Oliver Bel, 24, from Salford, became the latest young man to be convicted of a terrorism offence. Wearing a tweed jacket, rimmed glasses and carrying a briefcase, it looked as though Oliver Bel was on his way to a university lecture rather than a crown court. But it was at one of the country’s most prestigious centres of learning – Cambridge University – that the dark, hate filled and dangerous world in which Bel had secretly immersed himself was first revealed to police. In an extraordinary fall from grace, Bel, 24, from Salford, is now beginning a jail sentence for a terrorism offence. And, amid fears that the coronavirus pandemic is helping to create a ‘perfect storm’ for radicalisation, especially among young people, a senior counter terrorism officer has told the M.E.N. that the threat from right-wing extremism is on the rise. (…) Vile racist, anti-Semitic and Nazi sympathising rants which he had posted online led police to discover he had bought a manual detailing instructions on how to make a bomb. It came after a chilling WhatsApp message, in which Bel said he wanted to go on a ‘killing spree’. Bel’s case highlights a worrying trend, with increasing amounts of extremist material available online and young people being drawn towards it. From January 2019 to June last year, 17 children were arrested for terrorism offences, with some being as young as 14. (…) The fear in Bel’s case was that his hate filled posts could encourage someone into doing the unthinkable. Bel is the latest in a series of young men to be convicted under terrorism laws. Like Bel, Ethan Stables immersed himself in a hateful online world, but went one step further. The neo-Nazi sympathiser had a machete and plotted an attack at a pub in Cumbria which was holding an LGBT event. Armed police raced to the pub and Stables was later caught.
via manchesterevening: From Salford schoolboy to Neo-Nazi next door – Oliver Bel and the rising threat of far right extremism