Young man in UK sentenced to 8.5 years for making crude gun

Does this seem like an excessive sentence to you?
This took place in the U.K. (England) which can be quite strict and harsh when it comes to weapons.
It seems this young man's only "real" crime (from my perspective) was making a homemade single-shot gun. But there were several other, what some would consider worrying and aggravating factors.

He built a crude gun out of an aluminum tube in his garden shed.

Police found an encrypted USB drive with digital information about how to build a shotgun and plastic explosives. (The digital publication also contained a guide about how to carry out arson, which was probably just part of the regular "Anarchist Cookbook" publication, popular with many teen males)
Because of this he was convicted the criminal charges of "possession of articles useful for terrorism" and "disseminating terrorist material".

Those laws were probably not clearly meant or intended to be used this way, but the courts have applied that interpretation of those vague laws.
(see related thread: UK court criminalizes information about making weapons, Sept 3, 2023 )

On one occasion he accidentally caused a fireball in his family's kitchen while making gunpowder, evidenced by comments he made on the internet.

Police say the young man was keeping bags of chemicals in a fridge in his bedroom that could be used to make explosives.

He made stupid comments online such as "People will get sick of Black Lives Matter and that is when violence will flare. I am going to make and sell weapons."

The encrypted files were found in electronic folders that were named "Boogaloo", which the prosecution argued was significant because the word refers to "race war" in far-right circles.

He downloaded a video of the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand (where a white perpetrator murdered a large number of Muslims). He had commented "Shame it doesn't have the music."

When arrested in June 2022 at his grandfather's home, the 20-year-old college student told police: "I'm not a terrorist, OK? I have an interest in chemicals and military memorabilia, that's all."

The 20-year-old young man has been ordered to be detained in a young offender institution for eight and a half years.
In addition to that, he was ordered to serve a 12-month "extended licence period" (this is like parole after release from prison, where he will be subject to supervision and restrictions). (The law allows such an "extended licence period" to be added on if the offender is guilty of a "terrorism offence" or if the court believes they are "a significant risk to the public of committing further specified offences")

When passing the sentence, Judge Melbourne Inman the defendant: "The jury heard you were a member of extreme rightwing groups holding extreme racist ideas."
"It's an aggravating factor that you were in contact with a number of extremists and the material was a horrific recording of multiple murders."

Was he punished for his views and political beliefs? That could be wrong and very unfair if it is so.

It seems the U.K. views individual rights very differently than in the U.S.
While it could be very concerning, in the U.S. an individual would be seen as having the right to say what they want, associate and communicate with who they want, and keep a video of a famous violent murder crime.
However, in this case it appears that the judge held all that against him and drastically increased his punishment for it.

The young man's name is Vaughn Dolphin, from Walsall in the West Midlands. He was sentenced in Birmingham crown court.
In my view it's not so clear that he actually committed any real crime, other than what might be considered a gun violation, having a gun without first receiving approval for it.
The other criminal charges appear to be a questionable stretch of the interpretation of the law.

In the U.K. it appears it is widespread to view those who have weapons as a "dangerous threat".

source:
Far-right extremist Vaughn Dolphin is to be sent young offender institution, The Guardian, Daniel Boffey, May 11, 2023

 

Did you miss this bit?

The UK has been the target of multiple terrorist attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain
So if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck they are not going to wait for it to explode.

But I have to wonder - would you be as upset about this if his name had been “lma Scary Muslim”

 

The evidence that he was actually a terrorist, or was going to commit a terrorist act, is pretty flimsy, and very indirect, to say the least.
I guess if someone experiments with small amounts of gun powder and explosives, you think it's fine to consider them a terrorist and put them in prison for a long time.

Seems like they're throwing fairness out the window in the name of "public safety".
That's a slippery slope.

In my opinion, he should have had the right to say what he wanted, even stupid and concerning things, and the weapons should not have been seen as such a huge thing. Similar to the concept expressed in the First and Second Amendments in the U.S. Constitution. But of course the U.K. doesn't have those type of ideals enshrined in their law.

I guess those on the Left do not see any problem at all with this; but as a Conservative Libertarian, this totally sickens me.
The sentence was very excessive, in my opinion. The most he should have been sentenced to is 18 months, or less.

 

I don't know. You're obviously trying to promote that idea, so you're presenting the information in ways to minimise the seriousness and challenge the courts motives while the news article you linked will be seeking to present it in the most eye-catching manner (though in general, the Guardian is far from the worst for that kind of thing).

The key thing is that the jury will have heard all of the evidence, presented by both prosecution and defence, and determined he was guilty of the offences he was charged with. Those offences will have guidelines and limitations on sentencing, though the judge will obviously have some scope to consider aggravating or mitigating factors (having heard all of the evidence himself of course). Without a full understanding of what those charges were, what the sentencing options were, and the full basis for the judge's decisions, how can you expect anyone to make an honest judgement of his conclusions?

