A SEX fiend raped two women while working at Scotland’s crisis-hit superhospital.

Keir Wotherspoon, 24, brutally assaulted one victim three times in 24 hours, including throttling her with a belt and biting her head.

The support worker at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital attacked a second woman while on bail.

He was convicted last month at the High Court in Airdrie.

A QEUH staffer said: “He’s a complete beast. It’s horrible to think he was on these wards and in close contact with vulnerable female patients.”

The court heard Wotherspoon pounced on his first victim at the Kelvingrove Hotel in Glasgow’s west end over two days in June 2019.

The brute seized her by the hair, bound her wrists and choked her with a belt.

The second woman was targeted at the city’s Strathclyde Uni last August.

Wotherspoon, of Airdrie, denied the charges but a jury found him guilty of four rapes, including one to the danger of the victim’s life.

Detective Inspector Lauren McDonald, who led the probe, said: “Keir Wotherspoon is a dangerous individual and his actions will no doubt have lasting effects.”

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the fiend was sacked in July.

He will be sentenced later this month.

Scottish Sun

Further info on Wotherspoon can be found here

Piers Portman, 50, is the son of Edward, 9th Viscount Portman of Bryanston
Portman abused Campaign Against Antisemitism CEO Gideon Falter
Mr Walter was called ‘Jewish scum’ outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court
Portman was ordered to pay £10,000 in compensation and £10,000 in costs

A millionaire heir to the Portman property empire who racially abused an anti-Semitism campaigner outside a court has been jailed for four months.

Piers Portman, 50, who is the son of Edward, 9th Viscount Portman of Bryanston, called Campaign Against Antisemitism CEO Gideon Falter ‘Jewish scum’ at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on June 14, 2018.

He also described his own Jewish ex-wife as a ‘greedy, grasping, thieving and lying criminal manipulator of the system.’

The Harrow-educated aristocrat’s family owns the Portman Estate, which covers 110 acres of Marylebone in West London, including the land under Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Mr Falter was leaving the building after a court hearing for anti semite Alison Chabloz-Tyrer when he was abused by Portman.

Passing sentence on Portman, Judge Gregory Perrins said that crowd including men in Nazi replica uniforms at the Chabloz-Tyrer sentencing hearing was a ‘who’s who of Nazi deniers and extremists’.

‘You have shown no insight at the impact of your offending and no remorse and continue to see yourself as the victim,’ the judge told Portman.

‘At the trial you told the jury you were an honourable British man.

‘You are, I am afraid, anything but.’

Judge Perrins also ordered Portman to pay £10,000 in court costs and a further £10,000 in compensation to Mr Falter.

‘You are an extremely wealthy man, in the circumstances I do not see why you shouldn’t pay for your trial,’ added the judge.

‘It would be ultimately a matter for Mr Falter, however I agree it would be appropriate to donate that to the Campaign Against Antisemitism.’

Shaved-headed Portman in black trousers and a navy water-proof jacket stood with his mouth agape as he heard he would be taken to jail while his mother supported him from the public gallery.

Lewis Power, QC, defending, told the court that his client, of a ‘proud heritage’ and a good family now had a ‘permanent stain’ on his reputation.

‘The stain of prejudice, as your Honour knows, is often indelible,’ said Mr Power.

The barrister called Portman a ‘now broken man’ who knew he needed to be punished but merely asked for clemency.

‘At the time of the incident, Mr Portman had undergone and suffered a traumatic divorce which may have impactive his perspective him life,’ said Mr Power.

‘Since that date Mr Portman has become ostracized from his family.

Speaking after the case, Mr Falter said: ‘I am extremely reassured by this sentence, which sends a very clear message to antisemites that even the wealthiest and most privileged cannot escape British justice.

‘I have been awarded £10,000 in compensation which I am donating to Campaign Against Antisemitism to help us ensure that anti-Jewish racists like Mr Portman face the consequences of their actions.’

Daily Mail

A man who expressed hatred of ethnic minorities online and wrote “terrorism is the only way out” has had his jail term increased.

Michael Nugent, 38, used different identities to share extremist material in chat groups online.

