A boy has been jailed for five years after making a bomb in his grandparents' spare bedroom.

Kieran Cleary, 16, told friends he was going to "go on a rampage" and "kill many people" weeks after making the shrapnel-filled weapon while he was living at his grandparents' home.

He also warned fellow pupils around a year earlier that he was going to carry out a school shooting and praised Adolf Hitler, telling friends: "Gas the Jews."

He also researched "extreme right-wing material and anti-Muslim material", his trial was told.

The teenager, of Holme Wood, Bradford, had been extensively researching bomb-making tactics online while accessing the Dark Web.

He made the device by strapping together two CO2 cannisters and filling one with shrapnel.

If gunpowder and a fuse were added, it could have been a 'viable CO2 bomb'.

After police discovered the device he was arrested and during an interview he told officers 'he liked eating flesh', MailOnline reported.

Interview tapes were played during his trial to a stunned court room, where he said: "I feel like cutting people up and stuff like that and eating them – I don't know why – and I tried searching to see what it is and stuff like that.

"I don't know why I feel like that."

The teen followed the instructions for the manufacture of the device in a copy of 'The Anarchist's Corner' on June 18, 2018.

Prosecutors at his trial at Leeds Crown Court said that he nearly created a weapon with a potential 30-metre blast radius.

The weapon could have been capable of being used "to cause maximum harm and death to civilians", a court heard.

Cleary, of Bradford, West Yorks, was convicted of making an explosive substance and three counts of possession of a document likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

But a jury cleared him of the more serious offence of making an explosive substance with intent in May this year.

The judge lifted restrictions which had previously protected Cleary's identity at his sentencing today.

During a trial, a court heard that he first came to the attention of police aged 13 and was referred to Prevent, the Government's counter-terrorism strategy in 2017.

In July 2018, Prevent received information that the boy had told fellow pupils he was going to go on a rampage, aiming to kill many people and then be shot by the police or kill himself.

This led to a search of his home in Bradford, West Yorks, where items were found including two carbon dioxide canisters joined together and an assortment of nails, tacks and panel pins.

One of the canisters had been filled with nails.

The court heard that he searched for and watched videos about the English Defence League,and that his searches became“progressively dark” and he looked up  videos on murder, torture and mutilation.

He also researched attacks on Muslims and the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US, in which 12 students were murdered.

Cleary also said, "I may as well bring a gun into school and do a school shooting”.

Giving evidence in his defence during the trial, the boy said he made extreme comments because he was showing off and only built the device to show off to his friends.

Speaking after the hearing, Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Snowden is the Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East. He said: "This is a disturbing case of a teenager who developed an alarming interest in extremist ideology, violence, firearms and explosives.


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