A teenage neo-Nazi who glorified and encouraged far-right terrorism against Jews and Muslims has been jailed for two years.

Manchester Crown Court heard how bespectacled Thomas Leech, 19, believed conspiracy theories that the Jews were planning the “Great Replacement” of the white race through extinction and the “Islamicisation” of Europe.

The autistic youngster, from Preston, had become an isolated, lonely and vulnerable figure who rarely left his home and his far-right online activities “filled a void”, the court was told.

The court heard that after being arrested by counter-terrorism police, he told officers: “I am a Nazi.”

Police found he had posted online a “call to arms” for the white race, glorifying far-right killers, including Anders Breivik, who murdered 69 youngsters in Norway, and Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

Leech, of Derby Road, Preston, admitted at an earlier hearing three counts of encouraging acts of terrorism and two counts of stirring up religious or racial hatred, between March and November 2020.

He also admitted possessing indecent images of children.

Locking up the defendant for two years in a young offenders institute, Judge Alan Conrad QC said: “The offences you committed are deeply disturbing.”

Leech was also given a 12 month extended license period to be applied on completion of his prison sentence, plus 10 years on the sex offenders register, a 10 year sexual harm prevention order and a 10 year notification requirement under part four of the Terrorism Act 2008.

Earlier Joe Allman, prosecuting, said Leech first came to police attention when he claimed to be planning a shooting at his school, Wetherby High School, in January 2017.

He told police it was a “prank” and received a caution and some intervention.

Leech was referred to Prevent, the Government’s deradicalisation programme, but he “dropped off the radar” when he moved to Gillingham, Kent, in June 2017.

After moving to Preston in 2020, posts by him on the online platform called Gab, said to be popular amongst the far-right, were found by the Community Security Trust, a charity involved in security for Jewish communities.

Mr Allman said: “The cumulative effect of the posts is a call to arms by Mr Leech, inciting others who shared his world view to commit mass murder.

“They are replete with evidence of antisemitism.”

Leech posted that the Holocaust was a hoax, Jews controlled the world, Third Reich imagery and anti-Muslim content, the court heard.

Breivik and Tarrant, along with Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 and Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who murdered nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston in the US in 2015, were talked of in terms of martyrs to the white race, the court heard.

One post was a photo of Tarrant, sat in his car, smiling, just before he went on the rampage, with the words underneath: “What can one person do?”

The court heard there was no evidence Leech’s posts had inspired anyone to commit an offence.

Rachel White, mitigating, said some offences were committed when Leech was aged only 17 or 18 and that he suffered from autism, agoraphobia and bullying, which kept him out of school.

She said he rarely left his home, spending his life online.

She added: “He effectively became a keyboard warrior. He was doing it because he needed a feeling of belonging and significance and literally had time on his hands.

“He is ashamed and embarrassed about what he has done.”

Leech pleaded guilty to three counts of publishing a statement intending members of the public to be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare, or instigate acts of terrorism or convention offences contrary to section 1(2)(b)(i) of the Terrorism Act 2006.

He also pleaded guilty four other offences not covered by terrorism legislation:

  • Publishing or distributing written material which was threatening, abusive or insulting intending thereby to stir up racial hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred was likely to be stirred up.
  • Publishing or distributing written material which was threatening, intending thereby to stir up religious hatred.
  • Making 211 indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child.
  • Making 4 indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child.

Detective Superintendent Will Chatterton, head of CTPNW investigations, said: "Leech's comments and behaviour online was despicable and a thorough investigation was able to identify these posts and evidence them before the courts.

"CTPNW will always take complaints of this nature very seriously and exercise full powers to bring offenders to justice."