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Custody for 'Columbine' plot schoolboys | Custody for 'Columbine' plot schoolboys |
(35 minutes later) | |
Two teenage boys who plotted a Columbine-style shooting at a school have been detained. | Two teenage boys who plotted a Columbine-style shooting at a school have been detained. |
Thomas Wyllie and Alex Bolland, both 15, planned to shoot and kill pupils and teachers at the school in Northallerton, North Yorkshire. | |
Wyllie was handed a 12-year custodial sentence while his co-defendant was given 10 years. | |
The teenagers, who were 14 at the time, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder at Leeds Crown Court in May. | |
Jurors heard they were motivated by their "worship" of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 13 people and themselves at Colorado's Columbine High School in 1999. | |
Following their arrests in October 2017, both boys tried to claim the Yorkshire plot was nothing more than a fantasy. | |
But sentencing the pair, Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told them their plan "was not wishful thinking or fantasy, it was a real plot". | |
She said it was a "firm plan with specific targets in mind" using "indiscriminate explosives". | |
The judge concluded Wyllie and Bolland intended to cause "terror on the scale of the school shootings that have been seen in America". | |
During the trial, prosecutors said Wyllie, who was described as the ring-leader, was motivated by a "far right-wing" and "twisted ideology" which he had discussed in a diary. | |
The pair downloaded bomb-making manuals, researched weapons online and had drawn up a "hit-list" of targets that included students who had bullied and wronged them, as well as teachers. |