A teenager who murdered his family and wanted to be the worst mass killer the UK has seen had 33 cartridges on him to carry out an attack on his former school, a court has heard.
Nicholas Prosper shot his mother Juliana Falcon, 48, sister Giselle, 13, and shot and stabbed his brother Kyle, 16, at their family home in Luton on 13 September last year.
But the 19-year-old did not plan on stopping there, according to prosecutor Timothy Cray KC, who told Luton Crown Court he had prepared the murders “for months” and wanted to kill at least 30 schoolchildren.
“His planning was cold, deliberate and without sympathy or emotion towards the actual victims or potential victims,” Mr Cray said, speaking at Prosper’s sentencing.
His “main wish”, however, was to “achieve lasting notoriety as a mass killer”, Mr Cray added, specifically to “imitate and even surpass other mass killers around the world”.
“He had conducted in-depth internet research on shootings in the United States of America, Norway, Australia and New Zealand,” he said.
“He understood his plans, if realised, would bring about the greatest number of deaths in a school or other mass shooting in the United Kingdom and possibly even in the United States of America.”
Image: Prosper wouldn’t engage with mental health support, the court heard
The investigation suggests that the defendant “acted alone”, he added, and “his plans did not arise from any political or ideological cause”.
Prosper had undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the court heard, but he showed an “extreme lack of empathy with others and an extreme lack of remorse” that can’t be explained by ASD alone.
Up until Year 11, the court heard Prosper was a “geeky” and quiet boy with a small group of friends who were into computers, but problems began in sixth form and he wouldn’t engage with mental health support.
‘Extended violent struggle’
Prosper never reached St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, which was three-quarters of a mile from his home, as police arrested him after he escaped to a wooded area.
After he left, officers broke into his family flat at about 5.50am, following a call from a neighbour.
There, the court heard, they found Prosper’s little sister underneath a dining table in the living room, “as if she had been trying to hide there”.
His mother and brother – who was stabbed more than 100 times – were both found in the hallway.
Image: Giselle Prosper (left), Juliana Prosper (centre) and Kyle Prosper. Pic: Family pics issued via Bedfordshire Police
He had planned to kill his family in their sleep, but when his mother realised something was wrong and challenged him, it led to “an extended violent struggle”.
After the horrific and noisy attack on his family members, Prosper knew police would be on their way and so had to leave three hours earlier than he had anticipated.
The teenager was then arrested by a passing police patrol as he walked along a residential road in Luton.
He had hidden the shotgun and cartridges nearby.
Prosper admitted their murders at a hearing last month, as well as purchasing a shotgun without a certificate, possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life and possession of a kitchen knife in a public place.
Plans long in the making
These killings were planned for more than a year, the court heard, with Prosper managing to buy a shotgun with a fake firearms certificate.
He had put together a black and yellow uniform he wanted to wear for his killing spree, and he had filmed a video of himself holding a plank of wood as a mock gun.
Image: Nicholas Prosper has admitted killing his family
Prosper had included his own name, a picture and his real address on his fake firearms licence, the court heard.
He had also inserted the signature of a Bedfordshire Police firearms sergeant on 30 August last year.
On the same day, Prosper messaged a private seller who had advertised a shotgun for £450, offering to pay £600 if cartridges were included, Mr Cray said.
The seller agreed to drop the gun off to him on 12 September, the day before the killings, prompting Prosper to respond in a message: “I look forward to meeting you.”
Forensic examiners found Prosper had fired seven cartridges, the first being a test shot into a teddy bear in his bedroom.
Prosper’s step-by-step plan
A couple of months later, a prison officer found the notes in Prosper’s trainer sole after searching his cell on 13 November.
He had written the planned shooting would be “one of the biggest events ever,” Mr Cray said.
Image: Tributes were left outside the home. Pic: PA
“I was right in predicting no-one would’ve called the police had I killed them in their sleep. 3 shots under 30 seconds,” he had written.
“The only known phone call to police that day was made by the b**** at the door as a result of my B**** mother waking them up and it being turned into a long struggle.
