A-level student guilty of terror offences detained for seven years

A “deeply entrenched racist” A-level student, who shared weapons manuals and terrorism documents, has been detained for seven years.

Malakai Wheeler, 18, of Stamford Close, Swindon, was found guilty of six charges by a jury in September, including possessing a copy of the Terrorist Handbook.

At Winchester Crown Court, Judge Jane Miller KC handed him a seven-year term.

She told Wheeler he was “cold and calculating” and a “white supremacist”.

Mass-murderer manifestos

The other charges included possessing copies of the Anarchist’s Handbook, a document called Homemade Detonators, and sharing 92 documents and 35 images in a chatroom.

He was also convicted of two charges of sharing instructions for the use of items that could be used to perform acts of terrorism, including smoke grenades.

The cache included manifestos by Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik and the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque killer Brenton Tarrant.

Judge Miller KC described Wheeler, who was 16 at the time of his arrest, as a “white supremacist with an extreme right-wing mindset with a sinister interest in violence and insurrection”.

“I find you intended to encourage others to engage in terrorist activity,” she added.

The judge told the court Wheeler had been brought up by his “antisemitic” and “holocaust denier” father and was given a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf as a child, which he began reading at the age of 10 or 11.

She also said he was involved in discussions about a violent insurrection on internet forums and 100 videos were found on his phone, which included shootings, lynchings and executions.

When giving evidence, Wheeler, who had an interest in national socialism and anti-Zionism, admitted using a Nazi swastika as part of his profile image on social media platform Telegram and said he downloaded the terrorism documents because he wanted to create an archive of items he believed would be deleted from the site and the internet.

Wheeler said he viewed terrorist and other violent videos out of “morbid curiosity” and while he accepted being photographed in a skull mask doing a Nazi salute, he denied being a white supremacist.

‘Danger to the public’

Defending Wheeler, Abigail Bright said the teenager had a “lack of maturity” and had shown signs of a “really serious prospect of an early rehabilitation”.

“The defendant had a reckless rather than any other state of mind,” she added.

Det Ch Supt James Dunkerley, head of counter terrorism policing north east at Wiltshire Police, said Wheeler was “not simply curious or a passive observer” but was an active member of a “Telegram chat group committed to extreme right-wing ideology.”

He said it was “important young people recognise the potential impact of their online activity”.

Judge Miller KC said Wheeler poses an “obvious danger to the public” and there was a “significant risk” of him “causing further harm by further offences”.
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