Dhiren Barot's terrorist “tradecraft” was so expert that police and intelligence surveillance teams lost him on a number of occasions as they tried to track his movements.

When Barot was identified as a terror suspect in June 2004 it was not known that he was an al-Qaeda operative with nine years’ training. But it soon became clear to those watching him that he was an experienced terrorist.

“Surveillance officers described Barot as being ‘very aware’,” Edmund Lawson, QC, told Woolwich Crown Court. “He walked into a cul de sac, hid behind bins, checked behind himself and at a station did not commit himself to any train platform until the very last minute.” Rarely did he spend more than one night at an address and when driving he used a number of different vehicles.

Barot, who was born into a Hindu family and grew up in northwest London, converted to Islam in the early 1990s and became radicalised.

Mr Lawson said that he was “a member or close associate of al-Qaeda” and travelled extensively using false passports and bogus identities. He had spent at least two periods at terrorist camps in Pakistan and the Philippines, and taken extensive notes on making explosives and poisons. But the training had clearly included anti-surveillance techniques.

That meant that even though Barot and his alleged associates all had mobile phones they never used them to speak with each other.

Instead they met in parks or by reservoirs, in shops or on street corners and carried on conversations in places where it was difficult to eavesdrop on or monitor them.

Mr Lawson said that they also set up Yahoo! e-mail accounts and used them to leave coded messages for one another. Barot used the logon “kewl n kini” and two of his alleged associates had the addresses “nightwithkylie” and “bridget_jonesdiaries”.

He added: “From these addresses coded messages were sent. The code has not yet been cracked such as could be used evidentially.

“The messages were written in the style of teenagers discussing music and television and using language and employing sexual references which would not normally be considered appropriate to devout Muslims.”

On one occasion two alleged members of the terror cell drove from London to Swansea just to spend 50 minutes in an internet café.

Among the messages intercepted by the authorities was one that said: “make sure u don’t bring your friend, the one who loves listening 2 red hit chillie. u know i don’t like her at all.” Mr Lawson said that this was a clear reminder to the receipient to make sure that he was not followed to an arranged meeting point.

He said: “Barot and his co-defendants were surveillance-conscious and had obviously received training and/or instruction in the use of anti-surveillance techniques.

“It is clear from their behaviour as witnessed by the surveillance teams that they operated on the basis that their activities during the course of summer 2004 would be of interest to the intelligence agencies and the police.

“While in cars there were instances when the defendants drove around roundabouts more than once, drove illogical routes to their destinations, sometimes turning back on themselves. They left junctions on motorways suddenly and vehicles used by the defendants were, on occasions, parked some distance from their home addresses.”

One time when Barot was lost to his watchers the authorities decided to arrest him when he next appeared because they feared that whatever attack he was planning might be close to execution.

He was apprehended in Willesden, northwest London, on August 3, 2004; his seven co-defendants, who deny the allegations against them, were picked up later that day.

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