Media and politicians 'fuel rise in hate crimes against Muslims'

Report blames 'Islamophobic, negative and unwarranted portrayals of Muslim London' for increase in attacks in the capital

A rise in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in London is being encouraged by mainstream politicians and sections of the media, a study written by a former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer, published yesterday, says.

Attacks ranging from death threats and murder to persistent low-level assaults, such as spitting and name-calling, are in part whipped up by extremists and sections of mainstream society, the study says. The document – from the University of Exeter's European Muslim research centre – was written by Dr Jonathan Githens-Mazer and former special branch detective Dr Robert Lambert.

"The report provides prima facie and empirical evidence to demonstrate that assailants of Muslims are invariably motivated by a negative view of Muslims they have acquired from either mainstream or extremist nationalist reports or commentaries in the media," it says.

Lambert headed Scotland Yard's Muslim contact unit, which helped improve relations between the police and Britain's Islamic communities. The unit won praise from even long-standing critics of the police, and Lambert was awarded an MBE. The study mentions no newspapers or writers by name, but alleges that the book Londonistan, by the Mail writer Melanie Phillips, played a part in triggering hate crimes.

"Islamophobic, negative and unwarranted portrayals of Muslim London as Londonistan and Muslim Londoners as terrorists, sympathisers and subversives in sections of the media appear to provide the motivation for a significant number of anti-Muslim hate crimes," it says.

In his foreword, the rightwing journalist Peter Oborne writes: "The constant assault on Muslims from certain politicians, and above all in the mainstream media, has created an atmosphere where hate crimes, ranging from casual abuse to arson and even murder, are bound to occur and are even in a sense encouraged by mainstream society."

The report is based on interviews with witnesses to and victims of hate crimes, as well as police officers and former members of extremist organisations such as the British National Party. The report cites interviews with rightwing extremists to try to prove a link between what is published in the mainstream media and the anti-Muslim views held by extremists.

It says: "An experienced BNP activist in London explains that he believes that most BNP supporters simply followed the lead set by their favourite tabloid commentators that they read every day. When these commentators singled out Muslims as threats to security and social cohesion, he says that it was perfectly natural for BNP supporters to adopt the same thinking."

The report says the extreme right are directing their violence more against Muslims than black or Asian Britons.

"Interviewees with long experience of extremist nationalist street violence in London are unequivocal in their assessment that Muslim Londoners are now a prime target for serious violence and intimidation in the way that Londoners from minority ethnic communities once were," it says.

"Similarly, interviewees with experience of London street gangs that have no connection or affinity with extremist nationalist politics are adamant that Muslims have become prime targets for serious attacks. In addition, well-informed interviewees are clear that the main perpetrators of low-level anti-Muslim hate crimes are not gangs but rather simply individuals from a wide range of backgrounds who feel licensed to abuse, assault and intimidate Muslims in terms that mirror elements of mainstream media and political comment that became commonplace during the last decade."

The report says the attacks come in part from street gangs targeting Muslims as punishment for members who have embraced Islam and left gang culture.

"Often, they know someone who has left their scene and become a devout Muslim," the document, which also drew on interviews with youth workers dealing with gangs, says. "That is like a defection. And whether they do or don't, they say they know this or that terrorist who used to be a great person till he joined the Muslims."

The report also says gang members believe Muslims values "oppose everything these kids aspire to. Flash cars, nightclubs, expensive clothes, jewellery, drugs, alcohol, casual sex, glamour, dancing, music ...".

The study says the majority of hate crimes involve low-level incidents and are not reported to police. Most officers are committed to tackling anti-Muslim hate crimes seriously, but are undermined by a few colleagues who are not. But the study warns: "Anti-Muslim hate crimes have not been afforded the same priority attention [that] government and police have invested in racist hate crimes."