“My plan wasn’t ‘stupid’. I was f****** right. MY MOTHER IS A STUPID F****** COW.”
The notes continued: “But why so early? So I’d have time to cannibalise my family, and rape a woman at knife point before the shooting.”
He had also written a step-by-step plan, detailing he would jump two gates and shoot down a glass door while children were together for “prayer/registration”.
He would then “shout that this is a robbery and for everyone to get down”, before shooting two teachers and killing children at Early Years Foundation Stage – the youngest.
That part of the note finished with: “Go to the next classroom. Kill a couple more. Suicide.”
‘Pain will never heal’
His father, who was also dad to Giselle and Kyle, said part of his soul died when he found out what his son had done.
In a statement read out by Mr Cray, Raymond Prosper said: “The pain of our loss will never be healed. This includes my whole family, our lives will never be the same.
“When I heard the horrific news on that day, part of my soul died too. This is a lose-lose situation for us all.”
The Appeal Court judge who ruled in favour of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in the Epping migrant hotel case is a long-standing Labour supporter.
Lord Justice David Bean, 71, is a former treasurer of the Society of Labour Lawyers and chaired the left-leaning Fabian Society, which is affiliated to the Labour Party, in 1989 and 1990.
He was also – with Sir Tony Blair’s barrister wife Cherie – a founder member in 2000 of the left-wing Matrix Chambers, whose members include the current attorney general, Lord Hermer.
Image: The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, is at the centre of a legal battle. Pic: PA
On its website, the Society of Labour Lawyers describes itself as “a thinktank and affiliated socialist society which provides legal and policy advice to the Labour Party”.
Founded in 1948 by a future Labour lord chancellor Gerald Gardiner, it declares: “Our objectives are to contribute legal expertise to the Labour Party and uphold the principles of justice, liberty, equality, and the rule of law in the UK and around the world.
“We advise Labour MPs and the House of Lords; develop and scrutinise policy and legislation; contribute to debate within the Labour movement by hosting events and discussions; and mentor future members of the legal profession.
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“We are open to Labour Party members who are also practising or retired lawyers, law students or graduates, academics, and members of the judiciary.”
The Fabian Society describes itself as “a democratically governed socialist society, a Labour affiliate and one of the party’s original founders”.
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5:00
Inside the asylum hotel protests
Sir Stephen Eyre, the High Court judge who ruled in favour of Epping Forest Council earlier this month, was a Conservative parliamentary candidate four times.
His most high-profile bid to become an MP came in the 2004 Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election, won by current Labour MP and former minister Liam Byrne.
Image: Sir Stephen Eyre. Pic: Judicial Appointments Commission/Ministry of Justice
Appointed a High Court judge by then Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab in 2021, Sir Stephen was a Tory candidate while working as a barrister.
His first attempt came in 1987, when he stood in Hodge Hill in that year’s general election, coming second behind Labour’s Terry Davis.
Then in 1992, the year of Sir John Major’s 21-seat election victory, he stood for the Northern Ireland Conservatives in the unionist stronghold of Strangford.
Mr Eyre, as he then was, came fourth behind the official Unionists’ John Taylor, with current Democratic Unionist MP for Antrim East Sammy Wilson in second place.
In 2001, he stood in Stourbridge, where he again came second, this time to Labour’s Debra Shipley, when he cut her majority from nearly 6,000 to under 4,000.
And in the 2004 by-election, he came a distant third as Mr Byrne scraped in by just 460 votes ahead of the Liberal Democrats, who benefited from an Iraq war backlash.
“It’s an invasion,” Dinah Bentley tells me, standing next to a cardboard cut-out of Nigel Farage.
The 78-year-old retired teacher says she “doesn’t laud” the Reform MP, whose grinning likeness is a permanent fixture in her West Yorkshire conservatory, but he “says what I believe”.
“Everybody talks about migration, but our country’s ruined,” Dinah adds. “They’ve ruined it.”