He posted videos celebrating the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand in March 2019, which he described as a “game-changer”.

Three appeal judges on Friday increased his 42-month jail term to five years.

‘Obvious gravity’

It followed a challenge by the Attorney General, whose lawyers argued that Nugent’s original sentence, imposed by Judge Peter Lodder QC in June, should be stiffer.

In a written ruling, Lord Justice Edis said Judge Lodder had not given sufficient weight to an increase in the maximum penalty for Nugent’s offences.

He also said the original sentence had not reflected the “obvious gravity” of online radicalisation.

Nugent, of Parkland Grove, Ashford, Surrey, unwittingly sent copies of manuals for the creation of bombs and other firearms to undercover police officers, Kingston Crown Court previously heard.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of dissemination of terrorist publications and 11 counts of possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism at a hearing in May.

‘Game changer’

In parts of Nugent’s diary, he said ethnic minorities should be “sent home” and “sterilised”.

“We are being genocided in our own homes,” read one extract.

“Terrorism is the only way out of it.”

One of his groups on the messaging service Telegram had about 200,000 members.

Nugent owned a copy of the manifesto written by Brenton Tarrant, who carried out the terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand in 2020 in which 51 worshippers were killed.

Writing on Telegram, Nugent said: “I understand why Tarrant did what he did.

“What he did was a game changer.”

BBC News

Matthew Cronjager shared his plans with an undercover police officer who had infiltrated a Telegram group called The British Hand.

A teenage neo-Nazi who plotted to shoot an Asian friend because he slept with “white chicks” has been locked up for more than 11 years.

Matthew Cronjager, 18, tried to get hold of a 3D printed gun or a sawn-off shotgun to kill his target, who he likened to a “cockroach”.

He set himself up as the “boss” of a right-wing terror cell and created an online library to share right-wing propaganda and explosives-making manuals.

Cronjager’s plans were scuppered by an undercover police officer who had infiltrated a Telegram group called The British Hand.

Following a trial at the Old Bailey, Cronjager was found guilty of preparing for acts of terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications on Telegram.

He had admitted four charges of possessing terror documents on the first day of his trial.

On Tuesday, the defendant, of Ingatestone in Essex, was sentenced to a total of 11 years and four months in youth detention.

Judge Mark Lucraft QC told him: “In giving evidence in the trial it was obvious that you are a bright and intelligent young man.

“In a way that makes the content of some of the messages you sent all the more troubling.

“In my view you are someone who played a leading role in terrorist activity where the preparations were not far advanced.”

The judge noted character references he had received from Cronjager’s parents and others who had known him for many years.

But he added: “Some of the letters state that you pose no threat and where there is no victim.

“I should simply say that those are matters that are at odds with the evidence in the messaging in this case and with the victim impact statement.”

Cronjager’s victim had said in his statement that he felt “sad, hurt and betrayed”.

He said: “When I first got told the news by the CT police I just brushed it off that Matt must have been joking about.

“The next day when the police came back to see me and said that there had not been a mistake and Matt had said those things, and to be honest at that moment of realisation it broke my heart.

“The strange thing was it wasn’t just the fact that Matt was plotting to kill me that hurt initially, it was the fact that we had been having serious conversations about our future, and we had been exchanging Christmas greetings, meanwhile in the background he was planning to make that my last Christmas, that really hurt.”

The victim was left “simmering with anger” towards Cronjager and “on the brink of self harm”, the court was told.

In mitigation, lawyer Tim Forte said Cronjager “bitterly regrets” the harm he caused and offered an apology.

Mr Forte argued that “young” and “immature” Cronjager could yet be integrated into society.

The court had previously heard how the defendant wanted a “revolution” based on his fascist beliefs, including hatred of non-white people, Jews, Muslims and those with a different sexual orientation to his.

He had offered to lead the UK division of an extreme right-wing group calling itself Exiled 393, telling members that his time as an army cadet had given him the necessary skills.

In November last year, Cronjager suggested setting up a collective PayPal account to buy weapons and other items for the group.

