A hate speaker who was “obnoxious and abusive” when pulled over by the police for driving on the wrong side of the road has been jailed again.

William Charlton, known as Billy, was jailed for 21 months in 2019 over speeches he gave at a series of planned demonstrations in Sunderland.

He was jailed again last February, for three years, after he sent a video clip to 40 contacts over WhatsApp that featured a child having intercourse with a donkey,

Charlton had insisted he did not view the 18 second video, which featured a boy aged between 10-14 with the animal, before he forwarded it on and had no reason to suspect its contents were illegal.

Prosecutors accepted he did not gain any sexual gratification from the video but he was convicted of distributing a Category A image of a child.

Today, he has now been given another prison sentence after being convicted of dangerous driving.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that Charlton was on his way home from an evening of socialising with friends in Sunderland when he was spotted on the wrong side of the A19 near Seaham, last January.

Prosecutor Matthew Simpson said that police saw him behind the wheel of a red Daihatsu and attempted to pull him over but he refused to stop and a stinger device was deployed.

Even then, Charlton failed to co-operate with officers, who had to use Pava spray to detain him following the chase, which covered around six miles.

Mr Simpson said: “As they approached the Seaham A19 turn off with Seaton Lane on the B1404 their attention was drawn to a red Daihatsu which was driving on the wrong way down the slip road off the A19, against the direction of travel.

Mr Simpson said the officers activated blue lights but Charlton, who had a passenger in the car, continued to drive.

The 58-year-old, of Barmston Court, Washington, also ignored a Highway Maintenance vehicle which indicated for him to pull over.

Mr Simpson said Charlton “disregarded police attempts to stop” him and he continued to the junction with the A1231, where more officers became involved.

The court heard after a police officer got out of the police vehicle, Charlton turned his car around and continued driving, this time in the correct direction.

He told the court: “Having exited the A19 Mr Charlton finally stopped due to the deployment of a stinger on the westbound carriageway of the A1231, this was to pierce the wheels of the vehicle, causing it to stop.”

Mr Simpson said one of the officers approached Charlton’s car and removed the keys from the ignition.

The officer told the court: “He was swearing at us, told us to **** off and grabbed hold of the steering wheel.

“He said he wouldn’t be getting out.

“At that point a traffic officer used his Pava spray to distract the driver so he could extract him out of the driver’s door.”

The officer said Charlton was “obnoxious and abusive”.

Charlton denied dangerous driving and said the charge was brought simply to suit the police “agenda” but was found guilty.

Defending himself at the sentence hearing today, via video-link from custody, Charlton denied being a “high risk” to the public.

He said he maintained the police had “lied” during their investigation.

Judge Julie Clemitson told him: “You inadvertently turned your Daihatsu car in the off slip so you were driving on the wrong direction towards the A19 carriageway.

“The jury must have accepted the police evidence in order to convict you of dangerous driving.”

Judge Clemitson accepted there were “relatively few” road users out at the time, but said only immediate custody could be justified.

She sentenced him to ten months behind bars.

She added: “You ignored your passenger’s request to pull over. When you did pull over you ignored the police officer’s request to get out of the vehicle.”

Charlton was also banned from driving for 17 months and must pass an extended test.

Sunderland Echo

A man from Somerset has appeared in court charged with terrorism offences.

Gabrielle Budasz, 23, pleaded guilty to collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism at Westminster Magistrates court on Saturday.

Counter Terrorism Policing South East said the charges were linked to extreme right-wing ideology.

Mr Budasz, of Drove Road, Weston-super-Mare was remanded in police custody.

He also pleaded guilty to dissemination of terrorist publications to encourage others to engage in terrorism or provide information that could be useful to terrorists following the investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing South East.

Avon and Somerset Police and Counter Terrorism Policing South West also worked on the investigation.

He will appear at Central Criminal Court, also known as the Old Bailey, on 1 September.
BBC News

Harry Vaughan was spared jail as a teenager but has now been imprisoned for three years and two months after admitting further offences.

Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of Harry Vaughan who was spared jail in 2020 after admitting 14 terrorism offences and two child abuse image offences.
(PA Media)

Harry Vaughan, from Twickenham, south-west London, was 18 when he admitted 14 terror offences and two of possessing indecent images of children.

He developed an interest in right-wing extremism, Satanism, the occult, and violence after disappearing “down a rabbit hole of the internet” from the age of 14, the Old Bailey heard previously.

In November 2020, Mr Justice Sweeney handed Vaughan a two-year suspended sentence along with a 60-day rehabilitation order and a terrorist notification order for 10 years.

The court previously heard that the defendant was arrested at his family home on June 19 2019 in a counter-terror probe into Fascist Forge – an online forum used by extreme, right-wing militants.

In an application to join the System Resistance Network – an alias of the banned neo-Nazi group National Action – in March 2018, he wrote: “I could handle myself in a fight. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to further the cause.”

Police found 4,200 images and 302 files, including an extreme, right-wing terrorist book and documents relating to Satanism, neo-Nazism and antisemitism, on his computer and other devices.

Vaughan had originally pleaded guilty to one count of encouragement of terrorism, one count of disseminating a terrorist publication, 12 counts of possessing a document containing information of a kind likely to be of use to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism, and two counts of making an indecent photograph of a child.

In June this year, 21-year-old Vaughan, who now goes by the name of Harry Blake, returned to the Old Bailey and pleaded guilty to making an indecent photograph of a child in September 2022.

He also admitted three charges of possessing extreme pornographic videos, three counts of failing to comply with a Serious Crime Prevention Order and three breaches of his notification order.

The breaches, which began just a month after his original sentence, related to failing to tell authorities about an email address and details of cryptocurrency accounts.

Now in relation to the newer offences, Vaughan has been jailed for 38 months and was handed a serious crime prevention order of five years at the Old Bailey on Thursday.

Perspective

An internet troll whose house was adorned with Nazi flags, fridge magnets and a portrait of Adolf Hitler has been jailed.

Samuel Doyle, 40, called for the killing of LGBTQ+ and Jewish people in online posts.

Officers then searched his home in Highfield Road, Glossop, and found fascist and racist manifestos and books, Derbyshire Police said.

He was jailed for three years at Manchester Crown Court on Monday.

The force said Doyle, of Highfield Road, came to the attention of officers from Counter Terrorism Policing East Midlands (CTPEM) after intelligence about his online activity was passed to them.

Further inquiries then uncovered a large number of posts made by a username linked to Doyle, which led to his arrest in February 2022.

‘Posts are abhorrent’

Following two no-comment interviews, Doyle was charged and admitted five counts of distributing or publishing written material to stir up racial hatred.

Det Insp Chris Brett, of CTPEM, said: “Freedom of speech is an important part of our shared British values – and something that is enshrined in law.

“However, those freedoms are not without limit and it is clear that the views Samuel Doyle expressed online stepped well over the line into criminality.

“The posts he wrote are abhorrent – calling directly for violent action to be taken against a number of minority groups.

“Some may say that posting online is different to expressing these views in person, but that is absolutely not the case.

“We have seen across the world how online posting of this nature has had serious ‘real world’ outcomes – including, sadly, fatalities.

“In recent years we have seen an increasing number of cases involving people who have been pulled into online hate speech and extremist views, and I would urge people who are concerned about family, friends or colleagues to come forward and report their behaviour.”

BBC News

Alfie Stevens wore a white polo shirt with slicked back blonde hair as he appeared at the Old Bailey

A South London man has admitted sharing extreme right-wing terrorist material on Telegram chat. Alfie Stevens, 24, pleaded guilty to three charges of dissemination of a terrorist document during a hearing on Friday at the Old Bailey.

