Isis obsessive who made a pressure cooker bomb faces mental health evaluation

An Isis fanatic who planned to target a railway line with a homemade pressure cooker bomb connected to fairy lights is to undergo fresh psychiatric tests before being sentenced. Zahid Hussain, 29, was found guilty of preparing an act of terrorism in May after becoming radicalised reading extremist books and websites in his bedroom.

The former bouncer was arrested in Birmingham in August 2015 when he was spotted acting suspiciously in the street. Officers found him carrying handwritten bomb making instructions, along with a knife and modified fairy lights for possible use as a bomb trigger.

He was originally detained under the Mental Health Act, before being declared fit to stand trial.

Hussain, who is currently being held at a mental health facility, was due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Tuesday 1 August, but prosecution and defence psychiatrists disagreed on his mental health.

The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, ordered a further evaluation to be carried out by an independent court expert, the Birmingham Mail reported.

He is now due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 2 October. During his trial, the jury was told how Hussain wrongly believed his "bomb" – packed with shrapnel – was viable and capable of causing damage.

The court heard how a mistake in the building of the IED meant it would not have exploded. In the days running up to his arrest he had made multiple visits to a section of the West Coast Mainline, which the prosecution said was to research a possible terror attack.

CCTV shown to the jury also showed him climbing down a storm drain near to the train line that links London to Birmingham. Police officers later found the pressure cooker "bomb" during a search of the drain.

A raid on his home in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham also uncovered guerrilla warfare text books, bomb making instructions and potential bomb triggers, including dismantled electric door bells and alarm clocks.

The court heard how Hussain would spend hours of the day and night at his computer reading material on Isis and Syria. He become estranged from his wife and two children as he became more radicalised.

"In his own words he had become 'bedroom radicalised' – turned into a radical by material he had accessed in his own bedroom," prosecution QC Annabel Darlow had told the court.