White supremacist planned murderous mass attack in Workington, court hears

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A white supremacist who was allegedly planning a “murderous mass attack” in his home town was referred as a risk to counterterrorism officials months before his arrest, a court has heard.

Shane Fletcher, 21, allegedly planned to target the traditional Uppies and Downies event in Workington, Cumbria, and wanted to emulate the Columbine High School massacre.

Manchester Crown Court was told how he wanted to “take revenge on those he blamed for his unhappy life” and allegedly regarded Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as “legends”.

After Fletcher told his probation officer in March 2018 that the only thing stopping him committing a mass attack was a lack of money and resources, he was reported to the authorities.

He was arrested at his home on 10 March.

Lee Cartner, the probation officer, said he held weekly meetings with Fletcher from April 2017, in which Fletcher openly identified as a racist and remained “insistent” of his views, despite being challenged.

When he told Mr Cartner about how he had dreamed of shooting at a mosque, he was noted as “a risk to minorities, particularly Muslim”.

In June 2017, he was referred to the government’s Prevent counterterrorism programme.

Fletcher was offered the opportunity to meet with former members of far-right groups, such as the EDL and Combat 18, but he said he did not want to, according to Mr Cartner.

“He described any such former members as being race traitors,” Mr Cartner said.

Fletcher was reportedly told he would continue to be monitored and an offer to engage with Prevent remained open.

The probation officer said his concerns about Fletcher increased from December 2017, when he became “more specific in terms of an intention to cause harm.”

Mr Cartner worried his fascination with “mass casualty events”, such as Columbine and the Hungerford massacres, was starting to increase.

"He told me the only thing stopping him carrying out a mass killing was lack of finances and resources effectively, but he did say he knew people from Liverpool who could get guns for him and he did know [how] to make a bomb from the internet," the probation officer said.

The court also heard how Fletcher allegedly tried to recruit his only friend, Kyle Dixon, to join him in the planned attack.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford described Mr Dixon as a young man with “significant problems” who had suffered a brain injury and was prone to fits.

Fletcher denies soliciting Mr Dixon to murder and two counts of collecting or making a record of information useful for terrorism purposes, namely instructions on how to make a pipe bomb and how to make napalm or an improvised version of napalm.

Mr Sandiford told the court Fletcher’s motive was not thought to be terrorism but “hatred and a desire for revenge.”

The prosecutor added this was “borne of his racist belief that people who were Jewish and not white were responsible for his inability to find work and to make any kind of a meaningful life for himself.”

The trial is ongoing.

A recent report on global terror found far-right terrorism was on the rise in western Europe and North America, while the overall number of global deaths from terrorism has decreased.

Tom Morgan, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Economics and Peace, which produced the report, said there has been a “real and significant increase in far-right terrorist activity, particularly in the last two years.”

In October 2018, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the head of national counterterror policing, told MPs around 80 per cent of terrorism investigations involved Islamist jihadis, with the other 20 per cent including a “significant proportion from the right-wing”.

Agencies contributed to this report