Daniel Harris “inspired” mass killer Payton Gendron who shot dead 10 people in Buffalo, New York. The British teenager was also said to have influenced Anderson Lee Aldrich, the only suspect in a shooting at a Colorado gay bar in which five people were killed.

A British teenage extremist has been jailed after his far-right videos were linked to two mass murders in the US.

Daniel Harris used an online platform called World Truth Videos to disseminate a “call to arms” for his violent racist beliefs, a court heard.

The 19-year-old from Glossop in Derbyshire was convicted of five counts of encouraging terrorism and one of possessing a 3D printer for the purposes of terrorism after a trial at Manchester Crown Court.

He was sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in jail, and a further 3 years on licence.

Prosecutors said US mass killer Payton Gendron was “encouraged and, in part, motivated to do what he did” by Harris.

Gendron murdered 10 black people in a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022 while livestreaming the attack. Within hours, Harris produced a video celebrating the killing spree.

Gendron, 19, had left a comment on one of Harris’s videos two months before the mass shooting, saying: “You are not alone my friend :)”.

The video included lessons to be learned from Brenton Tarrant, who livestreamed an attack in which he killed 51 people at mosques in New Zealand in March 2019.

Gendron had also taken an image from another of Harris’s videos and used it as the main image on his “manifesto”.

Prosecutor Joe Allman said Gendron was “inspired” by Harris’s material.

The British teenager also influenced Anderson Lee Aldrich, the only suspect in a shooting at a gay bar in Colorado, the court was told.

Aldrich, 22, allegedly killed five people during an indiscriminate firearms attack in Colorado Springs, in November last year – while Harris was on trial in the UK.

Aldrich – who is yet to enter pleas over the Colorado shooting – “accessed material” produced by Harris, Mr Allman said.

The prosecutor told the court one of Harris’s videos was posted on the “brother site” to a website with links to what appeared to be a livestream of Aldrich preparing to carry out the attacks.

Mr Allman said: “The Crown say it demonstrates that individuals of the greatest concern have accessed the material produced by Mr Harris.”

Harris was described in court as an “influential online propagandist for a violent and deeply racist ideology”.

His videos glorified mass killings and were “tantamount to a call to arms to those who shared, or who could be persuaded to share Mr Harris’s world view,” Mr Allman said.

Under the pseudonym “BookAnon”, Harris’s videos “encouraged and gave instructions for carrying out acts of terror against those deemed not to be part of the white European race,” the court heard.

One video showed how to make an assault rifle using a 3D printer and when police raided Harris’s grandfather’s house, they found that he had begun making the parts himself.

Toxic rhetoric with untold influence’

After the teenager’s conviction, Detective Inspector Chris Brett said attempts were initially made to engage with Harris through the Prevent programme, which aims to stop people becoming terrorists.

“It soon became clear he was pretending to be deradicalised whilst encouraging terrorism online,” Mr Brett added.

“The threat he caused meant we had to act in order to ensure the safety of the wider public.”

Mr Brett said Harris “clearly demonstrated a disdain for law enforcement and public order, as well as an admiration for those who had committed atrocities in terrorist attacks overseas”.

“By posting these videos online, Harris’ toxic rhetoric could have had untold influence on countless people across the world – such actions will not be tolerated,” the senior officer said.

He added that officers made “the rather chilling discovery of attempts to make component parts of a firearm printed from his 3D printer” during a search, which “showed a clear intent to create a deadly weapon”.

Sky News

Daniel Harris faces jail after being convicted of publishing terrorist material from his grandfather’s house in Glossop

A teenage extremist from Derbyshire inspired the suspect accused of killing five people and wounding 17 others in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in the US, a judge has been told.

Daniel Harris, 19, is facing jail after being convicted of publishing far-right terrorist material from his grandfather’s spare bedroom in Glossop.

The teenager, who went by the name of BookAnon online, produced videos that called for an armed uprising and celebrated white supremacist murderers including Anders Breivik.

Manchester crown court has previously been told that Harris’s videos were viewed by Payton Gendron, the 19-year-old who killed 10 people in a racially motivated attack in Buffalo, New York, last May.

The judge, Patrick Field KC, was told at a sentencing hearing on Thursday that the material had also been watched by Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, the suspect accused of a deadly nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs last November.

Harris is facing 12 years in prison and possible extradition to the US after being convicted of five terrorism offences relating to extreme rightwing videos he uploaded to the internet.

He was also found guilty of possessing a 3D printer, which he tried to use to make parts of a firearm. Harris will be sentenced on Friday.

Joe Allman, the prosecutor, told the court that Harris’s connection to the Buffalo mass killer was “well made out” and was “evidence that another has acted on or been assisted by [his videos] in order to endanger life”.

The court was told that Gendron, using his alias Jimboboii, shared and commented on at least two of Harris’s videos, writing to him four weeks before the mass killing: “Thank you for your service.”

Hours after the Buffalo attack, Harris, posting from his grandfather’s house, celebrated the killings in an online video. He was arrested two days later after an undercover sting at a motorway service station.

Further police investigation found that at least one of Harris’s videos, celebrating the gunman who shot dead 51 people in the Christchurch mosque massacre in 2019, had been viewed by Aldrich, who opened fire in a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs on 19 November last year – while Harris’s trial was ongoing.

Allman said the connection to Aldrich showed that “individuals of the greatest concern have accessed the material produced by Mr Harris”. He said the teenager’s videos were “not simply hateful – they’re trying to motivate and instruct”.

The judge, Patrick Field KC, described Harris’s link to the racist Buffalo murders as “wide-ranging”.

Field was told that Harris, who was born in London, is believed to have dropped out of school at the age of seven and was sent to live with his grandfather in Glossop.

By the age of 18 he had convictions for common assault, criminal damage, possession of indecent images of children and racially aggravated damage of a memorial in Manchester to George Floyd, a black man whose murder by a US police officer sparked street protests in the US and UK.

Harris’s barrister, James Walker, said the teenager had acknowledged that “he needs to change his behaviour” but was the subject of “significant failings” by his family and the local authority.

He said the teenager had been exposed to white supremacist material online from the age of 11 and was spending as much as 14 hours a day online.

The Guardian