The report is dedicated to Yasir Abdelmouttalib, a PhD student who was left brain-damaged after a gang of youths attacked him in London, striking him over the head with a stick, as he made his way to a mosque while wearing Islamic clothing.

It cites other cases of rightwing extremists preparing hate campaigns and of serious attacks on Muslims in Britain.

These included: "Neil Lewington, a violent extremist nationalist convicted in July 2009 of a bomb plot; Terence Gavan, a violent extremist nationalist convicted in January 2010 of manufacturing nail bombs and other explosives, firearms and weapons; a gang attack in November 2009 on Muslim students at City University; the murder in September 2009 of Muslim pensioner, Ikram Syed ul-Haq; a serious assault in August 2007 on the Imam at London Central Mosque; and an arson attack in June 2009 on Greenwich Islamic Centre."

The study focuses on anti-Muslim violence in London, with its authors saying they will produce one covering the whole of the UK by this summer.

Guardian

The looming threat of terror that comes from the far right

The threat comes not from jihadis but 'neo-Nazis' out to kill black people, Jews and gays

Britain is facing the real risk today of a bombing campaign that targets random civilians for death - but it is being virtually ignored. When its supporters step closer every day to mass murder, nobody notices. When its perpetrators are caught, there is (at best) a little flick of information in News in Brief, before everyone goes back to talking about the Strictly Come Dancing race row. This silence suggests something dark about us - and requires us to change our behaviour, fast.

The campaign I am talking about is not being planned by jihadis or fringe Irish nationalists but by white "neo-Nazis" who want to murder Asians, black people, Jews and gays in the bizarre belief it will trigger a "race war".

They have struck before. Exactly a decade ago, a 22-year-old member of the British National Party called David Copeland planted bombs in Brixton, Brick Lane (where I live), and a gay pub in Old Compton Street. He managed to lodge a nail deep in a baby's skull, and to murder a pregnant woman, her gay best friend, and his partner. He bragged: "My aim was political. It was to cause a racial war in this country. There'd be a backlash from the ethnic minorities, then all the white people would go out and vote BNP."

The police are warning ever-more urgently that similar attacks seem to be coming today. The West Yorkshire Police recently launched a huge series of raids against far-right groups and found them in possession of 80 bombs - considerably more even than any jihadi group has been caught with in British history.

Last year, a 43-year-old man called Neil Lewington was arrested "on the cusp" of waging a "terror campaign", it emerged at his trial. He had built a bomb factory in his parents' house which he planned to use to launch attacks against people he considered to be "non-British". He was only caught by chance: he picked a panicked fight with a train conductor, and the police who turned up found he was laden with explosives.

The list of far right-wingers who have been busted for planning violence has spiked up in the past few years. In the home of a BNP election candidate called Robert Cottage in 2008, the police discovered "the largest amount of chemical explosives ever found in this country", they said.

The same year, a thug called Martyn Gilleard was caught with a huge stash of nail bombs, and rage-filled letters in which he declared: "I am so sick of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear. The time has come to stop the talk and start to act." He was only caught by fluke: the police busted him for distributing child porn.

It's not hard to get in on this act. There are dozens of far-right websites that explain - with handy video links - how to make bombs, and then urge you to head to the nearest mosque, synagogue or gay club.

But as the New Statesman's Mehdi Hassan has pointed out, as far as public debate goes, it's as if these crimes never happened. While planned attacks by jihadis (rightly) dominate the news agenda for days, these remarkably similar plans pass unmentioned and unnoticed.

This disjunction exposes a rash of hypocrisy. The parts of the right that gleefully blame all Muslims for the actions of a tiny minority are mysteriously reluctant to apply the same arguments to themselves. If Martin Amis was consistent, he should now declare: "The white community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation. Strip-searching people who look like they're from Hampshire or from Surrey ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."

But of course he won't. It shows the bigotry at the core of these make-all-Muslims-pay arguments: they see brown-skinned people as a homogenous mass who can be collectively punished, while they see white people as discrete units who should only be punished individually.

But these white bomb-makers also blast holes in the arguments put by some small parts of the left, who claim "terrorism" is only a response to "legitimate grievances". We can see that somebody like David Copeland simply had an insane hatred of black, Asian and gay people. It's a form of soft racism to fail to see that the same lunacy can happen to non-white people. The vile Islamist gang who wanted to blow up the Ministry of Sound really did say the women there were "slags" who deserved to die for wearing miniskirts. Sometimes (but not always), the grievances that drive violence are simply deranged and have to be resisted.

While the threat of far-right violence is rising, the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, is going to appear on Question Time next week. It would be easy, and emotionally satisfying, for me to join the many well-intentioned protesters who are saying he shouldn't be there, but I can't do it. There are two reasons - one moral, and one pragmatic.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to say abhorrent and repulsive things, or it isn't worth having. Why is our Britain vastly morally superior to the fantasy island that the BNP dream of building? Because we do not silence them - even though they would silence so many of us.

Then there's the pragmatic reason. The BNP is doing increasingly well in elections because there is a huge gap between the reality of the BNP and how their voters see them. I see this on the run-down estates where many of my relatives live: most of the BNP's voters believe they are a patriotic party who will peacefully defend the rights of the white working class, just as other organisations peacefully defend the rights of other ethnic groups.

When they find out the BNP leaders have in fact praised Britain's greatest enemy, Adolf Hitler, derided the Holocaust as "the Holohoax", had violent maniacs in their senior ranks, and want to deport many of our national heroes like Ashley Cole and Trevor McDonald, they are disgusted, and withdraw their support. There is only a very, very small constituency in Britain for Holocaust denial, mass "repatriations", and the mongering of "race wars".

So how do we close this perception gap? Shutting the BNP out of debate hasn't worked. They have been shut out and they have grown. In the darkness, the fungus can spread. The greatest disinfectant is sunlight, shone straight into Griffin's face. The only people who should fear free speech are the BNP, because when the British people hear what they have to say, and their lack of answers to basic factual questions, they are repelled.

One of the areas where everyone should see Griffin being challenged is over this question of far-right violence. He claims he is "strongly" opposed to these freelance attacks - yet he has kept violent attackers in his senior team.

His chief lieutenant for years was a man called Tony Lecomber, who was jailed for three years in the 1980s for plotting to blow up the offices of a left-wing political party. After he was released, he and a gang then beat a Jewish teacher unconscious. When he was freed after another three years inside, he was swiftly promoted through the BNP ranks. He was only ditched after he approached a Liverpool hitman to discuss how they could "take out" a cabinet minister.

One of the leading figures in the BNP's online operation, Lambertus Nieuwhof, tried to blow up a mixed-race school in South Africa in 1992. The BNP is happy to have him nonetheless. Nieuwhof says: "Everybody should be allowed to make a mistake."

The BNP is not directly organising violence, but it has tolerated violent madmen in its midst, and its arguments have encouraged violence. Griffin has demanded "rights for whites with well-directed boots and fists". He reacted to the Soho nail-bomb by one of his own party's members by attacking the victims, saying they were "flaunting their perversion in front of the world's journalists, [and had] showed just why so many ordinary people find these creatures disgusting".

Let Griffin speak his filth to the nation, and sweat under David Dimbleby's forensic questioning. He will only discredit himself.

But the country also needs to start acknowledging the danger of bombs thrown from the far right. David Copeland came from within the ranks of the BNP; so might the next one. The police need to monitor neo-Nazis as closely as jihadis, and the Government projects to prevent violent extremism should be working with white kids as well as Muslim children. We need to prepare ourselves now: the next person to bomb Britain might not look like Mohammed Sidiq Khan - he might look like me.

Independent

File on 4 - Is far-right extremism a threat?

