Teenage neo-Nazi who planned suicide bomb attack on synagogue jailed for eight years
A sixth form student from Brighton who drew up plans for a suicide bomb attack on a local synagogue has been jailed for eight years for terrorism offences.
Mason Reynolds, 19, from Moulscoomb was a student studying bricklaying and roofing and doing part-time labouring work on the side.
He lived with his parents and was described as leading “in many ways, a not untypical existence of a young man in his late teens”.
However, Naomi Parsons, prosecuting, told Winchester Crown Court that Reynolds was a neo-Nazi who believed the white race was “destined to dominate the rest of mankind”.
She said Reynolds “does not find himself here because he has political, racial or ideological views that some may find distasteful or indeed abhorrent”.
“He is here because he has not just held those political, racial and ideological views, he has acted on them.”
When Reynolds was arrested, police found a note on his phone created on 7 May 2023 entitled “Enough Larping” – a call to action that referred to ending his “live action role play”.
The note included a 13-second video from Google Maps showing the exterior of Hove Synagogue, and Reynolds had listed its address and the CCTV cameras and fire exits.
He added: “Possible buzzer to get into the building, 1 camera on left side (side entrance locked by gate).”
On another image he had marked “quickest and efficient way in”, adding: “Could be good for surprise attack.”
Hove Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. Pic: Wikimedia
Reynolds had attached images of synagogues in Missouri and Washington in the US and in Edinburgh as “examples of what to expect inside”.
Underneath he had written: “The Jewish holidays that tend to have the most people in synagogues are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover.”
In June, Reynolds produced an image on a video app called CapCut with the words “Make Jews Afraid Again”.
Later on the same day, a discussion took place on Telegram with another teenager using the sign-on AR15 – a reference to an assault rifle.
Reynolds told him: “I wanna strap multiple pipe [bombs] to my chest and blow myself up inside a synagogue… I have a plan.”
Without identifying his target, he told the other user: “They won’t let me through the buzzer door if suspicious, like Stephan Balliet” – a reference to a German-born neo-Nazi who used homemade weapons to kill two people, after failing to get into a synagogue in Halle, Germany, in October 2019.
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Police also discovered Reynolds had copies of the Mujahideen’s Explosives Handbook, the Terrorist’s Handbook, and the Anarchist Cookbook on his computer, along with files used to make a 3D printed assault rifle called the FGC-9.
Reynolds was one of two administrators for the “Far-Right Sigmas” channel on the Telegram app, a neo-Nazi propaganda channel which was set up in late November 2022 by “AR15” in Poland.
The channel promoted the view that society was in decay and the fault lay with Jewish people who controlled the financial institutions, the media and encouraged immigration, resulting in the “dilution” of the white race.
The channel had nearly 350 subscribers and produced content that glorified Nazis including Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Waffen SS, as well as far-right killers including Anders Breivik, Brenton Tarrant, and Dylann Roof, who killed nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
“It hoped, it seems, to create neo-Nazis of the future,” Ms Parsons said.
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One of the clips circulated by Reynolds featured Stephan Balliet, who livestreamed his attempted attack with homemade rifles and bombs.
Speaking of Tarrant, who livestreamed an attack that killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Reynolds commented: “It’d be 10x better seeing Jews get killed.”
In the channel’s chatroom, Reynolds also distributed videos of the Christchurch attack, and Breivik’s attack in Norway in 2011, which killed 67 people.
Much of the material on the channel was edited from propaganda produced by an organisation called Atomwaffen Division, a US based terrorist organisation banned by the UK government in July 2021.
Reynolds pleaded guilty to four offences of possessing material useful for terrorism and five offences of distributing material likely to encourage terrorism. He was found guilty of possessing an article for terrorist purposes.
After his arrest, Reynolds told police he was hurt that his friends viewed him as someone who was “all talk and no action” and wanted them to stop calling him a “LARP” – live action role player.
He had written the note in 15 minutes, forgot to delete it and thought no more about it, he said.
Jailing Reynolds for eight years with an extended licence of five years, Mrs Justice May accepted that he did nothing to carry his plan and that his “secret life” was now out in the open.
But she said she considered him “dangerous” and added: “These ideas are immensely attractive, to young men in particular, and while only a small fraction of those who hold these beliefs act on them, the consequences are catastrophic as history has shown.”
A man has been remanded into custody charged with child cruelty offences after allegedly lacing sweets with sedatives.
Jon Ruben, 76, of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp in Stathern, Leicestershire.
He has been charged with three counts of wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning or exposing children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
The charges relate to three boys at the camp between 25-29 July.
The scene in Stathern, Leicestershire. Pic: PA
Ruben spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.
Police received a report of children feeling unwell at a camp being held at Stathern Lodge, near Melton in Leicestershire, last Sunday.
