A 15-year-old schoolboy who was referred to counter-terrorism police after sketching far-right slogans on his mock GCSE exam paper has been given a community order after it emerged he had written a far-right manifesto.
The youth, from Stockton-on-Tees, who cannot be named, used the online name OrthodoxNazi and made compilation videos of killings carried out by notorious right-wing extremists, as well as stockpiling guides to making homemade weapons and explosives.
He came to the attention of his school in December 2023 following a mock physics GCSE examination in which he scored only four marks out of a total of 70 and left many of the questions unanswered.
Hand-drawn pictures found on the exam paper showed a Star of David with a noose, a drawing of Auschwitz with the word “lies” and references to the Atomwaffen Division, a banned far-right group.
When police visited the youth’s mother in Stockton-on-Tees, she answered the door saying: “It’s about my son, isn’t it? That’s probably everything you need on that table there,” and showed them a red notebook with drawings and writings inside.
In the notebook were more racist scrawlings and the youth had also written out words by Ted Kaczynski, an American terrorist known as the Unabomber.
The notebook included the words “Chris Militia”, a reference to The Militia Handbook by Chris Dorsey which describes how “the Zionist government” had to be “lawfully neutralised.”
On his phone, the youth, who blamed his obsession on autism, had a copy of the manifesto written by Brenton Tarrant who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and on his computer was a far-right novel about a race war called The Turner Diaries.
On a one-way train ticket in the book dated 23 November 2023, the teenager had written repeatedly “Death to the modern world” and “greater purpose”.
On 22 August 2023, the youth produced a condensed compilation showing the Christchurch mosque attack, the shooting of black people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, by Peyton Gendron and the shooting at the Halle Synagogue in Germany by Stephen Balliet.
Another 15-second homemade video showed a person wearing a white skull mask, holding a copy of Mein Kampf and saying Heil Hitler, along with derogatory comments about black people, homosexuals and the words “white power”.
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A second document laid out a plan for surveilling an area for potential targets and finished with the words “Hail the new reich 14/88 White Pride”.
Judge Tom Bayliss KC sentenced him to a three-year youth rehabilitation order at Leeds Crown Court after telling him he “thoroughly deserved to go to custody” but would be given the chance to serve his sentence in the community.