Detained ‘Nazi’ teen discussed ‘shooting up’ schools, Old Bailey hears

A self-proclaimed “Nazi” teenager has been detained for 18 months after a court heard he had amassed a hoard of weapons and discussed online whether to “shoot up” his school.

The 15-year-old, from near Market Drayton in Shropshire, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to possessing a butterfly knife, a stun gun, a baton and crossbow without supervision in November.

He also admitted having terrorist information in a third-party’s manifesto.

On Friday, Judge Rebecca Trowler KC told the boy he “plainly had terrorist motivations, both racial and ideological”.

In addition to the 18-month custodial term, he was also sentenced to 12 months on licence and given a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) for three years.

“There was a real risk that you would carry out an attack and cause actual harm, however I am not satisfied that the risk of harm was very likely,” the judge said.

She told the defendant that she had taken into account his age, lack of previous convictions, the fact that he was bullied and his recent autism diagnosis, as well as an anxiety disorder.

She said his autism and isolation could have facilitated his retreat into the online world and his fixation with violence and weapons.

However, she added: “It cannot in and of itself explain away your ideologies or your express desire to kill other human beings.

“Your disorders do reduce your culpability, but to a limited extent.”

Also imposed was a 12-month parenting order, to provide his mother and father with training and advice.

During the sentencing hearing, prosecutor James Bruce said the teenager had developed an interest in mass attacks, including school shootings.

He expressed a desire to carry out his own copycat killings, and had a stash of deadly weapons, he added.

At the time of the police’s first visit – on an unrelated matter – in early November 2024, he was living in an annexe of his parents’ property, and was described as looking “unkempt”.

At the time, officers seized six air weapons, a samurai sword, three crossbows and bolts, six knives and a stun gun.

Also found was a tactical vest that had far-right patches on it.

Videos found on the teenager’s electronic devices showed footage and stills of him practising with the samurai sword, shooting a crossbow at a coconut, and using a baton to crush a container on his desk.

The defendant also tried to make “cricket bombs” but was not successful, the court heard.

Two days after the police raid, he searched the internet for “can a 50lb crossbow kill a human?”

Just three days later, the court heard, his mother bought him a crossbow “pistol” with a 50lb draw weight.

When police returned two weeks later, officers seized the new weapons.

When interviewed, he told police that he had an interest in history and a “black sense of humour”.

He was released on bail on the condition he had no unsupervised internet access, and did not buy any more weapons.

It was agreed with the local authority that he would move back into his parents’ main house. He was also referred to a deradicalisation programme and mental health services.

When police returned to carry out a bail check on 22 January, he was still living in the annexe and had been bought a new internet device by his mother.

Officers took the device off him and found he had logged into chats referencing crossbows, Islamic State group beheading videos and school shootings, the court heard.

He was remanded to Feltham Young Offenders Institution, where, in March, officers found and confiscated a homemade weapon.

Further examination of his device documented a fascination with mass violence dating back to 2023, the court was told.

In a Whatsapp chat with a girl, the boy spoke of a desire to want to carry out a mass shooting and said that he wanted to die at the end.

He said there were voices telling him to kill, and he hoped the shooting “stopped the voices forever”.

He also said: “I wanna kill so badly, watching pathetic maggots die arouses me.”

The boy wrote that 20 April – Adolf Hitler’s birthday – would be his “death day”, and said he would “kill lots of people”, listing three schools that he planned to attack – one of which was his, two others on the Isle of Wight.

Mr Bruce noted that the “death day” had passed without incident.

Police also uncovered a video of the defendant displaying a crossbow and flag.

In the footage, he said: “Embarrassed ‘cus I’m a Nazi, look I’ve got my crossbow for killing Jews, ha ha, I’m a Nazi.”

The court heard the defendant had marked his weapons with the names of infamous bombers and gunmen, as well as the words “born to kill” on the inside stock of one of the crossbows.

Mr Bruce said careful consideration was made by the Crown on whether to charge the defendant with preparation of terrorist acts, but it was decided that would not be in the public interest.

In mitigation, Dominic Thomas said the defendant had become “isolated” during the pandemic and was being bullied at school.

He also described him as “unengaged and undiagnosed”.

“[He] had effectively fallen down a very long deep dark well,” he said.

Mr Thomas said there was a “complete absence” of any behaviour that manifested mass violence.

“There are identifiable occasions when he picked dates when he said things would happen and nothing happened,” he told the court.

He said the boy had said he was pretending.

“This was a manifestation, by pretence and fantasy, that he had some sort of agency, that he had some sort of response, to those that had picked on him and that its primary purpose and its primary effect was to provide him with a certain degree of solace, in that way,” the defence barrister said.

“There’s no indication that he crossed that line, and he’s always been wholly adamant that he understood that line, and would never have crossed it.”

He told the court that the boy was significantly autistic and was vulnerable, and said the boy’s actions were not preparation for violence, but the “expression of fantasy, a kind of warped self-care”.

Ch Supt Mo Lansdale, local police commander for Shropshire and Telford with West Mercia Police, said officers attended the boy’s address for an unrelated matter – where they then discovered the weapons and offensive material.

“The devices we seized then identified that further online behaviour, and the grotesque viewing of these violent offences that this boy was looking at, on a more than daily basis,” she said.

“I think the level of violence of what he was viewing was particularly concerning and shocking, and not what you’d expect a 15 year-old child to be accessing and viewing.

“It is particularly shocking and concerning that he has had access to that material and been able to view it so freely.”

She added that the force did not believe he had been groomed.

Additional reporting by PA Media