Student forgot to burn terrorism manual because he 'smoked a hell of a lot of weed'
A university student told a police officer he forgot to burn a copy of a terrorism manual because he got "absolutely plastered" and "smoked a lot" of cannabis, a court in England has heard.
Joshua Walker admitted a partial copy of The Anarchist Cookbook he printed off "probably should have been burned" after using it as part of a role-playing game.
Walker told officers that he was a "controversial" character and had previously joked that "GCHQ are probably on to me and checking my post" while a member of the Crisis Games Society at the University of Aberystwyth.
As Prosecutor Robin Sellers read out Walker's police interview responses to the jury, the court heard how the student's only recollection of the game was one player "talking about whether poisonous things" could be added to "muffins".
"I kind of like being controversial from time to time," he told officers.
Speaking about the day of the game in question, Walker then told police: "I could have been absolutely plastered throughout most of it.
"I smoked a hell of a lot of weed back then so I can't remember a lot.
"I can remember someone talking about whether poisonous things can be made easily, but I don't remember another time."
Some months after the role-playing exercise, Walker had travelled to the Middle East to "assist Kurdish fighters fighting Daesh/Islamic State", the jury were told.
On his return to the UK from Turkey, in December 2016, the International Politics and Strategic Studies student was detained by officers at Gatwick airport and questioned.
It was while he was being questioned, that a search of his student bedsit in Dan-y-Coed, Aberystwyth, west Wales, turned up the "cookbook" in a pull-out drawer under his bed.
Walker, now of Conduit Road, Bristol, denies a charge of possession of a record of terrorist information, between May 2015 and June 2016, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing for an act of terror.
The trial at Birmingham Crown Court, due to last a week, continues.
