A self-proclaimed ‘Nazi’ schoolboy who stockpiled knives and crossbows to ‘shoot up’ his school has been jailed. 

The 15-year-old boy, residing near Market Drayton in Shropshire, had documented his intentions to target the school and two other locations throughout the county and the Isle of Wight.

Due to his age, the teenager remains unnamed. He recognized the other schools as those attended by an online acquaintance identified as ‘Nikki,’ whom he professed to have feelings for.

He was obsessed with school massacres and far-right mass killers after being radicalised at just 13 years old. 

He had two accounts on Watch People Die, a website which sees users upload footage of executions and fatal accidents. 

On its forum, he had uploaded links to the manifestos of Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik and 18-year-old mass attacker Arda Kucukyetim. 

Anders Breivik, responsible for a car bombing and the tragic shooting of 77 people on Utoya Island in July 2011, and Arda Kucukyetim, who attacked five individuals near a mosque in Eskisehir, Turkey on August 13 last year, were both referenced.

The links advised how to plan an attack, promising to teach the reader to ‘spew your hate’ against Jewish and black people. 

The notes included a point system for committing acts of violence, awarding extra points for wearing a tactical vest adorned with a Nazi insignia known as the black sun patch.

The boy also had in his possession the writings of three American school shooters.  

He has now been sent to a detention centre for 18 months, with an additional year on licence, plus a 12-month parenting order to support his parents. 

The youth had a ‘long experience of bullying’ at school, the Old Bailey heard, and stopped attending in January last year.

Prosecutor James Bruce said his parents had asked for help with him but were ‘unable to set and hold boundaries to monitor their son’s internet access’.  

He added the boy’s technical computer abilities ‘far exceeded that of his parents’. 

The judge said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had ‘very carefully considered whether the evidence and the public interest merited a more serious charge namely the preparation of terrorism acts’. 

But the CPS eventually decided against this, instead charging him only with possession of, variously, a document useful for terrorism, a crossbow, butterfly knife, stun gun and baton.

Judge Rebecca Trowler KC continued she was ‘satisfied’ 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,’ she added. 

On November 1 last year, less than two months after the boy turned 15, West Mercia Police executed a warrant for suspected offences of possessing indecent images at his home. 

He was found looking ‘unkempt’ and living in an annex to his parents’ house, where he was ‘largely left to his own devices’. 

Officers seized four crossbows, six air weapons in a locked cabinet, an air pistol in a drawer under his bed, a red Samurai sword, six knives, a telescopic baton and 13 crossbow bolts.

He had a backpack containing a school timetable, along with an empty glass Coca-Cola bottle with a rag taped to it, two empty glass beer bottles and some loose rag. 

These appeared to be improvised Molotov cocktails.

The boy also had a green tactical vest with a black sun patch depicting the Kolovrat symbol long adopted by neo-Nazis.

It had a stun gun in one pocket and a large black flag with Nazi SS symbols on it.

Three of the four enormous crossbows had optical sights for aiming, while all had draw weights of more than 80lbs, with one as much as 150lbs. 

It means they could have been lethal if used to strike a vulnerable part of the body, the court heard. 

A later search of the boy’s devices revealed videos from September 2023 showing him practising with the red Samurai sword. 

Footage from September last year showed him firing one of the crossbows at a coconut.  

Two days after the weapons were seized, the youth searched online for ‘can a 50lb crossbow kill a human’. 

Three days after that, his mother bought him a Anglo Arms gecko crossbow pistol with a massive 50lb draw weight. 

Fewer than two weeks after the search, on November 13, the boy wrote a diary entry entitled ‘War Journal 13.11.24’. 

‘The police took everything. I hope I get it back. I’ll still kill you all. Still got a crossbow!’, it said. 

On November 28, a second warrant was executed, which saw police discover even more weapons at the boy’s home. 

This included a crossbow pistol with a 50lb draw weight, several crossbow bolts, a 95lb EK Archery Research crossbow with optical sight, and an air rifle.

The boy told officers he had an interest in history and a ‘black sense of humour’. 

But his chilling fascination with weapons, death and killing saw them refer him to the Prevent deradicalisation programme, which appointed him a case worker.

He was also given a point of contact at the NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

But it was to no avail – on December 17, he recorded a video saying he was ‘100 per cent genuine’ about targeting ‘people that have wronged me in the past’.  

Speaking directly to the camera, he said in the roughly two-minute video: ‘This here is just a little video to prove that what I am doing is serious… 

‘I do think the white race is most superior… 

‘Why am I using a crossbow? Well, the general media coverage. People are going to go crazy. 

‘They are going to think, “Why haven’t crossbows been banned?”

‘It came up in Parliament. You tried to ban them but nobody listens, you know. Oh, they are going to listen now, that’s what [they’re] going to think. 

