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| Ethan Stables trial: Neo-Nazi convicted of planning terror attack at gay pride event | Ethan Stables trial: Neo-Nazi convicted of planning terror attack at gay pride event |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A neo-Nazi has been convicted of planning a terror attack at a gay pride event. | A neo-Nazi has been convicted of planning a terror attack at a gay pride event. |
| Armed police stopped Ethan Stables as he was travelling to the celebration at a pub in Cumbria, finding a machete and axe at his home. | |
| They had been tipped off by a member of a far-right Facebook group who saw the unemployed 20-year-old post a message saying he was “going to war” and planned to “slaughter every single one of the gay bastards”. | |
| Leeds Crown Court was shown footage of Stables saying “gays look nicer on fire” and burning a rainbow flag before his arrest on 23 June. | |
| Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford said Stables espoused homophobic, racist and Nazi views online, taking a selfie with a swastika flag hanging on his bedroom wall. | |
| The jury was told Stables was interested in the Columbine High School massacre and had been expelled from school after putting another pupil in a headlock. | |
| Evidence presented in court showed he made a series of Google searches on a prospective attack, including one reading: “I want to go on a killing spree.” | |
| Police examination of his devices showed he also searched “how to make chemical poison”, “what is prison like for a murderer” and “do you get haircuts in prison”. | |
| Stables had also searched for how to make a bomb at home, with investigators finding a collection of match heads in his flat. | |
| While swapping messages with fellow extremists, he blamed the fact that he was unemployed on “faggots, n******, spastics” and the Equalities Act. | |
| Stables also expressed hatred of Muslims and Jews, claiming in a WhatApp message a month before his arrest: “My country is being raped. I might just become a skinhead and kill people.” | |
| Stables denied preparing terrorist acts and making threats to kill, claiming he was only venting his anger online. | |
| The defendant, who told the court he is bisexual and has an autism spectrum condition, said he was not carrying out reconnaissance of the New Empire pub in Barrow when he was arrested. | |
| Defending Stables, barrister Patrick Upward QC said he was not a white supremacist but a “white fantasist”, describing him as “lonely and inadequate”. | |
| He told the jury Stables would sit at night on a wall outside the local jobcentre for six hours at a time as he had no WiFi at his home, asking: “How can that be regarded as normal?” | |
| Stables, of Egerton Court in Barrow, claimed he was a liberal and adopted a right-wing persona to fit in with people he chatted to online. | |
| His mother told the court he became radicalised after a trip to Germany to see a young woman, while Stables said he had been “brainwashed” by right-wing extremists he met while living in hostels. | |
| The verdict came after another far-right extremist, Darren Osborne, was jailed for life for launching the Finsbury Park terror attack. | |
| The father-of-four killed one man and injured several others when he ploughed a van into Muslim worshippers leaving Ramadan prayers in June. | |
| Additional reporting by PA |