The 60-year-old believed he was preparing for a ‘race war’ against Muslims and stockpiled guns, explosives and homemade grenades

A criminal network peddling firearms on the streets of London run by a lorry driver preparing for a “race war” has been smashed by police.

Thomas McKenna, 60, ran a gun-conversion operation out of a caravan on a travellers’ site in South Ockenden, Essex.

McKenna was reportedly preparing for what he called a “race war” against Muslims that he believed was coming by stockpiling guns, explosives, and homemade grenades.

The 60-year-old converted blank-firing pistols into live guns and sold them to gangs across London.

Following a police raid, he was arrested and has now been jailed for 16 years.

According to police, he was a key supplier of firearms to criminals, and since his arrest, rates of gun violence in London have dropped significantly.

McKenna used social media to contact others about the “race war” he believed was coming, sending messages on TikTok saying: “get yourself ready”, and expected to use the weapons he had collected to shoot or kill Muslims.

Prosecutor Emily Dummett previously told Kingston Crown Court that McKenna sent messages describing plans to “kill”, “shoot”, “unalive” and “neutralise” Muslims and immigrants, “before there are too many”.

The court heard how in one message, he wrote: “Bro, that’s why I believe our only course for survival freedom is strike now while we have the numbers and hard unalive the f****** lot of them.”

He carried out his operation with self-taught DIY skills, converting guns using a lathe and a drill out of one of his three caravans.

Six reactivated blank-firing guns linked to McKenna have already been recovered by police, but officers believe he created more.

McKenna’s partner, 55-year-old bus driver Tina Smith, pleaded guilty to several charges, including collecting terrorist information and possessing banned guns.

In the caravan the couple shared, they kept improvised explosive devices containing black powder, nails, and fishing hooks.

The couple is believed to have slept in the caravan where the weapons were kept.

McKenna, Smith, and eight others have been convicted of involvement in the firearms operation that sold guns to gangs across London.

The 60-year-old was hit with a 16-year sentence on custody, with five years on extended licence, at Kingston Crown Court on Thursday, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Evening Standard

He used his accounts to encourage attacks on non-whites, share far-right bomb-making manuals and circulate pictures of neo-Nazi stickers in a playground in his local area.

A father has been jailed for more than four years after he used social media to try and recruit a “battalion” of followers to kill non-whites when he became radicalised after his wife left him.

Tygue Crowther, 36, from Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire used his account on Twitter, now X, to encourage attacks between October 2023 and June 2024 before it was shut down.

He also shared far-right bomb-making manuals on the Telegram social media site and circulated pictures of neo-Nazi stickers in a playground in his local area.

John Greaney, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court many of the posts “voiced or implied support for the eradication of immigrants and non-whites”.

He added: “The posts also included video material showing graphic clips of attacks on non-whites and glorifying violence against non-whites at the hands of neo-Nazi thugs.”

His posts gathered “significant engagement”, including expressions of support from followers.

Crowther was also “actively seeking” to establish and develop a group he called the ‘United Whites Battalion’ (UWB), which he referred to in his X profile and his posts on X.

His posts were available to a wide audience at a time when “tensions over immigration and race relations were acute, as evidenced by responses from like-minded devotees of the extreme far-right doctrine,” Mr Greaney said.

The profile page of the account stated he was a “British, National Socialist, Accelerationist” and added: “No to immigration or multiculturalism. British people need to take action against the vermin entering our country.”

National Socialism was the ideology of the Nazi Party, and far-right accelerationism is a doctrine which seeks to encourage a race war by conducting terrorist attacks.

The main image was of a soldier wearing a skull facemask associated with the far-right while performing a Nazi salute against a backdrop of a rising sun, also linked to the far-right.

The profile picture had an octopus with a swastika image.

The octopus has become an antisemitic meme representing Jewish people controlling the world.

The title had a Union flag and stated: “Join UWB today”.

There was also a reference to the numbers 1488 in the biography, a code for a white supremacist slogan, and the words Heil Hitler.

Crowther claimed to a probation officer that he had been “preyed on by people on the far-right” after becoming “lonely, isolated and bored” when his wife left him in June 2019.

