The police have stopped a man from launching a race war

A 60-year-old lorry driver, who was found to be converting guns and building explosives inside his caravan in Essex has been jailed for a minimum of 16 years.

Thomas McKenna, who lived on Britain’s biggest traveller site in South Ockendon, was found to have modified and sold weapons to London gangs and told people on TikTok he was preparing for a ‘race war’.

Police say he and his partner held extreme right-wing views and anti-Muslim hatred.

Armed officers swooped on his three caravans on Buckles Lane on 6th November 2024, after an investigation into another firearms supplier, Faisal Razzaq, which led them to find a gun which was traced back to McKenna.

Razzaq, 44, from Harrow, had previously been jailed in connection with the 2005 murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky. The police officer was shot whilst interrupting a robbery at a travel agents in Bradford.

Inside McKenna’s caravan, police say they found 11 firearms, which had either been converted from blank-firing to lethal, or were ready to be converted, alongside homemade explosives and instruction manuals.

Six other guns had been recovered during the investigation into gang associates who had bought weapons converted by him.

McKenna's partner, Tina Smith, 55 - who lived with him in the caravan where the bombs were found - was also jailed at Kingston Crown Court after admitting possessing a prohibited firearm, making explosives and the collection of terrorist information.

Detective Chief Inspector James Tipple, from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, told LBC: “We don't find [explosives] very often at all. This was a significant find for us and obviously results in the conviction of an extremely dangerous individual.

“Inside one of the caravans he had set up a workshop with a lathe and specialist tools to convert and reactivate firearms.

“This is an outstanding operation against a significant organised crime group that's made a real difference to reducing London shootings as we have been doing over the past few years.”

Another officer said the discovery of explosive devices had “surprised” them, after more than 80 officers were involved in McKenna’s arrest.

Calling in counter terror teams, police found McKenna had been using TikTok to tell others he was stockpiling weapons to “kill and shoot Muslims… before there are too many”.

He told one user: “We’re going to be blowing s**t up soon enough”.

Police compared the sort of attack Mckenna was planning for, including with his homemade bombs, to the Islamic State-inspired Bondi beach Hanukkah shooting in December.

He pleaded guilty to a long list of charges, linked to firearms, ammunition, explosives and terrorist materials.

DCI James Tipple added that there had been a ‘significant reduction in converted blank firing guns across London since Mckenna’s arrest.

“There has been a shift in figures. So we went from 157 [shootings] in 2024 to 120 in 2025.

“We've seen a reduction in the number of converted blank firers used in those shootings as well, so the operations that we're doing across London, including this one, are having a significant impact on firearms use.”

Figures show the Metropolitan Police last year saw just over a fifth of all shootings in the UK

Thomas McKenna, who was born in Glasgow, has three previous convictions for possession of firearms, and was last jailed in 2014.

The Met said he wasn’t known to them as a firearms dealer before his arrest in 2024.

Footage released by the force showed him buying a deactivated AK-47, which they say he was planning to attempt to recommission, after they found a guide on how to build a homemade Sten gun.

A total of 10 people linked to McKenna’s firearms have pleaded guilty to charges following the Met’s investigation.

Two of his customers who bought firearms, Allan Crosby, 44, from Sidcup and Ryan Smith, 44, from Dunton Green Kent were jailed for 10 years and seven and a half years, respectively.

McKenna’s partner Tina Smith was jailed for six years with a further custodial sentence of 12 months.

Six others, who have also pleaded guilty to a string of firearms offences, including Faisal Razzaq, are due to be sentenced later this month.

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