In one message, he wrote: “I was thinking more of having it to buy things like big tents or a 3D printer maybe for creating bits of ‘art’,” said to be code for guns.

The court was told that he said he wanted to arm the group, but give them a few months before launching an attack to “get over the stress of being illegal and being unable to go back from that point”.

In further messages to the undercover officer on December 13, he and Cronjager discussed arranging a drop-off location for 3D printed guns, the court heard, and of the supplier needing more money to pay for materials.

On the same day, Cronjager formulated his plot to kill his former friend after he boasted to him of sleeping with three white women.

The defendant told the undercover officer: “I’ve found someone I want to execute.

“I know it’s an overall target and he’s a sand n***** that f***** a white girl.

“In fact I think three of them.

“I figure we could just ‘find’ a double barrel shotgun and saw it down for things like this.”

Cronjager then added: “They’re like cockroaches”, the court heard.

When asked if his former friend had raped the girls, he allegedly replied: “Nope, but it’s a violation of nature.

“We’re not supposed to mix race … it’s not rape by legal definition but it’s kind of like rape if that makes sense.

“Violation at least.”

On his arrest at his Essex home on December 29 last year, police seized a large amount of material demonstrating his commitment to an “extreme right-wing cause”, jurors heard.

He attempted to explain his behaviour by claiming to police he was a member of anti-fascist organisation Antifa, that had infiltrated various right-wing groups to disrupt and undermine them.

But giving evidence, he accepted he had held extreme far-right views, saying he now felt “ashamed and disgusted” by them.

The defendant, whose hobbies included computer gaming, karate, football and cricket, described his teenage years as lonely, isolated, quite depressed and anxious, with his negative feelings starting around the age of 16.

Mr Forte said that Cronjager had created for himself a “superhero fantasy” like a Call Of Duty avatar, but it was all “make believe”.

The jury was told that the defendant was on the autism disorder spectrum, with a mild level of severity, and had a high IQ.

Shropshire Star

English Defence League founder shouted abuse at reporter’s home and threatened to keep coming back

Tommy Robinson has been given a five-year stalking protection order after he shouted abuse outside the home of a journalist and threatened to repeatedly return to her address.

The founder of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, went to the property of the Independent’s home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden and her boyfriend, Samuel Partridge, in January of this year.

Westminster magistrates court heard he stood outside Dearden’s house and shouted unsubstantiated allegations about Partridge.

The deputy chief magistrate Tan Ikram said Robinson’s behaviour “crossed the line between mere harassment and stalking” at a hearing on Wednesday.

The court previously heard Robinson had hired a private investigator to find information out about Dearden after a request for comment she made, through his solicitors, on a story alleging that he misused money donated by his supporters.

Ikram said that after obtaining Dearden’s address, Robinson had arrived around 10pm, calling for her to come to the door and shouting claims that Partridge was a paedophile.

The magistrate “wholly rejected” that Robinson had attended the address to “exercise his right to reply” to the article, saying that he had been there to intimidate her and adding there was “not a shred of evidence” that the claims about Partridge were true.

“The complainant refused to come out or engage with the defendant,” he said.

“The defendant reacted by saying that he would come back to her address ‘every night’.

“In my judgment, that crosses the line in this case between mere harassment and acts associated with stalking in that he threatened to repeatedly return to her home address.

“The defendant was arrested before he could carry out his threat.

“I find that the intention of the defendant turning up at a journalist’s house at past 10pm was clear: to intimidate her.”

Ikram also rejected Robinson’s claim he had been “calm” throughout the incident, saying that it contradicted other undisputed witness accounts from neighbours.

He said: “Ms Dearden has said she felt extremely shaken, distressed and unsafe and afraid to go outside.

“The defendant clearly poses and continues to pose a risk to the complainant’s physical and psychological wellbeing.”

Robinson, who attended court in person, walked out of the courtroom part way through the hearing and did not return as the order was passed.

Under the conditions of the order Robinson is prohibited from contacting Dearden or Partridge, or attending any places where they live and work, unless specifically invited for interview.

He is also prohibited from publishing any material concerning, or making any reference to Dearden or Partridge, directly or indirectly, on any websites, on social media, or in print.

