Tony Richardson, who represented the Fens and Rossmere ward, made the post while in office

A former Hartlepool councillor has received a six week prison sentence for sharing an offensive post on social media.

Anthony Richardson, known as Tony, pleaded guilty to making a post on Facebook that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.

The 68-year-old, who previously represented the Fens and Rossmere ward, made the post while in office in 2019.

The case first went to Teesside Magistrates’ Court on June 25, but was adjourned in order for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

Mr Richardson appeared in court on July 8 and, alongside his prison time, was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £128 and costs of £85.

While representing his ward, council sanctions were put in place against Mr Richardson as punishment for sharing ‘offensive and racist’ Facebook posts.

He was reported to have shared a post likening an immigrant trying to claim benefits to a dog, leading to suspension from the Brexit party and a 2020 council investigation which resulted in him being barred from council committees.

After issuing an apology and attending equality and diversity training, he requested that he be allowed to sit on the council’s committees again.

In February 2021 his request was granted via a council vote, however, he was not re-elected in the May 2021 local elections.

He received just 380 votes standing for the Veterans and People’s Party.
Gazette Live

A far-right agitator drunkenly “fly-kicked” a police officer during a counter-demonstration to the Black Lives Matter movement, a court heard on Thursday.

Alfie Hubbard, 26, was part of a group who pelted police officers with missiles during demonstrations in central London in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Prosecutor Fer Chinner called the group “right-wing extremist agitators” who had travelled to London to oppose the anti-racism movement, and claimed they were defending statues of historical importance.

As the situation grew increasingly volatile, one of the group, Daniel Allan, was caught on camera kicking Met Police Sergeant Richard Lambert in the back as he guarded his fellow officers.

“As he tried to get up to his knees and stand up, Alfie Hubbard – in a gratuitous and cowardly act of violence – ran towards the officer and fly-kicked him in the back before running away”, said the prosecutor.

Hubbard admitted violent disorder and was on Thursday handed a two-year suspended prison sentence at Southwark crown court.

“Your conduct was appalling”, said Judge Sally Cahill QC.

“This officer was already on the ground when you chose to kick him.

“The fact you were fully aware of what you were doing is shown by your conduct afterwards, when you ran off into the crowd as fast as you could. This was a very intentional act on your part.”

The court heard Hubbard, from Southwark, admitted travelling to “join the boys” in a counter-protest against the BLM demonstrations on June 13 last year.

“Among the agitators was a group of right-wing extremists and the prosecution say Alfie Hubbard was part of that group”, said Ms Chinner.

“They were shouting about the destruction of statues and being generally abusive towards police officers who were doing their best to make sure the protests remained peaceful and safe.”

Hubbard admitted he had been drinking heavily and taking cocaine during the day, but initially tried to claim the kick on Sgt Lambert was nothing more than a hop.

Ms Chinner said bodycam footage shows Hubbard “berating the police fairly consistently throughout the protests, being rude to them, and complaining about their failure to protect historical statues”.

“Towards the end of the day, Mr Hubbard is seen in Trafalagar Square standing together with a group who started making monkey gestures, shouting racist comments such as ‘go back to your own country’.”

The protests happened almost four weeks after the murder of Mr Floyd in Minneapolis by a police officer, and a week after the statue of slave trader Edward Colston had been toppled by demonstrators in Bristol.

Allan, from Sunderland, was jailed for 28 months over the incident after admitting violent disorder.

Michael Edmonds, mitigating, said Hubbard is mixed race with a black mother and denies engaging in racist chanting.

“His behaviour that day was fuelled by alcohol”, he said. “It was a cowardly act which this defendant deeply regrets.”

He said Hubbard, who has no previous convictions, has “struggled” since the death of his brother from a drug overdose in 2018.

Hubbard was ordered to follow a curfew as part of his suspended prison sentence.

Evening Standard

Delusional conspiracy theorist Anthony Beckett attacked his pregnant partner with a hammer while she was in the bath

A DELUSIONAL conspiracy theorist attacked his pregnant partner with a hammer and tried to drown her in the bath after becoming obsessed with a ‘great revelation’.

Anthony Beckett launched the violent and murderous attack in January when he believed he had become the target for the Chinese and US security service after posting a number of QAnon theories about the Covid pandemic.

The 33-year-old, who had suffered from mental health problems for several years, had a machete, knives, and a homemade noose, hidden around his Middlesbrough home after becoming obsessed with the US election.

His brave partner managed to pull the plug on the bath while Beckett was attempting to strangle her before eventually managing to escape, naked into the street and call for help, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The couple’s two children were in the home while Beckett was attempting to murder his partner.

