Omar Ashfaq, 24, of Derbyshire who deposited violent footage and propaganda at various mosques across the country, has been jailed.

USB drives containing imagery and words promoting and encouraging terrorism, were found in the shoes of people attending a mosque in Leicestershire.

Five drives were also discovered at a mosque in the West Midlands on Friday 1 June 2018. On Monday 4 June another three devices were found at a Derbyshire mosque.

Omar Ashfaq was arrested after search of his home and a vehicle uncovered numerous bags of USB sticks as well as notes outlining his plans.

One document labelled ‘Target: 1 week’ was a map on which a route was drawn, taking in as far north as Leeds, east to Peterborough, south to London and west to Stoke-on-Trent.

Ashfaq was charged with three counts of possessing material of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism (Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000), and eight counts of disseminating terrorist publications (Section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006).

On the first day of his trial at Birmingham Crown Court, however, Ashfaq pleaded guilty to dissemination and on Tuesday 14 May 2019 was jailed for four-and-a-half years, with a further year of monitoring on licence.