Yet another right-wing nutcase

Britain's security services have focused on Islamic extremism since the late 1990s but as BBC File on 4's Allan Urry discovered there are now concerns some resources should be devoted to the growing threat of far-right terror plots

When two attackers firebombed the Islamic Centre, a mosque in the heart of Luton's Bury Park area in May, they created a siege mentality for local Muslims, according to mosque official Farasat Latif.

"We are on edge as a community; everyone is expecting another attack," he told File on 4.

Tensions have been high in Luton since Al Muhajiroun, a group banned at the firebombed mosque, organised a demonstration in March against the war in Afghanistan as the Royal Anglian Regiment marched through the town after a tour of duty. This in turn sparked a counter-demonstration by a group called the United Peoples of Luton. This group became the English Defence League (EDL), whose protests against Islamic extremists around England have led to claims that it attracts far-right extremists hoping to foment racial tensions and encourage further protests, which the group denies.

The Islamic Centre received hate mail after the March protest, but there are fears the firebombing was more sinister - a premeditated attack rather than a hot-headed reaction to the controversial demonstration.

"Police told us that the getaway car was stolen nine months before the incident and had been kept off the road for a good eight to nine months," said Mr Latif. "Maybe the next attack could be an incendiary device left in the mosque, because people come with bags and we have many nationalities, so an English person wouldn't stand out."

He said mosque officials have been considering whether people should be searched before they enter, which could be a wise precaution in the current climate.

Earlier this month Neil Lewington, 44, a white supremacist from Reading, was jailed for being found in possession of explosives as he was about to board a train. Lewington, a fascist loner who hated Asians, regularly visited two white supremacist websites - Combat 18, a British neo-Nazi group, and a website for the Ku Klux Klan. According to Dr Matthew Feldman, an expert in far-right extremism who gave evidence at Lewington's trial, the authorities were fortunate to arrest him before he took any drastic action.

"I have every reason to believe this person has posed a very serious threat to public order in this country," he told File on 4.

Lewington, however was only arrested by chance, after being found drunk at a railway station.

Another lone far-right extremist, Martyn Gilleard, who was found to have four home-made nail bombs when police raided his flat, was also arrested by chance as part of an investigation into child pornography. Like others described as "lone wolves", he visited extremist websites and web forums that provided information about how to make bombs.

Edmund Standing, author of The BNP and The Online Fascist Network, said: "The fact that a lot of people [who use these websites] may be fantasists and do not pose a direct threat, doesn't mean these forums and websites don't, because for every 20 of them there could be one person who is actually twisted enough do something like this. These kind of groups and these kind of forums create an atmosphere in which it is seen to be more and more acceptable to express these hateful views."

He said the websites advocated "lone wolf tactics" where anonymous individuals turned up at meetings and carried out subversive and violent actions.

"We face a far more difficult task dealing with these individuals, lone extremists who go to these groups or hang around the edges of these groups and become radicalised," added Mr Standing.

In fact, the threat posed by lone extremists was recently flagged up by a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), while a senior member of the Metropolitan Police has voiced concerns about the possibility of a major terror attack by right wing extremists.

In April 2007 the government began its Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) action plan to work with Muslim communities to "isolate, prevent and defeat violent extremism". There are suggestions the government is planning to widen the scope of PVE to cover far right extremists as well, but no minister would be interviewed by File on 4. But a statement from the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "Government is working to address all forms of extremism, including violent far right groups. Over the coming months, we will be implementing a more comprehensive strategy to strengthen resilience to such extremism."

Dr Feldman thinks the move would be a timely intervention: "I can't recommend enough the work that the police are doing in terms of a preventive agenda and I'm sure it's going to move into considering these very overtly racist and far-right websites that are clearly inciting violence and racial hatred."

He said most security service resources had been devoted to Islamic extremism since the late 1990s and the attacks of 7 July 2005. But he added: "I think the appreciation now is that doesn't mean the far right has gone away... some of the treatment and attention to these issues has in fact galvanised a white British nationalist in terms of acting where before they would have stayed at home grumbling."

