A hate-filled Cambridge University student who said he wanted to go on a "killing spree" is beginning a jail sentence - as experts warn the risk of far-right terrorism is on the rise.
Oliver Bel, who turned up at court wearing a tweed jacket, rimmed glasses and carrying a briefcase, was studying at Cambridge's Pembroke College when the dangerous world in which he had secretly immersed himself was first revealed to police.
Vile racist, anti-Semitic and Nazi sympathising rants which he had posted online led police to discover he had bought a manual detailing instructions on how to make a bomb.
Now a senior counter terrorism officer has told the Manchester Evening News that the Covid pandemic has created the "perfect storm" for far-right extremism to spread.
Studying at Cambridge could have been the prelude to a glittering career for Bel, from Salford.
But it was while studying at this near 700 year old college that Bel first came to the attention of anti-terror police.
It came after a chilling WhatsApp message, in which Bel said he wanted to go on a "killing spree".
Bel’s case highlights a worrying trend, with increasing amounts of extremist material available online and young people being drawn towards it.
From January 2019 to June last year, 17 children were arrested for terrorism offences, with some being as young as 14.
"There are vulnerable young people within society who may stumble across this or go looking for it, and it may be validating their latent mindset," Detective Superintendent Will Chatterton, Head of Investigations for Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said.
While Islamic terrorism continues to be considered the main threat to UK security, recent figures show right wing extremists accounted for a fifth of prisoners serving jail time for terror offences, the highest figure since records began in 2013.
The fear in Bel's case was that his hate filled posts could encourage someone into doing the unthinkable.
Bel is the latest in a series of young men to be convicted under terrorism laws.
Like Bel, Ethan Stables immersed himself in a hateful online world, but went one step further.
The neo-Nazi sympathiser had a machete and plotted an attack at a pub in Cumbria which was holding an LGBT event.
Armed police raced to the pub and Stables was later caught.
Like Bel, Stables had Asperger's syndrome. He claimed he was a fantasist and had been 'brainwashed', and ultimately in 2018, Stables, then 20, received an indefinite hospital order.
Last month, a former London police officer was jailed for more than four years for being a member of National Action, a group which endorsed the murder of MP Jo Cox and was banned under terrorism laws.
Like Bel, 22-year-old Benjamin Hannam, who has autism, was exposed after a leak of details from a far-right website.
A former spokesman for National Action, Jack Renshaw, was jailed for life aged 23 in 2019 for plotting to murder Lancashire MP Rosie Cooper.
A judge said Renshaw set out to 'replicate' the murder of Jo Cox. He had bought a 19 inch Gladius knife and studied the MP's itinerary.
Renshaw, who had previously enrolled as a economic and politics student at Manchester Metropolitan University, was foiled after a whistleblower passed on information to anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate.
"We are seeing an increase in the number of right wing incidents we are dealing with, that's not just here in Manchester but across the country," Det Supt Chatterton said.
It is not clear what initially led Bel into his hateful online world, and he chose not to explain himself by giving evidence at court.
In posts online he claimed his views had been influenced by going to a 'multicultural' school where 'whites were a minority'.
He would later describe himself as a 'white preservationist'.
"There's nothing that I've seen of a trigger moment or obvious radicalisation, sadly it is just this is what he has fallen into, and he genuinely holds these beliefs," Det Supt Chatterton said.
Bel lived in a leafy part of Salford, close to Buile Hill Park.
A star student at St Ambrose Barlow High School in Swinton, his academic success led to studying mathematics at Cambridge University.
He came to the attention of anti-terror police after a tutor at the college reported anti-Semitic comments Bel had made online.
He was referred to the Prevent programme, with officers trying to help him stop posting such vile material.
But the meetings he had with officers didn't work.
It was the leaking of posts he had made years earlier on the far-right Iron March website, which led police to his door in Salford.
Posting on the website in 2017 under a pseudonym, Bel thought his diatribes would not be traced back to him.
But a leak of data from the website revealed he had described Jews as 'parasites', and said 'extermination is the best option for them'.
Bel was unmasked as the author of the comments by Hope Not Hate in 2019, when he had returned from university to Salford.
Days later after the article was published, police arrived at his home on Eccles Old Road.
It was there that officers discovered the evidence which would land him in jail.
After finding books about Hitler and Nazism, and a Nazi badge, Bel told them: "I’ve got more extremist material than that. I’ve got the Anarchist Cookbook on my bedroom shelf."
The book, which he bought from Amazon in December 2018, gives instructions on how to make a bomb.
Further investigations revealed Bel had been in contact with the founder of National Action, Alex Davies, for advice on networking and ‘how to take action’.
"We're not suggesting he was planning or had embarked upon a plot to attack somebody, but this was a very unhealthy interest that he had," Det Supt Chatterton said.
"Coupled with his right wing, anti-Semitic views, in fact his hatred of non-white people and the gay community as well, all went to paint him in the picture that was entered to the court, as a dangerous individual."
The UK's top counter terrorism police officer Neil Basu has warned that people becoming isolated and spending more time online during the pandemic, has helped to create a 'perfect storm' for radicalisation.
He said: "What concerns me most is this – there has been a sharp increase in extremist material online in the last few years, and Covid-19 has meant that vulnerable people are spending a lot more time isolated and online, and with fewer of the protective factors that schooling, employment, friends and family can provide.
“In my opinion that is a perfect storm, one which we cannot predict and that we might be feeling the effects of for many years to come."
While Det Supt Chatterton added: "It is probable there will be more people within that online space, and therefore there are greater opportunities to find or stumble across this very unsavoury material."
Like so much related to the pandemic, the full impact will only become clear in the future.
Meanwhile Bel, who claimed he had the anarchist cookbook out of an academic interest, is beginning a two year jail sentence after being found guilty of possessing a document containing information useful to terrorism after a trial.
