Boy who ran right-wing terror cell walks free
JUDGE REVEALS HE CHANGED HIS MIND OVER SENTENCE AT LATE HOUR
A DERBYSHIRE schoolboy who set up and ran an extreme right-wing terror cell has avoided immediate custody.
England and Wales’ Chief Magistrate, Paul Goldspring, said the now 16-year-old encouraged like-minded young racists to commit terrorist acts.
Handing the teenager a two-year youth referral order, he told him: “Many factors give rise to genuine concerns about you. But you have already served the equivalent of 18-to-20 months (in youth detention) and that would not give you the opportunity of rehabilitations and re-education.
“Sending you to more time in custody would be counter-productive to the public interest and yourself. (You) have to change yourself.
He told the boy: “I can’t emphasise how close you came to a further period of custody. Until last night I was going to do so. I changed my sentencing reasons at about 11pm last night – that is how close you came.”
A hearing last month heard how the teenager boasted how he would “cleanse London” of ethnic minorities.
The prosecutor said he recruited like-minded young people, telling them he would get weapons and “blast” black and Asian people.
The teenager shared video montages of Adolf Hitler, former British fascist Oswald Mosley and a video of a gunman who shot to death 51 Muslims during a mass killing in New Zealand.
He told the other members how to modify rifles, guns and bombs and where to download a terrorist publication.
He told the members: “I am planning an attack on the Dover coast where every Muslim has been given safety, if you are interested tell me now.”
The teenager, whose identity is protected by law, admitted terrorism charges at a previous hearing in June.
Alistair Richardson, prosecuting at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, said: “(The Derbyshire teenager) set up and managed a racist group called the British Hand. He recruited like-minded young people and used private chat groups where they spoke about ‘doing something’ against ethnic minorities.
“They showed support for the extreme right-wing cause with abhorrent and entrenched beliefs and a commitment to violence.”
The prosecutor told how from March of last year the teenager began downloading and sharing racist videos and images. He also discussed in the chats plans to bomb towns and cities in the UK with high Asian populations.
Mr Richardson said: “Encouraging the group to recruit more members he posted a message saying ‘use Facebook, use Instagram, use Twitter.’
“He sent a message saying ‘we are going to be bigger than the IRA, we all hate Muslims, we want and need to get our nation back by any means needed.’
“He then sent an image of an individual in a gas mask, seemingly himself, with a message that said ‘I be hunting Jews.’”
Mr Richardson said on September 21 last year, the night before the teenager was arrested, the then 15-year-old sent a message to the group saying “half the s*** we say and what we are planning could get us locked up”.
He said: “On being arrested his response was to laugh and then, when he got to the police station he said ‘basically, I am far-right and you guys don’t like it.’”
The Derbyshire youth admitted one charge of dissemination of a terrorist publication under Section 2 TACT 2006 and one offence of collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism under Section 58 Terrorism Act 2000. He also pleaded guilty to two other terrorism charges.
A second member of the British Hand, aged 16 and from Bromley, Kent, pleaded guilty to similar, but less serious, terrorism offences. He was handed a 12-month youth referral order.
Mr Richardson said the Derbyshire teen previously received a caution for a bomb hoax.
And he also telephoned an Islamic centre in West London asking what time Friday prayers were before saying “I am going to park my bacon wagon outside, you should not be in this country, you terrorists”.
Mr Richardson said: “Perhaps, most concerningly, it carried on.”
He then played a short video made by the teenager after his arrest in which he rants on about how much he hates black and Asian people.
In mitigation Mark Luckett, the Derbyshire teenager’s lawyer, said his client has been in youth detention since January and has plans to become a vet or to study IT at university.