Neo-Nazi sent to secure hospital for gay attack plot
‘Making plans to kill’
A TEENAGE white supremacist who plotted a machete attack on a gay pride event has been held indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital.
Nazi sympathiser Ethan Stables, now 20, claimed he was ashamed of his own bisexuality and was trying to impress far-Right friends.
But a judge told Stables he posed ‘a very real risk to the public’. Armed police swooped on Stables as he walked to the pub holding the event last summer.
Officers acted after receiving a tip-off that Stables had posted a message on a FARRIGHT Facebook group saying he was ‘going to war’ and that he planned to ‘slaughter every single one of the gay b******s’.
Stables, who was then 19, also filmed a video of himself posing next to a swastika and setting fire to a gay pride flag. Although he was unarmed when he was arrested on June 23 on his way to the New Empire pub in his home town of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, police found an axe, a machete and knives at his home.
Following a trial at Leeds Crown Court, he was found guilty on February 5 of preparing terrorist acts, making threats to kill and possession of an explosive substance under suspicious circumstances. Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford had told the jury that Stables carried out research intending to carry out a ‘murderous attack’ with a machete and axe.
The extremist had a swastika hanging in his bedroom and had bought a new Nazi armband after his was taken by police when he was arrested.
Stables also made internet searches related to ‘the terrorist group National Action’, ‘preparing for a race war’ and ‘how to be a terrorist’.
Officers discovered that, as well as researching firearms, he had also looked into methods for making a bomb.
Giving evidence, Stables, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, claimed he was a just a fantasist. He visited the New Empire pub three times on June 23 last year to take photographs and carry out a ‘reconnaissance’.
But his plan was foiled after he told people about it on Facebook. The prosecution argued that he was intending to ‘return home to collect his machete, knives and axe’.
Sentencing Stables yesterday, Recorder of Leeds Peter Collier QC said he was only spared jail due to his mental health condition. He added: ‘The jury believed... you were making plans to kill.’
Stables can only be released from hospital by a Mental Health Tribunal or the Ministry of Justice. He will then have to report his where abouts indefinitely, and will be monitored by counter-terrorism officers for ten years.