Steven Bishop, of Thornton Heath, south London,

A 'dangerous and unpredictable' right-wing extremist has admitted to planning a suicide bomb attack on a mosque in revenge for the death of the youngest victim in the Manchester Arena bombing.

Steven Bishop, of Thornton Heath, south London, was a supporter of Standing for Britain, a right-wing Pro-Brexit group that highlights crimes said to have been committed by Muslims.

The 41-year-old was said to have an 'obsession' with the Manchester terrorist attack in 2017 and the death of eight-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos.

Kingston upon Thames Crown Court heard he used Facebook and YouTube to view extremist material and then researched explosives and Morden Mosque, said to be his target, on the internet.

He had bought a remote firing system, stock-piled material for a detonator and looked up instructions on how to make home-made explosives.

Police arrested Bishop after he told his recovery worker that he was planning to build a bomb and blow up the mosque in a suicide mission.

Bishop appeared in trial, wearing a white collared shirt and shaven head, and pleaded guilty to possession of explosives substances with intent to endanger life.

Prosecutor Simon Drew told an earlier hearing that Bishop was a 'dangerous and unpredictable man who has a violent past', and had stolen from his mother in the past.

Mr Drew added: 'He has an obsession with the Manchester bombing and other bombings and his searches for Morden Mosque and a variety of other names indicates an anti-Islamic mindset and a wish to take indiscriminate action against Muslims.

On the first day of what was meant to be a two week trial at Kingston Crown Court, Bishop, wearing a white collared shirt and shaven head, pleaded guilty to possession of explosives substances with intent to endanger life.

Bishop was said to have an 'obsession' with the Manchester terrorist attack and the death of youngest Saffie Rose Roussos

The judge, Peter Lodder QC, said there was 'clearly a terrorist context' to the offence, but Tim Forte, defending argued there was no desire to change the government's position.

It can now be revealed that Bishop has a number of previous convictions including two racially aggravated offences and violence.

Bishop had purchased a VPN and TOR browser app for his phone on October 21 last year so that he could surf the dark web undetected.

He then searched on the blog section of the TOR website for the word 'bomb' and the following day searched online for the Manchester bombing and looked for 'Saffie Rose memorial.'

Bishop then looked up the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden, not far from his home, which the prosecution allege was the target for his attack.

He also searched for: 'Donald Trump speaks about Manchester Arena' followed by multiple searches around donating to the Saffie fund and Manchester Emergency Fund, before apparently making a donation.

Kingston Crown court heard he used Facebook and YouTube to view extremist material and then researched explosives and Morden Mosque, said to be his target, on the internet

In the early hours of the next day, Bishop looked up firework detonators and how to purchase them and made multiple searches about the Paris, London Bridge and Manchester attacks.

The same day, he used Facebook to send a message saying: 'Hi Eve, that's a emotional video god bless little Saffir to 8 yrs old because of this scum who people call terrorisism [sic] but ther not terrarist there arsehols tbhonest barstards don't worry something bad is going to happen soon mark my words.'

The YouTube video on which he was commenting was produced by Standing for Britain, said to be an emerging right-wing group and contained an anti-Islamic message.

He had been assigned a 'recovery worker' to help him get over drug and alcohol addiction and, on October 26 2018, Bishop started showing her a VPN app he had purchased which meant no one could trace his mobile phone.

He then showed her a Wikipedia page about how to make a bomb and told her he was going to build one and blow up a mosque in a suicide mission.

Bishop went on to tell her that he had purchased Semtex and a detonator on the dark web and showed her the receipts.

She called the police and when they arrived at Bishop's address, he confessed that he wanted to get revenge for an eight-year-old girl killed in the Manchester Arena attack.

He showed them his search history which included references to explosives on the dark web and Morden Mosque.

Police returned to search his address on October 29 and found three multi-shot 'cake' fireworks, two of which had been tampered with.

Bishop was arrested at his mother's home, his phone was seized and several pages of notes found in a drawer in his handwriting which included methods for making high explosives and using the dark web.

In a shed at the address, a suitcase was recovered which was found to contain a lightbulb, battery and firework fuse, for use as an improvised detonator.

A remote-controlled firework firing system was delivered to the defendant's address on October 31.

Experts examined the handwritten notes and found they include a viable recipe for thermite, a high explosive.

Pages six to nine included a list of materials and a viable method to make a more practical powdered high explosive and then plasticise it to make it like Semtex.

'The fireworks with a remote control and a couple of the ingredients from the suitcase could have formed a device which could have been detonated,' Mr Drew said.

Standing for Britain, in which Bishop was a member, has a Twitter page that reads: 'Concerned about the Islamisation of the UK? Join us online. Join us on the streets. Join us in Standing For Britain.'

The group has an active Twitter page that features Tweets by Nigel Farage and Gerard Batten - the leader of UKIP - and gives a justification for the New Zealand mosque attacks.

A YouTube page has videos featuring the fascist leader Oswald Moseley and the anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson.

In August 2014, Bishop was charged with grievously bodily harm and theft after an 83-year-old woman was left in hospital following a theft from a shop in Wimbledon.

Bishop pleaded guilty to possession of an explosive substance with intent to endanger life under section 3(1)(b) of the Explosive Substances Act 1883.

He had already pleaded guilty to collection of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism, contrary to section 58 (1) (a) of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Bishop will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on April 28.