Judge Nathan Adams said he had “encouraged violence endangering life” by posting graphic videos glorifying violence on non-whites and supporting neo-Nazis.

“He put into the public domain offensive videos, and the duration was extensive and without filter,” he added.

“He was undoubtedly depressed and suicidal, but there is no clear link between that and his offending, and he appears to have been in a depressed state many years before.”

Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, head of Counter-Terrorism Policing North East, said: “Those that seek to divide our communities through sharing extremist material will be identified and brought to justice.”

Sky News

A lorry driver ran a workshop from his south Essex caravan converting blank-firing guns into deadly pistols to sell to criminals – and stockpiled weapons in preparation for a “race war”, a court has heard.

Thomas McKenna, 60, sent messages telling friends and associates to “get yourself ready” and “the time for protesting is over”, and distributed weapons to a criminal network which included Faisal Razzaq, the getaway driver in the fatal shooting of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky.

Prosecutor Emily Dummett told Kingston Crown Court McKenna wrote messages about plans to “kill”, “shoot”, “unalive” and “neutralise” Muslims and immigrants “before they are too many”.

“Bro, that’s why I believe our only course for survival freedom is strike now while we have the numbers and hard unalive the […] lot of them,” McKenna said in one message, the court heard on Thursday.

McKenna ran his gun conversion unit with a lathe and a drill, from one of three caravans he had at a large traveller site in Buckles Lane, South Ockendon.

He sent his partner, Tina Smith, 55, links to videos which showed how to make explosives.

The couple and eight others have been convicted for their involvement in a firearms conspiracy, with linked guns found across London and the South East.

The court heard in one message McKenna wrote: “I agree they (Muslims) have flooded our lands. It’s a hostile takeover, keep yourself safe.”

“It’s time to start slotting these monsters,” he wrote in another.

McKenna also made improvised explosives containing black powder and shrapnel. He and his partner, a bus driver, are thought to have lived and slept in the caravan which housed the weapons.

Officers raided the three caravans in November 2024 and found two loaded guns and two improvised explosive devices.

Other weapons recovered from the caravans include a non-firing replica AK47, ammunition, crossbows, hunting knives and knuckle dusters.

Documents were also found including a handbook called Poor Man’s James Bond, which experts say contained useful information for making explosives, the court heard.

Six reactivated blank-firing guns linked to McKenna have been recovered, but prosecutors believe he created more.

One of the converted pistols and ammunition was found at Razzaq’s home in Edgware, north London, the court heard.

“Converted top-venting blank firing pistols are a popular choice for criminals,” Ms Dummett said.

“They are easier to get hold of than original lethal purpose firearms, but can be used, in just the same way, to threaten, to seriously injure and to kill.”

Mitigating, Hossein Zahir KC said it is “not hard to convert” the guns McKenna made viable.

He said McKenna’s enterprise is “smaller scale and unsophisticated”.

Prosecutors say Razzaq, 44, who was convicted of manslaughter for his role in the fatal raid at family-run Universal Express travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in November 2005, received firearms for onward sale to criminal customers.

Other customers of McKenna’s converted guns include Allan Crosby, 44, of Etfield Grove, Sidcup, and Ryan Smith, 44, of Morants Court Road, Dunton Green, Kent, who were convicted of possession of firearms and modified ammunitions.

They are being sentenced alongside Tina Smith who admitted four counts and McKenna, who has pleaded guilty to 14 counts.

The charges against the two include collecting terrorist information and possessing a prohibited firearm.

Tina Smith shared McKenna’s mindset, prosecutors say, in one message writing: “Wow they have to be gone from this country, shoot them all.”

McKenna’s friend Ricky Dorey, 43, who lived on the same static caravan site, helped him find customers to buy the guns.

He and his brother Robert Dorey, 44, of Tilbury, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited firearms.

Patrick Loughnane, 59, acted as a communication link between Ricky Dorey and McKenna.

Abdul Saleh, 32, of Edgware, the Dorey brothers and Loughnane, of Hayes, west London, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell prohibited firearms.

Razzaq admitted the same charge, and five other counts.

