By Tanya Gupta & PA News, BBC News, South East
A teenager with neo-Nazi views who drew up a plan to carry out a suicide bomb attack on a synagogue in Hove has been jailed.
Mason Reynolds, 19, from Brighton, was previously convicted of having an article connected with the preparation of an act of terrorism and had admitted 10 offences relating to terrorist publications and material.
At Winchester Crown Court, Mrs Justice May told him she considered him “dangerous”, adding documents he kept showed “how entrenched your interest in far-right ideology had become”.
Reynolds was jailed for eight years, with five on extended licence.
The judge said: “You intended to encourage terrorism. This was propaganda pure and simple.”
Prosecuting, Naomi Parsons said Reynolds had annotated a Google street map and satellite image of the synagogue with “entry points and points to attack”.
She said Reynolds had an extensive library of manuals, including explosives manuals and gun-making manuals.
“There was the potential to endanger many lives. He included references to the days when the synagogue would be busiest, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover,” she said.
The court heard the teenager, from Moulsecoomb Way, possessed live-streamed videos of terrorist attacks including those by Brenton Tarrant in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Anders Breivik in Norway.
Reynolds promoted the neo-Nazi agenda on social media, wrote that he wanted to “make Jews afraid again”, and posted a promotional video for a proscribed organisation, the court was told.
Amy Packham, mitigating, said his interest in the far right developed during Covid lockdown. She said: “He would never have taken this action into real life, this was all online, behind the barrier of the internet.”
After the hearing, Det Ch Supt Olly Wright, head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, said: “This is another case involving a young person following a toxic extreme right-wing terrorist and anti-semitic path.
“The fact Reynolds had such a detailed plan to attack a synagogue is really concerning. However, as a result of our investigation, Reynolds was prevented from progressing the plan into action.”
