Ben John, 21, caught with 67,788 white supremacist and neo-Nazi documents. He was also found to have downloaded The Anarchist Cookbook on a hard drive. Was convicted as Leicester Crown Court of terrorism and handed two-year suspended sentence. Judge Timothy Spencer QC told John to read classic novels so he could test him. A university student who downloaded nearly 70,000 white supremacist and neo-Nazi documents and bomb-making instructions has been instructed to read classic novels including Pride and Prejudice to avoid prison time. Judge Timothy Spencer QC told Ben John, 21, he could stay out of prison as long as he steered clear of white-supremacy literature and and read books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. John will have to return to court every four months to be tested on his reading by the judge after avoiding jail ‘by the skin of his teeth’. He had first been identified as a terror risk days after his 18th birthday and was referred to the Prevent programme but carried on downloading ‘repellant’ right-wing documents as well as a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook, which included diagrams and instructions on how to build explosives. (…) He made John promise him not to research any more right-wing materials. The judge then asked him: ‘Have you read Dickens? Austen? Start with Pride and Prejudice and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. ‘Think about Hardy. Think about Trollope. ‘On January 4 you will tell me what you have read and I will test you on it.’
By <a href=”//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ElinorD” title=”User:ElinorD”>ElinorD</a> – Facsimile of page reprinted in modern Oxford University Press edition of the novel, Public Domain, Link – symbolbild