A Melbourne teenager who plotted to behead a police officer in an Anzac Day terror attack will spend at least seven-and-a-half years behind bars.
Sevdet Ramadan Besim, 19, pleaded guilty to a single terror-related charge over his 2015 plan to run down an officer and behead him in a rampage that would ultimately end in the teen's own death.
Justice Michael Croucher today sentenced him to 10 years in jail with a non-parole period of seven-and-a-half years.
The judge said the planned "putrid act" was “calculated to strike fear in the heart of the community”.
“To the vast majority of the community, it’s unthinkable that an 18-year-old boy planned to kill a law enforcement officer, to crash into him with a car and then behead him with a knife,” Justice Croucher said.
He said he was not prepared to accept Besim had “renounced violent jihadism” but noted he had good prospects of rehabilitation as he was young and his views were still being formed.
He said Besim was previously of good character and should be rehabilitated rather than receive "a sentence that crushes his prospects".
Besim did not react as the sentence was read in court. He blew a kiss to his supporters as he was escorted from the court room.
Besim chose Anzac Day to "make sure the dogs remember this as well as there fallen heros (sic)".
He said he was "ready to fight these dogs on there (sic) doorstep".
"I'd love to take out some cops," Besim said in online chats with a UK teenager, where he discussed his deadly ideas.
"I was gonna meet with them then take some heads ahaha."
The Victorian Supreme Court was last month told Besim did "normal" teenage things and dreamed of becoming an architect before he was influenced by extremists, including senior Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash.
He was also greatly affected by the 2014 death of his friend Numan Haider and became alienated from mainstream society.
Haider, 18, was shot dead outside Endeavour Hills police station after stabbing two counter-terrorism officers.
Besim was with him in the hours before the attack.
Corrections Victoria found a hand-drawn Islamic State flag in his jail cell last September as well as a collection of newspaper clippings about violent jihadis fighting overseas.
One of the articles referred to Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who gained infamy after his young son was pictured holding a severed head.
Besim pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to do an act in preparation for or planning a terror act.
The offence carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, the same maximum penalty as the offence of committing a terrorist act.