UK teen who praised Southport murderer jailed for possessing al-Qaeda manual
McKenzie Morgan praised the killer of three young girls at a Taylor Swift event, and threatened to bomb an Oasis show, was sentenced on Friday
A British teenager who praised the killer of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event and said he planned to bomb British rock band Oasis’ reunion concert was sentenced to detention on Friday for possession of an al-Qaeda manual.
McKenzie Morgan, 18, was arrested at his home in Wales after sending messages on the social media platform Snapchat in which he praised Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three girls and stabbed 10 others in July 2024, prosecutor Corinne Bramwell said.
Morgan told a psychiatric nurse on the morning of his arrest in June that he “planned to commit a Rudakubana-style terrorist attack” and had been researching how to stab people, Bramwell told Morgan’s sentencing hearing at London’s Old Bailey court.
The teenager twice tried to buy a 15cm (6-inch) kitchen knife from Amazon, searched online for local playgrounds and a youth dance academy and put the academy on a document on his mobile phone entitled “places to attack”, Bramwell added.
She said Morgan later told another Snapchat user that he planned to bomb the Oasis concert in Cardiff on July 4, 2025, the band’s first gig of their comeback tour, and claimed to have tried to make the deadly poison ricin.
He was arrested on June 2, and a 188-page al-Qaeda training manual was found on one of his electronic devices. Morgan pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of information likely to be of use to a person engaged in terrorism.