Pipe bomb and the ricin found

IAN and Nicky Davison posted offensive racist material on their website over a long period of time, but it was when they showed footage of a homemade bomb being detonated that police moved in to arrest them.

It was only then that the potentially deadly store of ricin was found in Ian Davison’s home.

The trial at Newcastle Crown Court heard much debate about whether the pair were simply “keyboard warriors” or whether they posed a genuine threat to the public.

Peter Carter QC, for Nicky Davison, dismissed his client’s father as “a monstrous dreamer”, and told the trial: “This is terrorism as a fantasy, not as a reality.”

However, the detective who led the inquiry thought otherwise.

Detective superintendent Neil Malkin said of Ian Davison: “I think he is a real danger.

“There was a pipe bomb and the ricin and these are the tools of a terrorist.

“There is no question in my mind that at some stage they would have carried out their intention to cause serious violence.”

In public, Ian Davison was an unemployed lorry driver and part-time pub DJ.

In private, he was the founder and leader of the Aryan Strike Force, described in court by Matthew Feldman, of the University of Northampton, as believing itself to be: “The pinnacle and most uncompromising of the neo- Nazi groups in the UK.”

Police believe the pair were in touch with about 300 neo- Nazis across the globe, as far afield as Canada and Australia.

Davison posted racist messages on his website and also placed several videos on You Tube, including a four-and-ahalf minute tribute to Adolf Hitler, who he described as “a true hero of the white race”.

But the posts on the Aryan Strike Force website were becoming more sinister.

One showed footage of what appeared to be a paramilitarystyle training camp in a forest in Cumbria, which featured men wearing balaclavas and combat fatigues, parading through the woods carrying swastikas.

Others showed two pipe bombs being detonated, while others discussed the effectiveness of “lone wolf” terrorism and the “leaderless resistance”.

At one stage even fellow hardened neo-Nazis warned the Davisons that their online calls “to wipe out the whole race” of black people were overstepping the mark, but they went unheeded.

When police raided Nicky Davison’s home in Annfield Plain, County Durham, they discovered a number of terrorist manuals on his computer, including the Anarchists’ Cookbook, which detailed how to make bombs, and the Poor Man’s James Bond, which included details on how to make incendiary devices, poisons and even napalm.

There was also evidence the pair had researched the creation of an electromagnetic pulse bomb, which disables computer systems.

During an online conversation with a fellow sympathiser, Nicky said: “I don’t care if I am fighting an unwinnable battle.

I would rather die fighting than let the scum of the earth walk over us.”

Enough ricin to kill up to 15 people

THE ricin discovered in Ian Davison’s home was an unrefined sludge but, say police, was still capable of killing up to 15 people.

Traces of the deadly toxin were discovered in a sealed jam jar inside Davison’s Myrtle Grove home in June last year – the only time the poison has been discovered in the UK.

It is thought the ricin had been produced in 2006 and had remained undisturbed in Davison’s kitchen ever since.

Although it was fairly crude and had not undergone the purification necessary to turn it into an effective weapon, police believe there was still enough for mass murder.

Detective Superintendent Neil Malkin said: “It could kill ten to 15 people.

“It is deadly and there is no known antidote. If you inhaled it or ingested it, it has different effects but, essentially, the substance is deadly.”

Ricin is produced by refining the sludge left over when processing castor beans to make castor oil and even the tiniest speck can kill.

Professor John Sanderson, who works at Durham University, said less than 5mg, equivalent in weight to a few grains of salt, would be sufficient to cause the death of a human.

He said: “Ricin is extremely toxic. It is approximately ten times more toxic if inhaled as a powder, or injected into the body.

“Severe inflammation usually occurs near the site of entry, over a period of hours to days.

“This could be in the airways in the case of powder inhalation, or the stomach or intestines in the case of ingestion.”

Ricin attacks the body’s cells, leading to internal bleeding, inflamed airways, vomiting and death in about 36 to 48 hours.

The toxin was used in the infamous Cold War assassination of Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov, in London in 1978, when a poison-tipped umbrella was used to inject the toxin into his leg.

In January 2003, anti-terror police arrested 24 people across the UK in connection with a suspected plot to poison the London Underground using ricin – but almost all were released without charge.

Kamel Bourgass, a 31-yearold Algerian with known links to Al Qaida, was convicted of plotting to manufacture and spread poisons after his notes on how to make ricin had been found.

Organisation has roots in BNP splinter group

THE trial of Nicky Davison has shone light on the shadowy world of the extreme right in Britain.

Nicky and Ian Davison were unmasked as senior members of the Aryan Strike Force, a tiny organisation linked to a worldwide web of neo-Nazis.

The ASF launched its website on January 8, 2008 – a date loaded with symbolic meaning. To neo-Nazies, 18 is code for AH, Adolf Hitler and 88 for HH, Heil Hitler.

The origins of the ASF lie in the notorious Combat 18 group, formed in 1992 by former members of the British National Party’s “security team”, which broke away when the party began to concentrate on electoral politics.

In 2002, there was a split within Combat 18. Convinced that the organisation had been infiltrated by informants, some members defected to form the European-wide Racial Volunteer Force (RVF) to pursue more direct action.

Five years later, there was a further split when members of the RVF left to found the ASF.

Police investigators believe that Ian Davison, operating under the online pseudonym Sweaney, was the leader of the ASF and his son, who adopted the name Thorburn 1488, was leader of its youth wing in the North-East.

To protect itself against infiltration, the ASF operated behind two front organisations, Legion 88 and Wolfpack. Only when new members had demonstrated their allegiance to those organisations were they admitted to the inner circle.

The ASF adopted the phoenix rising from the ashes of Nazism as its symbol and claimed on its website that nationalists must “take down” what it describes as the Zionist Occupation Government, stemming from the belief that the governments of all western nations had been secretly taken over by a Jewish conspiracy.

Its mission statement, written by Nicky Davison, claimed: “This government is corrupted . . . and aims to destroy the Aryan race. We will resist, we will fight, we will never give up.”

The ASF also said it planned to “develop active street crews in every town to deal with insurgents” and ended its statement with the 14 words, a creed made famous by American white supremacist David Lane and adopted by Nazis across the world: “We must secure the existence of our people and the future of our children.”

Within months of its foundation, the ASF split after its own internal power struggle and is now thought to number only a handful of activists.