‘Columbine’ plot boys found guilty
TWO 15-year-old boys who plotted to gun down innocent classmates in a replica version of the 1999 Columbine massacre have been given 10- and 12-year custodial sentences.
Would-be murderers Thomas Wyllie and Alex Bolland were said to have “hero-worshipped” Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the teenagers who killed 13 people at the Columbine High School in Colorado before taking their own lives.
The two boys, who were just 14 at the time of the plotting, were so serious about carrying out their own version of the attack at their school in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, that they had drawn up a “hitlist” of targets – which included students who had bullied them, as well as teachers.
During their trial, prosecutors told how conversations about the plan went beyond the realms of fantasy, as the teenagers downloaded bomb-making manuals, researched weapons online and warned friends about what was to come.
Wyllie, who has been described as the leader and main instigator, discussed his motivations for the planned massacre in a diary which espoused what jurors were told was his “twisted ideology”. The inside cover of the book, which was recovered from the teenager’s home in October 2017, apologises for either committing “one of the worst atrocities in British history” or killing himself.
The journal also features a page of “stuff we need” to execute the plan, including napalm, firearms and pipe bombs.
In a secret hideout in Catterick Garrison, Wyllie had kept a rucksack filled with screws, boards and flammable liquid, which prosecutors suggested were instruments for making an explosive device which was to be part of the killing.
According to Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, the bullying that Bolland suffered from was a motivation for the attack, saying: “In other words, they were driven by a desire for revenge.”
After a Snapchat conversation discussing details of the plot came to light in September 2017, he made “clear and unvarnished confessions” to a teacher and police, claiming that his targets were “infecting the gene pool” and that they were doing a “service to society”.
However, the pair were not arrested until October 2017, after Wyllie’s secret hideout was found by officers.
Following a trial at Leeds Crown Court, they were both convicted of conspiracy to murder by the jury, with Wyllie additionally being convicted of the unlawful wounding of a teenage girl.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told the boys: “Both of you inhabited narrow lives in which you saw yourselves as victims and it is clear that, rather than be positive influences on each other, you entered into a noxious relationship which pulled each other down further into a selfish obsession with punishing others for the wrongs you felt had been perpetrated against you.”