Loughnane’s partner Tammy Rigg pleaded guilty to possession of a prohibited firearm and possession of ammunition without a certificate.

The sentencing hearing for McKenna, Tina Smith, Crosby and Ryan Smith is set to conclude on February 6.

Razzaq, Saleh, the Dorey brothers, Loughnane and Rigg will be sentenced later next month.

Echo News

A 33-year-old neo-Nazi who set up a chemical laboratory and made explosives in a garden shed has been jailed for three years and nine months.

Unemployed heroin user Harry Whittaker, from Caddington in Bedfordshire, was found guilty of two counts of making explosive substances, and two of possessing explosive substances, at his trial at the Old Bailey in October.

He had already pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a round of ammunition and potassium cyanide.

The judge described him as a highly intelligent and articulate individual, and he did not accept that Whittaker’s autism had an impact on his ability to determine right from wrong.

The court heard Whittaker had been conducting experiments in a shed in the garden of the house he shared with his mother.

Paramedics were called when Whittaker had an allergic reaction to one of his experiments and went into anaphylactic shock.

Police were informed and disposal experts later carried out controlled explosions on white phosphorus – a chemical used in incendiary devices.

During his trial, Whittaker attempted to depict himself as a “nerd” who was simply enthusiastic about chemistry.

He told the jury he had been attempting to collect all the elements in the periodic table and described himself as a “mad scientist” who had acquired many of the chemicals he used from the online auction site eBay.

Whittaker told police he was “astounded” to be arrested and claimed he had no problem with anyone regardless of their creed or colour.

“Obviously, I’m not trying to take over the world, I’m just doing chemistry,” he said.

But the court also heard about racist messages he exchanged on WhatsApp with his father.

“Muslims turn my stomach,” he wrote.

And during a discussion about a mosque in nearby Luton, he discussed getting a tank and “driving it into that mosque on Friday afternoon and turning them into mincemeat”.

Police found the burned-out remains of a device labelled “…for use on Jews only” and “throw at swarm of Jews” and discovered another container labelled as “Zyklon-B” – the name of the substance used in the gas chambers of Nazi death camps during World War Two.

At the sentencing, prosecutor Emily Dummett accepted Whittaker did not plan to do any harm with his explosives, but claimed there was a risk to his neighbours and property.

She revealed a picture of Hitler and a Nazi flag had been found on his bedroom wall, as well as notebooks with antisemitic writings and drawings.

A syringe and a wrap of heroin were also found in his room.

The court heard messages to other members of his family revealed Whittaker to be a Holocaust denier.

In a text to his brother, he said he hoped the far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson would “lead us all into a civil war” and “kick out” people of Asian heritage.

Mitigating, Polly Dyer said her client had possessed the majority of the explosive substances for years, that they were of “low level” and there was no evidence that the experiments, which were “for fun”, would be used in any harmful action.

She said he had been held in solitary confinement while on remand in Belmarsh jail and showed the court a picture of Beethoven he had drawn while in his cell.

When sentencing, Judge Simon Mayo said that while the evidence of racism was relevant, he had to make sure the decisions he made were not driven by emotion.

He told Whittaker that he presented a significant risk of serious harm to the public.

BBC News

A self-proclaimed Satanist who claimed he made a pact with a “red-horned devil” has been jailed for 23 months after being found guilty of having extreme right-wing material on his phone.

Declan Candiani, 26, was stopped by counter-terrorism police at Stansted Airport as he attempted to go on holiday on 13 August 2024.

On seeing the contents of his phone, officers arrested him and searched the home he shares with his mother in Streatham, south London.

An examination of Candiani’s devices revealed a cache of extreme right-wing material including “manifestos” of mass killers and documents advocating the use of serious violence to achieve “white supremacy”, the court heard.

‘Mild personality disorder’

The former Brit school of Performing Arts student was found guilty of two charges of collection of information likely to be useful for terrorism and acquitted of two similar offences by a jury at the Old Bailey in October.

During his trial, Candiani denied wrongdoing and claimed he was mainly interested in Satanism and the occult.

In an interview with police, he claimed he had downloaded the material after becoming interested in the Satanist group “Order of Nine Angles”, which has been linked with right-wing extremism.

