THE hatred and violence shown by terrorist Ethan Stables is contrasted by the portrayal of a young man whose family believe he has been "let down" throughout his life.

Stables was brought up solely by his long-suffering mum Elaine Asbury after his father abandoned them when Ethan was just 18 months old.

Speaking frankly, but at times displaying how a mother's love for her child is unconditional, Mrs Asbury described her son's troubled childhood as she gave evidence.

"By the time he entered his terrible twos he was displaying behaviour which didn't seem quite in the range of what you would expect," she said.

"He would have extreme temper tantrums and bang his head repeatedly against the floor."

After spells at Cambridge Primary School and St Paul's Church of England Primary School in Barrow Stables moved up to Furness Academy.

"That's really when he became very oppositional to people, especially people in authority," Mrs Asbury said.

"The first term was fine and he was a model student but by the second term it descended into chaos."

Stables was excluded from the academy on a number of occasions until his time in mainstream education came to an abrupt end when he held a hacksaw against a fellow pupil's throat.

Mrs Asbury was forced to home school her son and highlighted what she claimed was a lack of support she received from Furness Academy.

She also criticised the local mental health services and said it took repeated visits to her GP who was "hostile and had little understanding of Asperger's" before he was referred to specialists.

She reached breaking point when Ethan was 17 and kicked him out of the family home.

"I had got to the end of my tether with the behaviour, the air of defiance and the obstructive behaviour," she said.

"Years and years of trying to cope with tangible support from the mental health services.

"The atmosphere in the house was getting unbearable and he was absolutely miserable.

"He would clench his fists, the blood vessels in his neck would bulge and you were left thinking 'what if?'.

"Given the stress he was under at some point he was going to snap and my mum said 'it's time to kick him out'."

His mother revealed he had been 'radicalized' towards far right thinking, in which he defended the Nazis and claimed the Holocaust was a "myth", after visiting his then girlfriend who lived in Germany.

The court also heard how Stables had been reported to the North West Counter Terrorism Unit in 2015 by a GP who had concerns about his patient's "threat to go on a killing spree".

No further detail was given of that report or what action was taken to investigate his behaviour.