Anti-migrant protester who ‘wanted to protect kids’ is a paedophile

The YouTuber Anthony Styles is a child sex offender who was sentenced to four and half years in jail after indecently assaulting a schoolgirl

An anti-migrant YouTuber who claims to promote the “protection of women and children” by filming protests outside asylum hotels is a convicted paedophile.

Anthony Styles, whose channel AJ Audits amassed thousands of subscribers, became a fixture of far-right activism by livestreaming demonstrations against grooming gangs and immigration.

Styles, 59, recently recorded gatherings outside hotels in London and Epping during which protesters described asylum seekers as sexual predators who made local girls unsafe.

Many parents brought their young children along to the rallies, which were organised after a small boat migrant from Ethiopia sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Epping, Essex, in July.

However, Styles has now been unmasked as a child sex offender who was sentenced to four and a half years in jail after being convicted of indecently assaulting a girl under the age of 14.

In 2017, he was put on the sex offenders register for life and handed an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Five years earlier, the YouTuber also admitted to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl and possessing hundreds of indecent images of children, for which he received a three-year community order.

His criminal record was uncovered by activists from the group Stand Up To Racism, who spotted his name printed on a fake press pass he made for himself at a protest last month.

The Times confirmed his convictions with the police this week. The most serious offence took place at a flat in Blackpool in 1993, where Styles sexually abused a girl as she sat on his knee after school. He was sentenced at Preston crown court more than 20 years later, in 2017.

His victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was known to him through his partner’s family and frequently visited the flat after school. In a personal statement, she said she had been psychologically affected by the assault.

He was separately found guilty of possessing 307 indecent images of children among a collection of “naturist” images and sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl.

Styles, who uses a wheelchair because of a degenerative illness similar to multiple sclerosis, was jailed by Judge Robert Altham.

The judge said: “The victim was in the habit of coming back to the flats after school. It is on one of those occasions, when she was in the defendant’s sole company in her school uniform, sitting on his knee, as the defendant watched TV.

“He only ceased from this conduct when his partner was coming in, at which stage he got up.

“Nothing was said at the time, but she subsequently raised it with her, and he made an admission of sorts. At the time, he passed it off as accidental touching.

“But in his trial, Styles denied the events ever took place. She has described that this incident has had a significant effect on her.

“There is, properly stated, an abuse of trust in this case. This is a case where the family trusted the care of this little girl to the defendant. He was trusted to be alone with her.”

The judge added that the more recent incident conviction, for assaulting the 17-year-old girl and possessing indecent images, meant he could not be regarded as a man of good character. It is understood this conviction is now spent.

Styles, from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, kept his convictions hidden from other protesters when he joined a series of anti-immigrant protests outside asylum hotels.

Video from his channel, which he has now deleted, shows him attending demonstrations, which increased this summer after outrage over the Epping incident. He often recorded interviews with demonstrators and could be seen weaving between police and protesters in his wheelchair.

Styles was part of various private groups on social media where the demonstrations were organised, including one called For The Children. He has since been kicked out of the groups after being ostracised from the anti-migrant protest movement as information about his convictions spread online.

In a video uploaded last month, Styles recorded himself following a coach full of Asian men on the M25, claiming in a livestream that it was moving illegal migrants to another hotel.

“They are not welcome. They are illegal migrants,” he can be heard saying as he filmed the back of the coach from a car. His livestream of the pursuit led to the manager of the coach company receiving a flood of abuse, forcing him to stop the vehicle.

In the video, the manager gets off the coach and approaches Styles, begging him to stop spreading misinformation and explaining that no one on board was an illegal migrant and they were all legal agricultural workers.

“People have been threatening my family” because of the footage, he told Styles, who then apologised, saying: “We thought they were illegal migrants.”

Lewis Nielsen, a Stand Up to Racism anti-fascist officer, said: “These revelations show the far right have never cared about women’s rights, they’ve been harbouring convicted offenders in their midst. The hypocrisy is off the charts. This man has claimed to be protecting women and girls while hiding his own convictions. Refugees aren’t the threat to women, the real threat are far far-right fanboys of Elon Musk.”

The Times