Jo Kidd, prosecuting, said the defendant has discussed the need to kill their family in the build-up to the ‘great revelation’ on January 20 and promised to seek medical help if nothing happened as his mental health deteriorated during lockdown.

But two days before the ‘great reset’ his mental health spiralled out of control and he grabbed a hammer before striking his partner four times as she rinsed her hair under the water in the bath.

“She describes it like a wrecking ball to her head,” said Miss Kidd. “She described four blows with the hammer and an unrelenting attack with a clear aim of killing her.

“He was saying ‘I need to do this, I need to do this’.

“She tried to fight back against the attack but he then put his hands around her throat and tried to drown her. He was squeezing her throat hard and she was struggling, trying to unhook the plug and reduce the water level; to reduce her risk of being held under the water and drowning.

“He repeatedly tried to get her head under the water. She was terrified and terrified for the safety of their children.

“She thought he would killer her and their children.”

Beckett, of Alnwick Court, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to attempted murder following the attack on January 18 this year.

Jonathan Walker, in mitigation, said his client had suffered serious mental health issues since childhood, predating his regular use of cannabis.

“He had no recollection of what happened that night,” he added.

“Thankfully, after this psychotic episode, when he began to collect his thoughts, his first words were for his children and for his partner. That has been the case throughout these proceedings.”

Judge Penny Moreland sentenced Beckett to ten years in custody.

She said: “At the time of committing this offence, you were suffering from a brief psychotic disorder or cannabis induced psychotic disorder. You were aware of the risk of drug-induced psychosis.”

The Northern Echo

Boy set up far-right online group where members discussed attacking refugees with Molotov cocktails and metal bats

A teenage neo-Nazi who threatened to launch an attack on migrants in Dover has admitted terror offences.

The 15-year-old, who cannot be named, discussed the potential attack in a far-right group he had created on the encrypted Telegram platform.

In September, he wrote: “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.”

When another member asked what could be used in the attack, he listed potential weapons including Molotov cocktails and “metal bats”, while advising people to wear thick clothing that he claimed would protect against Tasers.

The boy, from Derbyshire, pleaded guilty to encouraging terrorism, and to possessing and disseminating a terrorist publication, on the first day of his trial on Monday.

Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that he had a previous conviction for threatening to blow up a mosque on 20 January last year, in what chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said had been described to him as a “bomb hoax, a prank and a joke”.

He was handed a referral order on 25 September 2020 after pleading guilty to an offence under the Malicious Communications Act.

He appeared in court alongside a 16-year-old boy from southeast London, who was a member of the same online group and had written racial slurs, referring to people as “P***s”.

The older boy added: “It’s gotten to the point I will casually walk up to someone with a gun and ‘POW’.” He admitted dissemination of a terrorist publication.

Mr Goldspring adjourned sentencing for both boys to 3 August for reports to be prepared, but said: “The custody threshold has been crossed.”

The 15-year-old, who appeared by video link from a youth remand centre, was remanded in custody, while the older boy, who appeared in court with his mother, was granted conditional bail.

The teenagers were arrested at their family homes in a coordinated police operation on 22 September.

Prosecutors said that police analysis of their phones and devices had “found a large quantity of extreme right-wing propaganda”, including photos, videos and documents.

The younger boy had downloaded footage of the Christchurch terror attack – in which a gunman filmed himself shooting 51 Muslim worshippers dead at mosques in March 2020 – when he was 14 years old.

The following month, the older defendant made videos involving Adolf Hitler, Nazis shooting victims in concentration camps, and a woman singing: “All Jews should die, race mixing is a sin”. He was 15 at the time.

The same boy had made numerous internet searches relating to guns, weapons and bombs.

The younger defendant established the online Telegram channel they were prosecuted over in August last year, and set about trying to recruit members on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

He saved and shared the “Anarchist Cookbook 2000” document, which contains instructions on how to manufacture explosives.

The older boy was prosecuted for disseminating a different terrorist publication, which prosecutors described as a “guide to committing terrorism in the name of right-wing extremism”.

Both boys initially denied the offences. The 15-year-old allegedly laughed when he was arrested, and told police: “Basically I’m far right and you guys don’t like it.”

During police interviews, he denied writing the post about attacking Dover and said he had not created the Telegram group.

The court heard he had admitted the offences on the basis that his actions were “reckless” rather than “intended”.

The 16-year-old admitted being part of the group when he was arrested at his home, but said he had “decided it was a bit too much and left”.

It is the latest terror case to involve child defendants in the UK. Earlier this month, official figures indicated that more than one in 10 terror suspects arrested in Britain is now a child.

The senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, Dean Haydon, said officers are seeing concerns about increasing numbers of children being drawn into extremism “come to fruition”.

“Covid-19 has driven huge numbers of people to spend a lot more time online, and we have seen an increase in the volume of online extremism – much of which sits below a criminal threshold, but which creates a permissive environment which makes it easier for extremists to peddle their brand of hatred,” he added.

“We cannot hope to arrest our way out of this problem – the only way we can hope to reverse this worrying prevalence of children in our arrest statistics is to stop them from being radicalised in the first place.”

The Independent

A hate speaker who was jailed over a series of public protests has been convicted of distributing an illegal image of a child performing a sex act with an animal over WhatsApp.

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

Charlton was convicted of five offences of stirring up racial hatred at five marches between September 2016 and July 2017 and was given a prison sentence in September 2019.

But by that time, police had already seized his phone after a video had been found, that he had sent to another man who had been arrested for an unrelated matter, which featured a child engaged in a sex act with an animal.

Charlton was tried by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court this week accused of sending the video clip to over 40 of his contacts over WhatsApp in June 2018.

The 57-year-old 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.

Giving evidence from the witness box, Charlton told jurors he would regularly receive and send “daft jokes” over the messaging app on his phone and did not always watch them.

He added: “It was just daft joke messages, things like that, you know what I mean.

“I would just forward them on, not even thinking about it most of the time.”

Charlton insisted he had not watched the video featuring the donkey and child, that he had received from someone else.

He added: “It wasn’t something I would expect from him.

“He knows if he sent me images of children I would kick off with him, as I would anyone else.”

Charlton told jurors he is a “proud father and grandfather” and would receive and send messages thinking they were “daft jokes”.
He added: “Now, being branded a paedo over a stupid video I’ve never even seen, I would tell all my friends and family, get off it all.
“If you send something and you are not aware of it, you could be sitting here.”

He added: “I swear I’ve never seen it.”

Charlton, formerly of Seaham but now of Sidmouth Road, Gateshead, denied making an indecent photograph of a child and distributing an indecent photograph of a child.

The charge of making an indecent photograph of a child was withdrawn from the jury’s considerations but they found him guilty of distributing the image.

The court heard Charlton has already admitted possessing extreme pornography in relation to an image involving an adult engaging in sexual activity with an animal.

He has also pleaded guilty to another offence of “showing an act resulting or likely to result in serious injury”, again involving an adult, which were also on his phone.

Charlton will be sentenced on September 16 and has been granted bail in the meantime.

Judge Sarah Mallett said it was an “unusual” case but warned: “The sentence is not necessarily going to be of a duration that could be suspended.”

Christopher Rose, defending, urged the judge to consider a community-based sentence and added: “Even on the Crown’s case, it didn’t suggest Mr Charlton was a person doing this for a sexual interest in children.

“It is, on the evidence, quite clear that that wasn’t his reason and motivation for forwarding on this WhatsApp message.”

Sunderland Echo

Danyal Hussein promised to “sacrifice” women in exchange for winning the lottery

Danyal Hussein had just turned 18 when he launched a ferocious knife attack on strangers Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman as the sisters celebrated Ms Henry’s 46th birthday last summer. What prompted the teenager to commit such a horrific crime?

Shortly after 01:00 BST on 1 July 2020 armed police smashed the door of an inconspicuous family home in a quiet cul-de-sac in Blackheath, south-east London.

Inside they found a contract that Hussein, now 19, believed he had drawn up with a demon.

In large, childish handwriting, he promised to “perform a minimum of six sacrifices every six months for as long as I am free and physically capable”.

The agreement was headed, “for the mighty king Lucifuge Rofocale” who, according to some Satanic cults, is the demon in charge of hell’s government and treasury.

In exchange Hussein would win the Mega Millions Super Jackpot and “receive fruitful rewards” including “wealth and power”.

At the bottom Hussein had signed his forename in his own blood. There was a space – left unsigned – for the demon to leave his mark.

Hussein signed his forename on the note in blood

Hussein grew up in Blackheath as the eldest of four siblings.

Before the murders, he was at Thomas Tallis school and studied A-levels at Orpington College – although he rarely attended.

Neighbours said his parents split up when Hussein was in his early teens. Before then, they said it was a noisy household with a lot of “screaming and shouting”.

“I know they had the police called and the ambulance came two or three times,” one neighbour, who asked not to be named, told the BBC.

Hussein was a “loner” who would regularly “wander off”. His father, Kamal Hussein, had been worried his son had “got into the wrong crowd”, another neighbour said.

