Jacob Graham, convicted Ecoterrorist. Source Greater Manchester Police.

“Make politicians afraid to start their cars again”: British Wannabe Ecoterrorist Jailed for 13 Years

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… exchanged messages with others who shared his hatred of government in groups called Earth Militia, Total Earth Liberation and Neo Luddite Action. …”

Jacob Graham: Left-wing anarchist jailed for 13 years over terror offences after declaring he wanted to kill at least 50 people

The security services uncovered Jacob Graham’s activity as part of an investigation into the purchase of chemicals online, it can be disclosed.

By Duncan Gardham, security journalist 
Tuesday 19 March 2024 09:17, UK

A left-wing anarchist has been jailed for 13 years for preparing acts of terrorism by compiling and sharing a bomb-making manual, after declaring he wanted to kill at least 50 people.

Jacob Graham, 20, from Norris Green, Liverpool, dedicated his manual, called the “Freedom Encyclopaedia”, to “misfits, social nobodies, anarchists, [and] terrorists past and future, who want to fight for freedom against the government”.

The judge said the college student was a “dangerous young man”, adding that Graham described himself “as the first UK home-grown terrorist”.

The security services uncovered Graham’s activity as part of an investigation into the purchase of chemicals online, it can be disclosed.

When they raided the home he shared with his mother and sister, they discovered he had filmed bomb-making experiments in his back garden and buried supplies in a secret woodland hide in Formby, Merseyside.

On a wall in his bedroom, Graham had printed out a picture of a car bomb exploding with the words: “Make politicians afraid to start their cars again.”

The court heard Graham came to idolise an American terrorist called Theodore Kaczynski – known as the Unabomber – after watching a Netflix series called Manhunt, and pledged to “finish what he started”.

Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/jacob-graham-left-wing-anarchist-jailed-for-13-years-over-terror-offences-after-declaring-he-wanted-to-kill-at-least-50-people-13097584?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter

If Jacob was just a fantasist, he is paying a heavy price for his sick fantasy.

On one hand it doesn’t sound like Jacob actually killed anyone. But the evidence of Jacob mixing with green extremists online, drawing up kill lists, stockpiling dangerous chemicals and urging others to commit terrorist acts couldn’t be ignored.

In 2017 Manchester was the victim of a horrific mass casualty terror attack, the Manchester Arena Bombing, so Manchester police don’t have much patience with locals boasting about all the people they plan to kill.

Manchester prides themselves on their climate education programme for children. I don’t know whether any of this contributed to Jacob’s extremism, but given plentiful evidence that children are growing increasingly anxious about climate change, and the disturbing evidence revealed by this case, that young eco-extremists are freely discussing ecoterrorism online and encouraging each other to commit atrocities, perhaps education authorities should stop pouring fuel on the fire and scale back their climate messaging for kids.

Update (EW): Greater Manchester Police statement available here.

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pwwatson8888
March 20, 2024 2:21 pm

Poor bloke is only 13! It’s a life sentence!

Reply to  pwwatson8888
March 20, 2024 3:57 pm

He’s 20 years old and was given a sentence of 13 years. Do keep up there’s a good chap.

observa
Reply to  pwwatson8888
March 20, 2024 6:43 pm

He might get early parole for exemplary behaviour-
Teenager leading campaign for nuclear energy ban to be lifted in Australia (msn.com)
You choose kids.

Reply to  pwwatson8888
March 21, 2024 10:21 am

My first question:

Is he going to be able to keep (from the photo) his little white teddy bear when he goes to prison?

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  pwwatson8888
March 21, 2024 1:35 pm

Why, you think his life expectancy is 26?

Really does point up the issues with the UK’s NHS, eh?

