A man who bought a gun from the US on the dark web and searched the internet for the Dunblane massacre has been jailed for five years.
James Maxwell, 28, from Leven, Fife, also ordered ammunition and researched when schools broke up for the Christmas holidays.
He appeared by video link from HMP Perth for sentencing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Thursday following an earlier hearing at which he admitted six charges, including being in possession of images of child sex abuse.
Judge Lord Ericht handed Maxwell a nine-year extended sentence, comprising five years in prison and a further four years when he will be monitored, telling him: “You are a grave risk to public safety.”
Last month Maxwell pleaded guilty to purchasing and attempting to acquire a prohibited weapon without permission or without a firearms certificate between December 1, 2022 and January 11, 2023, to buying and attempting to acquire ammunition, and to attempting to import a firearm and bullets without permission.
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He also admitted possessing child sex abuse images between April 22, 2022 and January 11, 2023 as well as possessing images of bestiality.
The earlier hearing was told hsearches on his laptop included “Dunblane school massacre” and “when do schools break up for Christmas 2022”. In March 1996, Thomas Hamilton, 43, entered Dunblane primary school near Stirling and shot dead 16 children and a teacher before killing himself.
A post shared by Maxwell on Facebook in December 2022 read: “I am the combination of anger and patience. Don’t test my patience otherwise you will get answer [sic] from my anger.”
Another, from around the same time, read: “It’s such a powerful feeling when you finally realise you don’t need anyone else by yourself to survive.”
He also wrote that he was “buying rural land in 2023”.
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Ericht told the court the ammunition Maxwell had ordered would cause “greater injury” than standard-use ammunition and it had not been lawfully acquired in the UK.
He added: “You purchased them on the dark web, you bought them from the USA and you paid for them with cryptocurrency.”
The court was told that the firearms were intercepted before they arrived at Maxwell’s address and he was subsequently arrested.
Ericht added: “One hundred rounds of that kind of ammunition used would have been unimaginable. You are a grave risk to public safety.”
Concluding, the judge said: “I commend both the USA law officers and Police Scotland for their actions in ensuring the gun and ammunition were not received by you.”
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Maxwell will also be placed on the sex offenders register for seven years.
His lawyer, Jonathan Crowe, told the court in mitigation that Maxwell had a “troubled upbringing” and left secondary school aged 13 following his father’s suicide.
He subsequently failed to return to any kind of education or employment, and Crowe told the court that Maxwell never received any support to do so.
Crowe said: “He spent time in his room playing games and watching DVDs and his life has followed the same pattern ever since.”
A psychiatric assessment found that Maxwell described himself as “suicidal for many years”, Crowe said.
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It also said he had no contact with the outside world and “lived online for many years”.
As a result, the psychiatric report said, Maxwell developed “Americanised” values, common among those who spend time online, particularly around guns, which made his behaviour seem “odd” when compared to the norms of British society.
Crowe told the court Maxwell was unaware of the severity of what he had done or that gun ownership in the UK was unusual or unlawful.
He called for leniency in sentencing, saying: “Locking Mr Maxwell in a prison cell is going to do little for him given the circumstances.”
