Train ‘bomb threat’

A weapons-obsessed teenager wanted to cause carnage in the capital when he planted a homemade bomb on the Tube, a court has heard.

Damon Smith was 19 when he allegedly packed a rucksack with explosives and ball-bearing shrapnel and left it in on a train.

Had the device worked, it would have exploded just as people were being ordered off the Jubilee Line platform at North Greenwich, jurors were told.

The court heard Smith had an interest in Islam, guns, explosives and gambling, and collected pictures of extremists. After he was arrested, the autistic student admitted making the device but claimed he meant it to spew smoke as a prank. Smith denies possession of an explosive substance with intent.