A group of hard right extremists has been found guilty of planning terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues as part of a "race war."
Christopher Ringrose, Marco Pitzettu and Brogan Stewart have been found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court.
The men were arrested when security services believed an attack could be imminent after undercover officers infiltrated their group.
Ringrose, 34, from Cannock in Staffordshire, Pitzettu, 25, from Mickleover in Derbyshire and Stewart, 25, from Wakefield in West Yorkshire, plotted to use firearms, explosives and bladed weapons in attacks against religious centres.
Brogan Stewart, Marco Pitzettu and Christopher RingrosePA
Brogan Stewart's bedroomPAA nine-week long trial heard how the group idolised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, shared vile racist slurs and glorified mass murderers.
Today, a jury rejected claims the defendants were fantasists with no intention of carrying out their threats and found the three guilty of a charge of preparing acts of terrorism and charges of collecting information likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism.
Ringrose was also convicted of manufacturing a prohibited weapon. Pitzettu pleaded guilty to obtaining an illegal stun gun at a previous hearing. The defendants will be sentenced on July 17.
The judge, Mrs Justice Cutts, told them: "You must all expect substantial custodial sentences."
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A Nazi flag in the bedroom of Brogan StewartPA
Brogan Stewart's crossbowPAHead of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley said: "We saw this building of a firearm, and we saw them then changing their conversation and an uptick in their hatred and looking to identify a real-world target, which could have been talk of a synagogue, an Islamic institution, a mosque, education… When we saw that uptick changing, and they were looking to come out into the real world, that’s when we took the action to arrest them.
"These individuals have come together in an online space, and what brought them together was extreme racial prejudice. They held extreme racist views.
"They idolised the Nazi Party. There was adoration for mass murderers, and they held really extreme views against people who didn’t look like them."
Brogan Stewart's bedroomPADunkerley said it is not clear how these defendants were first radicalised.
He said: "We don’t fully understand where these individuals first found their views. What we do see in the online space is that people are coming into these forums, and they’re self-radicalising within them.
"They’re going down a rabbit hole. They’re seeking information from one source."
Dunkerley added: "In terms of extreme right-wing terrorism, we have seen a significant growth in that over the last 20 years. It does predominantly affect younger men. They are coming together in an online space, and that is growing.
"That is a concern. That is a significant proportion of my work."