Candiani was assessed by psychiatrists who found he had a “mild personality disorder” and was fit to stand trial.

Giving evidence in court, he described being visited by the devil in his bedroom, who was “a big red man with horns”.

Jurors were told that Candiani’s mental health suffered after his mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Sentencing Candiani, Judge Nigel Lickley KC said he had read a letter that Candiani had written to him saying that he would not “go down these routes again”.

He also noted that his mother was terminally ill and receiving palliative care.

BBC News

A man who owned instructions on how to kill people at close range as well as make explosives and chemical weapons has been convicted of terror offences.

Thames Valley Police said Nicholas Gilpin, 22, had “an extreme right-wing mindset” and had shared “racist, anti-Semitic and white supremacy views” with others.

Counter-terrorism officers arrested Gilpin, of Dippingwell Court in Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire, at a property near Hereford on 18 October 2021.

Following a four-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court, he was found guilty of possessing terrorist documents, encouraging terrorism and inciting racial hatred.

During his arrest, officers also seized his electronic devices and found a number of documents containing racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Gilpin was found to have distributed videos and written material on the Telegram messaging app, “which intended to stir up racial hatred, or was likely to do so,” police said.

There were also details on how to use weapons and make explosives, chemical weapons and firearms, along with instructions on how to commit other illegal activities.

‘Untold harm’

Gilpin was charged in connection with the offences on 20 January 2023.

Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, Det Ch Supt Claire Finlay, said: “Gilpin had in his possession terrorist documents which outlined how to cause untold harm to those in society who he determined did not fit in with his mindset.

“He actively encouraged others to commit acts of terrorism.

“We have recently had sobering reminders of the danger that individuals such as Gilpin pose, who seek to divide our society.

“By sharing racist and anti-Semitic content online, Gilpin knew this would be likely to stir up racial hatred and to further the extreme right-wing ideology he espoused among others.”

Gilpin will be sentenced at a future date.

BBC News

A neo-Nazi paedophile who was jailed 17 years ago for a nail bomb plot has received another prison sentence after admitting owning a gunpowder manual.

Martyn Gilleard, 49, of Town Street in Armley, Leeds, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of having material likely to be of use to a terrorist.

At Leeds Crown Court on Monday, he was jailed for seven years and nine months, and will be subject to a five-year Serious Crime Prevention Order plus terrorism notification requirements for 10 years.

Gilleard was jailed for 12 years in 2008 for hatching a nail bomb plot and for having indecent images of children, and was released in 2023.

The gunpowder recipe was found at Gilleard’s home address during a West Yorkshire Police intelligence search on 28 May and was passed to counter-terror police for further investigation.

Det Ch Supt James Dunkerley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said officers were concerned by the discovery of “the handwritten recipe for black powder […] later verified by experts as potentially viable”.

He said someone having information about explosives manufacture would “always raise serious questions”.

“Gilleard has chosen not to explain or defend the presence of the recipe in his home, instead pleading guilty to possessing information useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism,” he said.

At his trial in 2008 the court heard that Humberside Police searched the Goole home of Gilleard, a former forklift truck driver who was also using the name Martyn Stone.

They found four nail bombs, bladed weapons, bullets, documents about terrorism, and extreme right-wing literature.

Police also discovered about 39,000 indecent images of children, including film and photographs.
BBC News

A Leeds man has been jailed after he kept a handwritten gun powder recipe.

Martyn Paul Gilleard, 49, of Town Street in Armley was jailed for three years and nine months and made the subject of an extended licence period for four years following the conviction. A judge also said he will be subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order for five years and terrorism notification requirements for ten years.

Gilleard admitted one charge of possessing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The document was recovered from his home address during an intelligence led search by West Yorkshire Police on May 28, this year and passed to Counter Terrorism Policing North East for further investigation.

He entered a guilty plea when he appeared at the Old Bailey in June. Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: “Officers were concerned to discover a handwritten recipe for black powder during a search at Gilleard’s home in May; a recipe later verified by experts as potentially viable.

