Teens Plan Columbine Massacre Copy in UK

Manchester Foils Youths' 10-Year Tribute

Two teenagers in the United Kingdom had planned a killing spree at their school and intended to blow up their local shopping centre to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine massacre in 1999.

Matthew Smith, 18, and his friend Ross McKnight, 16, both from Manchester, are accused of conspiracy to cause an explosion likely to endanger life and injure property and conspiracy to murder. One of the pair is also accused of possessing indecent photographs of a child.

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Swift and McKnight had plotted the massacre, fantasized about the killing spree, and had agreed to carry out their plans to copy the Columbine massacre that killed 12 students and one teacher.

They were also said to be fascinated with the Oklahoma bombing of 1995. "They had discussed, they had fantasized and, we say, had agreed to convert their fantasies into reality."

He also said the teenagers had intended to detonate a bomb at Centre Point North shopping precinct, Manchester before shooting dead both "teachers and students alike before killing themselves".

McKnight had dedicated an IT school project to the Oklahoma bombing. He reproduced a final poem written by the bomber, Timothy McVeigh. Smith, the younger of the two, had also written a piece of schoolwork, said to be creative writing, which portrayed an Audenshaw massacre. Prosecution claims the piece of literature had "unnerving parallels" with the pair's plans.

Wright went on to say: "Both were loners and like-minded souls who found each other". After the arrest of Swift, at his Ikea workplace on 14 March, police officers retrieved a manual named The Anarchist Cookbook, which contained instructions on bomb-making and chapters dedicated to weapon-making. Police also found a safe in Swift's bedroom containing school blueprints.

According to court records, a female friend of McNight received a phone call from him in the early hours of March 14. She said he sounded "intoxicated" and he told her he and Swift had planned something at their school.

The jury was told that he spoke of the massacre at a school in Germany three days earlier, saying it would "soon be the season for such things". McKnight allegedly told her the two had been planning the atrocities since they'd met and he had kept journals.

Wright quoted McKnight's friend as saying he planned to make a bomb "and plant it in a shopping centre on a busy day when there will be thousands of people there." "He and Swift would go to school and park a car near to the entrance and put a bomb in it and go and shoot as many people as possible before killing themselves."

Both defendants plead not guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of conspiracy to cause explosions between 11 November 2007 and March this year.