'Ginger Extremist' Held Under Mental Health Act

0

BEĞENDİM

ABONE OL

News

0

A “ginger extremist” who wanted to shoot the Prince of Wales so Prince Harry could be king has been detained under the Mental Health Act.

The Old Bailey heard Mark Colborne felt discriminated against because of his ginger hair and fantasised about putting the red-headed Harry on the throne.

The 37-year-old compared himself to the Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Breivik and made notes in his diary of his plan to assassinate Prince Charles with a high-powered sniper rifle.

Jurors were told he bought the ingredients for the deadly poison cyanide over the internet, and stockpiled dust masks, metal filter funnels, plastic syringes and latex gloves.

Colborne was caught after his half-brother found chemicals and documents detailing his racial hatred in his bedroom at the family’s Southampton home.

Following a retrial at the Old Bailey, he was found guilty by a majority of jurors of preparing terrorist acts before his arrest on 3 June last year.

The court heard during his trial that Colborne felt alienated and marginalised for being a white, ginger-haired, man.

He also suffered from agoraphobia – a fear of open spaces – and depression.

In his notebook, he wrote: “I don’t want to be a serial killer. I’m more of an Anders Breivik. I have left potential targets open.

“I was waiting for an opportunity to kill one of them. Let it be Prince Charles which would be good.”

Stating he wanted a “silent rifle”, Colborne added: “Take up a good position and put a bullet in Charles’s head.

“He is protected but not too protected. I would sacrifice my life for that one shot. Kill Charles and William and Harry become king. Kill the tyrants.”

Prosecutor Annabel Darlow QC said Colborne’s notes expressed hatred for “non-Aryans” who he referred to as “blacks and Caucasian idiots”.

Sentencing Colborne, Judge John Bevan QC described him as an extraordinarily “warped individual” whose “extravagant self-pity” had made his own life and that of his family a “misery”.

He said: “You have been consumed with rage at disparate individuals and groups and you write in graphic terms of bombing and butchery.

“You are, I regret to say, a warped individual who in the past has held views of your fellow man which were repugnant to right-thinking people.”

His “extraordinarily violent fantasies” were “seriously concerning” and represented a real or potential risk to the public as he had developed the wherewithal to kill 1,500 people.

The judge told Colborne that whether or not the change in his outlook was true, “a spark of some kind could reignite your rage” in the future.

He accepted that the defendant’s “past hatred of humanity generally” was based on his mental state, but Judge Bevan pointed out that many people had “unpleasant childhoods” and were not so affected as an adult.

Colborne was ordered to be detained under section 37 of the Mental Health Act, with a further restriction under section 41 “without limit of time” based on the findings of two psychiatric reports.

The Old Bailey heard Colborne was “sane” but had a personality disorder with a degree of psychosis which warranted continued treatment at Ravenswood secure unit in Hampshire.