Bomb making equipment was found in a Catterick Garrison hideout by police investigating two boys who plotted to kill their classmates in a Columbine-style school massacre.
Thomas Wyllie and Alex Bolland were yesterday sentenced to 22 years in custody for a plot to attack staff and students at their school in Northallerton.
The pair were said to have “hero-worshipped” Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the teenagers who killed 13 people at the Columbine High School in Colorado before taking their own lives.
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They had drawn up a hit-list of targets, which included students who had bullied and wronged them, as well as teachers.
The pair downloaded bomb-making manuals and researched weapons online.
But the boys, who were just 14 when they decided to commit the atrocity with guns and homemade bombs, were caught last year when one confided in a female friend on Snapchat and police found a hideout with a rucksack filled with bomb ingredients, including screws, board and a flammable liquid.
It emerged in court that this hideout found on October 22 belonging to older boy Wyllie was found behind the old Londis store in Shute Road, Catterick Garrison.
Following their arrests in October 2017, both boys tried to claim the plot was just a fantasy.
They both stood trial, but were found guilty of conspiracy to murder by a jury in May, with the older boy additionally being convicted of unlawful wounding.
Wyllie was described in Leeds Crown Court as the ringleader and was given 12 years behind bars in an young offender institute.
Bolland was given a ten year sentence.
Sentencing the pair, Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said yesterday it was a “firm plan with specific targets in mind” using “indiscriminate explosives”.
