A 15-year-old accused of conspiring with others to plan to attack police buildings in Sydney has been denied bail.
Justice Elizabeth Ryan found there was “high” risk the teenager, who was charged along with four others after early-morning raids on Thursday, could commit a serious offence or endanger the community if granted bail.
She argued the teen, who is accused of co-preparing documents that outlined a plan for a firearm attack on federal and state police buildings in Sydney, was “strongly motivated by ideological conviction [and] vulnerable to influence by older peers”.
“These factors heighten the level of risk that if released to bail he will commit a serious offence of the kind with which he has been charged,” she said.
The children’s court heard on Thursday the Georges Hall youth had used “banana” as code for firearms in texts he allegedly sent one of his accused co-conspirators.
“I’m going to get to paradise through banana. God is great, no God but Allah,” one of the texts said, according to police prosecutors.
His fingerprints were allegedly found on handwritten documents seized during a December 2014 raid on the house of one his co-accused. A court has heard the papers included addresses and references to firearms, as well as plans for training in the Blue Mountains.
Raids on another man’s house had unearthed “a collection of firearms and ammunition for use in such an attack”, Ryan said. Texts the 15-year-old had exchanged with another man had included references to three weapons and ammunition that was found in that search.
Eleven images found on the 15-year-old’s phone in December 2014 had featured “before and after” photographs of a man being beheaded by a sword, as well as photographs of the youth posing with weapons.
A court-appointed forensic psychologist, Hanan Dover, told the court on Thursday the teenager had been traumatised by two previous raids on his home, the first when he was aged 13.
“He sleeps in his parents’ bedroom because he’s afraid of being raided all the time,” she said. “He can’t sleep and he has frequent nightmares,” she said.
“I have high concerns for his mental health if he is to remain in custody.
“The slight progress we had started to make, I think would have come undone today,” she said.
She told the court the boy had been subject to close scrutiny by intelligence agencies, alleging Asio agents had offered his friends free gym memberships if they spied on him.
The youth’s family were in the courtroom and wiped away tears throughout the hearing. The 15-year-old sat impassively in a red polo shirt. Ryan said it was clear he had a loving family but said she doubted their ability to monitor his electronic activities and conduct if he were granted bail.
Four others, including two 21-year-olds and a 22-year-old already in custody on terrorism and firearms offences, were also charged over the conspiracy, which was allegedly disrupted in December 2014, and pieced together by police in the past year, culminating in Thursday’s raids.
Ibrahim Ghazzawy, a 20-year-old from Raby in the city’s south-west, was also charged on Thursday and denied bail at Campbelltown court.
The 15-year-old’s barrister, Charles Waterstreet, said there “would more likely than not be an appeal” against the decision.
