CCTV captures London student's chilling bombing attempt

  • 27/04/2017

Unsettling footage has emerged of the moment a 20-year-old student left a homemade ball bearing explosive on an underground train in London while on his way to university.

Damon Smith was heading into a lecture in October last year - but it was a different journey to most, as the 20-year-old had packed a bomb inside a backpack on a Jubilee Line carriage.

CCTV footage of the incident has recently come to light during a trial at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, in which Smith is charged with possessing an explosive substance with intent.

It shows him packing what appear to be batteries into his explosive device before jumping on the train. He is then seen exiting the carriage at London Bridge without the bag, before changing his clothes and heading to his university lecture.

Passengers alerted driver Adrian Clarke to the suspicious item, and assuming it was lost property, he took it into the driver's cabin with him. However he soon noticed wires protruding from the back of the bag and alerted authorities.

Mr Clarke's realisation came just minutes before the device was set to be detonated. Prosecutor John Rees said had no one noticed, the device would have exploded "while passengers were being ordered off the platform".

Smith, who has Asperger's syndrome, was found to have collected images of terrorists including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of the 2015 Paris attacks. It was also discovered he had printed an article produced by al-Qaeda entitled 'Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom'.

The prosecution say the plan for his explosive was to endanger lives, but Smith says he just did it for "a bit of fun", claiming it was only intended to be a smoke bomb.

The trial is ongoing.

Newshub.