Sydney teen who weighed Opera House terror attack spared jail

A 16-year-old boy who admitted he considered a mass terror attack on the Sydney Opera House has avoided prison, receiving a three-year community corrections order in the NSW Supreme Court. Justice Stephen Campbell found there was a very little chance the teenager would reoffend. The offence of committing acts in preparation for a terror attack carries a maximum penalty of life behind bars.

The boy, who cannot be identified, had just turned 14 when federal police arrested him at his Western Sydney home in August 2024. He pleaded guilty in August this year. The court heard he had searched online for instructions on building a pressure-cooker bomb and looked into possible targets, including the Sydney Marathon finishing line at the Opera House.

Justice Campbell placed the planning at the least serious end of the scale. The research was not sophisticated, the judge said, and the boy took no steps to cover his tracks. He also noted the teenager never tried to obtain bomb-making materials or lock in a date for an attack.

The court heard the boy first encountered extremist material on TikTok, which he described as interesting, before drifting into increasingly violent content including Al Qaeda material and Islamic State recruitment propaganda. Over a five-week stretch in 2024 he shared extremist material online, praised Al Qaeda in encrypted messaging apps and emailed the surviving Boston Marathon bomber in a US jail.

The judge said those exchanges revealed a high level of naivety, noting the boy repeatedly ducked or fobbed off questions from his contacts about whether he would actually carry out an attack. Asked if he would try to build a bomb, he replied: For now I cannot try to make it because my parents will see … but later on I will, inshallah. Pressed on whether he wanted to plan an attack, he said he was just learning how to make one, not planning.

Justice Campbell accepted the teenager was hesitant at best about carrying out an attack, found no evidence he indoctrinated others or planned anything imminent, and said he had renounced Islamic extremism since his arrest. The boy's parents, from Afghanistan's persecuted Hazara minority, had counselled him that extremism contradicted their reading of Islam, and the judge praised the compelling evidence of remorse behind his excellent rehabilitation prospects. Under the order he must give his phone password to a youth justice officer, follow any deradicalisation or education programs, and stay off encrypted messaging apps. After sentencing he sat between his parents, his mother briefly resting her head on his shoulder.