“Possessing information about the manufacture of explosives will always raise serious questions. Gilleard has chosen not to explain or defend the presence of the recipe in his home, instead pleading guilty to possessing information useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”

Leeds Live

Three Nazi-worshipping extremists convicted of terror offences have been jailed.

Christopher Ringrose, 34, Marco Pitzettu, 25, and Brogan Stewart, 25, were found guilty in May of planning terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues.

Stewart, from West Yorkshire, was jailed for 11 years, Ringrose, from Staffordshire, was jailed for 10 years, and Pitzettu, from Derbyshire, will serve eight years.

Sentencing them at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, Mrs Justice Cutts said she believed they all continued to adhere to their extreme right-wing ideology.

The judge outlined how the online group the trio belonged to was preparing for an attack on an Islamic education centre in Leeds before they were arrested by counter-terror police.

During their trial it emerged the men, who are not believed to have met in the real world before appearing in court, were preparing to use more than 200 weapons they had amassed, including machetes, swords, crossbows and an illegal stun gun.

Ringrose had also 3D-printed most of the components of a semi-automatic firearm.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC said the three defendants were “followers of an extreme right-wing Nazi ideology” and styled themselves as an armed military group.

Mr Sandiford said by 2024 they were seeking further recruits and hoping to acquire more deadly weapons.

He said by January and February they were planning their first attack and had identified a target in Leeds, harbouring an “intention to commit acts of extremism which involved killing multiple victims”.

The three men were arrested when security services believed an attack was imminent after undercover officers infiltrated their online group.

A jury had rejected arguments the defendants were fantasists with no intention of carrying out their threats and found all 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.

Counter-terror police said the self-styled “militant” online group provided an “echo chamber of extreme right-wing views where they shared horrific racial slurs, glorified mass murderers and encouraged violence against anyone deemed an enemy”.

Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East Det Ch Supt James Dunkerley said they were a group who “espoused vile racist views and advocated for violence, all to support their extreme right-wing mindset”.

“Some of their defence in court was that it was all fantasy or just part of harmless chat, however all three took real-world steps to plan and prepare for carrying out an attack on innocent citizens.”

He said it had been a complex case involving multiple police forces.

Bethan David, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division, said the men plotted “violent acts of terrorism”.

“By their own admission, they were inspired by SS tactics and supremacist ideology.

“The prosecution case against the defendants included their disturbing Telegram and Facebook chats as well as acquiring military equipment such as riot shields, body armour and an arsenal of weapons found at their home addresses that were to be used in readiness for a ‘race war’.”

In her sentencing, Mrs Justice Cutts said she believed the defendants would be dangerous on their release from jail and gave all three extended sentences, with additional licence periods of eight years for Stewart and five years each for Ringrose and Pitzettu.

She said the trio’s ideology was “laid bare” in a 374-page dossier of internet activity put before the jury.

“These pages were filled with hate towards black and other non-white races, especially Muslim people and immigrants, with ideas of white supremacy and racial purity together with a belief that there must soon be a race war.”

This was coupled, she said, with the “glorification and admiration of the policies and actions of Hitler and the German Nazi Party, including antisemitism, and of mass killers who had targeted black or Muslim communities”.

The nine-week-long trial heard how the defendants formed an online group called Einsatz 14 in January 2024, with “like-minded extremists” who wanted to “go to war for their chosen cause”.

The jury was shown a short video Stewart posted of himself wearing a German army helmet, a Nazi armband and a skull face covering.

Prosecutors explained how Stewart discussed torturing a Muslim leader using his “information extraction kit” with an undercover officer.

Stewart called himself “Fuhrer” of the Einsatz 14 group and appointed an undercover officer called Blackheart as the “Obergruppenfuhrer”, which the other two defendants also joined.

Potential recruits were sent a vetting form and Stewart also developed a mission statement for the group which said its “basic duties” included to “target mosques, Islamic education centres and other similar locations”.

And he sent Blackheart details of the Islamic education centre on Mexborough Road in Leeds, including a Google Maps image.

The officer asked Stewart for more detailed information about the plan and he replied that they could smash windows or ambush someone, the court heard.

All three men will be subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order for five years on release and to Terrorism Notification Requirements for 30 years.

BBC News