Teenager who became radicalised during pandemic jailed for terror attack plot

A teenager who planned a terror attack on British police or soldiers after being radicalised online during the Covid pandemic has been jailed.

Police said Matthew King’s planned atrocity was “imminent” when he was arrested in May last year, after conducting reconnaissance trips filming a military base, police station and officers on patrol in London.

He started planning an attack when he was just 18 and is believed to have become rapidly radicalised in a period of months after converting to Islam online.

King, now 19, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of six years at London’s Old Bailey on Friday after pleading guilty to preparing acts of terrorism.

The court heard that King wanted to travel to Isis territory in Syria, but that he also considered launching an attack targeting police or soldiers in the UK.

He had viewed Isis propaganda, including gory training manuals on knife attacks, and researched notorious terrorists including the murderers of Lee Rigby and Isis executioner Mohammed Emwazi.

In April 2022 a member of a WhatsApp group King was in called the anti-terrorist hotline, and he was also reported to the Prevent counter-extremism programme by his concerned mother.

The teenager changed his Whatspp status to read “kill non-Muslims wherever you see them” and shared a video in the group showing a man holding a knife with the words: “Now the battle has begun and it will continue until the day of judgement. So take out your sword, O youth, and destroy the kufr [disbelievers].”

Police and MI5 launched an investigation and put King under covert surveillance, moving in to arrest him after he conducted hostile reconnaissance of police officers in Stratford and the 7th Battalion The Rifles barracks in east London.

He had posted a photo on Snapchat showing police officers standing outside a court building, with the caption “target acquired”.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said he believed King’s attack was “imminent”.

He told a press conference that police arrested him just over a month after being alerted to his behaviour “out of concern for how close he was to launching a terror attack”.

The teenager, who lived with his mother and sisters in Essex, had no qualifications after being expelled from school after becoming “aggressive” and dabbling with drugs.

He claimed to have converted to Islam during the coronavirus pandemic but did not worship at any mosques, and police said that when he attempted to attend several with his mother he was rejected for talking about “violent jihad and war”.

Mr Murphy described King as a “self-initiated terrorist” and said investigators were struck by the “speed at which his views became extreme”.

“His digital footprint suggests his journey [towards terrorism] started in December 2021,” the officer added. “That’s a really quick journey and indicative of the challenge we face.”

Investigators said King came to hold anti-Western views and an “extremist Islamist mindset”, and researched terror attack methods and potential targets online.

He had signed up to an online retailer that sold knives and swords and uploaded an “immensely helpful” photo of his passport to prove his age, police said.

King is not known to have purchased a weapon but did buy “tactical gloves” and “special operations glasses”, and had a black flag associated with jihadist groups.

In conversations with a female friend, he had discussed his wish to fight in Syria and mentioned becoming a “martyr”, as well torturing and beheading an American or British soldier.

“I guess jihadi love is powerful,” King wrote. “I just want to kill people.”

King made a series of videos of himself, including a rap where he praised “bros” in Belmarsh prison, and also viewed Isis propaganda, bombings and executions.

Between March and May 2022, he recorded a series of videos of police officers at east London’s Stratford railway station, outside Stratford Magistrates’ Court, and of the barracks.

In the hours before his arrest, he was searching online for notorious terrorists including Isis executioner Mohammed Emwazi and Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi.

As police detained King, he told them: “I don’t believe in the UK law, the only law I believe in is the law of Allah.”

Defence lawyers said King was “far from carrying out an act of terrorism” and his conduct was “in its very infancy”.

Hossein Zahir KC told the Old Bailey King’s primary wish was to join Isis in Syria, but he had made no concrete steps for travel and only intended to mount a terror attack in the UK if his journey was “frustrated”.

King accepted carrying out hostile reconnaissance of police in Stratford and at the military barracks, but had not purchased a weapon and “the prospect of an act of terrorism was remote”, Mr Zahir said.