A warehouse worker accused of plotting “revenge attacks” with a homemade armoury of weapons has told a court the alleged plans were “fantasy, nothing serious”.
Reed Wischhusen, 32, is alleged to have planned attacks at his old primary school, a police headquarters and his workplace, and made notes on his plans in a document found on his laptop titled “revenge”, Bristol crown court has heard.
Asked by his defending barrister, Adam Vaitilingam KC, about one entry, in which he wrote about shooting people in the head, Wischhusen said: “It’s just fantasy, to be honest, nothing serious.”
Prosecutors previously told the jury Wischhusen planned to stockpile 1,000 rounds of ammunition and a rocket launcher and also had material to make improvised explosive devices, silencers, a full police uniform, bulletproof vests and handcuffs.
Taking the stand to give evidence in his defence, dressed in a blue suit with a white untucked shirt, Wischhusen, from Wick Saint Lawrence in Somerset, said another entry about a rampage against the police was “trying to get thoughts out my head”.
The jury heard he lived with his father and prepared his food for him but they did not spend much time together as Wischhusen worked night shifts as a warehouse operative for Lidl.
Asked if he had any friends, he replied: “Not many, no”. He told the jury he was interested in model rockets, amateur radios and listening to music.
Before he gave evidence, the jury was told that after Wischhusen was arrested, a clinical psychologist, Ronald Lyle, diagnosed him with an autism spectrum disorder and depression.
In 2010, Wischhusen applied for and was refused a shotgun certificate, the court heard. Asked how this made him feel, he said: “Pretty pissed off.”
He told the jury he understood it was because of his previous contact with mental health services due to a “fixation on a young lady” but added the refusal had made him feel like “I was being bullied again”.
The court heard that when officers arrived to arrest Wischhusen in November 2022 he went to the bathroom and shot himself in the head. He survived and was then shot by armed police officers as he came downstairs pointing a pistol at them. He spent four months in hospital before being arrested.
“I partially lost consciousness and I could hear ‘shots fired’ on the radio and sounding like someone falling down the stairs,” the defendant said of the night of his arrest. “So I knew the police had drawn their guns so I went downstairs and threatened them so they would shoot me dead and finish the job.”
Wischhusen, who told the jury he had experienced suicidal feelings since the age of eight or nine, denied that he had any intention to shoot a police officer.
He told the police he had never made a bomb and had no intention of ever making a bomb.
He told the jury many of the materials and chemicals found in his home could be used to build model rockets, something he aspired to do but ultimately did not bother as he was concerned he lived too near Bristol airport.
He said he had only fired one of his own firearms once – when he attempted to shoot himself on the day of arrest.
He had fired other weapons in legal settings in the US and Poland, as well as clay pigeon shooting ranges in the UK.
The jury has previously been told Wischhusen had “a macabre interest” in killers such as Thomas Hamilton, who carried out the Dunblane shootings, and Raoul Moat, who was behind shootings in Northumberland.
Asked about a Dunblane reference in his laptop diaries, Wischhusen said it was because the 1996 tragedy had led to changes in pistol regulation that interested him.
Wischhusen denies five firearms and explosives offences. The trial continues.
