A former De Montfort University student found with bomb-making manuals was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence. The judge instructed him to read Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Harden, and Charles Dickens to remain out of jail.
Judge Timothy Spencer QC said that Ben John, 21, will be required to appear in court every four months to test him on the literature.
John, described by police as a “white supremacist with a neo-Nazi ideology,” was convicted of possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist.
He was first identified as a terror risk back in 2018 and spoke with Prevent Officers, who work to de-radicalize the youth. A few months later, he wrote a letter entitled Eternal Front – Lincolnshire Fascist Underground. The letter raged against gay people and led to a psychiatric evaluation.
He was arrested in January of 2020 after he continued to download right-wing documents. John was found with 67,788 documents in bulk downloads on hard drives recovered when his dorm got raided. The downloads included anti-Semitic and white supremacist material.
John was found guilty on August 11 by a Leicester Crown Court jury and was facing up to 15 years in prison. Judge Spencer chalked it up to “teenage folly” and handed down the suspended sentence.
In addition to the suspended jail time, he was given a five-year Serious Crime Prevention Order that requires maintaining contact with police. They will monitor his online activity throughout that time. He was also sentenced to up to 30 days on a Healthy Identity Intervention program.