😉

Edward Katz
March 20, 2024 2:25 pm

Eco-terrorists are just variations of general terrorists; they don’t care who they hurt or what they damage but just want adversely effect someone or something. The reality is that they rarely accomplish anything except to turn most people and authorities against them rather than causing any major shift in attitudes, operations or lifestyles. Yet they’re too purblind to realize this and deserve any penalties or punishments they get. If people want major changes in product availability, laws, regulations or conveniences, they’ll either be willing to pay for them or elect governments that will provide them. They don’t need extremists deciding what’s supposedly best for them since they get enough unsolicited advice already from academics, bureaucrats, government officials and salesmen.

Reply to  Edward Katz
March 20, 2024 11:55 pm

Yup. When you can’t convince people through debate (oh, wait, what debate?) that your argument is more compelling than their denial, turn to terror to ensure your theories are more compelling!!

Tom Halla
March 20, 2024 2:38 pm

Crazy greens are rather like crazy Muslims or crazy Anti-Abortionists—crazy first, and whatever they are professing second. The issue is how much they are indulged in their insanity.

Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 21, 2024 8:01 am

Teachers who frighten children with propaganda should be tossed from the profession.

Teacher tossers has a nice ring to it.

MarkW
Reply to  Tom Halla
March 21, 2024 1:09 pm

What crazy anti-abortionists.
So far the only one committing violence has been the abortionists.

Tom Halla
Reply to  MarkW
March 21, 2024 1:31 pm

Eric Rudolph, for one.

March 20, 2024 2:40 pm

Interesting…if someone hasn’t actually committed a crime yet, the “powers that be” are dangerously close to be able to incarcerate someone for “thought crime”. That’s a slippery slope power to give someone in a position of public trust.

Lee Riffee
Reply to  DMacKenzie
March 20, 2024 3:21 pm

In a just world he’d only be able to be charged for having illegal bomb making chemicals and materials. Unless of course he was actively planning and collaborating with other people and making plans to do something. But yes, it does seem that in many places people are being criminally charged for doing (and just saying) things that were considered to be free speech, free association and the freedom to protest.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
March 20, 2024 3:21 pm

THAT is the danger.
Even if your thoughts are corrupt continually, even if you “speak” those thoughts out loud, Government can’t step in until you ACT on those thoughts.
When you ACT on those thoughts is when you violate the rights (here in the US, at least theoretically) of someone who disagrees with you.

Rud Istvan
Reply to  Gunga Din
March 20, 2024 4:11 pm

Speaking as a licensed lawyer, here he acted. In two ways. First, he bought the chemicals. Second, he experimented in the garden. Merits the conviction. This is not thought supression. This is potential terrorist supression.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 21, 2024 3:57 am

Speaking as an ex cop, this behaviour is expressly forbidden in the UK. Not, specifically, the act of downloading a bomb making manual otherwise we would all be arrested for learning how the Chinese made firecrackers, but the accumulation of events indicating that there was a genuine threat. In this case: seeking out the manual; purchasing chemicals described in the manual; experimenting with and concealing the chemicals; expressing an intent; possessing the means to fulfil that intent; and communicating with others with details of his intent.

We suffered from decades of IRA terrorist bombings both in Ireland and the UK mainland, and numerous Islamic bomb making factories have been discovered and neutralised more recently.

If there’s only one thing good about the UK these days, it’s that our intelligence services know what they are doing in this respect.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 21, 2024 7:23 am

Rud, what about “urging others to commit terrorist acts”? Does that cross the line from rhetoric to actionable danger?

MarkW
Reply to  Tony_G
March 21, 2024 1:13 pm

I forget all of the details, but a few decades ago a radio host was found complicit in the murder of a prominent Jew after he (the radio host) had spent weeks condemning Jews for all kinds of imaginary crimes.

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  MarkW
March 21, 2024 1:41 pm

Incitement would be the term applied to that, I believe. But I’m sure Rud can confirm and provide additional details.

Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 20, 2024 11:01 pm

I have to disagree with you, Eric.

No one has been jailed for “wrong think” or a “thought crime”. Graham has been jailed for acts of terrorism:

Preparation of terrorist acts, contrary to section 5(1)(b) of the Terrorism Act 2006

Two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications, contrary to Section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006

Four counts of possession of material likely to be useful to a terrorist, contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000

If “wrong think” was illegal in the UK, I’d have spent the last 40 years in jail.