“He said he worried about Danyal because he was being led in the wrong direction.”

It is unclear exactly what Hussein’s father meant. But in October 2017 Danyal, then aged 15, was referred to the government’s counter-extremism programme, Prevent. The referral from Thomas Tallis school related to material he had accessed on school computers, including far-right propaganda.

He was considered a person of concern and appeared in front of a Channel panel, for individuals at risk of being drawn into terrorism.

Hussein was discharged from the programme in May 2018 but it seems the influence of extremist ideology still had a hold.

After his arrest, police searched his tablet computer and laptop. As well as his use of forums discussing spells and potions linked to Satanic ideology, officers also found that Hussein had spent time researching the far right.

He apparently considered himself an Aryan.

Satanism and the far right

Analysis by Daniel De Simone, BBC home affairs

There is a crossover between elements of the extreme right wing and certain forms of Satanism and the occult, meaning Danyal Hussein’s ideological journey is perhaps less unusual than it might seem.

Misogyny is also a common theme of this world, generating a deeply toxic blend of beliefs.

Since 2019, six young men – five of them teenagers – have been convicted of extreme right-wing terrorism offences connected to a violent form of Satanism. Two neo-Nazi groups recently banned as terrorist organisations have promoted the ideology.

One boy, who was convicted in 2019 of planning a terrorist attack, had written of hunting for women in a forest, in a disturbing echo of Hussein’s crimes.

Some people start with a far-right ideology, explore the extreme right, and wind up – typically via the culture of certain online spaces – influenced by cruel and violent occult ideas, encouraging the very worst of human nature.
line

In Hussein’s bedroom, near the contract with Lucifuge Rofocale, police found another handwritten letter pledging to “offer some blood” in exchange for making a girl at his school “fall deeply in love with me”.

The note, addressed to Queen Byleth and signed “Danyal”, asked that this girl would “believe and see that I am the only one for her” and that he would be “more attractive to women romantically”.

In exchange, he promised to “burn insense [sic] in your name, offer some sweet drink, offer chocolate” and “offer some blood”.

Det Ch Insp Simon Harding, who led the investigation, said the two handwritten letters offered a motive for a “shocking crime”. He described Hussein as a “very, very dangerous and evil person”.

“I strongly believe he would have carried on killing,” he told the BBC.

“The level of violence and savagery that Danyal Hussein showed in that morning, in the pitch black, really doesn’t bear thinking about. It brings shivers down your spine.”

What prevented Hussein from attacking more women that night was a deep cut to his right hand sustained during the savage attack on Ms Henry and Ms Smallman.

It was that cut, and the DNA left on the scene, that helped police to trace him.

The 19-year-old required stitches after he suffered deep cuts to his hand during the attack

The raid on Hussein’s home came almost a month after the bodies of the sisters were discovered intertwined, as if laid out as a sacrifice, in the undergrowth of Fryent Country Park in Wembley, north-west London.

A large quantity of male DNA was found at the scene that did not belong to either of the victims.

Twenty-three days after the murders – on 30 June – a familial DNA link was found on a police database.

That DNA – until then labelled “Unknown One” – was quickly linked to Danyal Hussein. The raid on his home happened hours later, early on 1 July.

Occult symbols were found in Hussein’s bedroom

There is no evidence that police have seen that suggests anyone else was involved in the crime. Hussein did spend a lot of time on the so-called dark web but he has not co-operated with investigators in enabling them to gain access to his iPad.

Det Ch Insp Harding said his officers had not been able to see who Hussein had spoken to.

“If Danyal Hussein is in contact with somebody of a like-minded nature, we want to be able to find out who he’s talking to, find out if anybody is encouraging people to do this sort of thing,” he said.

“I think it’s incredibly frustrating to run a murder inquiry with your hands tied behind your back in that way.”

However, he said that it appeared Hussein was self-motivated.

“We haven’t seen anybody else have an influence on Danyal Hussein,” Det Ch Insp Harding said. “He was the one that made that contract that he signed in his own blood. And he went out there alone and killed those two women.”

But police admit that without help from either tech companies or Hussein himself, they cannot be sure if they have the full story.

BBC News

Dean Morrice described by judge as ‘dangerous neo-Nazi’ who pumped out racist propaganda online

A former Ukip member who posted violent racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic propaganda online and collected the means for making bombs has been jailed for 18 years.

Dean Morrice had ball bearings, pipes and instructions for an improvised explosive device (IED) by the time his home was raided last year, and the judge at Kingston crown court said it was “fortunate” that police arrested him when they did.