The “they” in her mind? People who have crossed into the UK on small boats.
We have seen asylum hotel protests intensify over the summer and wanted to speak to the people who’ve joined them.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll speak with counter-protesters too, but today, we meet Dinah, a grandmother of two who has joined those calling on asylum hotels to close.
Image: Dinah says she fears for her granddaughters’ safety
She was, like many of the protesters we met, initially sceptical to speak to a journalist.
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Dinah says she “doesn’t watch mainstream news” because of “media lies” over Brexit.
Instead, she says she gets her news from social media.
It was on social media that Dinah learnt about a protest being organised outside a hotel in Wakefield, which has housed asylum seekers for several years.
It was the first migration-related protest she had ever attended.
“We’ve put up with so much for so long and I think ordinary people now, they’ve decided it’s no good sitting, doing nothing,” Dinah says.
After reading about a male asylum seeker being charged with a sexual assault in Epping, she says she is “fearful” for her granddaughters’ safety.
“They’re undocumented,” she says, referring to those who have arrived in the UK on small boats.
“We know nothing about them. We don’t know where they are wandering the streets. It’s not right, is it?”
She’s also angry about the cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels.
Image: Dinah says Nigel Farage ‘says what I believe’
I ask Dinah what she thinks about the government plan to close asylum hotels, stop illegal crossings and deport people who do not have a legal right to remain.
“It’s all talk, all talk”, she says. “I don’t believe them.”
“I would be happy if the Navy went into the Channel, we’re an island for God’s sake, and stopped the boats.
“That would make me over the moon.”
Dinah tells us people used to be “afraid” of saying what they really thought about migration.
No more, she says.
The ‘migrant watch’ group
On the other side of Wakefield, we meet 47-year-old James Crashley.
He’s also been to the local asylum hotel protests.
An army veteran and former policeman, James says he does not think asylum seekers should be housed in hotels or houses of multiple occupancy.
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1:48
Where are UK’s asylum seekers from?
Image: James has been trying to set up a ‘community watch’
“I’ve served in Kosovo and in Iraq, within the British Army,” he says. “And if I can be housed in a tent for six months, then they can too.”
The prime minister has pledged to end the “costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers in this parliament” – which would be 2029, if not earlier.
James has, by his own admission, become somewhat notorious in his local area for trying to set up what he’s called a “community watch”.
He says the police are “very good at dealing with serious crime” but believes “they seem to forget that day-to-day crime exists”.
Image: James stresses the group ‘isn’t vigilantism’
Called “5 Town Migrant Watch” and advertised by him on social media, James says the volunteer group will support the Wakefield hotel protests and act as a “gentle presence” in public areas to tackle “all anti-social behaviour”.
But it will focus on “illegal migrant men” who James describes as having “conflicting traditions and cultures”.
“They come from cultures that aren’t as civilised as ours,” he says. “They don’t seem to adhere to our laws.
“And because of the cultural differences, as in the sexual assaults on children and women, they believe that’s fine in their cultures. Well, it’s not here.”
I say to James that no culture accepts sexual assaults on women and children are “fine”, a point he says he “accepts”.
But he claims that, by definition, people have already “broken the law” when they arrive on small boats in the first place.
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James’ group has attracted hundreds of supporters online, but also criticism from people who believe the group – and James himself – is not only divisive but dangerous.
James admits he has previously had a police caution for a public order offence, not related to the community watch, but stresses this group “isn’t vigilantism”.
“It’s a peaceful movement,” he says. “But if needs be, we’ll stand our ground and will prevent crime. We’re not allowed to commit crime.”
‘People are angry’
A few days later, we meet Dinah again outside the Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield.
Protesters line the road, waving Union and St George’s flags. Some are shouting “send them back” and “stop the boats”.
Image: The protesters and counter-protesters
Groups of counter-protesters are there too, chanting “Nazi scum” over the police barricade.
I ask Dinah how that feels.
“I think it’s hilarious,” she says. “I know what I am, I don’t value their opinion, so I couldn’t care less what they call me.”
