Revealed, British boy accused of plotting new Columbine-style massacre: Teenager 'compiled hit list of pupils and teachers he wanted to eliminate'
- Michael Piggin, 18, planned the attack when he was 17, a court was told
- He allegedly compiled a ‘hit list’ of people he wanted to eliminate
- Police found several notebooks and recordings detailing his alleged plans
- They also found a stockpile of weapons, including IEDs and a crossbow
PUBLISHED: 23:30 GMT, 4 March 2014 | UPDATED: 07:15 GMT, 5 March 2014
'Ready to die for my cause': Michael Piggin, 18, is accused of plotting a Columbine-style massacre
The schoolboy accused of plotting a ‘Columbine-style’ massacre, including bombing a school, university, mosque and cinema, has been named.
Michael Piggin, 18, planned the attack when he was 17, compiling a ‘hit list’ of pupils and teachers he wanted to eliminate, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
The neo-Nazi teenager, who can be named for the first time after turning 18 in January, stockpiled an arsenal in his bedroom, including pipe bombs, partially assembled petrol bombs and air rifles.
Inspired by the infamous Columbine high school massacre, he compiled a list of six potential targets, including his former school in Loughborough, the town’s university, council offices, a mosque and cinema, it is alleged.
Piggin was arrested in February last year. Police found several notebooks and recordings detailing his alleged plans in his bedroom, as well as a variety of weapons, including IEDs, a crossbow and pyrotechnic fuse cords.
There was also a stab-proof vest, gas mask, blank firing pistols, three ball-bearing guns, a military belt and an illegal terror manual, Mujahideen Poisons Handbook.
Also found was a Che Guevara notebook decorated with a Nazi swastika and SS runes in which Piggin ranted about his sinister plans. He had written ‘EDL no surrender British and proud’ on its cover, the court heard.
He also drew pictures of the Batman villain, The Joker, and quoted the Batman film The Dark Knight, writing ‘introduce anarchy, upset the established order and everything causes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos and you know a good thing about chaos – it’s fair’.
A self-proclaimed member of the English Defence League, he wrote rambling notes about the need for ‘Britain and Europe to rise up and fight’ against Islam and warned ‘when order fails, violence prevails’.
Piggin, a neo-Nazi teenager, who can be named for the first time after turning 18 in January, stockpiled an arsenal in his bedroom, including pipe bombs, partially assembled petrol bombs and air rifles
And in a chilling dictaphone message played to the court, Piggin spoke in an impassioned voice about the need ‘to hit back at the scum, the powerful’.
He said he hoped his ‘operation’ will ‘inspire the intelligent people to start some sort of revolution against the current system’.
The teenager, who at the time was living at home with his mother, adds: ‘People are living in a world of delusion. I’m ready to die for my cause.’
‘How the f*** could anyone treat a fellow person like people’s (sic) treated me. That’s a question you want to be asking, that’s what drives people to do this. Look at all the f****** things in the past.
'Columbine, Virginia Tech, numbers of others. All because of bullying and how people are treated.’
The Old Bailey heard that two of the teenager’s friends, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have pleaded guilty to possessing either petrol bombs or pipe bombs.
Piggin allegedly scrawled the phrase 'the new Columbine' in a notebook, referring to the American high school massacre, carried out by pupils Dylan Klebold (pictured) and Eric Harris
But Piggin, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, was set apart from his friends and driven by a paranoia of ‘Islamic invasion of Europe’.
Prosecutor Max Hill QC told the jury that the teenager’s plot and his haul of weaponry was not ‘child’s play’ but a deadly threat.
He said: ‘For an average young man in an average house in Loughborough or any town you care to name in England and Wales, you may think that is startling.
‘That is what this case is about.
‘The final item is a notebook containing information about the planning of attacks and study of explosive devices.
He said in one of Piggin’s notebooks, he scrawled the phrase ‘the new Columbine’ – referring to the notorious American high school massacre, in which 12 pupils and one teacher were killed.
Mr Hill added that Piggin was a ‘would-be terrorist’ intent on carrying out a copycat killing in Britain.
He said of the 1999 mass shooting: ‘That’s something that you’ll want to assess in this case given that this defendant, not in Colorado USA but in Loughborough England, was writing “the new Columbine” in his notebook. Klebold and Harris, the mass killers in Columbine, were aged 17 and 19 at the time of those atrocities. What you have in this case is a 17-year-old.’
Piggin denies possessing items for terrorism and a terror manual, but admitted possession of petrol and pipe bombs and components of IEDs.
Mr Hill said Piggin’s Asperger’s condition ‘does not undermine his capacity and ability to commit the offences alleged’.
Wearing an Arctic Monkeys T-shirt, Piggin was assisted in the dock by an intermediary to help him follow proceedings.
The trial continues.
