Teenager Caught With Explosives And Gun Gets Life Sentence For Planning Massacre At Former College

Over the summer, a chilling tale surfaced of a British teen who was just barely stopped from commit an act so heinous it has now landed the 19-year-old with a life sentence imprisonment. A concerned friend tipped off the police to the impending massacre over the summer. Liam Lyburd, a Newcastle native, was caught in July with what was labelled a “murder bag” – since it contained nothing but deadly weapons and explosives. The teen was adamant that he had not planned to murder his former schoolmates at the college he was expelled from, but the trial proved otherwise and an unremorseful teen was uncovered and sentenced.

Turns out the angry teen plotted his actions carefully and accessed the dark net – an anonymous untraceable part of the internet not accessible by regular browsers that is mainly used to acquire illicit goods – to obtain the cache of weapons to carry out the massacre. In his possession were all the ingredients necessary to make five pipe bombs, two homemade explosive devices; a glock handgun and 94 shells of expanding bullets and to top it all off had also had CS gas. The teen laughed when officers first arrested him and it seems not much has changed for him, even while being sentenced.

Liam Lyburd is brought into the dock. Wearing a grey sweater, he is chatting and laughing with the dock officer

— Chronicle Court (@ChronicleCourt) September 25, 2015

The court date was put off until September for the teen to receive a formal psychiatric report and the results say that mentally, Liam Lyburd is of sound mind and not suffering from any “acute mental illnesses” only a slight personality disorder. The jury was told that he was obsessed with shootings, killing sprees, and guns. The evidence against him was so strong the teen had no choice but to plead guilty to possession of the weapons but attempted to deny charges that he planned to use them to massacre the Newcastle College students. With an ever present smirk he boasted that buying the gun was like buying a bar of chocolate. Buzzfeed News reports had the Trial judge, Paul Sloan QC called the evidence against Lyburd “chilling” as he sentenced him to life.

“I am satisfied there is a significant risk to the public of serious harm by you… Your personality disorders have no way impaired your ability to know what you were doing.”

In a series of messages to an online acquaintance Lyburd made several references to holding mass shooters in an idealistic stance and plotting to end not only the lives of his college peers but also those of his family and eventually himself.

“I’m going to die along with my friends in school. It’s so sad my life. I’m going to kill my mum and the kids in my school – it’s going to be amazing.”

Lyburd was given a minimum 8 year sentence by the judge and was warned that based on the psychiatric evaluation it would be a very long time before anyone considered him safe enough to be released.

The UK Chronicle Live states that after 2011 when Lyburd was expelled from Newcastle College for shocking and disruptive behavior, the unpopular teen soon isolated himself from the few friends he had and became a recluse who interacted with the world only through online methods. One of his defense methods was to claim that all the statements he wrote about the planned massacre were just hoaxes, a way to get persons online to talk to him.

Detective Superintendent George Duff, who led the investigation against Lyburd and testified in court, today told reporters after the trial where Lyburd was sentenced to life – that the right decision was made.

“Lyburd is a dangerous man who intended to cause serious harm. He at no point has shown any remorse for what he intended to do. By not admitting his wrongdoing in the first instance shows the utter lack of consideration for those he intended to harm. Thankfully the courts and the jury came to the best decision and today Lyburd is behind bars where he belongs.”

Even after his conviction, Lybrid was heard in court making references to wanting to shoot people and The Mirror UK has it that he gestured at his own head like he was shooting himself as he was led away from court.