But standing next to Dinah, also waving a Union flag, is Sharon.
She says she’s “a little bit frightened being here” and feels it’s unfair to be put in that position just “to try and get the government to listen to you”.
She added: “I’m a 60-year-old mum. I work 40 hours a week. And nobody gives me anything free. You just want fairness.”
Image: Sharon says she wants ‘fairness’
In the crowd, we find James.
I ask him what he thinks about the government plan to appeal a court ruling to shut the asylum hotel in Epping.
“Of course they were going to try and block it,” he tells me.
Image: Dinah says she ‘doesn’t value’ the opinion of counter-protesters
“The smiles here and the good attitude and the positivity is masking the anger of what’s happened to the English.
“People are angry. People know that once they’re out of here,” he says, gesturing at the hotel behind us, “they’re going to be put in the community”.
“What happens then, who knows?”
Dinah and James are among thousands of protesters who share a sense of being ignored by the government – leaving an overwhelming sense of pressure and uncertainty about what will happen next.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy confirmed the government had summoned Andrey Kelin in response.
Mr Kelin was seen arriving at the Foreign Office building in Whitehall today.
Image: Russian ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin arrives at the Foreign Office building in Whitehall
Mr Lammy posted on X: “Putin’s strikes last night killed civilians, destroyed homes and damaged buildings, including the British Council and EU Delegation in Kyiv.
“We have summoned the Russian Ambassador. The killing and destruction must stop.”
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The British Council’s chief executive, Scott McDonald, said their guard for the building was injured but “stable”.
“At the insistence of my amazing colleagues, we will continue operations in Ukraine today wherever possible,” he said.
“Their resilience is awe-inspiring, and I am deeply thankful they are all safe.”
Earlier, Sir Keir Starmer said: “My thoughts are with all those affected by the senseless Russian strikes on Kyiv, which have damaged the British Council building.
“Putin is killing children and civilians, and sabotaging hopes of peace. This bloodshed must end.”
The British Council is an arms-length body from the government, and says its mission is to “support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide”.
It facilitates schemes like working, living and learning abroad for British people.
Most of its funding comes from the fees it charges people for its services, but it does also get funding from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
As well as the attack on the British Council building, Russia also targeted the EU delegation building in the Ukrainian capital overnight.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, told reporters two missiles hit within 50 metres of the site in 20 seconds.
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2:17
Devastation in Kyiv after deadly Russian attack
And Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the bloc was also summoning Russia’s ambassador following the strike.
“No diplomatic mission should ever be a target,” she said.
The attacks came as part of wider strikes on Kyiv, which destroyed homes and buildings and killed at least 15 people and injured 38, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russia has said it targeted military sites and air bases in its large overnight strike on Ukraine – and that it is still interested in negotiations to meet its aims.
“The special military operation continues,” he said, referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which it launched in February 2022.
“You see that strikes on Russian infrastructure facilities are also continuing, and often Russian civilian infrastructure is targeted by the Kyiv regime.”
He added: “At the same time, Russia will maintain its interest in continuing the negotiation process in order to achieve the goals we face through political and diplomatic means.”
Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine has been widely condemned, with Germany’s foreign minister Johann Wadephul saying there must be “consequences”.
“Last night we once again experienced in a terrible way how Russia attacked and bombed Kyiv, civilians died, children died, and the European Union delegation was also attacked,” he told reporters.
Mr Wadephul added that Germany wanted to show it was considering a further response and that any action would be taken jointly by the EU.
A Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office Spokesperson said: “The UK condemns in the strongest terms these outrageous attacks on Ukrainians and the damage done to the British Council and EU Delegation.
“Russia’s increasing attacks on Ukrainian civilians and cities, including Kyiv, are an escalation of the war and deeply irresponsible and are further sabotaging international peace efforts.
“We have made clear to the Russians that such actions will only harden UK and Western resolve to support Ukraine and bring an end to this unjustified war.
“Russia must stop this senseless killing and destruction immediately.”