‘They are going to f***ing listen now.’

He was soon arrested and released on bail with conditions, including bans on unsupervised internet access and possessing or purchasing weapons.

The youth was also to be moved from the annex back into the main house, following an agreement struck between his parents and the local authority. 

But when police returned in January this year, they found he was still living in the annex. 

He was wearing dirty clothes and using a new phone, bought by his mother who said she did not realise it could connect to the internet.

The boy was logged into chats about school shootings and looking at ISIS beheading videos, the Watch People Die site and pictures of crossbows.

He was remanded to Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution in the Hounslow area of west London on February 13. 

But he remained relentless, with officers in late March forced to confiscate from his room a homemade weapon made from a screw pushed through a plastic bottle top.

Another search of his devices revealed photos of notes in his handwriting, including one taken on August 1, 2023, which read: ‘Thursday 3rd august. 

‘I wanna kill so badly, watching pathetic maggots die arouses me. Rage has been building inside me.’

A different note from August 15, 2024, referenced launching an attack on April 20 of that year – the anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

The boy wrote, alongside his name and address: ‘This is my death day or whatever the f*** it is. 

‘April 20th 2024, I will kill lots of people. I will use a taser, knife, and much more.’

He then listed three schools, including his in Market Drayton and two attended by ‘Nikki’, who he declared his love for, along with graphic sexual references.

In WhatsApp conversations with her dating back to 2023, he had expressed racist viewers and shared images of knives, air rifles and crossbows. 

The messages also saw him speak of wanting to do a mass shooting, confessing he wanted to die at the end of it.  

The boy claimed voices were telling him to kill, saying he wished ‘death on many people’ and ‘shooting will stop the voices forever’. 

A video from September last year showed a crossbow and a black flag with a skull and crossbones and Nazi SS logo. 

He said in the clip: ‘Embarrassed cause I’m a Nazi? Look I’ve got my crossbow for killing Jews, ha ha. I’m a Nazi.’

The youth had also marked his weapons with the names of notorious terrorists, along with the words ‘born to kill’ and ‘you get what you f***ing deserve!’. 

This was in imitation of Brenton Tarrant, the Australian terrorist behind the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019 who killed 51 people and injured 89 others.

The New Zealand killer had written words and dates on the weapons he used. 

The schoolboy sent a video to Nikki in August 2023 of himself making a thrusting movement with a knife. 

He wrote in an accompanying message: ‘It’s an illegal knife. My knife is meant for murder. I know how to use it.’

Images on his devices suggested he tried to make explosives in a cricket ball in July and October last year. 

This was in imitation of Eric Harris, the American high schooler who with fellow student Dylan Klebold killed 13 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado in April 1999.

Another picture, from his phone, he researched on November 1 last year – the day of the police’s first search – what power of BB ball bearing airgun was needed to penetrate an adult skull.

His search history showed his continued interest in violence while on bail. 

This included looking for ‘banned’ computer game maps of locations where real shootings took place in which the player can act out the shooting.

On January 6 of this year, the boy searched the internet for ‘UK biggest mosques locations’. 

He also searched for the Baitul Futuh Mosque in the Morden area of south London, which is the largest in the country.

And on January 13, he used the Discord gaming forum, to download a compilation of neo-Nazi propaganda and mass shooting footage. 

This was followed by an infographic, downloaded on January 19, on the most effective places on the body to fatally attack someone with a knife.

Prosecutor Mr Bruce said the boy’s own words showed his motivation was racial and ideological.

‘He wanted to copy others and accumulated weapons over a significant period and did so again after his release on police bail,’ he said. 

‘The subject of mass violence was never far from his mind.’ 

The boy’s lawyer Dominic Thomas said the boy suffered from autism spectrum disorder and anxiety and was ‘vulnerable and troubled.’

‘He has been bullied at school to such an extent that his schooling was abbreviated and his absence from school and reaction to that bullying is a significant part of the genesis of this,’ the barrister added.

‘He had a keen interest in the macabre the violent and extremist material. 

‘There is no getting round his several expressions of intended violence at his hand but critically, there is a complete absence of any behaviour manifesting such violence.’

The youth appeared in court, bearded and dressed in a grey Nike tracksuit. His parents were also in court.

Mo Lansdale, Chief Superintendent at West Mercia Police, said the case was ‘particularly shocking’. 

‘There is an ever-evolving threat of our young people being exposed to some horrific and grotesque content online that is, unfortunately, easily accessible and is being uploaded every second of the day, internationally.

‘It would be naive of me to say it isn’t happening elsewhere and the important part is what the public can do around reporting any concerns and having those difficult and frank conversations with our young children about what they are accessing online.

‘If it hasn’t been reported, and then something happens, the consequences can be catastrophic.’

The CPS and the Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust CAMHS service have been contacted for comment.