Not really. There are ways in which people in the UK can own and use firearms and explosives perfectly legally and acceptably but this clearly falls outside of that scope. Regardless of the questions over severity and punishment, I don't see how you could deny that the connections to extremist groups and references to terrorism in this case would raise a legitimate concern anywhere.

 

In other words you're trying to dismiss the issues by just saying "trust the jury".

We all know juries can oftentimes be very wrong, or be willing to interpret the laws in ways the laws should not be interpreted. The prosecutor just tries to paint the accused as a bad person, and the jury is willing to convict them of whatever criminal statutes could conceivably apply.
It seems to me a lot of the reasons here were for things that were not actually illegal (or clearly illegal).

I guess I can't, but then by that logic, the public can't really know whether what happened in any criminal case was fair.
Government could pretty much do whatever they want, put whoever they want in prison, and we wouldn't know if it was wrong or if there was a problem.

It is true that the media is often very terrible about giving all the important details we need to know in criminal cases.

 

Well, you've not established any issues yet, you've just expressed an opinion (which you're entitled to of course). And while I'm not saying we should blindly trust judges or juries, if you're going to accuse them of making a wrong or bad decision, I think you should be able to explain what that mistake was in the context of the evidence, rules and laws they were working within, rather than exclusively based on a layman's reading of brief tabloid reporting.

Everything someone did (or is reported to have done) doesn't need to be illegal for someone to be convicted of a crime. What is required is for at least one of the things they did to meet the definition of the crimes they've been charged with. Do you even know what specific offences this defendant was actually charged with and convicted of (I didn't from your OP and had to look it up)?

Well we can if we want. Most of the evidence and reports relating to a criminal case will be in the public domain once it has concluded (with some reasonable exceptions, to protect victims or children and the like) so it is perfectly possible for a private citizen to fully investigate a case. And that happens, with people looking in to old cases where they believe a miscarriage of justice has occurred, sometimes ending up with them to bringing something to the fore that ultimately leads to a case being formally reviewed and even convictions being reversed. That is essentially part of the system working, albeit in the context of the imperfect world we live in.

 

Give him US citizenship when he gets out lol

 

related thread: UK gun owner loses licenses because of internet presence (posted May 2, 2019 )

 

I think they should sentence him to go to gunsmithing school because everyone knows you don't use aluminum for a barrel.

 

In many parts of the United States (especially if we went back in time to the 1980s), everything this young man did would have been seen as acceptable, and nothing would have been seen as that out of the ordinary.

I mean obviously there's nothing so "unusual" about making a crude poorly functioning homemade single-shot gun or trying to make gun powder when half the surrounding homes in the neighborhood have guns and gun powder.

But now we see what a slippery slope the concept of gun control is. In a society like the UK where guns have been practically illegal for a few decades, it's now commonly seen as "very worrying" if anyone has a gun, and such a person is immediately suspected of being a possible terrorist or murderer (views like that have become very prevalent).

It's not just the UK; several US states are beginning to become like this, with that sort of mentality.

This is something I want conservatives to realize:
Just like in astronomy, looking at distant stars through a telescope, if you want to see the future, you need to look at what's happening in other places.

 

I've not heard 'boogaloo' used in reference to 'race war.' I thought it was just accelerationists who want what they percieve as an innevitable civil war to just happen already so we can get it over with (or so they can live out some movie fantasy they've developed...).

But ya, its an excessive sentence, but then again any interest in weaponry is basically 'terrorism' in the UK unless you have friends in the govt. I used to have several editions of the anarchists cookbook. Most of the stuff in there is more likely to get you killed than it is to help you kill anyone... I always kinda thought it was prolly put out by feds to help domestic terrorists blow themselves up...

 

Even supposing that he were guilty of breaking the law, do people think it's just fine to give him EXTRA punishment for his writings and personal opinions?
(however controversial they might be)

But then again, authorities in the UK don't have a very high opinion of the right to free speech. There have already been several instances of people being arrested, for typing things that were perceived as "offensive".

I know judges are supposed to consider multiple factors in sentencing, but this seems like it could be another case of a court using one crime as an excuse to be able to punish the defendant for something else.

 

It’s illegal in the USA as well.

I have no problem with laws protecting its citizens from people like this.

You weren’t in the court room, nor were you part of the investigation, so really you don’t know anything.

 

Not to get sidetracked but it's actually more complicated than this. Black powder and propellants for guns are partially exempted from this (although the wording of the law is kind of vague and not altogether the most clear).
In some ways the law is also rather unclear, or could be interpreted different ways, on whether the federal law intends to, or has the Constitutional right to, regulate anything that does not involve sales and commerce, especially commerce going outside of an individual state.
Of course, that will not necessarily stop a prosecutor from trying to interpret the law however they want, and justice is not always guaranteed in the court system.
The legal terminology "manufacture" is redefined in another subsection for some of the related statutes but not others, specifying that it refers to commerce. In contrast, the National Firearms Act makes an effort to stay in Constitutional bounds by treating it as a "tax" when it criminalizes possession of certain kinds of guns, which does not appear to be the situation here.
To attempt to discuss this would be a long legal discussion.

