Teens cleared of plotting ‘UK Columbine’ massacre

LONDON – Two teenagers were cleared yesterday of plotting a killing spree at their school in Manchester in a chilling imitation of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the United States.

Prosecutors said Matthew Swift, now 18, and his friend, Ross McKnight, 16, both from Denton, Greater Manchester, planned to plant a bomb in a shopping centre and then murder pupils and teachers at Audenshaw High School.But after deliberating for just 45 minutes, a jury at Manchester Crown Court cleared them of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life, the Press Association reported.Prosecutor Peter Wright told the court that the pair had become obsessed with Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who murdered 12 students and a teacher and then killed themselves at their high school in Colorado in 1999.Much of the case was based on journals and diaries they kept, full of hate-filled rants against society and the school, and plans for ‘Project Rainbow’, the name they had given to the alleged planned attack.But lawyers for the teenagers said the journals were merely the teenage scribblings of two youngsters with over-active imaginations.Swift told the jury his interest in Columbine was actually sparked by his school when pupils were shown the Michael Moore documentary about the rampage, ‘Bowling for Columbine’.He said his writings were ‘naive and pathetic ways to channel my teenage angst’.Jurors laughed as McKnight’s father, Ray, a serving police officer of nearly 20 years, told the court his son was full of ‘hare-brained’ schemes.- Nampa-Reuters