Listen to the programme here
Download the podcast from here

File on 4

Do the BNP act as “conveyor belt” to violent extremism?

See Nick Griffin defend neo-Nazi terrorists

Does rising electoral support for racist parties like the BNP lead to more racial violence?

The conviction [last] week of Neil Lewington, a neo-Nazi who planned a terror campaign in Britain, certainly raises that question.

Lewington is one of the nastiest (if crack-pot) potential neo-Nazi terrorists in recent history. In his summing up, the Judge said Lewington’s terrorist actions were “designed to intimidate non-white people … for the purpose of pursuing the ideological cause of white supremacy and neo-fascism, albeit in a rather unsophisticated way.” In Lewington’s bedroom police found a nail bomb factory and a notebook entitled “Waffen SS UK Members’ Handbook”.

During the trial the court heard about one of Lewington’s inspirations, David Copeland, the Soho nail bomber and former member of the BNP. (Another was Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber).

Despite there being no evidence of Lewington’s involvement with the BNP (he appears to have been a lone wolf), his attempt to emulate the likes of Copeland raises the question: does the electoral success of the BNP lead to violent extremism?

The BNP is legitimate political party operating within the law. For that we should be thankful.

It does, however, hold many white supremacist and neo-fascist views which have direct lineage to Oswald Mosley, the German Nazi Party, the American KKK, Roberto Fiore and modern East European extremists like Jobbik. This is particularly true of leadership figures like Nick Griffin MEP, Andrew Brons MEP, Lee Barnes (Legal Director) and Mark Collett (Head of Publicity).

Whilst all parties have their rotten eggs, the BNP has more than its fair share of violent racists. Some like Robert Cottage (who stood as a BNP candidate three times) and Tony Lecomber were BNP activists. Others like Copeland and Mark Bullman (who used a BNP leaflet to light his firebomb) were on the fringe. (More details here).

Certainly the pool of candidates is likely to grow. The election and consequent media promotion of Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons gives a certain level of legitimacy to the BNP and its ideals. This means disaffected people trying to find answers to their worries are more likely to turn to the politics of racism, segregation and intolerance and follow the examples set by the BNP’s high profile leaders and violent members.

And the temperature is likely to increase, particularly if politicians refuse to debate the issues that leave some of the population feeling angry, frustrated and dispossessed. Those issues include immigration, Britishness and joblessness.

Experts on Irish Republicanism and Islamism call this the “conveyor belt” to violence. It is too early for any clear evidence either way. But we fear that the election of a small number of weird, nutty and inadequate politicians legitimises the politics of racism and that, in turn, introduces an element of violence and intimidation to British society that changes the way we do politics forever.

Nothing British

Neo-Nazi jailed over terror plot

A white supremacist found guilty of planning a racist terror campaign involving home-made bombs has been given an indeterminate sentence.

An Old Bailey judge said Neil Lewington, 43, from Reading, must serve at least six years in jail. He was convicted in July of having explosives with intent to endanger life and preparing for acts of terrorism.

The trial heard Lewington (pictured, left), who was arrested at a station, was developing a bomb-making factory in his bedroom. He was carrying components for two home-made bombs when he was arrested last October.

Lewington's arrest on a train at Lowestoft station in Suffolk was by chance, after he had been abusing a female train conductor. A search of his bag uncovered the home-made bombs. Later investigation of his bedroom at his parents' home in Tilehurstm Berkshire, found weedkiller, firelighters, three tennis balls with diagrams on how to convert them into shrapnel bombs, firework powder, electrical timers and detonators.

A notebook labelled "Waffen SS UK members' handbook" included a "device logbook" of drawings of electronics and chemical mixtures.

