A teenager who wanted “to bring about the downfall of government and society” has gone on trial accused of planning a suicide terrorist attack to kill “at least 50” people.
Jacob Graham, 19, a Unabomber obsessive from Norris Green in Liverpool, stockpiled ingredients to make bombs, carried out chemical experiments and bought a 3D printer to make his own gun, Manchester crown court heard.
He recorded a video of himself boasting he had “everything I need to take down a fucking army” and “everything I need, material-wise, to start my revolution”, the court was told. The college student made 105 videos outlining his planning and motivations and wrote a “manifesto” titled “society and why it is failing”, as well as a letter setting out his intentions, the jury heard.
He also wrote a manual called the “freedom encyclopaedia” that he called his “cookbook”, the court was told. This contained recipes for homemade explosives, with the intention, the prosecution said, of assisting others to commit their own acts of terrorism.
He had also packaged chemicals up and gone to woods in Formby, on the Merseyside coast, and buried them in a secret hide, the court heard.
Graham, who denies carrying out eight terrorism offences between May 2022 and May 2023, said he didn’t have a date or set target for an attack but that he was “aiming for at least 50 deceased and more injured. Any more is a blessing”.
He suggested he could attack “government buildings, politicians’ houses” and would commit mass murder on “those who think it is OK to hide their wrongdoings behind money and power”, the jury was told.
He also had a grievance against Hugh Baird College in Bootle, Liverpool, where he was a student, the court heard. He said he was “a firm believer in an eye for an eye” and that the college had wronged him.
Opening the case on Thursday, the prosecutor, Annabel Darlow KC, told the jury that Graham “referred to his plan as a ‘terrorist’ plan and suggested that terrorism was standing up for what he believed was right and hitting back at a system that has done nothing but ‘degrade the working-class people of this country’. He said it was his responsibility to fix the problem.”
She added: “What he wanted to do was attack and bring about the downfall of government and society. He was against the concept of government. He said that he was sick and tired of living in a society that was deteriorating and destroying itself. His grievances were motivated both by hatred of the government and by ecological concerns.”
The jury watched a video recorded on 9 August 2022 of pink-cheeked and bespectacled Graham delivering a speech to his webcam in his bedroom, with what looked like soft toys visible on his pillow.
“If I’m going to do it I’ve got to do it with a bang, no pun intended. It needs to be big,” he said.
In a video recorded on 3 May 2022, Graham spoke of going on a rampage, stating he would kill himself afterwards. “He then talked about normal people suffering whilst scroungers migrate everywhere and get the good life,” Darlow said.
The jury heard that Graham’s “idol” was Theodore John Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, a US terrorist who carried out a deadly mail bomb campaign.
Graham’s manifesto quoted Kaczynski as saying “the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race” and suggested that society was failing and was destined to collapse, Darlow told the jury.
The trial continues.
