Student found guilty of planting bomb on Tube train

A weapons-obsessed student is facing years behind bars for planting a home-made bomb on a busy Tube train.

Former altar boy Damon Smith built the device at home with a £2 clock from Tesco after googling an al Qaida article entitled Make A Bomb In The Kitchen Of Your Mom.

Smith, 20, denied possession of an explosive substance with intent but admitted the lesser offence of making a bomb hoax.

Although Smith's lawyer told jurors he was no "hate-filled jihadi" and never meant to harm anyone, an Old Bailey jury rejected his explanation and found Smith guilty of the more serious charge after deliberating for two hours.

He made no reaction in the dock as the verdict was given.

On the morning of October 20 last year, Smith, then aged 19, packed a rucksack with explosives and ball bearing shrapnel as he heading off to college in Holloway, north London.

He was caught on CCTV as he travelled on the Jubilee Line, casually flicking through a text book before getting off and leaving the bag on the floor, timed to go off within minutes.

At least 10 passengers were in the carriage at the time and some of them spotted the abandoned rucksack and alerted the driver.

But the driver at first dismissed it as lost property and took it into his cab and carried on towards North Greenwich, jurors were told.

During the journey he spotted wires coming out and he raised the alarm as he pulled into the station.

Had Smith's bomb worked, it would have exploded just as commuters were being ordered off the platform, the jury heard.

The defendant went on to college and, on returning home in the evening, checked the internet for news of what he had done.

Upon his arrest, the autistic student admitted making the bomb but claimed he only meant it to spew harmless smoke as a Halloween joke.

He told police he had been inspired from watching someone on a YouTube channel called Troll Station making a bomb prank.

A search of Smith's home in Rotherhithe, south London, revealed his fixation with guns, explosives and other weapons.

Police seized a blank-firing self-loading pistol and a BB gun, both bought legally, as well as a knuckleduster and a knife which he showed off in an online video.

Pictures were also recovered of Smith with guns, including one on a laptop labelled "2016 an Islamic State fighter".

Smith watched YouTube videos on explosions and posted a picture of himself on Facebook in a Guy Fawkes mask holding handcuffs and a knuckleduster, jurors were told.

He professed to be interested in Islam as "more true" than Christianity, but denied being an extremist.

He posed next to an image of the Brussels-born Islamic terrorist alleged to have masterminded the attacks in Paris in November 2015, the court heard.

In his defence, extracts of a psychiatric report were read out in court confirming an autism spectrum disorder.

He had been interested in bomb-making since the age of 10 and said that it was "something to do when he was bored".

Smith, who grew up living with his mother in Newton Abbot, Devon, said he had thought about putting a bomb in a park but decided it would be "more funny" to delay train passengers instead.

His lawyer, Richard Carey-Hughes QC, told jurors that Smith was no "hate-filled jihadi", saying he intended to "make something that looked like a bomb but not function as one".

He said there was "no evidence that he changed from clinging to his mother's apron strings to a soldier of Islam and a would-be soldier".

If Smith had wanted a viable bomb, he would not have made such a "shoddy, ineffective device", he said.

The lawyer added: "If this was a serious attempt to cause mass murder and the like, would he have gone about the commission of this attempt in the way he did?

"He did almost nothing to cover his tracks, which he would have done if he was expecting a full-scale man hunt, the sort that follows a terrorist outrage. He is clearly visible on CCTV at all times.

"If he set out to make a real effective killing device, something that not only looked like a bomb but was a bomb, how could it enter his mind he could pass it off as a hoax?"