Two conspiracy theorists who dubbed themselves “Bonnie and Clyde with a box of matches” have been found guilty of planning to destroy 5G phone masts and encouraging attacks on MPs.
Christine Grayson, 59, a grandmother from York, and Darren Reynolds, 60, a grandfather from Sheffield, believed 5G phone masts were designed to be used as a weapon against members of the public who had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Grayson had bought two crossbows and Reynolds sought to reactivate replica assault rifles as they prepared for what they believed was the imminent collapse of society.
Reynolds, an electrician who lived alone in Sheffield and had a 28-year-old daughter and a grandchild, was found guilty of encouraging terrorism by calling for attacks on MPs.
Grayson, a divorced mother-of-two, was found guilty of conspiracy to cause criminal damage by planning to destroy 5G masts between May and June last year.
She had taken to visiting chatrooms on the encrypted Telegram app during lockdown where she heard arguments that the world was flat and discussions flourished about vaccines.
Her two sons told her to “stop listening to other people, stay away from idiots, just don’t listen”, she told the court.
Grayson began by collecting signatures to try and get a 5G mast near her home removed and filmed herself handing in “paperwork” at her local police station, demanding that they prosecute MPs over COVID vaccines.
Reynolds, who ran an online Telegram group called Constitutional Common Law England, told the court he had stopped watching TV and became interested in conspiracy theories after the 9/11 attacks.
He exchanged racist messages on Telegram, claiming Jews were behind mass immigration, calling for their “annihilation”, and saying that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove should be “eliminated”.
On 10 June 2021, Grayson told a Telegram user: “We can maybe get rid of the 5G towers, come up with summit together, keep it between ourselves, we can cause some f**kery.”
She described a friend as doing “all-sorts for the resistance” and went on to discuss various means by which 5G masts could be destroyed, including expanding foam, a substance called thermite, and angle grinders.
Grayson discussed the destruction of 5G masts with another Telegram user, saying she needed a “sabotage team”.
On 20 June, Grayson asked Reynolds “can we do something like we said?” before adding, “blow summit up”, and Reynolds responded by asking: “You feeling like you need to set something ablaze?”
The pair held racist, antisemitic and anti-authoritarian views which they expressed in extreme terms with discussions about potential armed uprisings and attacks on MPs.
They regularly called for members of parliament to be hanged for what they termed “treasonous behaviour” linked to their vaccination policy.
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Reynolds described Sir David Amess as a “traitor” the day after his killing and supported Thomas Mair’s “execution” of Jo Cox because of her “treason”.
In a 19 July 2021 post on his Telegram group, he wrote: “Protesting never solved anything. The only thing that will work is the forced removal of all traitorous, paedophilic, deceitful, lying filth from government, civil, political and judicial establishments.”
Three days later he posted: “How long are we going to wait before we take these f**kers down? I cannot wait to see these creatures hang, every single one of the 650 or so MPs must be brought to book and hanged!!!”
In a discussion between Reynolds and Grayson on 13 May last year on Telegram, he said that they could be “the first male-female arson team”, and Grayson responded, “Bonny and Clyde [sic] with a box of matches” adding later: “Think we need a group for fire balling 5G.”
Two days later, the defendants again discussed the potential for disabling 5G towers, when Reynolds said: “All we’ll be doing is knocking out enemy weapons arrays, which isn’t illegal.”
Grayson replied: “Perfect I’m in for going and doing it, cause some havok.” Reynolds said that he had ordered a cordless angle grinder, in order to cut down the ones which could not be burned safely.
Tom Storey, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court: “It is clear from their discussions that their publicly expressed views crossed the line from merely voicing strongly held political opinions, to overtly advocating the use of violence towards those who they regarded as traitors and, in particular, members of parliament.”
When their homes were searched on 22 August last year, police found Grayson had a crossbow and a number of crossbow bolts and Reynolds had an M16 and an AK-47 replica assault rifle.
He had asked a gunsmith online what would need to be done to reactivate such firearms and had also ordered, from a business in Harrogate, a self-loading automatic crossbow which was delivered to a neighbour. He also had army surplus clothing, combat gear, camouflage wrap and two rifle shoulder straps.
Reynolds also published links to repositories of far-right literature. Books included works by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the SS chief Heinrich Himmler.
There was also the manifesto written by Anders Breivik, who was responsible for murdering some 70 young people at a left-wing summer camp in Norway in 2011, and The Great Replacement by Brenton Tarrant, who was responsible for the murder of 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
Documents in his possession included “How to become an assassin” and the “50 calibre construction manual”.
He told police he believed “we are being replaced by the dark races” and the Jews were behind a plan to bring about the “extinction of the white race”.
He claimed anything he said about weapons was from a “purely defensive standpoint” and messages referring to “doing some MP burning” was “just talking, a bit of banter”.
Reynolds was also found guilty of six counts of possession of material useful for terrorism and one count of disseminating such material.
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Following her arrest, Grayson denied sharing Reynolds’s extreme ideologies and being a racist.
She said Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, was “not even English, he is Turkish, Jewish”, and that there should be “English people” running the country.
The pair will be sentenced next week.
Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, head of Counter-Terrorism Policing North East, said: “Hateful views aim to sow discord and distrust in our communities, and one post or video has the power to radicalise and encourage others to commit acts of terrorism.”