During the trial, Lewington was described as a loner who had been unemployed for 10 years after losing his last job owing to drunkenness, and who had also not spoken to his father for a decade. The court heard he spent time searching for girlfriends on chatlines, where he made racist remarks and spoke of converting tennis balls into bombs.

His defence QC had argued Lewington was just an "oddball" and was not a terrorist, but "a big pest, a nuisance". But he was convicted of seven out of eight explosives and terrorism charges.

BBC

What had white supremacist planned?

Neil Lewington who turned his bedroom into a bomb-making factory has been convicted of terrorism and explosive charges. But how dangerous was he and what was he planning to do? Those are the two questions that have been hardest to answer in his trial at the Old Bailey. But what is clear is that his apprehension was a matter of good fortune alone.

In October 2008 he was travelling by train to meet a woman he had contacted in an internet chatroom on his mobile phone. He was drunk and abused the train guard. When he urinated on the platform at Lowestoft, he was arrested. But when officers opened his blue holdall, a public order arrest became a counter-terrorism investigation. Inside, they found two improvised but ingenious incendiary devices.

Counter-terrorism officers dashed to the 43-year-old's Reading home, which he shared with his parents. There they found extreme right-wing material, including videos of notorious racist or white-supremacist bombers. He had stockpiled chemicals, powders circuitry and wiring. In short, it looked like a bomb factory. And, according to the prosecution, Lewington was on the cusp of launching a campaign against anyone he regarded as "non-British".

But this case is full of mysteries. During 14 interviews, Lewington's only reply to counter-terrorism officers was "no comment". He chose not to take to the witness box at the Old Bailey - and his legal team offered up no other witnesses or material in his defence. He hardly looked up from the dock during the trial, sitting impassively as the proceedings went on around him.

Extremist material

Dr Matthew Feldman, an expert in neo-Nazi groups and imagery, gave evidence at the trial on the items that police recovered from Lewington's home.

He told the jury the material Lewington kept hidden in his room was exactly the kind of literature and notes you would expect to find belonging to a white supremacist neo-Nazi.

The most important document was Lewington's handwritten notebook entitled the "Waffen SS UK Members Handbook". Experts like Dr Feldman have not come across the title before, but its contents bore a striking similarity to other "field manuals" circulated among other neo-Nazi groups like Combat 18. Inside was a note written in Lewington's own hand.

"A new group has been formed, the Waffen SS UK. We have 30 members split into 15 two-man cells," it read. "We are highly trained ex-military personnel and will use incendiary and explosive devices throughout the UK at random until all non-British people as defined by blood are remoived from our country.

"This is no joke. In this country the most serious domestic terrorist threat is the ALF [Animal Liberation Front], start rewriting the books? Finally our motto: You CANNOT STOP WHAT CAN'T BE STOPPED"

The book included further notes relating to explosives and plans for picking targets. Other material loosely linked Lewington to "Blood and Honour", a British social scene built around neo-Nazi music. And unusually for a British man, Lewington was also interested in two other groups - the Ku Klux Klan and the Afrikaners who supported apartheid.

So Lewington's personal ideology was broad, encompassing hatred of other ethnicities, a white supremacist anger, but also a fascist yearning for a new world order.

Loner tendencies

Lewington himself bragged to women of being a skinhead who beat up Asian men. But counter-terrorism officers found no evidence the defendant was or is a member of any extreme right-wing political party or group in the UK or elsewhere. Furthermore, they had no evidence that he was associating with any known or suspected right-wing extremist.

These loner tendencies fit in with what we know about the rest of his life. Lewington lived with his parents - but had not spoken to his father for 10 years.

He did nothing to help at home. There was no lock on the bedroom door, but he had covered the keyhole with modelling clay. He had held down jobs in electronics - but not worked for a decade when arrested.

One would-be girlfriend was put off him because he kept making racist threats against black and Asian men. And during a relationship with another woman, he bought a toy chemistry set and told her he could use it to make explosives. He said he had made tennis ball bombs to explode in the woods.