Robinson will be able to respond to the judgment and future articles written by Dearden with “legitimate comment” but without reference to his allegations against Partridge.

The Guardian

A man carried out an anti-Semitic graffiti campaign in which he called Jewish and gay people “gray aliens”, a court has heard.

Nicholas Lalchan, 49, used black marker pens to deface bus stops in London.

The graffiti appeared in areas with large Jewish communities, such as Edgware, Hendon and Finchley, between February and July 2019.

Mr Lalchan admits being behind the graffiti but denies he was motivated by religious or racial hatred.

He is on trial at Aldersgate House Nightingale court in central London, which was set up as part of plans to clear a backlog of cases following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Opening the trial, prosecutor David Patience said the graffiti was motivated by hostility towards Jewish people.

‘Fourth Reich’

He said the graffiti made reference to a “New World Order” and encouraged online searches for conspiracy theories.

Mr Patience said the writing was “seen by Jewish people and non-Jewish people who were distressed and reported it to the police”.

Mr Lalchan was arrested at his home in Edmonton, north London, after a community support officer recognised him as the person released in a still image of the culprit, the jury heard.

At the time, the defendant was carrying a backpack containing black marker pens and leaflets saying similar things to the graffiti.

A search of his home revealed more leaflets and pens and a USB stick containing material making reference to Jewish people and conspiracy theories, the court heard.

On being told he was being charged, Mr Lalchan allegedly said: “New World Order. The Fourth Reich. We will see.”

Mr Lalchan admits criminal damage and possessing an article with intent to commit criminal damage, but denies further charges alleging the damage was religiously and racially aggravated and stirring up racial hatred.

The trial continues.

BBC News

A FORMER English Defence League ‘commander’ illegally ran a team of door staff who were dispatched to work in East Lancashire pubs and clubs.

Bernard Holmes was arrested after an investigation revealed he had submitted false paperwork to secure a licence from the Security Industry Authority (SIA) in 2018.

Preston Crown Court heard how a tip-off about unlicensed bouncers working at venues in Lancashire led to officers attending the Nags Head in Accrington, where door staff said they worked for a Mr Holmes.

Further checks were undertaken, and it was established that Holmes had used false paperwork belonging to his uncle to register with the SIA, undertake training and obtain the necessary paperwork for his licence.

That allowed him to form a company, RR Ryan Response Ltd, to front his recruitment of door staff.

Prosecuting, Bob Sastry, said: “The man was contacted, and he spoke to SIA officers and he confirmed that he was in fact the uncle of Mr Holmes. It then became very clear that Mr Holmes had used his uncle’s name to apply to the SIA for the licence.”

The court heard how Holmes has 13 convictions arising from 21 offences – including six offences of battery, two of actual bodily harm and one of grievous bodily harm.

In 2019 the far-right thug was jailed for three years after he choked, headbutted and ripped out chunks of his ex-girlfriend’s hair. A court report from the time also showed how he threw her to the floor, kicked her and bit her on the face and mouth during the four-hour attack.

Holmes, who led EDL protests outside Blackburn’s Haslingden Road KFC dressed as a chicken in 2010, fled after beating up the woman but gave himself in after 10 days.

The 35-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and one count of possession of a controlled article for use in fraud during an earlier court hearing.

Speaking about the pre-sentence report which had been written prior to the sentencing, defence barrister Tom Lord addressed the ‘unrealistic recommendation’ that the offending could be dealt with without a custodial sentence.

He said: “There is at times perhaps a generosity that has been extended to this defendant which isn’t reconciled with the presentation today or in fact the activities he was seen to pursue at the time.

“Without being too disparaging to the author of the report, the recommendation is unrealistic – he himself queried why this is not crossing the custody threshold, we make that concession.

“Where I do rely on the analysis is that this defendant is not sophisticated; he is or was at the time, somebody who was more of a chancer, knowing full well he wouldn’t qualify for a badge given his history.

“He is now undertaking the building better relationships program. In my respectful submission perhaps, the court would see that the wind is blowing more in the direction of rehabilitation in respect of my submissions.

