A former college student with extreme rightwing views who plotted to blow up a police station as part of his desire for a “full-on” race war has been jailed for four years.
Luke Skelton was 17 when he first started posting extreme views and making preparations to bomb a police station in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Now 20, he was jailed on Tuesday by a judge who said Skelton was engaged in a course of conduct “based on the extreme rightwing views which you then held in order to bring about civil disturbance and unrest by terrorist means”.
A trial heard that Skelton researched napalm, molotov cocktails and how to make explosives on the internet.
Judge Paul Watson KC, the recorder of Middlesbrough, said evidence showed Skelton was “a committed and active rightwing extremist” who was dedicated to white supremacy and promoting racial hatred.
Skelton was obsessed with nazism and “made heroes out of those who carry out atrocities in the name of fascism and other extreme rightwing ideologies”.
The trial at Teesside crown court heard evidence that Skelton posted online views that were racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic and Islamophobic.
“Your fantasy was to turn back the pages of history books to times when such xenophobic and hateful views were tolerated and even admired,” the judge said.
Skelton, then a student at Gateshead college, travelled from his home in Washington, Tyne and Wear, to Newcastle to take photographs and carry out reconnaissance on his target, the Forth Banks police station.
“Your objective was to cause explosions to provoke what you saw as a coming race war,” the judge said. “This was no spur of the moment or impulsive conduct.”
The court heard submissions that there was never any chance of Skelton, who has autism spectrum disorder and a low IQ, being capable of carrying out his intention to blow up a police station.
Anti-terror officers first arrested Skelton in June 2021, leading him to change his username for an online group to “Adolf Hitler” – “so the police don’t suspect me”, he told Discord users.
His barrister, Crispin Aylett KC, said medical reports showed his client’s autism, isolation and possible depressed mood could all affect his behaviour. Much of what Skelton said online was clearly nonsense, he added.
Aylett said the behaviour all took place during the Covid pandemic, a “catastrophe” for young people who lost two years of their lives.
The judge gave Skelton a five-year sentence, with four years in custody and an extended licence of one year for the terror plot.
