Man who killed family and planned school massacre is jailed for 49 years

Gun controls are likely to be tightened after a teenager who bought a shotgun by forging a firearms licence was jailed for life for murdering his family and planning a school massacre.

- Sammy Gecsoyler

The full details of Nicholas Prosper's failed plot to storm a morning assembly at his old school and kill 30 children in an attempt to become the worst mass murderer in British history were made public this week.

Also revealed were details of his disturbing online history and fixation with mass killings - which included an obsession with the Sandy Hook and Columbine school killings in the US - as well as his interest in extreme pornography and paedophilia.

Yesterday he was sentenced to a minimum term of 49 years in prison.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, called the murders "a horrendous and cowardly attack of unthinkable brutality" and said the government would look at tightening private firearms sales.

Prosper, 19, shot dead his mother, Juliana Falcon, 48, and two younger siblings, Kyle, 16, and Giselle, 13, at their home in Luton last September using a double-barred shotgun he had purchased the day before from a private online seller.

He bought the gun and 100 cartridges for £650 after creating a "meticulously forged" firearms certificate. After murdering his family, he fled the house with a bag carrying the gun and 33 cartridges. He was arrested two hours later.

The number of cartridges in his possession matched his intended death toll at St Joseph's Catholic primary school in Luton, where he was once a pupil. He had planned to shoot dead 30 four-year-olds, two teachers and himself. Prosper said he wanted to outdo the death toll of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, the deadliest school shooting in the US, in which 33 died including the perpetrator.