A suspected far-right extremist was found with a frightening arsenal of weapons including bombs, exploding crossbow bolts, 85 knives, three swords - and a rocket-powered skateboard.
Simon Flint, 42, admitted possessing prohibited weapons, gunpowder and an array of components for making improvised explosive devices.
A court heard he was arrested on June 28 after threatening a group of teenagers and a passerby with a crossbow.
It prompted a police search which found the deadly arsenal in a camper van he lived in and a lock-up he used, near to Middlesbrough’s Riverside football stadium.
As well as explosives - which had to be blown up by the Bomb Squad - officers found crossbow bolts which had been fitted with razor blades at the end and adapted to explode on impact.
His defence at an earlier hearing claimed he “maybe slightly eccentric” but that he was a “hobbyist, not a terrorist”, which was accepted by prosecutor Jolyon Perks.
He told the court the precision machinest had a “skewed sense that he needed to defend himself.”
He added: “The devices were demonstrated in videos where he destroys fruit and a laptop computer with the use of improvised explosive devices.”
But after the case, it emerged that Flint, from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, had tried to recruit members to carry out “operations” for a right-wing vigilante group he had set up.
He posted that The Strategic Defence Initiative needed a “team” for a “citizens police service”.
He also posed in a knight’s costume pointing a sword at a camera and shared links to anti-Muslim articles.
He will be sentenced at Teesside Crown Court on Monday.