“An immediate custodial sentence would be a progression back – he would lose the opportunity to undertake that course, which is part of the rehabilitation aspect of his previous domestic violence convictions.

“Regrettably he seems to be someone who is predisposed to violence and dishonesty.”

Sentencing Holmes, of Bolton Road, Blackburn, Judge Simon Medland QC said: “It [the security industry] is a very valuable commodity, and it is important that those who are charged with that extremely difficult job of being on the doors of licenced premises, are suitable people for doing so and given the defendant’s antecedents, it’s hardly surprising that the SIA would have taken the view that he wasn’t.”

He continued: “You have a long history of periodic outbursts of violence and conduct which is serious. The result of that is that you have spent not insignificant periods in custody. Because of that background you knew when you were undertaking this process that if you went through the normal channels of applications, you would never have received your badge.

“You went about matters in a devious way – there are elements of cunning about what you did in order to circumvent this and it worked for a short period of time – about 10 shifts.

“It has to be said however that the origins of this case lie in conduct by you in August 2018 and it’s now September 2021.

“In the meantime you have served a not insubstantial sentence for offences of a violent nature.

“However, you pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity of this court and therefore I am going to step back from immediate custody in this case.”

Holmes was jailed for 12 months, suspended for two years and must undertake 30 rehabilitation requirement days and 120 hours unpaid work.

Jen Hart, the SIA’s criminal investigation manager, said: “This is a complicated and a devious fraud. This case demonstrates that the SIA will always seek to identify those who are abusing the licensing system designed to protect the public. The severity of the sentence demonstrates that the court thought so too.”

Lancashire Post

A 16-year-old boy set up an extremist right-wing group including a member who plotted a terrorism attack, it can now be revealed.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard the teenager ran “The British Hand” from 5 August last year when he was 14 on the encrypted Telegram app.

One group member, Matthew Cronjager, from Essex, was convicted of planning terrorist acts on 3 September.

The cases can now be linked after reporting restrictions were lifted.

The teenager, from south Derbyshire, vetted others in private chat groups where they talked about “doing something” against ethnic minorities and discussed weapons, the court heard.

In one post, he wrote in capital letters: “I am planning an attack against the Dover coast where every Muslim and refugee has been given safety if you’re interested tell me now.”

He was given a two-year youth referral order on Thursday.
‘Entrenched views’

The teenager, who has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, pleaded guilty in June to disseminating a terrorist publication called the Anarchy Cookbook Version 2000, disseminating a terrorist publication, and encouraging terrorism.

He downloaded a video of the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand, and also has previous convictions for hate crimes, including threatening to blow up a mosque in January 2020.

Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said the boy – who also received a three-year criminal behaviour order – had shown “seemingly entrenched views”.

Mr Goldspring said the facts of the case “give rise to genuine concerns” about the boy, but added a short custodial sentence would “serve little or no purpose”.

“I can’t emphasise how close you came to a further period of custody,” he said. “Until last night I was going to do so.

“I changed my sentencing reasons at about 11pm last night – that is how close you came.”

Teenage neo-Nazi Matthew Cronjager is facing a jail sentence in “double figures”, the court heard

The boy’s case is connected to the conviction of 18-year-old Cronjager, who was found guilty at the Old Bailey last week.

The court heard he wanted to shoot an Asian friend over boasts that he slept with “white chicks”.

He tried to get hold of a 3D printed gun or a sawn-off shotgun to kill his teenage target, whom he likened to a “cockroach”.

Prosecutor Alistair Richardson said Cronjager is facing a sentence in “double figures” after his conviction for preparing acts of terrorism, and disseminating terrorist publications on Telegram.

Another 16-year-old boy from Kent, who was a member of the Telegram chat group, admitted disseminating a terrorist publication called the White Resistance Manual by sending an electronic link in August which allowed others to access it.

He was handed a 12-month youth referral order by Mr Goldspring, who said he did not want to interrupt his education.

“You have a bright future, I have seen your GCSE results,” he said.

“You didn’t encourage anyone to carry out acts of terrorism and there is no evidence you planned to do so. You had a subordinate role to (the other boy).”

