A teenager collected manuals on how to make homemade grenades and cyanide and set up an online extremist group called "Tesco Waffen".
Nicholas Street was aged only 16 when he created the "extreme right wing" channel on encrypted messaging platform Telegram and downloaded guides with apparently innocent names such as "Pancake Recipe", but which were in fact instructions for the production of explosives, deadly chemicals, automatic firearms and silencers. The now 20-year-old - of Stockbridge Street in Everton - also praised the murderous actions of Brenton Tarrant, who carried out the Christchurch terrorist attacks.
Liverpool Crown Court was told today, Tuesday, that his home was raided by counter terrorism police on December 2, 2019. Street, who was described as having a "deep-rooted mindset" and "terrorist connections or motivations", was found to have established the Telegram channel Tesco Waffen - an internet forum on which he and others with "the same mindset" shared a host of disturbing materials, including videos of the mass shootings in New Zealand.
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When officers examined his laptop and phone, they discovered a seven-page document entitled "Pancake Recipe". This was downloaded from messaging service Discord in June 2019, and gave instructions on how to make cyanide and ricin.
Another named "Poor Man's Armourer", which contained information on how to produce a silencer and "improvised hand grenades", had been obtained via the internet in October of the same year and was subsequently distributed onwards by Street. A third file, "The Lightning Link", meanwhile detailed how to manufacture a part which would enable an AR15 rifle to be converted into a fully automatic weapon.
A trial previously heard that the defendant "believed that it was only his fascist beliefs which were preventing him from taking his own life", that there was a "white genocide taking place" and the "white race was being attacked and killed off" by a "Jewish elite who were controlling the government, media and banks". Street was also said to believe that the Holocaust "did not happen and had been made up".
Matthew Brook, prosecuting, told jurors that among the videos which were posted to the group was one entitled "Atom Waffen" - which featured American neo-Nazi James Mason and showed flags displaying Nazi symbols such as the swastika and the black sun. He also shared a clip of Adolf Hitler on a site called BitChute alongside the lyrics "I'm a believer".
Street meanwhile kept a copy of Tarrant's "manifesto". He was said to "hold many of the same beliefs" as the terrorist, who shot and killed 51 people during attacks at two mosques in March 2019.
In one video on Tesco Waffen, the teenager praised the killer and painted him as an "extreme right wing warrior". Street, who had a picture of the fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley as his computer's screensaver, posted a series of messages "calling for action".
The now "reformed Baptist", who has no previous convictions, was seen holding his head in his hands in the dock during this morning's hearing. Ruth Zentler-Munro, defending, told the court that her client had been diagnosed with ADHD and displayed "autistic traits" and added: "He has ceased his activity in relation to the online forum in which he was participating."
Street was found guilty of encouraging terrorism by the jury, while he previously admitted three counts of possession of a document containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. He was handed 30 months in a young offenders' institute, and will be required to serve at least two thirds of this term behind bars before becoming eligible for release on licence.
Sentencing, Judge David Aubrey KC said: "The common theme was of death and destruction. Much of it was abhorrent and despicable in the extreme.
"You had an obsession with extreme right wing ideologies. You are, in my judgement, a complex and challenging young man.
"There is no doubt you did have obsessive tendencies. It is of concern that you show little or no remorse or insight into your offences or the consequences.
"On the other hand, you have not committed any offence since the commission of these offences, and the court is mindful of the delay in this case. The court accepts you no longer have such interests and have now become a reformed baptist.
"Your disorders and maturity are factors in your offending, but they do not exculpate it. I am satisfied you no longer represent a risk of causing serious harm to members of the public by the commission of further offences.
"Your mindset at the time was deep-rooted. You have now, it would appear, put such obsessions behind you."
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