A teenage milkman who was prepared to "die fighting" for an ultra rightwing group called the Aryan Strike Force was convicted on three terrorism charges today.
Nicky Davison claimed he only joined the small but fanatical band to please his father, its organiser, who has admitted six terrorism charges including making the deadly poison ricin.
But a jury took less than an hour to accept the prosecution's case that the 19-year-old knew his own mind and had eagerly embraced the Nazi rhetoric amid which he grew up.
He downloaded thousands of internet pages on making bombs and guns and posted messages on the group's website about overthrowing what he called ZOG, or the "Zionist Occupied Government".
Davison, of county Durham, was remanded in custody and left Newcastle crown court for jail after hugging his tearful mother who watched his two-week trial from the public gallery.
She heard prosecutor Andrew Edis QC tell the jury of nine men and three women that her son was a significant figure in a group whose members were no mere "keyboard warriors".
"They were preparing to do 'ops', in other word paramilitary activity," said Edis. "They were in the early stages of preparation."
After the verdict, Detective Superintendent Neil Malkin of Durham police said the group's threats had been taken seriously.
"I have no understanding of their intended target, but what I do know is the nature of the organisation. What it had pulled together in terms of the ricin, pipe bombs and the internet manuals can only give me concerns that the next step was to take it to the streets," he said.
Davison was not accused of helping his 47-year-old father Ian, a former DJ, to make the ricin - a single jar which is now at the government's Porton Down chemical warfare research station. He was described in court as "clearly an influential figure in the creation and development of the Aryan Strike Force website".
The aim of this was not merely serving up white supremacist propaganda but interesting others in violence. Edis said: "They are fighting against the government because they believe it has been taken over by Jews, so it must be resisted by those interested in white supremacy."
Members also referred to themselves as the Wolfpack or Legion 88 and used codenames with known references to Hitler and other Nazi leaders. They posted incongruous films of members out in remote areas of the Cumbrian fells, wearing balaclavas, holding Nazi swastika flags and giving Heil Hitler salutes.
The jury heard that Nicky Davison had written on the website: "I know my aims. I don't care if I am fighting an unwinnable battle.
"I would rather die fighting than let the scum of the earth walk over us."
The group was obsessed with being more neo-Nazi than other rightwing groups, which they mocked as ineffective.
