Loughborough teenager 'planned repeat of Columbine massacre by carrying out terror attack on his former school'

Boy was found to have petrol bombs, air rifles, pistols and armour at his home

A teenage neo-Nazi planned a gun and bomb massacre at his former school in a copycat attack that he dubbed the “new Columbine,” a court has heard.

The youth, who was 16 at the time, had stockpiled petrol bombs, weapons and armour at his home and allegedly planned to use them against staff and pupils at his former school in the Leicestershire town of Loughborough, an Old Bailey jury was told.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons and denies terrorism offences, kept a Che Guevara notebook, emblazoned with Nazi swastikas, with details of other potential targets including a local mosque, a cinema, Loughborough University and council offices, it was claimed. It included drawings showing how he would arm himself and discussed tactics to carry out “the new Columbine,” the court was told.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 before both committing suicide in one of America’s worst mass shootings.

The boy, now 17, claimed to be a member of an EDL group and wrote in a letter found at his home that there were “too many Muslims in the UK and Europe” who wanted to “take over Europe and put Sharia law in place”, said Max Hill QC, for the prosecution.

Mr Hill said that the jury would have to decide if the teenager, who has Asperger syndrome, was a misfit or whether he represented something more serious. “Is it harmless? Or is it something more sinister?” he said.

He and two other 17-year-olds have already admitted possessing petrol and pipe bombs. Mr Hill said the “sheer weight” of weapons the defendant is accused of possessing set him apart.