Teenager admits terror offence
COURT: A teenager who already has a conviction for making a pipe bomb which was found in his Nazi memorabilia filled bedroom has admitted a terror offence. Jack Coulson, 19, avoided jail when he was given a youth rehabilitation order.
A TEENAGER who already has a conviction for making a pipe bomb which was found in his Nazi memorabilia-filled bedroom has admitted a terror offence.
Jack Coulson, 19, was found guilty last year of constructing the explosive device but avoided jail when he was given a youth rehabilitation order.
Yesterday, in a separate prosecution, Coulson admitted an offence of possessing a document or record for terrorist purposes when he appeared at Leeds Crown Court.
Judge Geoffrey Marson QC heard Coulson, of Mexborough, South Yorkshire, admit that between January 3 and January 20 this year, he possessed a document called The Big Book Of Mischief.
The court heard the document contained information of a kind likely to be useful to a person looking to commit an act of terrorism.
Coulson, who appeared in court wearing black trousers and an open-necked short-sleeved pale blue shirt, was remanded in custody by Judge Marson.
He will be sentenced on Thursday.
Coulson was not named in reports of his previous trial, in early 2017, after the court banned his identification because he was 17 years old at the time.
That jury heard how the pipe bomb was found in a desk drawer in his Bradford bedroom after police were alerted through suspicious Snapchat messages.
Prosecutors said one of these messages was a cartoon-like image of a mosque being blown up along with the words: “It’s time to enact retribution upon the Muslim filth.”
Another was a picture of a pipe bomb with an image of the Bradford skyline and the message: “Incendiary explosive and homemade black powder. “More to come.” The jury heard how officers found the defendant’s bedroom covered in flags, including the swastika and the symbol of the Waffen SS as well as a laptop with wallpaper featuring a Nazi eagle over a swastika and the German phrase: One Nation, One Empire, One Leader.
But the teenager told the court he never intended to use the pipe bomb.
The judge in the trial, Mr Justice Goss, said that the defendant’s “perverted” views led to him celebrating the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox and proclaiming her killer, Thomas Mair, as a hero.
Sentencing Coulson in February 2017, the judge said: “You are quite unable to articulate why you are now sorry and you continue to express very extreme views.”
He said Coulson was associated with National Action, which is now a proscribed terror group and was described in court as “a small, secretive neo-Nazi British youth nationalist organisation”.
Coulson was found guilty by the jury of constructing the explosive device but not guilty of a terrorism offence.
He was given a youth rehabilitation order to last for three years which would involve him being supervised, attending a preventative intervention programme for a year, staying off the internet and not contacting any proscribed groups.
Mrs Cox, the MP for Batley & Spen, was murdered in June 2016 after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery.
Mair, who held far-right views, was found guilty of her murder in November. The judge said the crime was so severe that 53-yearold Mair should be given a wholelife tariff – never to be released from prison, except at the discretion of the Secretary of State.