UK teens cleared of Columbine-inspired murder plot
LONDON — Two British teens obsessed with the Columbine shootings were acquitted Wednesday of charges they plotted a copycat massacre, after a jury rejected the notion that diary entries outlining a similar attack were anything more than a fantasy.
The jury took only 45 minutes to clear Ross McKnight, 16, and Matthew Swift, 18, of plotting an attack at their high school just east of the northwestern English city of Manchester on the 10th anniversary of the U.S. killings.
The 12-member panel, made up of seven women and five men, accepted the teens' testimony that they never intended to harm anyone. Jurors took the unusual step of waiting outside a Manchester court to wave and smile at a defense attorney after the verdicts.
"This was just a fantasy," McKnight told reporters after his acquittal. "This was never a reality."
Prosecutor Peter Wright said the teens planned to emulate the school attack carried out by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves in a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999.
But British police never found any explosives or weapons in the case — despite the swaggering promises.
"We will walk into school and at the end of it no one will walk out alive," McKnight wrote in his diary, according to prosecutors. It would, he wrote, be the "greatest massacre ever."
Notes found in a safe in Swift's bedroom promised: "Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold will rise again."
Police were alerted after McKnight drunkenly called a girl and confessed to the purported plot. The teens were arrested in March, and detectives said they found cell phone camera footage of what they said was the pair making explosives, as well as a cache of extremist literature, a bomb-making manual and a map of the school.
The attack at the Audenshaw School was purportedly timed for the 10th anniversary of the U.S. massacre. But it was among other suggested targets, including a shopping center, an Ikea store, and a stadium.
Defense attorney Roderick Carus ridiculed the idea that Swift and McKnight had been serious about any of these plans, noting that the teens had also been excited by the idea of moving to Alaska and living off the land after watching the movie "Into the Wild."
When questioned by Carus about his bomb-making plans, Swift said he'd received dismal grades in chemistry.
McKnight, whose father Ray is a police officer, testified that his interest in the school rampage was piqued when he saw Michael Moore's documentary "Bowling for Columbine" with other students.
He dismissed his journal entries as "intriguing nonsense" and said he was probably angry at the time. His father testified that his son was full of hare-brained schemes.
Swift said his writings and plans, drawn up in 2007, were "naive and pathetic ways to channel my teenage angst."
"I was 16 with a vivid imagination," he testified.
The acquittal is an embarrassment for prosecutors and police, some of whom traveled to the U.S. before the trial to confer with detectives who investigated the Columbine killings. Prosecutors defended their decision to bring the case to trial, although they said they respected the jury's decision.
Ray McKnight said he never doubted his son's innocence.
"We are all just incredibly relieved," he said.
Ross said he had taken his high school exams behind bars and said he hoped the trial had not damaged his chances of joining the military.
"I would now like to put this behind me," he said.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Two teenagers in the United Kingdom have been acquitted of planning a high school massacre similar to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the United States. Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have been criticised for bringing the case to trial.

Matthew Swift, 18, and Ross McKnight, 16, were cleared of accusations they planned a copycat attack at their school in Manchester to coincide with the April 20 anniversary of the original mass shooting. They had been charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property. Swift and McKnight have spent the last six months behind bars on remand, Swift in prison and McKnight a young offenders institute.

Police had thought they had found a criminal plot when they were alerted after a girl received a drunken phone call from one boy talking about a school shooting. They discovered a second girl had received a text saying "If I ever text you not to come into school don't question it, just don't go in." The pair were found to be in possession of ''The Anarchist Cookbook'' and a BB gun . No guns or explosives were found even though the prosecution alleged to have video footage of the pair manufacturing explosives.

The prosecution case further focused on diary entries and plans talking of how they would perpetrate the "greatest massacre ever." "Audenshaw high," wrote Swift "will be no more. Unlike Columbine, my propane bomb will actually fucking explode and I will walk from classroom to classroom killing the fuck out of everybody, then maybe people will learn."

The 2007 plans were alleged by prosecutors to have included a diversion bomb away from the school, which was the main target, even though they also suggested attacks on several other buildings. Swift explained that his writings were "naive and pathetic ways to channel my teenage angst. I was 16 with a vivid imagination." The defense had focused on the notion that the plot was pure fantasy.

Supporting this was testimony, including that of McKnight's police officer father Ray, that the duo had plenty of other weird and wonderful schemes. Much as the shooting idea had come from Michael Moore's documentary ''Bowling for Columbine'', so too had they discussed living off the land in Alaska after watching ''Into the Wild''. Other ideas included a winter mission to climb Ben Nevis and launching a dinghy service on local canal routes.

The five men and seven women that comprised the jury agreed, and took just 45 minutes to reject the charges. They even waited for defence counsel so they could wave and smile at them. It was, according to McKnight's lawyer Roderick Carus QC, perhaps the "quickest acquittal of this apparent gravity" he had ever witnessed. He said the case was a weak one that should never have gone to court. One of the lawyers on the case described the teens as victims of an "unnecessary, heavy-handed prosecution" that was a waste of several hundred thousand pounds.

British officers working the case flew to the United States to speak with those that worked upon the Columbine massacre. Later, the former head of the Columbine investigation traveled to the UK.

Ray McKnight did not comment on the decision to try the case, but he did say both defendants had experienced "purgatory" and "absolute agony" while imprisoned. "We are all just incredibly relieved," he said, stating that he never doubted his son's innocence for a moment. His son read the following statement outside Manchester Crown Court: "I would like to make it clear that at no time was any person put at risk. This was just a fantasy. This was never a reality. I would just like to say that during my time in custody, I have taken my GCSEs. I hope that my wish to join the army has not been harmed."