The offences related to posts Stevens made to two groups on the encrypted Telegram app on January 27, 2021. He shared the White Resistance Manual and How To Start And Train A Militia Unit into a group entitled Band Of Brothers. He also posted the How To Start And Train A Militia Unit document to a group named White Race Camp.

The charges stated that at the time he intended his actions to be a “direct or indirect encouragement” of terrorism or was “reckless to whether his conduct had such an effect”.

Stevens wore a white polo shirt, had his short blonde hair slicked back and stood behind his barrister in court to enter his guilty pleas. Mr Justice Jeremy Baker adjourned his sentencing for a psychological and pre-sentence report to be prepared.

Stevens was told to return to the Old Bailey on October 13 to be sentenced by Judge Sarah Munro KC. The defendant, who lives with his mother in Surrey Quays, was granted continued unconditional bail.

My London

Alex Belfield called into question Vine’s honesty and tried to publish family and friends’ phone numbers, court hears

A man who was jailed for stalking Jeremy Vine has apologised in court after being sued over the campaign of harassment and abuse he waged against the broadcaster.

Vine sued Alex Belfield for defamation and harassment less than a year after Belfield’s conviction for stalking him and others. The high court heard that Belfield had made several untrue allegations against Vine that called into question his honesty, as well as trying to publish his family and friends’ phone numbers online and encouraging people to call him while he was working.

“Belfield never had any basis at all to make the false allegations of dishonesty” against Vine, Belfield’s lawyer, Alan Robertshaw, told the high court on Thursday. “And nor was there any justification for his harassment” of the broadcaster.

Robertshaw added: “[Belfield] wishes to apologise unreservedly for the damage and distress caused to [Vine] and his reputation by his publications and express his profound and unreserved regret for all of the harm for which he is responsible.”

Gervase de Wilde, representing Vine, told Mrs Justice Steyn that his client was “deeply distressed” by Belfield’s campaign, during which it was said he accused Vine of dishonesty in relation to a memorial for his friend John Myers, a respected radio executive who died in 2019.

Belfield was said to have claimed that Vine “publicly and repeatedly lied about his knowledge of the circumstances in which the BBC gave him personally £1,000 by way of a donation” for the memorial. “It was particularly hurtful and distressing that the defendant’s campaign focused on his honesty in relation to an event arising from the death of his friend,” De Wilde told the court.

The judge heard that Vine’s Twitter account was inundated with messages from people referring to Belfield’s campaign against him. Vine’s lawyer said he tried to block Belfield and to ignore his messages “but the defendant sought to circumvent these measures by asking his followers to contact the claimant … and otherwise encouraged his followers and others to perpetuate his campaign against the claimant on his behalf.”

De Wilde said Belfield was initially “defiant” after Vine started proceedings against him. “He published a video in which he referred to [Vine] as a liar. When he entered a defence in these proceedings, he denied liability.”

Last September, Belfield, a former BBC local radio DJ, was jailed for five years and 26 weeks for stalking broadcasters, including Vine, and subjecting his victims to an “avalanche of hatred”.

Sentencing Belfield at Nottingham crown court, Mr Justice Saini told him that while his actions were not “traditional stalking … your methods were just as effective a way of intimidating victims and in many ways much harder to deal with”.

He said there had been “no escape” for Belfield’s victims until bail conditions were imposed before his trial, and he agreed with Vine’s characterisation that the ex-DJ had “weaponised the internet” against those he targeted.

The Guardian

Luke Skelton was 17 when he began planning attack as part of his desire for a ‘full-on’ race war

Luke Skelton, now 20, researched napalm, molotov cocktails and how to make explosives on the internet. Photograph: Counter Terrorism Policing North East/PA

A former college student with extreme rightwing views who plotted to blow up a police station as part of his desire for a “full-on” race war has been jailed for four years.

