London - Britain’s youngest terrorist drew up a “beheading list” of his teachers and told them the order in which he would kill them, a court was told on Thursday.
The 14-year-old boasted of his gruesome plan and threatened to stab one teacher in the neck, cut his throat and watch him bleed to death.
He also talked of planting a bomb on a plane, before going on to mastermind a plot to behead police officers during an Anzac Day parade in Australia - an atrocity likely to cause “a number of deaths”, the court heard.
The attack, which the boy planned from his bedroom in Blackburn, Lancashire, was only thwarted when police raided his home and arrested him.
They discovered a mobile phone on which he had exchanged more than 3 000 messages with an Australian jihadi, detailing their plan.
Yesterday, having already pleaded guilty to inciting terrorism, the schoolboy appeared in court for the start of a two-day sentencing hearing that could lead to him being detained for life.
Manchester Crown Court was told that in the run-up to the plot, the boy - who cannot be named - had repeatedly been excluded from school for his extremist views.
He was admitted to a pupil-referral unit to tackle his behaviour, but his radical opinions became more severe and he threatened teachers. In one confrontation, he threatened to cut a teacher’s throat and watch him bleed to death. The teenager then told him he had moved to the top of a “beheading list” above another teacher.
The court heard the boy, now 15, was radicalised over the internet by two notorious IS hate preachers known to security services.
He had been in touch Abu Haleema in London and Australian IS recruiter Abu Khaled al-Cambodi in the build-up to the Anzac Day plot.
Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, told the court thatal-Cambodi - whose real name is Neil Prakash - told the schoolboy to “guide” Australian recruit Sevdet Besim, 18.
Using encrypted messaging on their smartphones, they spent hours hatching a plan to behead police officers on Anzac Day - held on April 25 in Australia and New Zealand to commemorate those who served and died in war. Over a period of nine days this year, they exchanged more than 3 000 messages, with the Blackburn youngster taking on the role of “organiser and adviser”.
They discussed the weapons Besim would need and even planned a “practice beheading”. On March 19, the schoolboy told Besim he had three options for an attack on the police - with a gun, a car or a knife.
Mr Greaney said: “Besim expressed a preference for a combination of a car and knife attack and [the defendant] advised him to buy a machete and sharpen it, run over a police officer and then decapitate him. He told Besim to ensure his own death in the attack so that he would achieve Shahada, or martyrdom.
“In short, from the bedroom of his parents” suburban home, the defendant plotted an attack upon an Anzac Day Parade in Melbourne.
“The intention was that police officers should be murdered by beheading. The purpose of this attack was to promote the ideology and agenda of IS. Fortunately, authorities here and in Australia intervened and a plot that would in all probability have resulted in a number of deaths was thwarted.”
The boy first showed signs of extremismin 2012 when he was 12.
He was regularly excluded from school and was eventually sent to a pupil-referral unit but repeatedly threatened teachers before he was made the subject of the Channel strategy - a scheme designed to stop children being drawn to terrorism.
But Mr Greaney said that by early March this year “a tipping point” had been reached, adding: “The staff at school were increasingly concerned for their safety and the evidence of radicalisation was overwhelming.”
The boy was arrested on March 25 on suspicion of making threats to kill and his phone was examined.
In April, Abu Haleema was arrested in London on suspicion of “encouragement of terrorism” but released.
He has not been convicted of any offence.
Australian security services say al-Cambodi is with IS in Syria.
The hearing continues.
Daily Mail