TWO teenagers are due to be sentenced this morning, after being convicted of plotting a Columbine-inspired attack on their school in Northallerton.

The 15-year-olds, who were 14 at the time of the offences, were found guilty in May this year of conspiring to murder students and teachers at their North Yorkshire school.

The boys and the school cannot be named for legal reasons.

During the three-week trial, the jury heard how they “hero-worshipped” the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine massacre - which resulted in 12 students and a teacher being murdered - and had planned to carry out an atrocity at their own school in Northallerton.

They had spent months researching information on explosives and incendiary devices. Items which prosecutors suggested could have been used to create an explosive device were found in a hide-out in Catterick Garrison used by the older boy.

The same boy was also found to have kept a diary which contained disturbing entries relating to far-right ideology and descriptions of how he intended to carry out a mass killing.

He was also convicted of unlawful wounding, after carving his name into a girl’s back.

After the verdict, Detective Superintendent Martin Snowden, head of the North East Counter Terrorism Unit, said both boys had demonstrated a “very real interest in violence” and had “gone beyond the fantasy and had begun to take very real steps towards making it a reality.”

The sentencing is due to begin at Leeds Crown Court later this morning (Friday, July 20).