A machete attack on a LGBT pride event was thwarted after the alleged attacker told people about his plan on Facebook, a court has heard.

Ethan Stables, 20, had assembled a machete, knives, an axe, an air rifle and a ball bearing gun in preparation for an attack on the New Empire pub in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria on 23 June last year, prosecutors told Leeds crown court on Tuesday.

Stables was foiled after he told members of a Facebook group about his plot to attack the LGBT pride event last summer and a member phoned the police and posted a warning on Twitter.

The defendant was arrested close to the pub on the evening of the event on a final reconnaissance visit, planning to return later that night to carry out the attack, the jury heard.

Jonathan Sandiford, the prosecutor, said Stables was a “white supremacist and nazi – a supporter of Adolf Hitler, if you will” and “had a deep-seated hatred of black, Jewish, Muslim and especially gay people”.

He added: “Between 2016 and his arrest in 2017, he was planning and preparing to commit acts of terrorism directed towards members of these groups but, primarily, directed towards people who were lesbian or gay.”



The prosecutor told the jury of seven men and five women how Stables became enraged when he heard about the event at the New Empire pub.



Stables spent seven months researching firearms and explosives, and had begun to acquire material to build an improvised explosive device, the jury heard.



“His purpose in these acts of preparation was to launch a murderous attack on members of these communities. In particular, the prosecution suggest, people who were gay,” the prosector said.

Patrick Upward QC, who is defending Stables, told the jury that his client was not a white supremacist, but more a “white fantasist”.

Upward agreed the material outlined by the prosecution was an “awful, disgusting, vile series of posts”, but said the defendant had a long history of dealing with Asperger’s syndrome, had a favourite uncle who is openly gay and a black best friend.

The trial continues.