Neo-nazi woman beater dodges jail despite conviction for threats to kill

Mark Brown has been assaulting and threatening people for two decades and has a history of violence – including against women

Nazi thug Mark Brown has been convicted of threatening to kill a woman four years after the PSNI were censured for failing to properly investigate alleged threats he made to a journalist.

The former National Front leader managed to avoid going to jail on Monday after the 37-year-old entered 11th hour pleas to offences of criminal damage and improper use of a telecommunication network to send a menacing message.

And the far-right thug had a doubly bad week after his beloved neo-Nazi organisation Blood and Honour become the first extreme right-wing group to have financial sanctions imposed by the UK government.

Treasury ministers said they had “reasonable grounds to suspect” Blood and Honour of being involved in “terrorist activities through promoting and encouraging terrorism, seeking to recruit people for that purpose and making funds available for the purposes of its terrorist activities”.

As reported here, Mark Brown has been involved in that scene for years and has attended secret gigs in dingy venues across Northern Ireland which had been seen as a safe place for them to hold gigs after they were chased from holding events in England and Scotland.

But that looks likely to have been brought to an abrupt end after the government stepped in.

Brown had been due to stand trial at Coleraine Magistrates Court after a woman made a complaint about the nasty Nazi. He was handed a five-month prison sentence but the already convicted woman-beating thug had that term suspended for three years.

Having already been caught on camera booting the back of the woman’s Range Rover, causing £470 worth of damage, five months later in October, Brown then called the woman and threatened “yous are both dead”, referring to her and her ex who Brown had issue with.

Quick-thinking cops caught Brown red-handed when they went to his house to speak to him about the complaint and while they were there, one of the officers rang the number which had called the victim and lo and behold, Brown’s mobile started to ring.

Mark Brown has been assaulting and threatening people for two decades and has a history of violence – including against women.

But the PSNI’s smart thinking and method for catching dopey Brown was in extreme contrast to how they handled the case of threats made to journalist Patricia Devlin.

Ms Devlin made a complaint to the Police Ombudsman that there had been a “a complete failure” by the Police Service of Northern Ireland to properly investigate a threat Brown is alleged to have made to her.

That complaint was upheld, with Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson saying it was “concerning that police failed to take measures to arrest the suspect at the earliest opportunity”.

A Police Ombudsman review of the investigation found that “evidential opportunities” were missed in regards to police inquiries.

The Ombudsman said that the investigating officer “failed to take appropriate measures to secure the arrest of the suspect, who lived in another part of the UK”.

On Monday, imposing five-month jail sentences on each offence but suspending them for three years, the judge warned Brown that “given the record that you are now accumulating, I cannot foresee any circumstances where I would not activate that five months if you reoffend.”

Lodging a plea in mitigation, defence counsel Thomas McKeever conceded that for Brown, who has addresses at Skerryview in Portrush and Atlantic Court in Coleraine, “alcohol has been a theme.”

Emphasising the thug had been abusing alcohol to cope with his “stressful job,” the barrister said that recently Brown had been “seeking help” with his alcohol issue.

Revealing that Brown had been given a suspended sentence for a domestic common assault just six days after he made the threat, Mr McKeever argued that sentence had help to keep Brown out of trouble as there had been no further incidents since and Brown had not been drinking.

Judge Mateer told Brown: “I urge you strongly to continue to address whatever issues you have,” adding that while he had entered guilty pleas and saved the victim from having to give evidence “discount will be limited” as his dock confessions came late in the day.

In addition to the suspended jail sentence, the judge also imposed a three-year restraining order and a £470 compensation order.

In March 2023 this paper revealed how Brown had been in attendance at a Blood and Honour-organised gig held in a secret social club in north Belfast where Nazi thugs from all over Europe congregated.

It wasn’t the first time the hate-filled bands had held secret gigs in Northern Ireland and we revealed at the time there were plans for many more after the Nazi-supporting lunatics were prevented from holding their gigs in Britain.

In recent times venues hosting these gigs in Scotland and England have been infiltrated by anti-fascists, forcing cancellation of the concerts before they actually took place.

Now it seems the Blood and Honour music scene is finished, with the government stepping in this week to take action to curb their fundraising and hate concerts.

The assets freeze – which was extended to all aliases or affiliate groups including Combat 18 and 28 Radio – means nobody in the UK can provide funding or financial services to those named organisations.

Blood and Honour was founded in 1987 by Ian Stuart Donaldson aka Ian Stuart. He was the lead singer for the skinhead rock band Skrewdriver.

He said he set up Blood and Honour – which takes its name from a slogan of the Hitler Youth – because he felt the National Front was not racist enough.

Blood and Honour promotes white power ideology through music and until recently still held regular festivals.

The racists held a skinhead gig at a secret destination in east Belfast in 2019 which was also attended by Brown.

In 2019 Brown was jailed for two months for a “vile” racially motivated assault on a taxi driver.

The court heard how Brown punched the taxi driver to the head, got out without paying the £18.40 fare and then chased the man’s car as he tried to phone the police.

We’ve been exposing Brown and his shocking far right violence for over 15 years.

In 2013, after he’d been forced to leave Northern Ireland by the paramilitaries, he called the Sunday World begging us to leave him alone.

“I have cut ties with everyone from home and now I just wish everyone would give me a break,” he whined.

“I’m sick of everyone claiming I’m some sort of a scumbag. I live a quiet life now and just want to be allowed to get on with it.”

That didn’t last long as he has been in and out of court to be convicted of a string of serious offences since.

Sunday World