An Australian teenager who plotted to behead a policeman during ANZAC Day commemorations in Melbourne last year has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Sevdet Ramadan Besim, 19, was stopped after UK police found phone messages between him and a 15-year-old British boy.

In court documents, prosecutors said they had also discussed attaching explosives to a kangaroo and painting it with the Islamic State symbol before leaving it near police officer in what appears to have been a separate plot.

The ANZAC Day plot was apparently focused on services in Melbourne or the suburb of Dandenong.

Victoria Supreme Court Justice Michael Croucher said Besim's guilty plea was a major factor in his decision not to impose a longer sentence.


He faced a maximum possible term of life after admitting one count of planning for a terrorist act.

Image: ANZAC Day is commemorated across Australia. Pic: File

Justice Croucher also took the young man's age into account.

"I accept that Mr Besim's youth and immaturity are significant mitigating factors," he said.

"He was just 18 at the time of the offending and is now only 19."

Nevertheless, he described Besim's plans as "evil" and "terrifying".

"He had a knife, he had a car, he had a jihad flag, he had the encouragement of S (the British boy), and a mind corrupted by lunatic clerics," he added.

"That was all he needed to commit this atrocity, and he was prepared to die trying."

Justice Croucher said Besim wanted to travel to the Middle East and join the so-called Islamic State, but he was refused a passport.

After an associate, Numan Haider, was killed after stabbing two police officers in 2014, Besim decided "that he must take up the fight here in Melbourne".

A 15-year-old boy from Blackburn received a life sentence last October for his role in the plot.

ANZAC Day is an annual commemoration marking the 1915 Gallipoli landings in Turkey.