An autistic teenager whose Islamic State fixation was previously “fed” by undercover police has been freed after pleading guilty to sharing violent extremist material and threatening a Melbourne synagogue.
The 18-year-old, given the pseudonym Thomas Carrick in court, was first charged with terrorism offences in 2021, but the case was thrown out after a magistrate found the Australian Federal Police (AFP) had “encouraged” his radicalisation.
However, four separate charges were laid in May last year against the boy, whose name is suppressed by law as he was a child at the time.
He pleaded guilty last month to threatening to use violence against the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, and publishing violent extremist material using a carriage service.
At a Children’s Court on Thursday, he was sentenced to a strict 12-month supervision order. The prosecution and defence agreed he should be released after already spending 357 days in custody.
Magistrate Julie O’Donnell said the 18-year-old had complicated disabilities and psychologists believed he had engaged in “attention-seeking communication” rather than settled threats of violence.
The magistrate considered the “improper behaviour of law enforcement” in his earlier case had “left a marked effect” on him, but said his recent offending was serious.
She worried that “at times, he is still exhibiting fixated behaviour in custody” but said he had “pro-social parents who have shown they will do everything in their power” to help their son.
Outside court, the boy’s parents said he would not have committed the offences if not for the earlier covert operation that fed his Islamic State fixation.
“If they had genuinely helped us, we wouldn’t be here today,” they said.
The ABC first reported on Thursday that the boy’s parents would launch Federal Court action against the AFP, alleging they discriminated against their son because of his age and disability in the previous covert operation that encouraged his radicalisation.
A covert agent messaged the socially isolated autistic teenager online for 55 days as part of Operation Bourglinster, despite his parents going to police for help less than four months earlier.
Magistrate Lesley Fleming, in a hearing in 2023, said rehabilitation was doomed once a covert operative befriended the boy online to collect intelligence, “providing him with a new terminology, new boundaries and an outlet for him to express, what was in part, his fantasy world”.
His parents called for an independent review of counterterrorism measures and de-radicalisation programs.
“It’s a wake-up call for the community,” they said. “Let’s learn from this trauma.”
Magistrate O’Donnell, meanwhile, said she ordered “the highest supervisory order that the court can impose” for the boy’s offending last year, and included a requirement for him to not access the internet unless supervised.
He was also banned from going within 200 metres of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation or contacting the synagogue. He also cannot access a mobile phone between 10pm and 8am.
The boy must now attend weekly appointments with a forensic psychologist and return to court for judicial monitoring fortnightly.
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Lachlan Abbott is a crime reporter at The Age. Previously, he was a city reporter and covered breaking news.Connect via email.
