'Columbine plot' youths cleared; Decision to prosecute pair under fire.

Byline: PAT HURST 

POLICE and prosecutors were strongly criticised yesterday for pursuing the case against two teenagers who were cleared of plotting a Columbine-style massacre at their own school.

A jury took just 45 minutes to clear Matthew Swift, 18, and Ross McKnight, 16, of planning to murder teachers and pupils at Audenshaw High School in Greater Manchester.

Following the verdicts, the barrister who defended one of the youngsters said it was an "unnecessary, heavy-handed prosecution" and an expensive waste of public money.

McKnight's father Ray, a serving police officer, said both his son and Swift had gone through "purgatory" and "absolute agony" after spending six months remanded in custody.

The prosecution claimed the best friends from Denton, Greater Manchester, were obsessed with Columbine killers Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, who murdered 12 students and a teacher and then killed themselves at their high school in Colorado in 1999.

It was alleged Swift and McKnight had planned a similar rampage which they named Project Rainbow and agreed to commit mass murder on the 10th anniverary of Columbine on April 20 this year. They were also said to have planned to plant a diversionary bomb at the Crown Point North shopping centre in Denton.

Much of the case heard at Manchester Crown Court was based on diaries kept by the pair which were full of hate-filled rants against the school and society.

The defence argued that the diary entries were merely the teenage scribblings of two youngsters with over-active imaginations.

No explosives or firearms were discovered following their arrest in March when police were tipped off that McKnight made a drunken phone call to a female friend in which he boasted about carrying out Project Rainbow.

The police were so convinced the pair were scheming to re-enact Columbine that they decided to fly two detectives to Colorado ahead of the trial to question the homicide department which investigated the killings.

The Columbine lead investigator, Kate Battan, was then flown over to Manchester and was mooted as a possible prosecution witness but she was never called to give evidence.

Unusually, outside court, the entire jury of seven women and five men waited for the defendants to leave the building as they waved to and smiled at Roderick Carus QC, who had successfully defended McKnight.

Mr Carus launched a scathing broadside against the Crown Prosecution Service for bringing what he termed such a "weak case" to the criminal courts.

He said: "Why could they not take them to one side, slap them on the wrists and say 'Don't be silly boys, now go off and enjoy your careers in the Army'? John Lord, reviewing lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service, defended the decision to prosecute the teenagers.

He said: "Our judicial system is designed to test fully those cases that are placed before it.

"The case brought against Matthew Swift and Ross McKnight was, we believe, one that was as equally strong as serious.

"As such we felt it was in the public interest to ensure that the charges against the defendants were given the full scrutiny of a jury."

Both teenagers denied conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property between November 2007 and March 15 this year.

CAPTION(S):

Mark Swift, left, and Ross McKnight cleared of plotting to attack Audenshaw High School in Greater Manchester, above