ANZAC Terror Plot Teen Had 'Beheading List'

A massacre was thwarted after police uncovered a terrorist plot being directed by a schoolboy from his bedroom in Blackburn, a court has heard.

The Islamic State supporter, described as highly intelligent but "abusive and aggressive" to his teachers, pretended to be an adult online at the age of 14 so he could influence like-minded people across the world.

The boy, who can't be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty in July to inciting alleged jihadist Sevdet Besim to behead police officers at an ANZAC Day remembrance parade in Australia this year.

Police believe that when they raided the Lancashire schoolboy's home a "major terrorist plot" was just days away from being put into action.

Manchester Crown Court heard that the pupil, now aged 15, had previously threatened openly to behead his own teachers. He told one of them: "You are on my beheading list."

When another teacher wrote in his homework book: "Killing another person is immoral," he wrote: "You could not be more wrong."

On another occasion he threatened to stab a teaching assistant in the neck with a pencil and watch him bleed to death "like Halal".

The court heard that the boy would show classmates beheading videos and that his school nickname was "The Terrorist".

He would speak of his desire to be a suicide bomber stating that if he had to choose where to detonate his bomb it would be on a plane in order to maximise the fatalities.

Paul Greaney QC, speaking for the Crown, told the court that by March of this year "a tipping point had been reached: the teaching staff at the school were increasingly concerned for their own personal safety and the evidence of (the boy's) radicalisation was overwhelming".

He said that the pupil had "disengaged" from a Government counter-extremism course and that attempts to divert him from the path of extremism had failed.

Mr Greaney said: "Putting behaviour at school together with his activities over the internet a clear picture emerges of a young person who was, by March 2015, thoroughly and dangerously radicalised and committed to ISIS and the idea of violent jihad."

In mitigation, the boy's barrister said that circumstances at home and the lack of a mentor resulted in his client feeling a void that was filled by IS propagandists online.

James Pickup QC said: "They welcomed him with open arms and they regarded him as a celebrity. He gained notoriety. He was accepted. He wasn't rejected. His profiles on social media were a fantasy."

The hearing is to determine what sentence the boy should receive.