Luke Skelton was 17 when he first started posting extreme views and making preparations to bomb a police station in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Now 20, he was jailed on Tuesday by a judge who said Skelton was engaged in a course of conduct “based on the extreme rightwing views which you then held in order to bring about civil disturbance and unrest by terrorist means”.

A trial heard that Skelton researched napalm, molotov cocktails and how to make explosives on the internet.

Judge Paul Watson KC, the recorder of Middlesbrough, said evidence showed Skelton was “a committed and active rightwing extremist” who was dedicated to white supremacy and promoting racial hatred.

Skelton was obsessed with nazism and “made heroes out of those who carry out atrocities in the name of fascism and other extreme rightwing ideologies”.

The trial at Teesside crown court heard evidence that Skelton posted online views that were racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic and Islamophobic.

“Your fantasy was to turn back the pages of history books to times when such xenophobic and hateful views were tolerated and even admired,” the judge said.

Skelton, then a student at Gateshead college, travelled from his home in Washington, Tyne and Wear, to Newcastle to take photographs and carry out reconnaissance on his target, the Forth Banks police station.

“Your objective was to cause explosions to provoke what you saw as a coming race war,” the judge said. “This was no spur of the moment or impulsive conduct.”

The court heard submissions that there was never any chance of Skelton, who has autism spectrum disorder and a low IQ, being capable of carrying out his intention to blow up a police station.

Anti-terror officers first arrested Skelton in June 2021, leading him to change his username for an online group to “Adolf Hitler” – “so the police don’t suspect me”, he told Discord users.

His barrister, Crispin Aylett KC, said medical reports showed his client’s autism, isolation and possible depressed mood could all affect his behaviour. Much of what Skelton said online was clearly nonsense, he added.

Aylett said the behaviour all took place during the Covid pandemic, a “catastrophe” for young people who lost two years of their lives.

The judge gave Skelton a five-year sentence, with four years in custody and an extended licence of one year for the terror plot.

The Guardian

Christopher Gibbons and Tyrone Pattern-Walsh were unmasked as the hosts of a neo-Nazi online podcast which encouraged listeners to commit violence. The podcast also criticised mixed race relationships and branded Archie an “abomination that should be put down”.

The hosts of a neo-Nazi podcast who launched an attack on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son Archie have been convicted of terrorism offences.

Christopher Gibbons, 38, and Tyrone Patten-Walsh, 34, both face jail after being found guilty of encouraging acts of terrorism on Friday, following a trial at Kingston Crown Court.

Gibbons described Archie as an “abomination that should be put down” in the podcast, which the pair used to voice their hatred of mixed race marriages.

Christopher Gibbons and Tyrone Patten-Walsh. Pics: Metropolitan Police

He called for Prince Harry to be “prosecuted” and “judicially killed for treason”, jurors heard.

The pair also endorsed the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 and hailed Brenton Tarrant’s 2019 shooting spree in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claimed the lives of 51 people at two mosques during Friday prayers.

They also made vile remarks about victims of the Manchester Arena bombing.

Both men aired homophobic, racist, antisemitic, Islamaphobic and misogynistic opinions – on some occasions encouraging their listeners to commit violence.

Gibbons also created a “Radicalisation Library” containing hundreds of extreme right-wing texts and material – including more than 500 extreme right-wing related speeches and propaganda documents.

He uploaded videos to the library between March 2019 and February 2020, the court heard.

Gibbon and Patten-Walsh produced 21 episodes for their podcast, which had almost 1,000 subscribers with its content viewed more than 152,000 times.

An investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command found some of the content breached terrorism legislation, leading to the pair being arrested in May 2021 and charged on 16 August in the same year.

They were both tried for eight counts of encouraging acts of terrorism, each relating to a separate podcast episode.

Gibbons was also tried for two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications.

Both men denied and were convicted of all the charges against them.

‘Dedicated and unapologetic white supremacists’

During the trial, prosecutor Anne Whyte QC said of the defendants: “(They) are men who hold extreme right-wing views. They are dedicated and unapologetic white supremacists.

