An escaped prisoner who was found with a nail bomb, two imitation firearms and a knife was planning to blow up a bank after watching a Netflix documentary.
Alan Murphy, 62, planned an attack on a HSBC bank in Blackpool after watching documentary Dirty Money: Cartel Bank, which reported alleged connections between the banking chain and the funding of terrorism and drug cartels.
He was jailed for 15 years at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday and given an extended licence period of five years after Judge Neil Flewitt KC ruled he was a dangerous offender the public required protection from.
Judge Flewitt said Murphy was “unlawfully at large” in November 2020, after absconding from prison. He was living in a camper van next to a soup kitchen in Blackpool.
When checked on by police later that same month, he gave a false name, but his real identity was revealed by his fingerprints.
Officers asked Murphy if he had a gun. He replied that he did, as well as an “improvised explosive device” in a rucksack.
A subsequent search of the accommodation revealed the explosive, which the prosecution described as a nail bomb, as well as a BB gun which had been painted black, a homemade shotgun and a kitchen knife.
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“At that point, you made the comment to one of the police officers that you were going to blow up a bank you had seen on a TV show,” Judge Flewitt said.
Murphy, who appeared by video link from HMP Preston, had pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing an imitation firearm in a public place, possession of a knife in a public place and having in his possession an explosive substance with intent to cause serious injury to property.
At an earlier trial at Preston Crown Court, he was acquitted of possessing the explosive with intent to endanger life.
The court heard Murphy had submitted a basis of plea in which he said he had been “outraged” at “nefarious activity” by HSBC after watching the documentary and intended to demonstrate his anger by damaging the Blackpool branch or the cars of employees in the car park, but did not want to hurt anyone.
He said he wanted his actions to “come to the attention of the media and be widely reported, causing widespread fear, damage to the reputation of HSBC bank and lead to a change in the policy of the bank”.
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But Judge Flewitt said during sentencing that if Murphy’s plan had gone ahead, it would have “put at risk the life of anyone who happened to be in or passing the car park when it exploded”.
The case was not being treated as terrorism because the offences were not in pursuit of an ideological cause, according to the prosecution.
