A 19-YEAR-OLD hacker and former student has been convicted of plotting a large-scale massacre at the further education college from which he had been expelled.
Liam Lyburd, from Newcastle, was today found guilty of possessing weapons with intent to endanger life.
Last November, police were tipped off about a series of disturbing and alarming messages on Lyburd’s Facebook page.
After arriving at his mother’s home on 3 November 2014, officers discovered a ‘kill bag’ full of home-made explosives, pipe bombs, CS gas, hollow-point bullets, and a Glock handgun.
Later, a computer analyst was able to recover a note deleted from his computer, indicating he had planned to carry out the mass murder that day, ITV reports:
You people ruined my whole life, don’t expect me to show mercy today. No one disrespects me and gets away with it.
I’ll teach you people a little lesson on respect with my 9mm jacketed hollow points. Fantasy will become reality today for sure.
It’s time for extreme civil disobedience and yes, people will die, there’s no question about that.
Investigators also uncovered webcam photos of him posing with a Glock handgun.
In the autumn of 2012, the Guardian reports, he had been expelled from Newcastle College, a higher education and training institution.
He spent the next two years plotting to massacre students and staff there, and Newcastle Crown Court heard he had told police his arrest had “saved many lives”.
Lyburd was unemployed, but made money by extorting Bitcoins from internet users whose computers he had infected with viruses.
He ordered the weapons from illicit marketplaces on the dark web, after he had become increasingly isolated and reclusive.
According to local newspaper the Evening Chronicle, Lyburd frequented online forums, where he praised American school shooters, Norwegian mass murderer Anders Brevik, and told one acquaintance:
I’m going to die along with my friends in school. It’s so sad my life. I’m going to kill my mum and the kids in my school – it’s going to be amazing.
In one disturbing Facebook post two weeks before his arrest, Lyburd wrote:
I need to engage in homicidal behaviour on a massive scale.
The former student even sent a tweet to Newcastle College on the morning of 3 November, making sure the school would be open that day, because there was construction in progress at the time.
However, Lyburd and his lawyers had claimed during the trial that he was merely a fantasist who, despite purchasing bombs and other weapons, had no true intention of carrying out a massacre.
The jury rejected this claim today, however, and the 19-year-old is due to be sentenced in September, after the judge receives a psychiatric report.
BBC News reports that on hearing the verdict, Lyburd pointed his fingers at his own head, making the shape of a gun.
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