Boy, 15, gets 7 years for festival terror plot
A 15-YEAR-old lad brainwashed by Islamic State has been locked up for seven years for a murder plan.
Anti-terror police discovered he had been researching how to carry out a deadly attack on the Isle of Wight Festival.
The white teenager scoured the internet for an arsenal of weapons, vehicles and stab vests.
After rejecting the festival as a target because he did not have a car, the youth bought a blade and made plans to stab people who worked with him at the specialist education centre he attended.
He also tried to convert his grandmother to Islam. His plans were foiled by the FBI, who alerted UK counter-terror police to a user on a messaging app plotting an attack on July 11, 2022.
Yesterday the boy, now 16, was sentenced to seven years’ detention with a one-year period of extended licence at Kingston Crown Court. He was convicted for preparing acts of terrorism, three counts of disseminating terrorist publications and possessing a knife in public. The autistic teen, who is described as “bright, articulate and capable of exchanging ideas with others”, converted to Islam in late 2021.
One of his tutors noticed the defendant using a picture of Osama bin Laden as his phone background and said the pupil had boasted of joining an online anti-gay group “with Muslims in it”.
Det Ch Supt Olly Wright, head of Thames Valley Police’s Counter Terrorism Policing South East, said: “Terrorist groups use toxic rhetoric to exploit vulnerable people. This case was particularly concerning because a teenager had taken active steps to prepare for an attack.”