Neo-nazi mum and daughter ‘Hannah Hitler’ jailed over vile racist and anti-Semitic posts

Shirley Craughwell, 51, and her daughter Hannah, 27, were both jailed after their appalling posts were brought to light.

A Neo-Nazi mother and daughter who posted extremist anti-Semitic, racist and transphobic material on social media accounts have both been jailed.

Shirley Craughwell described non-whites as “a different species” and published comments including “Hitler was trying to save us” and “The need for a new holocaust is never more urgent than now”.

The 51-year-old used emojis connected to the Neo-Nazi movement, had links to publications including the Anarchist Cookbook and regularly used derogatory terms including “n*******” and “sand monkeys”.

She also encouraged and recorded a young child to perform Nazi salutes before posting the disturbing footage online.

Daughter Hannah – who used the online name ‘Hannah Hitler’ – labelled the Jewish race as “the devil’s children” and distributed posters publicising a Neo-Nazi white power movie in her local community.

She was found to have posted a mocked up image of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay shouting at Hitler with the words “Put them back in the oven” and shared racist and transphobic videos on her social media accounts.

The mother and daughter also linked the Israeli state to conspiracy theories including the 9/11 terror attack and Covid and made denials the Nazi Holocaust had taken place.

The pair pleaded guilty to hate crime offences aggravated by racial and religious prejudice committed between 2021 and 2024 when they appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in November last year.

Shirley Craughwell, of Galashiels, Scottish Borders, was sentenced to a 20 month custodial term backdated to November 27.

The sheriff noted Hannah Craughwell had continued to “minimise” her offending, had made “racist, anti-Semitic, transphobic and homophobic” comments online and distributed “highly inflammatory “ leaflets in public.

The 27-year-old mother-of-two was jailed for 16 months.

Sentencing, Sheriff Walls said: “The level of hatred, racism and anti-semitism expressed by you is deeply disturbing.

“You espoused conspiracy theories about white genocide and spoke repeatedly about your admiration of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis and called for another Holocaust.

“However your messages were not just offensive, they are violent and threatening in relation to people of the Jewish faith.”

The sheriff said involving the child in her offending was “a significant aggravation”.

The court was shown further video evidence of the racist and anti-Semitic material the pair had posted online.

Lawyer Simon Collins, for Shirley Craughwell, said his client was a grandmother and had “a long involvement in conspiracy theories leading her to act on them”.

He said she had experienced isolation during the Covid period and “expressed remorse and accepts responsibility” for her offending.

Richard Soutar, for Hannah Craughwell, said she had “gone down a wormhole” on the internet and had been “socially isolated” and suffered from poor mental health at the time.

Previously the court was told police received intelligence in May last year that both women had been posting “racist, anti-Semitic and threatening” material on their social media pages.

Prosecutor David Gallagher said officers raided their homes and Shirley Craughwell was found to have a Telegram account where she had posted thousands of extremist comments while in contact with others.

Mr Gallagher said the material showed Craughwell used emojis in the shape of the Nazi salute along with the slang term 88 – online slang for Heil Hitler.

She made claims to be “a proud racist” and posted comments such as “we must unite as a race”, “the borders are flooded by ni**ers” and “the police are run by Judean”.

Craughwell also operated a Facebook page under the pseudonym ‘Goyim AH’ where she published racist and anti-Semitic memes and web links.

She used the account to circulate material supporting the alt-right group Highland Division – a breakaway from the white nationalist organisation Patriotic Alternative.

The page featured a post from PA’s James Costello who was sentenced to a five year prison term for inciting racial hatred in 2023 but was released early on licence in December last year.

Police discovered Hannah Craughwell, of Gilmerton, Edinburgh, had an account on the US right wing extremist chat site Gab where she used the online persona ‘Hannah Hitler’.

She regularly shared extreme right wing content on the site with one message stating: “I am disappointed Hitler never killed six million even though there wasn’t that many Jews at that time.”

The court was told racist and transphobic material was openly shared on her Facebook and Instagram pages and she had distributed flyers in her local area publicising the Neo-Nazi propaganda film Europa – The Last Battle.

Daily Record