A British-born suicide bomber plotted to bring down a packed passenger aircraft over the Atlanttic at the same time that the shoe bomber Richard Reid targeted an American Airlines flight, the Old Bailey heard today.

But Saajid Badat changed his mind and dismantled his own shoe bomb, which was designed to evade airport security.

Badat, 25, from Gloucester, admitted conspiring to blow up an aircraft between January 1 1999 and November 28, 2003 in a surprise change of plea today. He had been due to stand trial for the offence.

Intelligence services believe Badat had been conspiring with Reid, a fellow British Muslim, who is in jail in America for trying unsuccessfully to ignite a shoe bomb on board a Miami-bound jet.

Badat agreed to be a suicide bomber with the intention of destroying a passenger aircraft while in the air from Europe to the United States, said Mr Horwell. He had received training both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and was given an explosive device designed to evade airport security and to destroy an aircraft in flight.

The device was identical to that used by Reid when he attempted to bring down an aircraft on December 22, 2001 on a flight from Paris. A piece of detonating cord from Reid’s bomb matched that of Badat’s bomb. Badat returned to the UK on December 10, 2001, with the device in his possession.

"It is clear the plan was that Reid and Badat would bring down a passenger aircraft at similar times in late December that year," said Richard Horwell, prosecuting, as he gave a brief outline of the case to the court. A full hearing is due on March 18, when the prosecution will give full details.

Mr Horwell said that Badat had sent an email to his handlers on December 14, 2001, four days after his return, "indicating he might withdraw".

He said: "He had booked a ticket to fly from Manchester to Amsterdam in preparation for an onward flight to the United States on which the explosive device would be initiated.

"But he did not take that flight. We accept by then he had withdrawn from the conspiracy which by then he had been party to for an appreciable period of time.

"The device he brought with him to the UK was kept at his home (in Gloucester). He had separated the fuse and the detonator from the plastic explosive."

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Anti-Terrorist Branch, welcomed Badat’s plea. He said: "Three years of intensive and painstaking international investigation brought us to the point where Saajid Badat had no option but to plead guilty to this horrendous offence."

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