Overview
- Ashton Rees received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a further 12 months on licence plus 60 days of rehabilitation and 200 hours of unpaid work.
- The court also imposed a two-year order that limits his device use, bans deleting internet history, and requires him to tell probation about any internet-enabled phones.
- A jury had earlier found the 21-year-old guilty on four counts of possessing information useful to terrorism after police found the Anarchists’ Cookbook and DIY gun and explosives guides on his phone.
- Evidence showed he experimented with improvised weapons, bragged in messages about a pipebomb, and left some devices buried and unrecovered while police seized two basic items.
- Judge Brian Cummings KC said he found no terrorist motive, noting Rees’s autism and fixation on how things work, and warned he had come close to more serious offending.