by bombs since he was 10.
He had recently used online Islamic State propaganda to research the construction of lethal devices. Chillingly, he also became fascinated by IS killer Abdelhamid Abaaoud – who masterminded the 2015 Paris terror atrocities.
Smith, of Bermondsey, south London, denied possession of explosives with intent to endanger life and cause serious injury.
He did not give evidence during his trial and jurors found him guilty after less than an hour’s deliberation earlier this month.
Common Sergeant of London Richard Marks, QC, sent him to a young offender institution for 15 years.
He said: “Quite what your motives were and what your true thinking was in acting as you did is difficult to discern with any degree of clarity or certainty.
“Whatever be the position, the seriousness of what you did cannot be overstated not least against a background of the fear in which we all live, from the use of bombs both here and around the world – an all too timely reminder of which is the events in Manchester earlier this week.”