Boys plotted new Manchester horror at their school
A PAIR of teenagers planned to butcher their classmates with a nail bomb like the one used in the Manchester Arena terror attack.
The two 14- year- olds, who were convicted of plotting to murder yesterday, were in the fi nal stages of preparing a savage assault when they were arrested by anti- terror police.
The atrocity was intended to replicate the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre in Colorado, where white supremacists Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and a teacher, injuring dozens more.
The evil pair, now 15, had researched the explosive device used to murder 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last May.
During a three- week trial, jurors heard how the boys had prepared a “hit list” of people they wanted to kill at their school in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, including fellow students and teachers who had supposedly bullied or wronged them.
The older defendant, described as the “leader” of the pair, was found to
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have kept a diary in which he espoused what prosecutors described as a “far- Right wing ideology”.
The pair were questioned by police in September 2017 when the younger boy told a schoolgirl via Snapchat that they were planning a shooting.
A teacher told the court the boy had said his targets were “infecting the gene pool” and that he and his friend were performing a “service to society”.
The older boy’s girlfriend also claimed that he encouraged her to give him access to her father’s shotgun and planned to murder her parents to become a “natural born killer”.
The court heard how the boy had previously been convicted of unlawful wounding after carving his name into his then- girlfriend’s lower back.
Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, told the trial at Leeds Crown Court that the boys “hero- worshipped” the Columbine killers. They will be sentenced at a later date.