A vigilante anti-Ulez activist who despised Sadiq Khan has been jailed after blowing up a roadside camera with a homemade bomb which sparked a counter-terror investigation.
Electrician Kevin Rees’s low-sophistication device was still powerful enough to send shrapnel flying for more than 100 metres, damaging a child’s bedroom window and crashing into cars nearby.
Rees, 63, was jailed for 15 years after being found guilty of causing an explosion to endanger life following a trial.
The explosion was caught on CCTV and showed the full impact of the eruption – causing sparks to rain down, cars to shake and a van alarm to go off in the residential street.
Police said it was ‘miraculous that nobody was killed or seriously injured’.
Retired domestic services engineer Rees had set up an online group celebrating destruction of the controversial cameras and called himself The Exterminator on Facebook Messenger.
During the trial at Woolwich Crown Court, Rees agreed with prosecutor Simon Denison KC that, at the time of the incident, he ‘strongly opposed’ the Ulez (ultra-low emission zone) scheme – and the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq.
Rees told jurors: ‘I dislike him, dislike what he has done to London.’
Kevin Rees, 63, a retired engineer with a knowledge of electronics, was jailed for 15 years for blowing up a Ulez camera
Striking CCTV footage shows the full impact of the eruption – causing sparks to rain down, cars to shake and the partial destruction of a child’s bedroom
A bright flash of white light is emitted as the ‘low-sophistication’ device explodes in Willersley Avenue, Sidcup
A jury heard how the investigation team identified Rees had travelled in his car from his home in Sidcup, south-east London, to Shuttle Close shortly after 6.20pm on December 6 2023.
Rees walked the short distance from his car to the camera on Willersley Avenue in Sidcup and then planted the device and lit a fuse. He was then seen by a witness walking quickly away from the scene.
The remains of the explosive device were forensically analysed and it was identified that ‘black powder’ – a substance used in pyrotechnics which combines sulphur, potassium nitrate and charcoal – had been used.
Rees was identified as the suspect and he was arrested by counter-terror officers two weeks later where his home address was searched.
It is believed counter-terror officers were called in because of the use of violence or fear of violence against the public for political means – effectively, forcing the mayor to change or abandon the Ulez policy which has divided opinion.
Among the items the police found was a sealed postal package addressed to Rees containing aluminium powder, as well as a plastic bag with a quantity of iron oxide – both of which can be used to form low-explosive compositions.
Further items were found in his loft which indicated Rees’s interest in chemicals that could be used to create explosives, police said.
Detectives also analysed Rees’s social media activity and found he had posted numerous times about Ulez cameras and encouraged the damaging of them, the Met said.
A smashed windscreen is pictured on a car nearby to where the improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated
A fallen lampost can be seen – in the foreground of an image which shows the damage caused to a black van
Three home-made stun guns were found at his address, and Rees was subsequently convicted of three counts of having a prohibited weapon.
The defendant denied all involvement in the incident, telling jurors he believed his arrest was linked to his participation in ‘anti-Ulez’ groups on Facebook.
When he was arrested by counter-terror police on December 18, Rees made reference to that explosion and asked officers if his arrest had ‘something to do with the anti-Ulez sites’.
He told the trial: ‘There was only one explosion that was on the news and that was the one in Sidcup,’ before adding: ‘I assumed it was just the so-called Facebook police.
‘People you hear being arrested for making bad or inappropriate comments on Facebook pages – that’s well-known, as it’s been on the news.
‘The thing is, I didn’t actually do anything wrong.’
Rees told jurors he joined ‘anti-Ulez’ Facebook groups and pages out of ‘boredom’ and because it provided him with a sense of community.
But jurors convicted him, and he was sentenced today at the Old Bailey.
The window of child’s bedroom was also damaged in the blast
As was a wendy house
Stun guns were found in Rees’ home when it was searched by police
Detective Superintendent James Derham, who leads local policing in the Bexley area, said: ‘It was miraculous that nobody was killed or seriously injured in the large explosion caused by Rees.
‘He showed a complete disregard for the welfare and safety of the people who live in, or were travelling through, the area at the time of the explosion – all because he was unhappy with the Ulez scheme.’
Bethan David, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s counter-terrorism division, said: ‘This was not an act of protest or momentary vandalism.
‘This was a deliberate and dangerous attack involving a homemade explosive device, carried out in a residential street and designed to destroy public infrastructure.
‘Kevin Rees knowingly and intentionally placed an explosive device next to the Ulez camera, lit the fuse and retreated before the explosion, showing clear planning and an obvious disregard for the safety of others.
‘Whatever his views on the Ulez scheme, Kevin Rees crossed a serious line by constructing a homemade bomb and detonating it in a public place.
‘It was pure chance that no-one suffered serious injury or worse.
‘The Crown Prosecution Service will always seek to prosecute dangerous offending of this nature and hopefully this conviction sends a clear message to other protesters considering taking the law into their own hands.’
The investigation team found on his phone a photograph taken on 6 December 2023 of the camera in Willersley Avenue being installed. He deleted that photograph on 7 December.
Ulez requires drivers to pay a daily charge based on how polluting the emissions from their vehicle are.
Cameras have been repeatedly damaged after the Ulez area was expanded to cover all of London in 2023.