Reply to  Redge
March 21, 2024 7:24 am

No one has been jailed for “wrong think” or a “thought crime”

I don’t think Eric was referring to this specific incident.

Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 21, 2024 10:25 am

even if we can never be absolutely certain if he would have gone ahead with his insanity.”

Not insanity … if so he would be going somewhere else.

And, if we were certain he would have gone ahead then he would be doing 20 years.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
March 20, 2024 4:07 pm

No. As far as I can make out this terrorist gathered bomb-making manuals, manufactured explosives and constructed bombs that he tested in his back garden, as well as caching further chemicals and explosives nearby. This isn’t ‘thought crime’, this isn’t some dystopian ‘pre-crime’ idea – this terrorist had already broken several UK laws and was just one step away from killing people. Should the Police have waited until he murdered people before arresting this man, or is part of their job to prevent such things happening? The Police did their job and arrested him for the crimes he’d already committed – making explosives and bombs, not for ‘thought crime’.

MarkW
Reply to  Richard Page
March 21, 2024 1:15 pm

A few years back, a poster here on WUWT told me that the police have an obligation to allow the perpetrator to shoot first. Otherwise they have no idea whether the perpetrator was just bluffing.

Reply to  MarkW
March 21, 2024 6:11 pm

I really don’t think that’s the case. Although there have been a few cases of ‘suicide by cop’ that were slightly iffy (I believe the gun wasn’t loaded in at least one case) the police have to assume that if a person pulls out a gun then they fully intend to use it. Similar case to explosives – if someone goes to the trouble of getting the manuals, making the explosives, making the fuses and detonators and then testing them, the police have to assume they have every intention of blowing someone or something to pieces. If they don’t assume that then they are putting the lives of citizens at risk and that is an even bigger no-no.

Reply to  Richard Page
March 22, 2024 9:04 am

I don’t think Mark was talking about actual policy. I have certainly seen such sentiments expressed. I’ve even seen people suggesting that police shouldn’t shoot back unless one of them GETS shot first, because the suspect “might be aiming to miss”

Although it wouldn’t surprise me to find such policies in some blue cities.

Reply to  DMacKenzie
March 20, 2024 10:56 pm

Incitement to murder and death threats are crimes that have existed in the UK and likely in other parts of the world long before eco-terrorism was a thing.

Had Graham kept his “thought crime” to himself, he would not have been convicted.

ozspeaksup
Reply to  DMacKenzie
March 21, 2024 3:47 am

possession of the how to and a stash in a public? place of explosives would be enough to jail him

0perator
March 20, 2024 2:47 pm

Should we be surprised that this generation has been indoctrinated into the climate doom cult and that they are to blame? No wonder kids are all doped up on pharmaceuticals. This is the logical outworking of the climate doom cult.

March 20, 2024 3:11 pm

In attempts at murder the only considerations should be whether it was planned (First Degree), accidental, (manslaughter, 2nd Degree, etc.).
The “motive” (“hate” crime) should have nothing to do with whether it was intentional or not.

OK. Poorly worded. “Hate” is not a crime until it is acted on. Ask the 9/11 victims.
Those Radical Muslims thought they were murdering innocent people “for a good cause”.

michael hart
Reply to  Gunga Din
March 20, 2024 3:41 pm

Yup. You wouldn’t believe how much I hate broccoli and boiled cabbage.
But with AI-standards of law enforcement in the UK today, I would think twice before using those terms in forums that they are known to screen for online ‘hate criminals’.

Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 20, 2024 4:04 pm

PRECISELY !!

Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 21, 2024 10:16 am

I agree.
He definitely acted with the intent to cause harm.

Reply to  Gunga Din
March 21, 2024 1:24 pm

To clarify previous comment, “hate” should not be a multiplier when a crime is committed nor should it be a crime itself.

