UK man jailed after sharing Christchurch mosque attack videos

Man, 38, ran far-right chat groups on Telegram app

Michael Nugent admitted 16 terrorism charges after running far-right groups on messaging app Telegram. Metropolitan Police

A British man on Wednesday was jailed for terrorism offences after sharing explosives manuals and extremist videos, including one of the New Zealand mosque massacres, on right-wing chat groups.

Michael Nugent, 38, of Surrey in southern England, used different identities to run the groups on the Telegram app, to express his "hatred of ethnic minorities" and to share "terrorist-related documents with others", police said.

A judge at Kingston Crown Court in south-west London jailed him for three and a half years.

"Nugent freely shared his abhorrent extremist views with others over a messaging app, and he passed on manuals detailing how to produce deadly weapons and explosive devices," Metropolitan Police Commander Richard Smith said.

He also shared film of the attack in Christchurch on the first anniversary of the atrocity in March last year, and posted the manifesto of the attacker, Australian Brenton Tarrant.

Nugent was arrested on August 19, 2020, and initially charged with 12 Terrorism Act offences. Six charges were later added.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of dissemination of terrorist publications, and 11 counts of possession of a document containing information likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism.