A prominent member of the Southampton Patriots told police: “I am not stopping for you” when he was pulled over by officers for driving without a seatbelt after a protest.

Craig Jones, 42, of Salerno Road, Southampton, admitted failing to stop and driving without a seatbelt at Southampton Magistrates’ Court today.

Jones is a leader of the so-called Southampton Patriots, an anti-immigration group that regularly protests outside the Highfield House Hotel, where asylum seekers are housed.

Prosecutor Graham Heath said police had a heavy presence in Portswood for a protest on June 17, when officers spotted Jones driving a Ford Transit van without a seatbelt on Welbeck Avenue.

Police pulled alongside Jones on Highfield Lane and signalled for him to lower his window.

Mr Heath said Jones swore at officers and told them: “I am not stopping for you. I will drive home, and you can find me there.”

“He is described as driving off quickly,” the prosecutor added.

Police went to Jones’s home and detained him.

Jones represented himself, admitted both offences and said he was putting on his seatbelt as he pulled away.

He told the court: “The situation was, I was parked by the side of the road. I pulled away and put my seatbelt on at the same time.”

Explaining why he did not stop, Jones said the van contained ten officers and added: “I have got a bit of history with the police.

“I didn’t feel safe stopping there with ten police.”

He added: “I personally feel they are targeting me.”

Jones said he directed officers to his home, about five minutes away, where he met them outside.

He told magistrates: “Bearing in mind this is in front of my whole neighbourhood. I was compliant the whole time. Relaxed.

“My work van was confiscated; I lost my job over it.”

The chairman of the magistrates’ bench, Chris Willsher, recognised Jones, telling the court he had been a teacher at Bitterne Park School while Jones was a student.

Willsher asked the prosecutor and Jones whether they objected to him hearing the case. Neither did.

Jones was fined £633 and ordered to pay a £253 victim surcharge and £85 in costs, taking the total to £971.

Daily Echo

A Ukrainian man has pleaded guilty to spraying abusive graffiti on mosques in east London, in a case linked to the Russian state network behind arson attacks against the former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.

Illia Bilyk, 21, entered guilty pleas at Thames Magistrates’ Court to five counts of racially and religiously aggravated criminal damage.

Bilyk sprayed graffiti on the Stratford Islamic Association, Al-Birr Mosque and Leyton Jamia Masjid on 23 January 2025. Two days later he targeted Noor Ul Islam Primary School and the Islamic Shariah Council.

The BBC has learned that Bilyk told police he was recruited into spraying the graffiti by a Russian speaker after being approached on the messaging app Telegram.

Bilyk said the Russian speaker told him where to target and paid him afterwards.

In June this year two Ukrainians – Roman Lavrynovych and Stanislav Carpiuc – were jailed for conspiring to carry out arson attacks targeting a property and a car connected to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.

An investigation by the BBC and Hope not Hate revealed that Russia was behind the arson attacks and had also generated Islamophobic vandalism throughout London, including on the east London venues which Biluyk has now admitted vandalising.

Lavrynovych, who personally started the fires targeting Sir Keir’s property, also admitted spraying Islamophobic graffiti on an Islamic building in south London.

He was recruited on Telegram and offered money by an anonymous handler, known by the initials EL, for the graffiti and the arson attacks.

EL was a Russian operative who organised a widespread sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and Telegram.

EL was centrally involved in running a fake far-right group called Direct Action UK, which was created by Russian operatives to provoke acts of vandalism on British streets, including the graffiti attacks on mosques.

After Bilyk sprayed his abusive graffiti in east London in January 2025, images of the attacks were shared in a Direct Action Telegram group.

Hours after two of his attacks, EL posted in a jobs group for Ukrainian people offering money for pictures of buildings in the area.

The BBC investigation named a Russian diplomat, Evgeny Lyukshin, who was part of the Direct Action UK chat group. Lyukshin was trained in “information warfare” by senior Russian spies and his details matched those of EL. He did not respond to the BBC.

Bilyk will be sentenced on 19 October at Stratford Magistrates’ Court.

Chief Superintendent Rhona Hunt, from the Met Police, said: “We recognise that these incidents caused significant distress within Muslim communities across east London last year and that they continue to cause concern.

“Anti-Muslim hate crime and Islamophobia have absolutely no place in London. We are committed to tackling hate crime while supporting and reassuring our communities.”

BBC News

Officers found an alphabet stencil matching the painted letters, along with a stencil featuring the Nazi SS insignia, at his nearby address

A man who sprayed homophobic and racist graffiti outside Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane stadium – which is located next to his home – has been convicted.

Armed with spray paint and an alphabet stencil, Peter Aird, aged 57, left his home address in the early hours of September 30, 2025 and walked the short distance to Bramall Lane – the home of Sheffield United Football Club.

