A 15-year-old British boy who
plotted to behead police officers at an Anzac Day parade in Australia
has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Blackburn teenager
will serve at least five years for inciting terrorism and will only be
released once he is no longer considered to be dangerous.
He sent thousands of online messages to an alleged Australian jihadist and was planning "a massacre", the court heard.
He is believed to be the youngest Briton guilty of a terror offence.
Police
said the plan hatched by the boy - who was aged 14 at the time and will
remain anonymous due to his age - was "shocking in its brutality and
scope".
The boy remains a "significant risk", the judge, Mr Justice Saunders, said.
Dominic
Casciani, BBC home affairs correspondent, said the five-year minimum
term was a "window of opportunity" to see if the boy can be
deradicalised before he is then moved into the adult prison system.
But our correspondent said he may potentially never leave custody.
The race to stop the teenage terrorist
By BBC's Rachael Connors
The teenager - now
Britain's youngest convicted terrorist - comes from a "normal" family in
Blackburn, Lancashire; he had a "typical relationship" with his mother
who would drive him to any appointments.
But the picture that
emerged when police searched his bedroom was far from normal. On the
windowsill they found a wooden box labelled Islamic State in the way a
teenager might carve out the name of a pop idol.
But it was what
detectives found within encrypted messages that revealed Australia was
just days away from experiencing a violent terrorist attack orchestrated
by the schoolboy.
Read more: How did a teenager from a "normal" family become Britain's youngest convicted terrorist?
The
court heard how the boy adopted an older persona in his messages to
alleged Australian jihadist Sevdet Besim, 18, in which he instructed him
to carry out an Islamic State terror group inspired attack.
They had been put in touch by a well-known Islamic State recruiter, Abu Khaled al-Cambodi - also an Australian.
The
plot, hatched from the bedroom of the Lancashire teenager's suburban
home earlier this year, was for Mr Besim to run over at least one police
officer and then behead them with a knife at the remembrance parade in
Melbourne, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Anzac Day, held on 25
April each year, commemorates Australian and New Zealand personnel
killed in conflicts - and this year marked the centenary of the World
War One battle in Gallipoli.
In one exchange of messages, the
teenager suggested Mr Besim get his "first taste of beheading" by
attacking "a proper lonely person".
Media captionIn
a statement following sentencing, a solicitor said the family of the
Blackburn boy had been 'completely unaware' of his activities before his
arrest
The pair would "in all
probability" have succeeded had British police not accessed material on
the boy's phone and alerted Australian police, the court had heard.
The boy later told his psychiatrist it would be a "massacre".
Mr Besim is awaiting trial in Australia next year.
Wearing
glasses and grey trousers and shirt, the boy sat impassively as his
sentence was read out, before hugging his tearful parents and family
members in turn, and being led away.
Sentencing the teenager, judge Mr Justice Saunders said the youth would have "welcomed the notoriety" had the plot succeeded.
Image caption
The boy sent thousands of messages to Sevdet Besim in Australia
Image copyrightGreater Manchester PoliceImage caption
When Australian police raided Mr Besim's house, they
allegedly found a knife and a phone containing a martyrdom message
He said it was "chilling" that someone who was only
14 years old at the time could have become "so radicalised that he was
prepared to carry out this role intending and wishing that people should
die".
He had been "immersed" in online extremist material and
"groomed" by adult extremists who then started using him to carry out
their wishes, the judge said.
Speaking outside court the boy's
solicitor, Daniel King, said the family were "shocked and devastated"
when he was arrested, as they had no idea about his intentions and were
relieved that no one had been harmed.
'Jihadi celebrity'
The
court previously heard the teenager had been referred to the
authorities by his school on several occasions for threatening
behaviour, including telling one teacher he would "cut his throat and
watch him bleed to death". He had also cited Osama Bin Laden as his
hero.
The youth had found an online jihadist community through his
first smartphone which "filled a void" caused by problems he was having
at school and at home as well as a degenerative eye condition.
Image copyrightGreater Manchester PoliceImage caption
The boy and his Australian conspirator exchanged thousands of messages
Within two weeks of setting up a Twitter account he
had 24,000 followers as he constructed a fantasy image of himself and
"quickly became a celebrity" within the jihadi Twitter community.
He
was referred to the government's de-radicalisation initiative Channel,
but only paid "lip service" to attempts to reform him, Mr Justice
Saunders said.
He said "no doubt lessons can and have been learnt" about how his case might have been handled.
But
he stressed the blame lay entirely with "those extremists who were
prepared to use the internet to encourage extreme views in a boy of 14
and then use him to carry out terrorist acts".
Image copyrightAPImage caption
Parades, like this year's event in Sydney, take place across Australia on Anzac Day
Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Mole, from the
north west counter terrorism unit, said the boy had been known to police
but had resisted intervention.
"That's a dangerous game to play
because you can get people like us knocking on the door and
investigating you, which is not the place we want to be dealing with
14-year-old people," he said.
Labour MP Keith Vaz, chairman of Parliament's Home Affairs Select Committee, said members would "look closely" at the case.
"It is concerning that he has been part of programmes for de-radicalisation which have clearly not worked," Mr Vaz said.
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