Prosecution: UK teen accused of Columbine-inspired plot wanted to buy chemicals for explosives

Trial told UK teen sought explosives for massacre

LONDON — A teenager accused of plotting a Columbine-inspired school massacre tried to obtain an ingredient for a homemade bomb, a witness told the teen’s trial Thursday.

Phillipa Knowles told jurors at Manchester Crown Court that Matthew Swift, 18, had asked her to buy him hydrogen peroxide, a common household chemical. Knowles, a classmate, said Swift said he wanted it to make explosives.

She said Swift told her he had discussed bomb-making over the Internet and had made an explosive device.

Prosecutors say Swift and 16-year-old Ross McKnight planned to bomb a shopping center before killing teachers and students at their school in Manchester, in northwest England, on the 10th anniversary of the April 1999 Columbine massacre.

They say the pair dubbed the plot “Project Rainbow” and boasted it would be “the greatest massacre ever.”

The defense denies the charges. It has not yet argued its case.

Knowles also said that when their class was shown a film about the Columbine shootings, Swift seemed to sympathize with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher at their Colorado high school before committing suicide.

“I got quite upset. I came out, I was crying. I was getting upset about the victims, Matthew just said (what) about the gunmen as well, about what they must have been going through,” she said.

Another witness, 18-year-old Adam Cooper, said Swift had once asked him to buy a “substance” for him on the Internet. Cooper said he could not remember exactly what it was, but that it was “something like” sulfuric acid.