Lewington appears to have had no home computer - although police did find a laptop cable. He had no training in chemicals or explosives. Yet he produced devices which, according to scientists, were more dangerous and professional than many DIY efforts uncovered by police.

So if he wasn't a member of any neo-Nazi group and wasn't spending his nights scouring the internet for bomb-making instructions, how did he learn how to make these devices?

Neighbourly behaviour

Lewington's silence in court means we may never know. But one incident following his arrest was incredibly revealing about his state of mind. Detectives at London's high security Paddington Green police station conducted a "safety interview" with Lewington, asking him for any information they might need to protect the public from uncovered explosives.

The officers were particularly concerned about a mechanism placed against the bedroom wall. Lewington told them it wasn't a bomb. It was the inner workings of an automatic air freshener. He'd adapted the motor and added a cord and metal nut. And during the night, at regular intervals, the motor would spin and flick the nut against the wall.

What was it for, asked the detectives. To annoy his neighbours, he replied.

BBC News

Man 'on cusp' of bombing campaign

A racist arrested by chance at a railway station was "on the cusp" of waging a terror campaign using tennis balls and weedkiller, a jury has heard.

Neil Lewington, 43, had a bomb factory at his parents' home in Reading, Berks, and wanted to target those he thought "non-British", prosecutors alleged.

The Old Bailey heard he was carrying bomb parts when arrested at Lowestoft, Suffolk, for abusing a train conductor.

He denies eight charges related to terrorism or explosives.

Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said Mr Lewington was found to be carrying the component parts of two "viable, improvised incendiary devices".

His holdall had been searched after his arrest, when he was also held for drinking and smoking on the train and urinating in public, the court heard.

This man who had strong if not fanatical right-wing leanings and opinions was on the cusp of embarking on a campaign of terrorism
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting

Later searches of Mr Lewington's home revealed a notebook entitled "Waffen SS UK members' handbook" which contained drawings of electronics and chemical mixtures, jurors were told.

"In addition to all of that, the police discovered evidence that the defendant sympathised with and quite clearly adhered to white supremacist and racist views," said Mr Altman.

Mr Lewington had an "unhealthy interest" in the London nail bomber David Copeland, America's Unabomber and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the court heard.

Mr Altman said: "The effect of these finds is to prove that this man, who had strong if not fanatical right-wing leanings and opinions, was on the cusp of embarking on a campaign of terrorism against those he considered non-British."

He said Mr Lewington had two video compilations of news and documentary footage about bombers and bombings both in Britain and the US.

'No qualifications'

This interest had gone "far beyond the mere intellectual or academic levels", Mr Altman said.

"In the privacy of his own bedroom and far from the gaze of his parents with whom he lived, this defendant had amassed the component parts of and had begun the manufacture of improvised explosive or incendiary devices," he said.

Mr Altman said Mr Lewington left school at 16 without qualifications but had worked in a number of electronics jobs.

He had been unemployed for 10 years after being sacked from his last job for being drunk and, though he lived with his parents, had not spoken to his father for 10 years.

His mother said he had placed Plasticine in the keyhole of his bedroom door so no-one could see inside, the court heard.

It was alleged that Mr Lewington, described as "a loner", had met a number of girlfriends through mobile phone chatlines.

One said she was put off when he made racist remarks, while another - an army cadet sergeant - said he asked if she had dealings with the Nazi group Combat 18, the court heard.

Mr Lewington had taken some weedkiller from her and later told her he had bought a child's chemistry set to use for making explosives, Mr Altman said.

Mr Lewington is accused of preparing for terrorism by having the bomb parts in a public place.

He also faces two charges of having articles for terrorism - including the weedkiller, firelighters and three tennis balls - two of having documents for terrorism and another of collecting information for terrorism.

Two further counts allege he possessed an explosive device "with intent to endanger life" and that he had explosives, namely weedkiller.

The trial continues.

BBC News