• Supremacist arrested by chance on train journey
• Man had turned parents’ home into bomb factory
A white supremacist was today convicted of planning a terrorist bombing campaign amid warnings against potential attacks by far-right extremists.
Neil Lewington, 44, turned his bedroom at his parents’ house in Reading into a bomb factory, having been inspired by propaganda from far-right groups.
He was on the verge of starting his terrorist campaign and was caught only by chance as he travelled to meet a woman on a date, while carrying two improvised bombs in a holdall.
His conviction comes as police strengthen teams countering extremist violence after intelligence assessments told officers the chances of a rightwing attack are increasing.
Lewington was found guilty by an Old Bailey jury of seven out of eight charges brought under the Terrorism Act and explosives laws. The judge warned him that he faced a lengthy jail sentence. He was remanded in custody and will return to court on 8 September.
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, said: “This man, who had strong if not fanatical rightwing leanings and opinions, was on the cusp of embarking on a campaign of terrorism against those he considered non-British.
“The defendant had in his possession the component parts of two viable improvised incendiary devices.”
A fortnight ago a senior police officer warned of an increased threat of terrorist attacks from the extreme right.
Commander Shaun Sawyer of Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism command said: “I fear that they … will carry out an attack that will lead to a loss of life or injury to a community somewhere. They’re not choosy about which community.”
He said the aim would be to cause a “breakdown in community cohesion”.
Lewington, an unemployed electrician, was arrested in October last year at Lowerstoft train station, where he had travelled for a date with a woman he met online.
During the journey he drank alcohol and became abusive. At the train station he urinated on the platform, leading police to arrest him. There were two homemade bombs in his holdall, which experts judged to be viable.
A police raid of his parents’ home uncovered 35 boosters, 15 improvised igniters, weed killer and three tennis balls.
He also kept racist propaganda and videos of neo-Nazi terrorists including the London nail bomber David Copeland.
In 1999, David Copeland struck three targets in London. His attack on a gay pub in Soho killed three people and left scores injured. It followed attacks against Brick Lane, east London, and the bombing of a market in Brixton, south London.
The search also found the Waffen SS UK members’ handbook, containing his blueprint for a neo-Nazi terror group, and notebooks with details of electronics and chemical mixtures and a book called Counter Bomb. His mobile phone contained hate material from a violent neo-Nazi group called Combat 18 and other material from the Ku Klux Klan was also found.
Women Lewington had met on the internet said he had talked openly of his hatred of black and Asian Britons, even fantasising about attacking them with tennis balls filled with explosives. He had also bragged of carrying out racist attacks.
Deputy assistant commissioner John McDowall, head of the Metropolitan Police counterterrorism command, said: “Lewington clearly set out to make viable devices which could have seriously injured or possibly killed members of the public going about their daily lives.
“Whilst our inquiries did not uncover any details about intended targets, we do not underestimate the impact that Lewington’s actions and extremist beliefs may have had on communities nationwide.”
Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, has ordered the counter-terrorism command, SO15, to examine what the economic downturn would mean for far-right violence. The assessment concluded that the recession would increase the possibility of it.
Sawyer said that more of his officers needed to be deployed to tackle neo-Nazi-inspired violence. He said the threat posed by al-Qaida remained the unit’s priority, but said of its far-right section: “It is a small desk … we need to grow that unit.”
“There is an increased possibility of violence from the far right. There is a trend,” said one senior source, adding that the ideology of the violent right was driven by “people who don’t like immigration, people who don’t like Islam. We’re seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism as well.”
Mark Gardner, of the Community Security Trust, which monitors violence against Jews, said there has been a surge in right-wing incidents. The CST says nine white men have been “convicted of offences involving explosives, terrorist plots, violent campaigns or threats to carry them out”.
Gardner said: “Ten years after the Nazi nail bombings in London, we are seeing increasing numbers of neo-Nazis being arrested in their attempts to start some kind of so-called race war.”
Last year neo-Nazi Martyn Gilleard was convicted of three terrorism offences and jailed for 16 years.
Officers found machetes, swords, bullets, gunpowder, racist literature and four homemade nail bombs stashed under his bed at his home in Goole, east Yorkshire.
Officers in West Yorkshire recently foiled an international plot to put guns and explosives in the hands of violent bigots in Britain.
At least 32 people were quizzed and 22 addresses searched across the north of England in April and May.