Officers said paramedics attended the scene and eight boys – aged between eight and 11 – were taken to hospital as a precaution, as was an adult. They have since been discharged.
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Police said the “owners and operators of Stathern Lodge are independent from those people who use or hire the lodge and are not connected to the incident”.
Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after officers initially reported the incident as having happened on Monday, only to later amend it to Sunday.
It is still unclear when officers responded and whether that is why the watchdog referral has been made.
Ruben will next appear at Leicester Crown Court on 29 August.
A bishop who interrupted a church concert in his dressing gown – and told singers to “leave his house” – has formally apologised to the choir.
Jonathan Baker was filmed standing barefoot at a microphone as he criticised performers for making a “terrible racket” at St Andrew’s Church in central London.
Addressing the City Academy Voices choir directly, the bishop of Fulham said: “I write to apologise for the distress and offence I caused in bringing the concert to a premature end.
“This should not have happened … I also apologise for remarks which were made in haste, and which have understandably caused hurt and distress.”
The bishop, in his dressing gown, gave the choir a dressing down
Mr Baker had demanded for the performance to stop because it was 10pm – and says he didn’t realise the choir had booked the church until 11pm.
In the statement obtained by Sky News, he added: “I have lived here on site at St Andrew’s for 10 years, for much of which City Academy has rehearsed and performed here.
“You have been, and continue to be, welcome – and I hope that you will be able to continue the relationship with us.
“I can give you every assurance that the events of Friday evening will not recur, and I apologise again to performers (especially those unable to perform at the end of the evening) and the audience alike.”
The choir performed their last song
The choir was performing to a 300-strong audience in Holborn when the lights were suddenly turned off, with Mr Baker declaring the concert was “over”.
A church employee then asked the crowd to leave quietly and for the musicians to step down from the stage, attracting boos from the audience.
The choir went on to perform one last song, an A cappella version of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, before bringing their show to a close.
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Jonathan Baker has apologised
One member of the audience, who was attending with his 10-year-old daughter, told Sky News he initially thought the interruption was a staged joke.
Benedict Collins had told Sky News: “This work deserves respect, not to be disparaged as a ‘terrible racket’. The people here had put their heart and soul into it.
“The bishop cut them off in midstream, preventing soloists who had worked their hardest from singing – and preventing the audience, which included people of all ages, from enjoying it to the end.”
The choir told Sky News it was “upsetting” that they were unable to finish their show as planned, but “hold no hard feelings and wish the bishop well”.
A spokesperson added: “If anyone is thinking of joining one of our choirs, the City Academy Voices rehearse on Mondays in central London. Dressing gowns optional.”
The Online Safety Act is putting free speech at risk and needs significant adjustments, Elon Musk’s social network X has warned.
New rules that came into force last week require platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X – as well as sites hosting pornography – to bring in measures to prove that someone using them is over the age of 18.
The Online Safety Act requires sites to protect children and to remove illegal content, but critics have said that the rules have been implemented too broadly, resulting in the censorship of legal content.
X has warned the act’s laudable intentions were “at risk of being overshadowed by the breadth of its regulatory reach”.
It said: “When lawmakers approved these measures, they made a conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of ‘online safety’.
“It is fair to ask if UK citizens were equally aware of the trade-off being made.”
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What are the new online rules?
X claims the timetable for platforms to meet mandatory measures had been unnecessarily tight – and despite complying, sites still faced threats of enforcement and fines, “encouraging over-censorship”.
“A balanced approach is the only way to protect individual liberties, encourage innovation and safeguard children. It’s safe to say that significant changes must take place to achieve these objectives in the UK,” it said.
A UK government spokesperson said it is “demonstrably false” that the Online Safety Act compromises free speech.
“As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression,” they added.
Users have complained about age checks that require personal data to be uploaded to access sites that show pornography, and 468,000 people have already signed a petition asking for the new law to be repealed.
In response to the petition, the government said it had “no plans” to reverse the Online Safety Act.
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Why do people want to repeal the Online Safety Act?
Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage likened the new rules to “state suppression of genuine free speech” and said his party would ditch the regulations.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said on Tuesday that those who wanted to overturn the act were “on the side of predators” – to which Mr Farage demanded an apology, calling Mr Kyle’s comments “absolutely disgusting”.
Regulator Ofcom said on Thursday it had launched an investigation into how four companies – that collectively run 34 pornography sites – are complying with new age-check requirements.
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These companies – 8579 LLC, AVS Group Ltd, Kick Online Entertainment S.A. and Trendio Ltd – run dozens of sites, and collectively have more than nine million unique monthly UK visitors, the internet watchdog said.
The regulator said it prioritised the companies based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operated and their user numbers.
It adds to the 11 investigations already in progress into 4chan, as well as an unnamed online suicide forum, seven file-sharing services, and two adult websites.
Ofcom said it expects to make further enforcement announcements in the coming months.
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