Lee Riffee
March 20, 2024 3:16 pm

So this guy is a fan of the Unabomber? Clearly he must have failed to notice that Ted Kasinsky actually practiced what he preached. How come he wasn’t living in a shack in the woods with no electricity and as few modern items as possible?

Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 21, 2024 4:02 am

From the photographic evidence in this article, it would seem he also needed his white teddy bear to make him feel safe at night.

michael hart
March 20, 2024 3:25 pm

It’ll be reduced to less than one year upon appeal, any time in custody subtracted, and a suspended sentence.

The UK judiciary has been outrageously lenient on envirowacktards for decades now. That is part of the reason we have ended up in this state. People doing such things for other reasons can expect to serve far harsher and longer sentences than people “saving the planet”.

Edit: The corporates also bent over forwards, backwards, and sideways when confronted with these people. Activists were digging up the graves of deceased family members of one animal testing company before action was taken. All the cowardly UK banks refused the company banking services. The UK government eventually stepped in and ordered the Bank of England to offer them banking facilities.

CampsieFellow
Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 21, 2024 4:39 am

Where is your evidence that he planned to commit his crime in Manchester?

Reply to  CampsieFellow
March 21, 2024 6:33 am

In the article – he has already committed multiple offences already in the Manchester area. It doesn’t matter whether he planned on killing people elsewhere, he’s already done enough to warrant a conviction.

antigtiff
March 20, 2024 3:57 pm

Will he be able to take his lil stuffed polar bear cub with him?……and his electric guitar?

Reply to  antigtiff
March 20, 2024 8:04 pm

And his golf clubs !

Reply to  bnice2000
March 21, 2024 7:40 am

Weirdly enough the UK does have 1 open prison with a 9 hole golf course and plans to build a 6 hole course at another were scrapped after work was started due to public concerns about the misuse of public money. He won’t need his golf clubs where he’s going.

Rud Istvan
March 20, 2024 4:01 pm

Looks like mostly just crazy. I tried but failed to find the ‘green’ organizations with whom he was communicating. So small they left no internet impressions. Inspired by the Unabomber, whose manifesto was likewise mostly just crazy despite his Math PhD from MIT.
Anyways 13 prison years seems about right for purchasing ‘firebombing chemicals’ with written expressed intent to use to kill people.

As one simple ‘firebombing chemicals’ example, classic welding thermite is just aluminum powder plus ferric oxide powder (red rust). If you want to slow it down to make a much bigger but less ‘welding hot’ firebomb, just add powdered sulfur. I know this because we used that combination to make my son’s experimental rocket engines (using exhausted CO2 seltzer cartridges with the neck seal drilled out as the ‘engine casing’) when he was in high school for science fair. You don’t want the rocket to melt, use lots of sulfur. Rocket propellant proportions intentionally withheld. The science fair chemistry part was varying sulfur proportions for maximum rocket height. Fortunately, we got permission from the biggish town landfill to use it for his experiments, so was safe. We started with a low sulfur melt boom and went up sulfur from there.

As another simple example, original black gunpowder (universally used until ‘smokeless’ stabilized nitrocellulose mostly replaced it around 1890) is just a simple mix of powdered charcoal, saltpeter (powdered potassium nitrate), and powdered sulfur. Again, recipe deliberately withheld.

All these ingredients are easily purchased in bulk on line, and safe until mixed. After mixed a simple spark sets them off.
For the rockets, we used a battery plus fine wires with a small spark gap (less than half a match head actual gap) from a safe distance. For flintlocks, it was a flint spark scraped off the frizzen pan cover setting off the fine primer powder in the frizzen pan, flashing into the main charge thru a small pan hole at the back of the hand loaded barrel—powder, then maybe wad, then soft lead bullet, then ramrod tamped down tight before adding the frizzen primer charge. Just like in the movies. I used to love teaching old black powder rifle skills to my kids school friends (with parental permissions) on my gun range (big 50×100 meter limestone stone quarry with 30 meter high walls, so very safe) at my Wisconsin dairy farm. Was a very popular flash bang weekend field trip.