BBC News

An aristocrat convicted yesterday of an antisemitic attack is closely associated with a conspiracy theorist who believes the world is controlled by alien serpents.

Piers Portman, left, at court with Matthew Delooze, who believes in a serpent cult
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE

Piers Portman, 50, whose father is the 9th Viscount Portman, called the head of an antisemitism campaign “Jewish scum” in a confrontation after the sentencing of a Holocaust denier.

He had admitted telling the campaigner he was being persecuted by “Jewish tyrants posing as victims” and was convicted at Southwark crown court yesterday of religiously aggravated harassment.

The former society figure was accompanied at his trial by Matthew Delooze, an author who believes reptilian aliens secretly rule the world using human puppets including the royal family and celebrities.

Relatives and friends of the scion of the Portman family, whose £2 billion property empire dates back to a gift from Henry VIII, have become increasingly concerned about his behaviour since he met Delooze, 62.

Portman, who has described having a £300 million stake in the family trust and an income of £80,000 a month, helped Delooze set up a company to publish his theories of the “serpent cult” and paid for his home.

Portman’s privileged upbringing and education at Harrow is in stark contrast to Delooze, who has said he grew up in Burnley, Lancashire.

Delooze claims that as a six-year-old he was taken in a spacecraft by a beautiful woman who told him he would save the world. He was placed in care and later sentenced to borstal before becoming a factory worker. The author has described having an “epiphany” about a serpent cult in 1998 while preparing to kill himself.

Portman is one of four sons of the 9th Viscount’s second marriage. He married Lucy Thompson at St Mary Abbots Church in Kensington, west London, in 1995. Thompson, then 22, is the only daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Christopher Thompson, 56, equerry to Prince Michael of Kent. Their daughter, Willow, was the first female born into the Portman family in 39 years.

After the marriage ended, Portman married the PR supremo Tracy Brower, who is Jewish, in 2004. Their marriage crumbled as Portman made a number of visits to Brazil, where he took a hallucinogenic drug and began sending letters to newspapers and prominent people stating he was being persecuted.

Soon after their introduction, Delooze had been invited by Portman to join him at an “ayahuasca workshop” held at an eco-lodge resort in Bahia, northeast Brazil. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic traditionally used by shamans in the Amazon. Delooze recorded how the drug confirmed that the world was an illusion created “by a very deceptive force, and we live lives that the hijackers want us to live”.

In a letter denouncing the Royal Courts of Justice, he had suggested the Talmud, a Jewish legal text, was discriminatory against gentiles and “goys” [non-Jews].

Portman wrote to Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, in January 2018 claiming that his own wife and her divorce lawyer, Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, who is also Jewish, were “greedy, grasping, thieving and lying criminal manipulator[s] of the system”.

Five months later he approached Falter after the sentencing of Alison Chabloz-Tyrer, a notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier. He denied calling Falter “Jewish scum”, saying: “I am an honourable British man who was brought up to show respect to a fellow human.”

Judge Gregory Perrins said all sentencing options including custody would be considered when Portman returns to court on October 22.

The Times

If he doesn’t obey the judge he will go to jail

A young Nazi sympathizer who downloaded bomb-making instructions has been sentenced to read classic novels including Pride and Prejudice instead.

Judge Timothy Spencer QC told Ben John, 21, he could stay out of prison as long as he steered clear of white-supremacy literature and and read books and plays by Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.

The former De Montfort University student will have to return to court every four months to be tested on his reading by the judge after avoiding jail “by the skin of his teeth”.

John had first been identified as a terror risk days after his 18th birthday and was referred to the Prevent programme but carried on downloading “repellant” right-wing documents as well as a manual which contained bomb-making instructions.

He also read about the Nazis and wrote a letter raging against gay people, immigrants and liberals.

On August 11 this year he was found guilty by a jury of possessing information likely to be useful for preparing an act of terror. The court heard the conviction had a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.

But Judge Spencer concluded his crime was likely to be “an act of teenage folly” and an isolated incident.

He told John at the sentencing hearing today: “You are a lonely individual with few if any true friends.”

