Sydney teen spared jail over Opera House terror plot, given three-year community order

A 16-year-old Sydney boy (identified only as RK, who cannot be named by law) was sentenced on Monday (November 9) by the NSW Supreme Court to a three-year community correction order, avoiding jail. He had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of preparing for a terrorist act and possessing violent extremist material.

Plotted to attack the marathon finish at 14

The court heard that in mid-2024, when he was just 14, he spent about five and a half weeks (June 30 to August 7, 2024) researching attack methods and targets, sought instructions for making a pressure-cooker bomb via Telegram, used ChatGPT to plan an attack, listed the Sydney Marathon finish line at the Sydney Opera House as a target, and tried to contact Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A phone seized on August 7, 2024 contained 41 violent extremist files.

Judge: no substantive steps taken

Justice Stephen Campbell found the boy was ambivalent about whether he would act (about “fifty-fifty”), had taken no substantive steps and had no bomb materials, and imposed a community correction order with conditions including a ban on using encrypted platforms. The case was investigated from mid-2024 by the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team (Australian Federal Police, NSW Police, ASIO and the NSW Crime Commission).