North East teenager guilty of plotting police station attack

Luke Skelton researched bombmaking techniques while posting a number of vile messages on social media platforms when he became wrapped up in far-right ideology.

The teenager was found guilty of preparing to commit acts of terrorism following a trial at Teesside Crown Court.

Jurors were unaware that a previous panel had failed to reach a verdict and the judge lifted a reporting restriction preventing the media from saying the teenager had been granted bail between both trials.

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Thanking the jury, the Recorder of Middlesbrough Judge Paul Watson KC said: “This was a difficult case, another jury last year failed to agree amongst themselves a verdict after listening to the same evidence.”

Luke Skelton (Image: Counter Terrorism Police)

Throughout the two-week trial, jurors heard how Skelton had posted his racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic views while searching for recipes to create his own explosives and incendiary devices.

Enoch Powell

The offence, spanning the period between October 2020 and 2021, took place in the student’s home town of Washington and while he was a student at Gateshead College.

The teenager carried out a ‘hostile reconnaissance’ of Forth Banks police station in Newcastle - taking photographs of the building and checking out the location of CCTV cameras in the vicinity.

Forth Banks police station in Newcastle

Nicholas De La Poer KC, prosecuting, said Skelton had researched the recipe for Napalm in an attempt to make his own explosive device and a forensic search of his computer revealed searches for neo-Nazi material.

Explosives expert Lisa Dunn, who is based at the Ministry of Defence’s site at Porton Down, told jurors that the accused had gathered enough information to create a ‘viable’ explosive.

During the trial, the barrister added Skelton had shown his support for Enoch Powell and the rise of white nationalism.

Anders Breivik (Image: PA)

He said the teenager had also created a ‘final note’ explaining the reasoning behind his plan to incite a race war by launching terrorist attacks after talking of his admiration for Adolf Hitler and British Fascist Oswald Mosely.

He said on his Discord account, Skelton posted: “Back then we called them what they are which is backward and savage I don’t care, f*** them. They are a disgusting race of barbarians, which we let in, they don’t fear us for this exact b*****t your (sic) pulling up.

“We should have every right to despise them and want the subhumans gone if the vast majority were good people there (sic) countries wouldn’t be backward barbarian s**tholes.”

In his defence, the teenager told jurors that he had not intention of making his own bomb and he was just making the posts to cause upset and garner attention.

Skelton, of Oxclose, Washington, was remanded in custody until his sentencing hearing on June 19.

Speaking after the verdict, Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, the Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: “The defendant’s anger towards society, together with his extreme right-wing views, created a dangerous foundation from which his sinister plans were ultimately built.

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"He was strongly motivated by this mindset, which continued to fuel his actions and his later offending, despite repeated attempts to draw him away from it.

“The evidence clearly demonstrated that he was not just a person who held strong views but a terrorist who wanted to cause serious harm.

“It is more important than ever that everyone plays their part in tackling terrorism. We have seen from this case that terrorists research and sometimes visit the places they plan to attack."