He added John was “highly susceptible” to recruitment by others more prone to action but said: “I am not of the view that harm was likely to have been caused.”

He made John promise him not to research any more right-wing materials.

The judge asked John: “Do you promise me that?”

John replied: “I promise.”

The judge then asked him: “Have you read Dickens? Austen? Start with Pride and Prejudice and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

“Think about Hardy. Think about Trollope.

“On January 4 you will tell me what you have read and I will test you on it.

“I will test you and if I think you are [lying to] me you will suffer.

“I will be watching you, Ben John, every step of the way. If you let me down you know what will happen.”

He then told John’s barrister, Harry Bentley: “He has by the skin of his teeth avoided imprisonment.”

John was given a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years plus a further year on licence, monitored by the probation service.

He was also given a five-year Serious Crime Prevention Order requiring him to stay in touch with the police and let them monitor his online activity and up to 30 days on a Healthy Identity Intervention programme.

Earlier in the sentencing hearing Ben Lloyd, prosecuting, told the court John had failed to respond to warnings in the past.

In January 2018 he had come to the attention of the authorities for his extreme views and had meetings with Prevent officers, which aims to de-radicalise young people at risk of extremism.

But in May 2018 John, who is from Lincoln, wrote a letter to his school claiming to be part of “The Lincoln Fascist Underground”, with a tirade against gay people and immigrants, which led to more intensive intervention by Prevent and psychiatric evaluation.

That did not stop him and in April 2019 he copied more than 9,000 right-wing and terror-related documents onto the hard drive of his computer, adding another 2,600 a few months later in August 2019.

Those documents were only discovered in January 2020 after John’s student accommodation in Saxby Street, Highfields, Leicester, was raided by police.

They included seven documents that the judge described as being “many, many viable instructions on how to make devastating explosions”.

Lincolnshire Police had to carry out a forensic examination of his hard drives because they had been wiped by John, of Addison Drive, Lincoln, a month before the raid.

The documents included “a worrying amount of right-wing literature and imagery”.

Judge Spencer said: “It is repellent, this content, to any right-thinking person.

“This material is largely relating to Nazi, fascist and Adolf Hitler-inspired ideology.

“But there was also a substantial quantity of more contemporary material espousing extreme right-wing, white-supremacist material.

“You suggested at trial it was mere academic fascination – I reject that. My view is that to a significant degree you have aligned with these ideologies and to a significant degree have adopted the views expressed as your own.

The bomb-making literature was examined by British military experts at Porton Down near Salisbury and seven of the documents had accurate guides to making firearms, ammunition and explosive devices.

But Mr Bentley, representing John, argued that his client was “very young” and “not likely to cause harm”.

He said that despite still having the documents on his computer throughout 2019 he had been “engaging well” with Prevent team officers at that time. Mr Bentley said the whole case again John was “really about not deleting items on a computer”, which the judge described as an “over-simplification” of the case.

Mr Bentley said: “Violence is the necessary ingredient of terrorism. It is not the prosecution case he was planning a terrorist attack.

“He was fascinated by extreme right-wing views and shared those views himself.

“He was a young man who struggled with emotions, however he is plainly an intelligent young man and now has a greater insight.

“He is by no means a lost cause and is capable of living a normal, pro-social life.”

At the end of the hearing, the judge commended all the officers who worked on the case.

Commenting on the sentence, Counter Terrorism Policing East Midlands Detective Inspector James Manning, who led the investigation, said: “This was a young man who could be anyone’s son, studying at university, and living one life in public, while conducting another in private.

“He possessed a wealth of National Socialist and anti-Semitic material which indicated a fascination and belief in a white supremacist ideology along with support for an extreme satanic group which is increasingly of concern for law enforcement agencies.

“The terrorist material he was found in possession of is extremely dangerous, and he acquired this to further his ideology.

“It indicates the threat that he and other followers of this hateful ideology pose to national security.

“It was not light reading, or material most would concern themselves with for legitimate reasons. This has been a long and complex investigation over the course of 11 months.”

De Montfort University confirmed John was a criminology student when he was arrested but had been suspended with immediate effect on his arrest.

Leicester Mercury