A revolution is being knitted
Tactile and egalitarian, nourishing and slow, arts and crafts are enjoying a deserved revival in our recession-hit society
At Prick Your Finger, a wool shop in east London’s Bethnal Green, Rachael Matthews is spinning a rolag of cashmere and alpaca, her right leg drawing rhythmic cadences from the wooden wheel’s foot pedal. In tandem, her friend and business partner Louise Harries inventories their selection of nationally sourced yarns, from a high lustre Wensleydale to a tender Shetland. In the corner, a crocheted porcupine sports knitting-needle quills. Big jars of buttons wink on the shelf, while rainbow ribbons cascade from a drawer.
This cosy establishment is the net-based Cast Off Knitting Club made mortar, offering a sheep-to-shoulder service for those who are as exercised by the provenance of their wool as the tension on their purl row. Cast Off, with its commitment to design beyond the ribbed tank-top and guerrilla knitting tactics in pubs and clubs, was at the vanguard of the craft’s recent revival. But it is emblematic of a broader do-it-yourself movement, from window-box salads to car-boot sale recycling, which is recruiting the most unlikely advocates.
This week, the thinktank Demos published a collection of essays exploring the idea of “expressive life”. In the volume, US arts writer Bill Ivey – who coined the phrase – and Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, tease out the prospect of a rebirth of the arts and crafts movement as part of the search for quality of life in a post-consumerist, recession-hit society.
At a moment when laid-off bankers are testifying to the benefits of basket-weaving, a reversion to the reformist aesthetic of John Ruskin and William Morris can feel suitably corrective. The old manifesto has serious contemporary traction: respect for nature, dignity of labour, importance of long-garnered skills, access to beauty for all.
The reasons for this resurgence are not hard to fathom: we are producers frustrated with never seeing the end product of our efforts; consumers weary of being bullied into buying stuff we don’t need, that is badly made or doesn’t fit; and would-be creators waking up to the fact that inspiration exists beyond the Sunday style supplements.
Plus, craft is a slow pursuit. It takes many evenings to sew a tapestry or knit a jumper. As the author Nick Laird observed about the immediacy of the internet age: “Concentration proves hard to come by in a space where the vaguest thought, whim or wonder can be indulged or resolved in an instant.” But you cannot Twitter a cushion cover.
Likewise, while it is a meditation, craft can be a highly social pursuit when our networks feel all too electronic. And for many, thrift is a necessity as much as an ideological position – though anyone who has bought wool or fabric lately will know that the craft economy can be as extortionate as any other.
There is, inevitably, more than a whiff of nostalgia surrounding this renaissance. But bountiful craft is no guarantee of moral purity. As the craft historian Glenn Adamson observes, German National Socialists were particularly enamoured with the patriotic impact and authenticity of craftwork.
As revolutionarily socialist as it strove to be, the arts and crafts movement was riddled with inconsistency. Morris wrestled with the paradox of insisting on art for all while championing creations so labour-intensive they could only be afforded by the few (not to mention the paternalism that dictated the lackadaisical poor could be rescued from the pub by the intervention of cane-weaving).
It’s ironic that, as amateur craft surges, the professional sector faces a skills crisis, with courses in such disciplines as ceramics, glass and metalwork closing down. Although the craft industry contributes more to the economy than the visual arts, cultural heritage or literature sectors, and demand for craft skills has never been higher, it remains the Cinderella order of the arts world.
But if craft is, as Richard Sennett argues in his 2008 book The Craftsman, the doing of good work for its own sake, if competence and engagement are the most solid sources of adult self-respect, then the ethic of this industry is as relevant as ever. A recession invites fundamental reassessment of the place of work – and leisure – in our lives. Practically, this means recognising that teaching a tradable, portable skill is one of the best ways to lift people out of poverty. Philosophically, it invites an acceptance that a trade-off between hamster-wheel presenteeism and mollifying consumption has never been good for us and is not feasible in this economic climate.
Crucially, craft is egalitarian. While some in the Labour party appear bent on resuscitating the canard of meritocracy, which divides the gifted few from the unexceptional mass, craft reminds us of the significance of equality of outcome, rather than of opportunity. Everyone shares the capacity to develop a skill, based on decent teaching, application and time – not raw talent.
Back at Prick Your Finger, the bobbin is growing fat with yarn. People talk about a “comeback”, says Rachael; but really, craft never went away. “Craft skills are in our DNA. But we still have to practise our dexterity.”