He said police fortunately thwarted the plot, which in all probability could have led to a number of deaths.
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The teenager from Blackburn, who was just 14 at the time and is thought to be Britain’s youngster terrorist, admitted inciting terrorism overseas.
At a two-day sentencing hearing, Manchester Crown Court heard the boy encouraged a Melbourne man to behead police officers at a parade in April.
The Lancashire teen sent thousands of online messages to an alleged Australian jihadist named Sevdet Besim, including one suggesting he get his “first taste of beheading”, the court heard.
A 14-year-old British boy planned and organized a major terror plot to kill police officers in Australia that could have left several people dead, a prosecutor said Thursday.
But it has emerged that the boy, who can not be named for legal reasons, had been radicalised and recruited online by Australian Isil fanatic Abu Khaled al-Cambodi.
Manchester Crown Court was told today that the attack would “in all probability” have resulted in a number of deaths if it was not thwarted.
He said the parents of the forthright and outspoken boy had separated in 2014, he had a degenerative eye condition and was not getting on with his teachers at school, all of this prompting him to feel isolated and marginalised.
He was said to have “strong religious convictions” and was disruptive when he attended a large secular school where most of the pupils were white, the court was told.
His mother referred him to the Government’s counter-extremism programme Channel, but his case was later closed because his school did not note particular features of radicalisation. The suspect is now aged 15 but he is accused of threatening openly to behead his own teachers, telling them that “you are on my beheading list”.
Mr Pickup said the boy was now studying for GCSEs and taking part in group activities, like football, which he never did before.
He would speak of his desire to be a suicide bomber stating that if he had to choose where to detonate his bomb it would be on a plane in order to maximise the fatalities.
He said he blamed the Channel process for radicalising him after saying it had prevented him going to the school of his choice.
The boy was arrested at his home on March 25 on suspicion of making threats to kill. The two also discussed producing a martyrdom video to be used as propaganda.
“IS propaganda was found on the handset, including editions of a magazine, one of which contained excerpts from a speech by an IS spokesman calling for lone wolf attacks in home countries”.
In mitigation, the boy’s barrister said that circumstances at home and the lack of a mentor resulted in his client feeling a void that was filled by IS propagandists online.
The court heard Besim was friends with Numan Haider, who he also had met at the centre, the latter known to police and would later be shot by officers after an attack outside the Melbourne police station earlier this year.
They said he was thoroughly and dangerously radicalised by the time he came into contact with the Melbourne man in March this year.
He said: “He wasn’t rejected”.
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Within two weeks of setting up a Twitter account he had 24,000 followers as he constructed a fantasy image of himself and “quickly became a celebrity” within the jihadi Twitter community.
