Teenage neo-Nazi wrote list of venues ‘worth attacking’ and hoped to follow in footsteps of Hitler, jury hears

16-year-old listed local targets including schools, post offices, pubs, council buildings, a passport office and a bus station

Youngster also allegedly wrote of planning to conduct an arson spree with Molotov cocktails on synagogues in the Durham area (Getty/iStock)

A teenage neo-Nazi who listed venues in his home city "worth attacking" wrote of hoping to follow in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler, a jury has heard.

The 16-year-boy from Durham was said to have begun drafting a manifesto entitled "A Manual for practical and sensible guerrilla warfare against the kike system in the Durham City area, Sieg Heil".

Within the document was a list of local targets including schools, post offices, pubs, council buildings, a passport office and a bus station, Manchester Crown Court was told.

The youngster, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, also allegedly wrote of planning to conduct an arson spree with Molotov cocktails on synagogues in the Durham area.

The document was seized along with a diary, books - including Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf - and computer devices by police who searched his home in March.

Prosecutor Michelle Nelson QC said the gathered material revealed the defendant had been a follower of a right-wing ideology since 2016.

She said: "Following much research on his part and much readings, by late 2017 his view had hardened and he became an adherent of neo-Nazism - the most extreme of right-wing ideology - wedded to the idea of accelerationism which calls for the acceleration of the demise of liberal democracy and by acts of violence."

She said he sought out and amassed online, and in hard copy, a collection of material on explosives and firearms that were viable and by December 2018 had joined an extreme right-wing online forum where information was shared on "accelerationism".

Among his diary entries he marked Hitler's birthday by writing: "A brave man to say the least. Although maybe having written proof that I admire their number one enemy isn't such a wise idea. I will however say that I one day hope to follow in his footsteps."

Around the same time he wrote of his dislike of school and spoke disparagingly of Durham having a Jewish MP, the court heard.

He later explained his "deep admiration and almost admiration" for Moors murderer Ian Brady who killed five children.

He wrote: "How wonderful it is to be an amoral individual. I could not imagine dismissing someone as bad for such a petty and insignificant thing. Did those five deaths change the world?"

The next day he wrote: "The north east in general really is a shithole. The people are loathable, the sights forgettable and the police laughable. My philosophy has always been deep down nihilism."

Interspersed between the purchases of reading material and his written notes the defendant conducted internet searches on firearms, explosives and knives, said Ms Nelson.

She said that in the month before his arrest he repeatedly searched for and visited websites related to "lone wolf" attacks by the likes of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik and Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

The youth denies preparation of terrorists acts, disseminating a terrorist publication, possessing an article for a purpose connected with terrorism and three counts of possessing a document or record containing information likely to be useful to a terrorist.

The trial, estimated to last two weeks, continues on Friday.

Press Association