As the video shows, Aird proceeded to paint a message, which has been described as “racist and homophobic” by prosecutors, six times on walls and pillars outside the ground.

The exact wording of the messages daubed on walls and pillars has not been released.

Aird, of Bramall Lane, Sheffield, denied responsibility for the graffiti, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) disproved his claim at trial at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday (September 15, 2026.)

A CPS spokesperson said: “The prosecution relied on CCTV showing Aird leaving home shortly before the graffiti was sprayed and returning minutes later.

“Officers also found an alphabet stencil matching the painted letters, along with purple spray paint and paint-stained gloves at his address.

“A stencil featuring the Nazi SS insignia was also recovered, which the prosecution said demonstrated his mindset before the offence.”

Aird was found guilty of offences of racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress – writing; display threatening/abusive writing likely to cause harassment/alarm/distress; criminal damage and failing to surrender to police/court bail.

He is now due to be sentenced at the same court next month, when the CPS says it will apply for a hate crime sentencing uplift.

Speaking after Aird was convicted, Matthew Rose, a Senior Crown Prosecutor with CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “This conviction demonstrates the CPS’s commitment to working with partners to tackle racism and homophobia and to holding offenders like Aird to account.

“Football is for everyone, and we remain committed to prosecuting those who seek to spread hatred and division wherever the evidence supports a prosecution.

“We are grateful to South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield United FC for their cooperation.”

The Star

Sean McCrystal, of Gateshead, told police he would make illegal immigrants ‘go boom’ after becoming frustrated when he needed help

A bomb hoaxer who told police he wanted to blow up illegal immigrants was found with a fake improvised explosive device in his kitchen cupboard.

Sean McCrystal had grown frustrated at watching TV news about people coming into the country while he was struggling to get help himself, a court heard.

On March 26 this year, he sent a number of messages to Northumbria Police via Facebook, including one which included the phrase “let’s see how boom wakes you up”. When asked what he needed help with he said to forget it and made reference to “invaders”.

Police attended his home and he appeared agitated and told them he hated the government and hated “invaders” who were coming into the country and said he “wanted to make them go boom”, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

He went into his kitchen and pulled from a cupboard “something that had the appearance of an improvised explosive device”. He put it on the floor in front of the PC who had gone to speak to him and said: “I mean what I say. I want them to go boom.”

McCrystal was taken into custody and another officer attended at the address to seize the device. It consisted of a long tube filled with nails, with a clock, wires and styrofoam.

He had sent an image of it to an associate with a message saying: “See if this will kill lots of invaders. I’m going to blow up invaders’ hotels. I can’t manage to get the device together. You have any grenades for me mate.”

McCrystal, 61, of Lough Court, Gateshead, who has five previous convictions, including for possessing an imitation firearm with intent from 2020, pleaded guilty to communicating false information with intent.

Prosecutor Claire Anderson said: “The offending was motivated, at least in part, with hostility to others based on their race. The prosecution submit this was a hate crime.”

Judge Tim Gittins sentenced McCrystal to 12 months in prison but said he is likely to be released soon due to the time he has served on remand. The judge told him: “Over several hours you were sending messages that clearly intended a threat to bomb immigrants, who you branded invaders.

“It was a repeated threat and something you continued with when officers were sent to deal with your conduct.”

The judge said the device was a “fairly amateurish effort but sufficient, no doubt, to seriously alarm the officer who had no idea what he was going to deal with”. He added: “The work you had put in demonstrates some persistence and determination to put together this makeshift device.

“You sent an image of that to someone you believed was a likeminded associate, while asking, in apparent seriousness, if that person had any grenades you could use.

“It was relatively amateurish and the threats were not in the public domain but this was activity by you that persisted for some hours and occurred at a time of increased public tension in relation to immigration issues.

“There was a significant waste of police time and public money in dealing with you.

“To state the obvious, using bombs or the threat of bombs, even in hoax form, as a method of crying for help or objecting to immigrants is too serious for anything else other than immediate custody.”

Glenn Gatland, defending, said: “The defendant was needing care and support at the time of this offending and he had carers going in twice daily and didn’t have capacity over his finances.

“The background appears to be that he was upset about events he saw on the TV news, with people coming in claiming benefits and housing and he was struggling to get the help he needed. He had to go to the Samaritans and tried to get help with adult social care and his family to be able to get the help he needed.

“He was wanting help but he felt very angry when he watched the news and saw others, whatever their background, were coming into the country getting help and benefits he couldn’t possibly get. That led to his frustration and this outburst of going through making a hoax device.

“There’s no racist comment, he calls them invaders, so he was describing anyone who comes to the country without paperwork and who are illegal immigrants.”

Mr Gatland added that McCrystal had alcohol dependence syndrome but has made good progress in prison and was being considered for a role as a mentor for other inmates. He added that no premises had to be evacuated and McCrystal used his own account to contact police.

The Chronicle