Matt Jukes said young people, mainly boys in their early teens, are self-radicalising via the internet and then evolving into planning terrorist attacks.
"We're talking about boys aged, predominantly, 14, 15," Jukes told reporters."
"This is an age group that is significantly younger than what we've seen in the past."
British police have warned for some time about the rise of far-right extremism, but Jukes said those involved are increasingly young. In 2021, of 186 terrorism arrests, 40 percent were related to alleged far-right terrorism. Of the 20 children arrested, 19 were associated with far-right ideologies.
Last February, a boy who led a neo-Nazi organization and committed his first crime at just 13 years old was convicted on terrorism-related charges, and last July, another 13-year-old was arrested and then confessed to possessing information useful to a terrorist.
Earlier this week, a 15-year-old was charged with terrorism offences.
Although Jukes said most of the offences involved distributing terrorist material online, others went on to plan attacks.
[BR][BR]"There is a picture here of young people spending a lot of time discussing and sharing and exchanging material online," he explained. "But we see some of them moving on to planning to carry out terrorist attacks."
Overall since 2017, when Britain faced five deadly attacks, Jukes says 32 plots have been foiled, including 18 linked to Islamist terrorism and 12 to far-right extremism.
Source: APM
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