A homophobic neo-Nazi terrorist is due to be sentenced for plotting an axe and machete attack on a pub’s gay pride night.
Armed police swooped on 20-year-old Ethan Stables as he walked towards the New Empire in his home town of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, last summer.
Officers had received a tip-off from a member of a Facebook group where he posted a message saying he was “going to war” and that he planned to “slaughter every single one of the gay bastards”.
Ethan Stables posing next to a Nazi flag at his flat in Barrow (Greater Manchester Police/PA)
Although he was unarmed when he was arrested on June 23, police found an axe, a machete and knives at his home, his trial heard.
On Monday, Stables was found guilty at Leeds Crown Court of preparing an act of terrorism and making threats to kill.
He had admitted a number of other offences before the start of his trial at Leeds Crown Court.
The jury was shown a video of him burning a rainbow flag and posing next to a swastika hanging on his bedroom wall.
He had espoused homophobic, racist and Nazi views online, the court was told.
Weapons found in Ethan Stables’ flat (Greater Manchester Police/PA)
Giving evidence, Stables, who has been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, claimed he was a just fantasist and was himself bisexual.
Following his conviction, his barrister Patrick Upward QC told the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC, that Stables led a “melancholy life” up to the day of his arrest and lived in “almost squalid conditions”.
Mr Upward said: “He bears no comparison with the men who attacked Corporal (Lee) Rigby, no comparison with the men who went on the rampage at Borough Market and no comparison with the man who ran people over on Westminster Bridge and stabbed a police officer.
“Whatever he was doing that night, he did not have a fuse to set it off. He did not have the wherewithal to make the fuse.”
Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford told the judge that Stables had intended to attack multiple persons and had looked at a number of ways of doing it.
Stables will be sentenced at Leeds Crown Court by Judge Collier on Wednesday morning.