“OBSESSED” with weapons and “deeply committed to neo-Nazi ideology”, mosque terror plotter Connor Ward has been given a life sentence.
The 25-year-old amassed hand-to-hand combat weapons and components for explosive devices, along with a list of mosque addresses.
The Banff man researched guns and survival techniques and collected the addresses of five Islamic religious sites in the Aberdeen area.
He was given a lifelong sentence at the High Court in Glasgow after being found guilty of preparing for acts of terrorism.
Police recovered weapons that Ward had gathered
The sentence, passed by judge Lord Burns, carries a minimum jail term of six years. However, Ward will not be released on parole unless deemed safe.
He told Ward: “Your obsession with weapons and explosives combined with your deeply entrenched and extreme right wing prejudices lead me to conclude that you are likely to pose a serious risk to the public for an indefinite period.”
The court heard that Ward, who has previous convictions, gathered ball bearings for use in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and rocket tubes that could have been used to fire projectiles.
Police also found knives, metal bars, a stun gun and hundreds of knuckle dusters at his home, as well as a device to jam mobile phone signals.
A file in his home bore the name “Combat 18 British Mosque Address Book”, the tile of which referenced the first neo-Nazi organisation banned in the UK.
Other items recovered by police from Connor Ward
The court heard a plot to target Muslims had probably been formed by November 2014 and that Ward – who denied breaching the Terrorism Act – would probably have acted alone if he had carried out his plan.
Lord Burns said he poses a “very high risk of serious harm” to the public, telling him: “It is clear that you are deeply committed to neo-Nazi ideology and were prepared to advance the aims of a terrorist organisation, such as Combat 18, by preparing to commit an attack on an Islamic place of worship. Such an attack would have had catastrophic results.
“This involved a high level of research and planning as shown by the vast collection of manuals for the manufacture of IEDs at home.
“Because you reached the stage of buying the materials, namely ball bearings, which would have gone into the IED, it is legitimate to infer that you planned to cause serious injury, at the least, to anyone within or in the vicinity of the building at the time of the explosion.”
Ward was being monitored by police under a supervised release order following a previous crime for at least part of the period when these crimes were carried out.
The court heard how he was ordered to serve a three-year jail term in 2012 over a separate explosives charge at the High Court in Edinburgh.
In that offence, chemicals and instructions for making explosive devices were discovered at his Aberdeenshire home. That plot was said to have been related to a dispute with his father and Ward said "voices in his head" had driven him to act.
The Aberdeenshire man was then sentenced to 22 months imprisonment for the possession of a stun gun in 2015. Another 18-month term was then imposed in July the following year when he was found with an "improvised" knife while serving that sentence.
And one month after that an assault committed whilst in custody resulted in an additional four month sentence.
Burns said these punishments had "no effect" on Ward's behaviour or attitudes, telling him: "You have been assessed as posing a high level of risk and a very high risk of serious harm."
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