The real societal dangers are dedicated greens like in Biden’s admin. Example—EPA’s new vehicle emission standards issued today, forcing ~2/3 EV by 2035. The problem is, EV battery supply chain is dominated by China (lithium, cobalt, nickel). And China is investing $5 billion in 3 Mexican EV plants. So that WILL cause a US auto industry bloodbath despite USMCA if EPA new rule not repealed, just as Trump pointed out this past weekend in Ohio, and as Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers just reiterated today.

Putting one UK lunatic in prison doesn’t solve the much bigger problem of thousands of climate ‘green lunatics’ reigning in the US government asylum.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 21, 2024 4:05 am

And Biden is creating more “green lunatics” with his American Climate Corp.

Better decribed as Climate Brownshirts.

All paid for by taxpayer money.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/12/19/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-american-climate-corps-listening-sessions-new-actions-to-mobilize-the-next-generation-of-clean-energy-conservation-and-resilience-workers/

“In September, President Biden announced the launch of the American Climate Corps, a groundbreaking, workforce training and service initiative that will prepare tens of thousands of young people for good-paying jobs in the clean economy. In the time since, nearly 50,000 Americans have expressed interest in joining the American Climate Corps. In launching this new initiative, President Biden fulfilled a key promise to mobilize a new, diverse generation of Americans – putting them to work conserving and restoring our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, deploying clean energy, implementing energy efficient technologies, advancing environmental justice, and more.”

end excerpt

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 21, 2024 8:06 am

All of the major fascist/communist regimes initiated control by indoctrinating the children and having the children turn in their parents.

I have to wonder what they will replace the swastika or the hammer and sickle with…

AGW is Not Science
Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 21, 2024 1:59 pm

🤬 More deluded fools who will produce nothing useful on the taxpayers’ backs, IOW.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 21, 2024 11:26 am

You don’t need to withhold the recipe for black powder, anybody my age already knows it by heart.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Nansar07
March 21, 2024 1:11 pm

People your (and my) age are not planning terrorist attacks.

Reply to  Nansar07
March 21, 2024 6:15 pm

I don’t but then I’m too young to have served when black powder was used! 🤣

March 20, 2024 4:08 pm

Story tip: Martin Durkin’s new documentary “Climate The Movie” is available to view free here:

https://www.climatethemovie.net/

Send the link to your MP, Senator or other political representative.

Mr Ed
March 20, 2024 4:43 pm

Disturbing story, if he’s willing to talk about he’s willing to do it.
Timothy McVeigh showed us that. Throw the book at him..

Quilter52
March 20, 2024 5:42 pm

Pity he could not be accompanied to jail by those who taught him to fear for the future as accessories before the fact. Locking a few of them up for their deliberate propaganda might get some thinking about the consequences of what they teach.

Bob
March 20, 2024 5:51 pm

Good I’m glad he got a prison sentence. I struggle with the idea that people are acting out from a fear of climate change, as though climate change is responsible for what they do. The real problem is the 24/7 scaremongering from the press, the government, the education system and the shameless CAGW climate scientists. What they are doing is criminal and they need to be held accountable.

Russell Cook
March 20, 2024 5:58 pm

These are the types that scare me, because when they see articles like “The Case for Prosecuting Fossil Fuel Companies for Homicide,” they might decide to take the law into their own hands and become judge, jury, and executioner on such matters.

Reply to  Russell Cook
March 21, 2024 4:13 am

Yes, it’s not a good idea to agitate the psychopaths. If they get agitated enough, they act out violently.

Dave Andrews
Reply to  Russell Cook
March 21, 2024 6:55 am

In the UK the Court of Appeal has just removed the defence that a person honestly believed, whilst committing criminal damage, that the owner of a property would have consented had they known the full circumstances of the climate crisis. This defence had been used successfully in several cases.

