A white supremacist loner who planned to carry out a Columbine-style killing spree in his home town in Cumbria has been jailed.

Shane Fletcher, 21, wanted to emulate high school shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher during their deadly rampage in Colorado in 1999.

His target was an Easter medieval football match in Workington, which sees thousands of people gather in the streets to play and spectate.

Manchester Crown Court heard how Fletcher had spoken of his hatred of the town after being bulled as a teenager, and how easy he thought it would be to obtain a van and use it to run people over.

Prior to his arrest on 10 March last year, he told his probation officer the only thing stopping him from carrying out the attack was not having access to cash and weaponry.

Fletcher also harboured hatred for women, homosexuals and various religious and ethnic groups, and previously told the same probation officer he dreamt about “shooting up a mosque”.

His racist views once saw him become embroiled in an argument with his brother that led to him barricading himself in a flat and setting it alight, which saw him charged with arson with intent to endanger life and battery.

While on licence for the 32-month sentence he received in June 2016, he was placed on a government counter-terrorism programme but refused to engage with it.

Following his arrest, police found a diary under his sofa containing written instructions on how to make a pipe bomb and improvised napalm, along with his mobile phone containing an image of a deceased Harris and Klebold.

As well as the Columbine pair, Fletcher was said to be obsessed with Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who murdered nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and Cumbrian taxi driver Derrick Bird, who killed 12 people during a rampage in June 2010.

Key evidence used against him was a diary found at his family home, which included one entry boasting that his home town would be “destroyed” and that he would “show no mercy” during his rampage.

He referred to an upcoming “WM” as what he thought would be “the most exciting day of my life”, and the prosecution suggested it stood for Workington Massacre.

Facebook messages between Fletcher and his “only friend” Kyle Dixon were subsequently recovered, which showed the defendant trying to persuade Mr Dixon to join him in the murderous attack.

Fletcher told him he had thought about killing others and then taking his own life since the age of 15 and they were “now like Eric and Dylan apart from they shot in a school”.

The court heard that Mr Dixon was a young man with “significant problems”, who had suffered a brain injury, and that his initial enthusiasm happily petered out.

Judge Patrick Field QC rejected the idea that the conversations were “no more than fantasy” and told Fletcher he was motivated by hatred, revenge and nihilism.

Describing the case as “deeply troubling”, the judge passed a nine-year sentence after Fletcher was found guilty of three offences in January – one count of soliciting to murder, and two of collecting or making a record of information useful for terrorism purposes.

The terrorism offences landed him concurrent sentences of three years each and he must serve at least two-thirds of his entire custodial term.

He will then be subject to an extended licence period of four years if the parole board considers him safe to release.

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