“They thought that if they used the format of a radio show, as good as in plain sight, they could pass off their venture as the legitimate exercise of their freedom of speech.

“In fact what they were doing was using language designed to encourage others to commit acts of extreme right wing terrorism against the sections of society that these defendants hated.”

Gibbons, of Carshalton, south London, and Patten-Walsh, of Romford, Essex, have been remanded in custody to be sentenced at the court on 26 September.

Speaking after the sentence was passed, Commander Dominic Murphy said: “Gibbons and Patten-Walsh thought that the fact they were airing their hateful views and advocating terrorist acts in plain sight, on a radio and podcast platform, somehow gave them some legitimacy and meant they wouldn’t face any consequences.

“They were wrong, and both our investigation and a jury has found that they sought to encourage terrorism in how they expressed their abhorrent extreme right-wing views.

“During the course of the investigation, detectives reviewed hundreds of hours of material, and the result of their work was the compelling case that was presented at court which has resulted in their convictions.”

Commander Murphy urged anyone who spots extremist content online to report it to the police, adding: “Information from the public is vitally important in our fight against terrorism.”

Sky News

A man has become the first alleged neo-Nazi to be placed under special government powers for monitoring and controlling suspected terrorists, it has emerged.

The man, who is in his 20s, can only be referred to publicly as LXB.

Last year, he was subjected to terrorism prevention measures which place strict limits on what a person can do.

He appeared in court on Friday after admitting he had breached the measures.

LXB has previously been suspected by the authorities of having the potential to carry out a terrorist attack.

Last week he pleaded guilty to two breaches of the measures by having a video camera and memory card without prior approval from the Home Office.

During a hearing at the Old Bailey on Friday, the defendant appeared by video link from prison and was remanded in custody. Sentencing was adjourned until 8 August.

Kate Wilkinson, prosecuting, said LXB had “serious previous convictions”.

Terrorism prevention and investigation measures, known as TPIMs, allow the authorities to monitor and control people considered to be terrorists – but who are not facing criminal charges.

MI5 advises the government about who should be subjected to TPIMs.

Subjects face measures such as wearing an electronic tag, being relocated to different parts of the UK, bans on internet use, and limits on who they can meet and where they can go.

Everyone subjected to a TPIM is given legal anonymity and referred to using a cipher. If the measures are breached, the subject can be prosecuted and jailed.

The press and public only ever learn details of individual TPIM subjects when they end up in court for breaches, or for High Court reviews of the measures.

The BBC has previously investigated the use of TPIMs, including how the government was using them to limit activities of the banned al-Muhajiroun, a group which has been linked to multiple attacks and plots in the UK and abroad.

LXB is the first suspected right-wing extremist to have been subjected to a TPIM since the powers were created in 2011.

He is the 29th person to be placed under a TPIM. All the previous 28 subjects were suspected Islamist extremists.

The measures are controversial, with the independent reviewer for terrorism legislation – Jonathan Hall KC – previously saying they were increasingly being used on people with mental health issues.

BBC News

A WHITE supremacist has been jailed for attacking a black inmate simply because of the colour of his skin.

Alexander Gray, formerly of Chudleigh, was described and a ‘through and through racist’ after a judge heard that he has a history of neo-Nazi violence that includes running his own online television channel in which he ended his videos with Hitler salutes.

He was in Exeter prison and being escorted to an adjudication hearing in April last year when he broke free and punched a black prisoner in the face, breaking his jaw.

Warders dragged him away as he repeatedly shouted the N word at the other inmate, who had been playing table tennis before falling victim to the unprovoked assault.

The adjudication was one of four disciplinary hearings, two of which involved attacking black inmates, one for telling a chaplain that white people ought to rule the world, and one for drawing a swastika in his cell.

At the time of the attack he was serving a sentence for assaulting two brothers in Chudleigh because one of them had a black girlfriend.

Gray, aged 31, previously of Fore Street, Chudleigh, but now of HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire, admitted racially aggravated assault causing grievous bodily harm and was jailed for two years and eight months with a three year extended licence by Judge Robert Linford at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ‘You were in Exeter Prison following your last bit of racism and were let out of your cell to attend an adjudication. For no reason whatsoever other than the colour of his skin, you ran at a man and delivered a savage punch which sent him to the floor and broke his jaw.

‘As you were detained, you shouted racist comments.

‘You are a through and through racist. That is what you are. You are a violent and extremely dangerous one at that. You have many convictions for offences of violence.

‘I have no doubt whatsoever you fulfil the criteria of a dangerous offender and pose a significant risk to members of the public.

‘I have no doubt whatsoever that the racial element was the predominant motivation for you to launch this unnecessary and savage attack.’

Miss Kelly Scrivener, prosecuting, said the attack happened on April 26 last year and left the victim needing an operation to fix a plate in his jaw.

She said Gray has convictions for violence going back to his teens but his racist offending stared in 2019 when he abused police as they arrested for attacking his own father.

He was jailed in 2021 for distributing material that was designed to stir up racial hatred. He set up a Telegram channel named Whiteness in the West Country that proposed turning the South West into a whites-only zone.

He was jailed again later the same year for a racially aggravated attack on two brothers and again in 2022 for racial harassment of a black inmate who he threatened to kill while using the N word.

He has also had four adverse adjudications while in prison including for making monkey noises at black prisoners, two assaults, trying to preach white supremacy to the prison chaplain and drawing a swastika in his cell.

Mr William Parkhill, defending, said Gray grew up in Bovey Tracey but became a racist as a result of spending so much of his life in jail.

He said: ‘Since he was 17, by my calculation he has spent ten years in custody. The court will find his attitudes distasteful in the extreme but it was an attitude generated in prison, not in Bovey Tracey.’

At the time of the attack he was serving a sentence for assaulting two brothers in Chudleigh because one of them had a black girlfriend.

Gray, aged 31, previously of Fore Street, Chudleigh, but now of HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire, admitted racially aggravated assault causing grievous bodily harm and was jailed for two years and eight months with a three year extended licence by Judge Robert Linford at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ‘You were in Exeter Prison following your last bit of racism and were let out of your cell to attend an adjudication. For no reason whatsoever other than the colour of his skin, you ran at a man and delivered a savage punch which sent him to the floor and broke his jaw.

‘As you were detained, you shouted racist comments.

‘You are a through and through racist. That is what you are. You are a violent and extremely dangerous one at that. You have many convictions for offences of violence.

‘I have no doubt whatsoever you fulfil the criteria of a dangerous offender and pose a significant risk to members of the public.

‘I have no doubt whatsoever that the racial element was the predominant motivation for you to launch this unnecessary and savage attack.’

Miss Kelly Scrivener, prosecuting, said the attack happened on April 26 last year and left the victim needing an operation to fix a plate in his jaw.

She said Gray has convictions for violence going back to his teens but his racist offending stared in 2019 when he abused police as they arrested for attacking his own father.

He was jailed in 2021 for distributing material that was designed to stir up racial hatred. He set up a Telegram channel named Whiteness in the West Country that proposed turning the South West into a whites-only zone.

She said Gray has convictions for violence going back to his teens but his racist offending stared in 2019 when he abused police as they arrested for attacking his own father.

He was jailed in 2021 for distributing material that was designed to stir up racial hatred. He set up a Telegram channel named Whiteness in the West Country that proposed turning the South West into a whites-only zone.

Mr William Parkhill, defending, said Gray grew up in Bovey Tracey but became a racist as a result of spending so much of his life in jail.

He said: ‘Since he was 17, by my calculation he has spent ten years in custody. The court will find his attitudes distasteful in the extreme but it was an attitude generated in prison, not in Bovey Tracey.’

Tavistock Today