The Grauniad (19th March) quotes Tim Crosland of ‘Plan B’

“When will the legal profession and the judiciary wake up to what’s happening? It must be obvious to every serious observer that British law is being instrumentalised on behalf of the fossil fuel industry to silence and repress those taking action to confront the extreme danger from climate breakdown”

There are a lot of weird people out there.

AWG
March 20, 2024 6:20 pm

Every serious ecoterroist should have a few childhood plush toys on their bed pillow.

John Hultquist
Reply to  AWG
March 20, 2024 8:06 pm

About the stuffed toy.
I have a small toy dog acting as the door stop. In the US, spring door stops with soft plastic tips are common. I dislike these, so replaced one for the front door with a foot-high stuffed brown and white dog. Her name is “Doorstop.” She does the job well and never complains.

observa
March 20, 2024 9:10 pm

Is it too late to be saved from the dooming teacher?
Researchers say Australian schoolchildren are asking if it’s ‘too late’ to halt climate change (msn.com)

The research involved 1,500 primary and high school students from schools across the state who had been registered by their teachers to participate in a “climate questions” brainstorming session.

Yeah it rhymes with dooming and starts with grrrr

March 20, 2024 9:51 pm

When you allow some activism (like blocking a road or a tennis match), and obviously it doesn’t change anything, the people who approve activism think: we must do MORE.

MarkW
Reply to  Eric Worrall
March 21, 2024 1:26 pm

Can you name a single socialist who isn’t longing for the same thing?

decnine
March 21, 2024 1:36 am

I don’t agree with ecoloonies. I long to see our police giving Extinction Rebellion the short shrift they deserve.

On the other hand, our politicians are trying to make US afraid to start our cars; or switch on the central heating. So I am also all for drowning the geese in the same sauce as the ganders.

March 21, 2024 3:42 am

From the article: “If Jacob was just a fantasist, he is paying a heavy price for his sick fantasy.”

Jacob is obviously mentally ill. No normal person would be doing what he was doing.

Only 13 years? They should probably keep an eye on him for longer than that.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
March 21, 2024 7:44 am

I think he’ll be monitored for a good deal longer than the 13 years, anti-terrorism officers ‘own’ him now.

CampsieFellow
March 21, 2024 4:28 am

Just one wee correction. Liverpool is in Merseyside, not Greater Manchester. Formby is in Merseyside, not Greater Manchester. The court might have been in Manchester but it was Merseyside Police, not Greater Manchrester Police.

Trying to Play Nice
March 21, 2024 4:42 am

His picture, complete with stuffed bear, should be in the dictionary under the definition of “incel”. Of course he would probably be fighting for the space with some of our local trolls.

MarkW
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
March 21, 2024 1:28 pm

Speaking of which, several of our best known trolls have grown quiet over the last few days.

Joe Shaw
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
March 21, 2024 5:47 pm

I don’t imagine he will remain celibate for long in prison.

March 21, 2024 7:58 am

A young man of 20 years, he sleeps with a stuffed teddy bear. There may be a case for arrested development.

Reply to  Pat Frank
March 21, 2024 12:39 pm

His developments led to his arrest, I don’t think the cuddly toy was the problem.

Sparta Nova 4
March 21, 2024 8:00 am

It will be a day of celebration when the ecoloonies realize they need to live what they preach and throw the circuit breakers off, walk, get rid of all electronics (oh my, there goes the smart phone), ditch their plastic signs, grow their own food (but not from packaged seeds), swelter in the heat and freeze in the cold, get rid of their money, and above all else, recognize they are covered in oil and need to shed their synthetic shoes and all clothing.

When that happens, the world will have a smaller “carbon footprint.”

Of course were they to stop breathing, the CO2 levels in the air would drop, too.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 21, 2024 8:02 am

Forgot to mention, this ecoloony failed to calculated how much CO2 would be released by setting off those devices.

AGW is Not Science
March 22, 2024 3:39 am

“Fight for freedom against the government?!” Talk about delusion! X2!

The government SUPPORTS his eco-fascist stupidity!