Six years for trans teenager who was 'on brink' of plotting copycat Columbine massacre

A TRANSGENDER teenager who was obsessed with perpetrating a mass school shooting has been locked up for six years.

- By Grant McCabe

Felix Winter, who is biologically female, had been radicalised by spending more than 1,000 hours in contact with an extremist pro-Nazi online group.

He idolised the killers in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, USA, which left 12 students and a teacher dead.

Winter had repeatedly spoken about doing the same at his own Edinburgh secondary.

He described it as “Doomsday” when he would “clear it out”.

However, he was arrested after a police probe in the summer of 2023.

This came after a social media photo of him at school in full combat gear and carrying an imitation gun caused panic among pupils and parents.

Earlier this year, Winter pleaded guilty at the High Court in Glasgow to a breach of the peace and a charge under the Terrorism Act. Yesterday, the now 18-year-old appeared at the same court to be sentenced.

'He wrote school was a virus upon earth'

Winter’s lawyer had urged the judge, Lord Paul Arthurson to consider an alternative to custody.