Neo-Nazi guilty of terror offences after making explosives in aunt’s kitchen
A self-described “dangerous lunatic” and white supremacist from Walsall was found guilty of various terrorism offences after blowing up his family’s kitchen whilst making gunpowder.
Vaughn Dolphin, then 19, had caused a fireball in his aunt’s kitchen as police uncovered a weapons factory in the family shed – including an improvised musket and bomb-making chemicals in a fridge in his bedroom.
Dolphin had downloaded bomb-making materials onto a USB stick inside a folder named “Boogaloo” – a broad anti-government extremist movement that seeks to propel the United States towards civil war, which has white supremacist and non-white supremacist elements to the movements online and offline.
Police also found homemade body armour adorned in Nazi iconography.
The BBC reported that he possessed guides on building a shotgun, how to carry out arson attacks, and building homemade explosives.
Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Payne, head of Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands CTU, said in a video statement: “We became aware that he was trying to acquire or had acquired explosive materials or weapons. So, within forty-eight hours, we had from acquiring the information, we went through his front door”.
In court, it emerged that Dolphin spent an obsessive amount of time in white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups online, including the Telegram channels Pol/4chan, Hitler Group, and the Segregation Wagon.
On June 14 last year, Vaughn Dolphin uploaded footage of the kitchen fire to the Segregation Wagon channel, commenting, “That was a bad f****** idea, it was so bad the f****** carbon monoxide meter went off. I started choking, so I had to put this on. Oh my gosh,” Sky News reported.
Other online comments included Dolphin expressing a desire to sell weapons to The Base – a violent, neo-Nazi paramilitary group in the United States. In 2021, neo-Nazi accelerationist groups like the infamous Attomwaffen Division (and affiliates) made the proscribed terror list in the UK.
Dolphin, now 20, joins a growing list of those convicted of far-right terrorism offences in the UK who took inspiration from or glorified the anti-Muslim terror attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claimed the lives of 51 Muslims in March 2019.
The court heard how Dolphin had downloaded the Christchurch terror attacks, commenting online, “Shame it doesn’t have the music,” The Times newspaper reported.
Counter-terror police disclosed that Dolphin had downloaded the Christchurch terrorist’s screed and other manifestos from similar terror attacks in the United States.
The jury found Dolphin guilty of various terrorism offences – including six counts that concerned the possession and distribution of terrorist manuals, two further charges of disseminating a terrorist publication, a charge of “being reckless” as to whether or terrorist activity would be encouraged and possession of a firearm.
Dolphin, now aged 20, was found guilty of six counts of possessing articles useful for terrorism, two counts of disseminating terrorist material and two of possessing explosive substances and one charge of possessing a firearm.
In a further written statement, Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Payne, head of Counter Terrorism Policing West Midlands CTU, stated: “Dolphin had claimed he had an interest in chemicals and military memorabilia however he combined a toxic extremist mindset, sharing right wing material online with the real-world acquisition of explosive material and homemade weapons.
“His mindset is one of a dangerous individual equipping themselves to harm others who did not look like him or who he disagreed with.
“Extremists use this kind of ideology to create discord, distrust and fear among our communities, our work to target dangerous individuals continues.”
Sentencing will occur on May 11.
The post Neo-Nazi guilty of terror offences after making explosives in aunt’s kitchen appeared first on TELL MAMA.
Categories: Christchurch, Far Right groups, Neo-Nazi, News, terrorism, Walsall, West Midlands Police