A Nazi sympathiser convicted of a terror offence has been ordered to read classical novels including Pride and Prejudice after being spared jail.
Judge Timothy Spencer QC told Ben John, 21, he could stay out of prison as long as he steered clear of white-supremacy materials and and read classic literature instead.
The judge suggested books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens as he told the student he had avoided jail "by the skin of his teeth."
The former De Montfort University student will have to return to court every four months to be tested on his reading by the judge after the sentencing, reports Lincolnshire Live.
John had first been identified as a terror risk days after his 18th birthday and was referred to the Prevent programme but carried on downloading "repellent" right-wing documents as well as a manual which contained bomb-making instructions.
He also read about the Nazis and wrote a letter raging against gay people, immigrants and liberals.
On August 11 this year, he was found guilty by a jury of possessing information likely to be useful for preparing an act of terror. The court heard the conviction had a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.
But Judge Spencer concluded his crime was likely to be "an act of teenage folly" and an isolated incident.
He told John at the sentencing hearing today: "You are a lonely individual with few if any true friends."
He added John was "highly susceptible" to recruitment by others more prone to action but said: "I am not of the view that harm was likely to have been caused."
He made John promise him not to research any more right-wing materials.
The judge asked John: "Do you promise me that?"
John replied: "I promise."
The judge then asked him: "Have you read Dickens? Austen? Start with Pride and Prejudice and Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
"Think about Hardy. Think about Trollope.
"On January 4 you will tell me what you have read and I will test you on it.
"I will test you and if I think you are [lying to] me you will suffer.
"I will be watching you, Ben John, every step of the way. If you let me down you know what will happen."
He then told John's barrister, Harry Bentley: "He has by the skin of his teeth avoided imprisonment."
John was given a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years plus a further year on licence, monitored by the probation service.
He was also given a five-year Serious Crime Prevention Order requiring him to stay in touch with the police and let them monitor his online activity and up to 30 days on a Healthy Identity Intervention programme.
Earlier in the sentencing hearing Ben Lloyd, prosecuting, told the court John had failed to respond to warnings in the past.
In January 2018 he had come to the attention of the authorities for his extreme views and had meetings with Prevent officers, which aims to de-radicalise young people at risk of extremism.
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But in May 2018 John, who is from Lincoln, wrote a letter to his school claiming to be part of "The Lincoln Fascist Underground", with a tirade against gay people and immigrants, which led to more intensive intervention by Prevent and psychiatric evaluation.
That did not stop him and in April 2019 he copied more than 9,000 right-wing and terror-related documents onto the hard drive of his computer, adding another 2,600 a few months later in August 2019.
Those documents were only discovered in January 2020 after John's student accommodation in Saxby Street, Highfields, Leicester, was raided by police.
They included seven documents that the judge described as being "many, many viable instructions on how to make devastating explosions".
Lincolnshire Police had to carry out a forensic examination of his hard drives because they had been wiped by John, of Addison Drive, Lincoln, a month before the raid.
The documents included "a worrying amount of right-wing literature and imagery".
Judge Spencer said: "It is repellent, this content, to any right-thinking person.
"This material is largely relating to Nazi, fascist and Adolf Hitler-inspired ideology.
"But there was also a substantial quantity of more contemporary material espousing extreme right-wing, white-supremacist material.
"You suggested at trial it was mere academic fascination - I reject that. My view is that to a significant degree you have aligned with these ideologies and to a significant degree have adopted the views expressed as your own."
The bomb-making literature was examined by British military experts at Porton Down near Salisbury and seven of the documents had accurate guides to making firearms, ammunition and explosive devices.
But Mr Bentley, representing John, argued that his client was "very young" and "not likely to cause harm".
He said that despite still having the documents on his computer throughout 2019 he had been "engaging well" with Prevent team officers at that time. Mr Bentley said the whole case again John was "really about not deleting items on a computer", which the judge described as an "over-simplification" of the case.
Mr Bentley said: "Violence is the necessary ingredient of terrorism. It is not the prosecution case he was planning a terrorist attack.
"He was fascinated by extreme right-wing views and shared those views himself.
"He was a young man who struggled with emotions, however he is plainly an intelligent young man and now has a greater insight.
"He is by no means a lost cause and is capable of living a normal, pro-social life."
At the end of the hearing, the judge commended all the officers who worked on the case.
Commenting on the sentence, Counter Terrorism Policing East Midlands Detective Inspector James Manning, who led the investigation, said: “This was a young man who could be anyone’s son, studying at university, and living one life in public, while conducting another in private.
“He possessed a wealth of National Socialist and anti-Semitic material which indicated a fascination and belief in a white supremacist ideology along with support for an extreme satanic group which is increasingly of concern for law enforcement agencies.
“The terrorist material he was found in possession of is extremely dangerous, and he acquired this to further his ideology.
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"It indicates the threat that he and other followers of this hateful ideology pose to national security.
"It was not light reading, or material most would concern themselves with for legitimate reasons. This has been a long and complex investigation over the course of 11 months.”
De Montfort University confirmed John was a criminology student when he was arrested but had been suspended with immediate effect on his arrest.