Why were police so slow to stop boys plotting school massacre?
TWO teenagers were convicted yesterday of a plot to carry out a Columbine- style massacre at their school.
The boys spoke openly of their plan to use shotguns and home-made bombs to kill teachers and pupils who had bullied them.
But police refused to take the threat seriously despite a series of tip-offs from classmates, teachers and parents.
North Yorkshire Police investigated four separate complaints about the older boy over a six-month period, but he was left free to pursue the plot.
The youngsters, who were 14 at the time and cannot be named for legal reasons, sat motionless alongside their tearful mothers yesterday as guilty verdicts were read out at Leeds Crown Court. They were both found guilty of conspiracy to murder, and the older boy was also convicted of unlawful wounding for carving his name into his girlfriend’s back with a knife.
The police reaction to reports of the teenagers’ plans was described in court as ‘inadequate’ and bosses yesterday admitted shortcomings in the investigation.
Detectives believe the boys, now 15, planned to make a device similar to the nail bomb that killed 22 people at the Manchester Arena last May.
Fellow pupils were so concerned about talk of a ‘shooting’ and social media activity they reported the comments to teachers, who in turn alerted police.
Officers were alerted twice in the space of 17 days last September. First the headteacher of the school attended by the older teenager’s girlfriend was told about his desire to ‘shoot up his school’ and his online obsession with serial killers and the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US – in which 13 were murdered.
Police issued a warning but the more sinister concerns were ‘brushed off’ as ‘rumours’, his
‘Brushed off as rumours’
girlfriend said. Officers were called again after staff at the boys’ own school in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, were informed of the pair’s threats.
Even though the younger boy admitted they had planned to shoot pupils, police failed to act. They were finally caught after the older boy tried to break in to his girlfriend’s house on October 20 – but fled with a knife when he was discovered by the girl’s mother.
Diary entries later revealed how he had planned to murder the parents and use the father’s shotguns, along with explosives, to carry out an ‘assault on that f****** school’. Police were directed by the girl to the boys’ secret hideout, where they found masks as well as wires, batteries, screws and a bottle of flammable liquid.
Bomb-making manuals had been downloaded from the internet, and a diary included a recipe for gunpowder, napalm and graphic detail of his school slaughter plan. The older boy’s 14-year- old girlfriend told how on one date the couple bought two baby dolls. The boy ripped them apart and covered them with fake blood.
She later told police how he wanted to do the ‘full NBK’, a reference to the violent film Natural Born Killers, in which a couple go on a killing spree after murdering the female character’s parents.
Sentencing was adjourned to a later date. Assistant Chief Constable Phil Cain, of North Yorkshire Police, said: ‘ We fully accept that standards of investigation and our initial responses, to some of the incidents, did not meet those standards that are expected of us.’