 

But let me point out that he did not actually do anything wrong, apart from the fact that one or some of those things may have been a violation of criminal laws.

Are you fine with sentencing people to prison even though they did not do anything wrong?
Or sentencing people to a long time in prison even though the actual crimes they committed were not that bad?

I would almost question what right do we, as a society, have the right to interfere in a situation like this. Do you think we have a right to put people in prison who we think might be a threat?
That does seem kind of unjust and a slippery slope for civil liberties (not that most people even have any idea what civil liberties are these days).

And it's not hard to foresee that ordinary gun owners could be next on the chopping block, in the near future.

 

That's true of course; it is possible that there might be some critical bit of information I am not aware of. However, it is also likely I am not missing any information, because you read the evidence in the article and you APPROVE of this. That seems to suggest there didn't need to be anything else for them to decide to hand down this 8.5 year prison sentence.

Would you argue that we cannot discuss or criticize any cases of justice because we might simply not know all the facts?
I mean, I kind of question what's the point of a political forum, or even democracy, if that's the case?
Aren't we talking about political issues, and doesn't that include decisions in individual criminal justice cases?

If there are controversial things going on in the courts, important issues of justice (which individual specific cases may illustrate), should society not have a discussion about that?

I suspect the reason you would just prefer us to avert our gaze from this case is that you personally APPROVE of how the court handled this situation, and don't feel very sympathetic towards this man.

 

It will become illegal in the U.S. if the Democrats manage to get their so-called "ban on ghost guns" (dishonest misleading name) passed.

Which I concede could be not that far away in the future, maybe only a couple of years.


(Also, readers should keep in mind that many individual states have laws requiring registered serial numbers on all guns, a little bit of another discussion)

But, this thread is a discussion about the UK, so let's not get too sidetracked with a discussion about American laws.

 

have no issue with this, the law is the law, I mean wear do you think this was headed?

 

It's more complicated than that.
The way many of these laws are worded gives the judge a huge amount of discretionary power in deciding the sentence.
So a defendant who breaks one particular law could easily be sentenced to much longer than is obviously appropriate for that situation.
When it comes to weapons laws, many of them have very high maximum possible prison sentences (like for example 20 years, which can easily double if the prosecution charges with 2 counts). The laws really are not written to cover a very specific type of situation, or differentiate between the least bad and worst type of situations.
To phrase it one way, the laws are not always going to be inherently fair, when used. It takes the wisdom of a judge to make the right decisions, which does not always happen.

I also think that (UK) explosives law may have been misused in this case. It seems to me all the young man was making was black powder and smoke bombs (more the category of ordinary fireworks). It's absurd that they would charge and convict him of "explosives" for that.
(That would mean every gun owner in the UK has and buys "explosives")

 

Ya, that used to be bad. Seems more and more people are becoming OK with using the justice system to 'make examples' of people that they dont like.

 

A propellant such as smokeless gun powder is not an explosive. The difference is a propellant burns and an explosive detonates. It's a matter of velocity.

 

The judge was also from a Middle Eastern or Muslim background and the defendant had shared some "racist" or "Right wing" things on the internet (which one can presume were targeted against England's Muslim migrant population), which the prosecutor actually focused on in court (and the judge even cited in his opinion). So I think clearly there was some bias.

That's the problem with vague laws, isn't it? It might not have actually been clearly illegal according to any of the laws he was actually convicted of, but it still appears to have been used as "evidence" against him. The jury and judge don't have to give any actual specific reasoning or explanation for exactly what those "articles useful for terrorism" actually were.
It's a routine tactic for prosecutors to try to throw as many criminal charges as they think they can and hope some of them stick.

 

Actually gun powder is a 'low explosive'. TNT and plastique would be examples of 'high explosives'. IIRC, the technical difference is that low explosives detonate slower than the speed of sound (though I dont think the pressure wave of a low explosive is necessarily similarly limited, only the speed of ignition).

I've also heard that the difference is between whether the energy is stored as a fuel and oxider or whether the energy is stored in a single type of molecule, but ANFO is in the 'high explosive' category, so would break that rule...

 

It is a violation of criminal law in the UK to make/possess explosives with the intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property. He would probably have been fine if he had kept his big threatening mouth shut on the internet and not posted pictures of the results of making explosives in ones kitchen.

So, he was sentenced for doing something wrong according to UK law.

You do understand that preventing terrorist attacks works the best by catching the attackers prior to their attacks. If somebody is uttering racist slurs on the internet, threatening to kill people, and making gun powder in their kitchen, the law in the UK will not sit there and do nothing.

Every single case in a court of law is different and the Judge and jury applied the evidence to the sentence he got. You weren’t there. You don’t have all the details. He obviously isn’t insane or he would have been locked up in psychiatric hospital. You are not the judge nor the jury and your opinion matters little.

Your last comment is stupid.

 

Why don’t we have a discussion about people making up stuff about what other members are thinking even though they don’t actually know.