“You have described yourself as a patriot. You are not a patriot, you are a dangerous neo-Nazi, your bigotry and hatred is abhorrent to the overwhelming majority in this country,” Judge Peter Lodder said.

He said it was clear that Morrice revered those responsible for massacres in New Zealand and Norway and the bombing of a US government building Oklahoma, and had attempted to “fool” the jury into thinking he was a caring family man.

Morrice, 34, of Paulton, near Bristol, who worked for a time for the army, was convicted last week of 10 counts related to terrorism and explosives, all of which he denied.

He ran a Telegram channel that prosecutors said had “unapologetically, unambiguously pumped out” neo-Nazi propaganda that encouraged the killing of people of colour and Jewish people.

A previous hearing was told that Morrice had made a video of himself strumming along on a guitar to footage of the 2019 Christchurch terror attacks.

Lodder said Morrice had shown no remorse. “You attempted to fool the jury into thinking that you are a family-orientated, caring man who was simply trying to find friends. In the witness box you cried as you spoke of missing your own children.

“Yet you revelled in the Christchurch mosque massacre in which children as young as three years old were murdered, and glorified Brevijk who slaughtered more than 30 children in Norway.”

The judge instructed that the custodial element of a 23-year sentence should be 18 years.

The Guardian

A man from Somerset has been found guilty and sentenced for sharing terrorist material and possession of explosives.

Following an investigation led by Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) and Counter Terrorism Policing South West (CTPSW), Dean Morrice of Pithay Court, Paulton was found guilty on Thursday (10/6) on eight counts by a unanimous jury and a further two counts on a majority verdict.

During a 15-day trial at Kingston Crown Court, jurors heard details of the 34-year-old’s offences. He was charged with a total of 10 counts and found guilty on all counts –

Three counts of dissemination of terrorist publication, contrary to section 2 (1) of the Terrorism Act 2006.
One count of encouraging terrorism, contrary to section 1 (1) of the Terrorism Act 2006;
Four counts of possession of a document or record for terrorist purposes, contrary to section 58 (1) (b) of the Terrorism Act 2000;
Two counts of having an explosive substance, contrary to section 4 (1) of the Explosive Substances Act 1883.

Today (14/6) Morrice was sentenced to a total of 23 years imprisonment – eighteen years custodial with a further five years for what the judge described as his dangerousness.

Morrice was arrested on 20 August 2020 and searches were carried out in Paulton near Bath as part of the investigation.

He was found to have terrorist material. This included the manifesto of other extreme right-wing terrorists and a video of a terrorist act in which he had superimposed a video of himself into the video while playing a guitar along to the harrowing scenes depicted. He then shared that video with others.

He was in possession of documents which included other convicted terrorist manifestos.

He was found to have used communication channels to send memes and videos which encouraged terrorism which included the use of anti-Semitic imagery, neo-Nazi propaganda and suggested support for a race war.

Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of CTPSE, said: “The evidence in this case has shown that Morrice had a clear extreme right-wing ideology and had terrorist intentions.

“He was also in possession of terrorist literature including ‘weapon and militia manuals’ and distributed this to further aid his warped ideology and try and encourage others.

“Through dedicated investigation, Morrice was stopped before he was able to carry out any physical act of terror but the evidence showed that he actively encouraged terrorism to others with his toxic ideology and had the intention and potentially the capability to commit one himself.”

The court heard that during searches of his property, a 3D printer was discovered along with evidence to suggest he was trying to construct a weapon. He was also found to have other explosive substances in his possessions along with manuals about how to make guns and guerrilla warfare.

Det Chief Supt Barnes continued: “This is the first terrorism case which has taken evidence obtained by use of a 3D printer to court. CTPSE and CTPSW will continuously update knowledge and tactics to ensure the disruption of the wrongful use of new technology, as in this case.

“We work together across our network and with local forces and other law enforcement agencies to keep one step ahead.

“Although the weapon was not viable in the current state it was found in, in the wrong hands with the right capability it could have become one.

“I want to thank the dedicated investigation team and all our partners across the counter terrorism network, local forces and other law enforcement agencies in this case for all their hard work in getting this conviction.”

Chief Inspector Steve Kendall, Area Commander for Bath and North East Somerset, said: “People like Dean Morrice, who have extremist views and harbour such vile feelings of hatred towards sections of society, can live absolutely anywhere and although these instances are rare, they remind us we all need to be vigilant.

“While he evidently had the intent to equip himself with harmful substances and a weapon, there is no reason to believe any attack was imminent.

“His arrest in August last year undoubtedly concerned the community and I’d like to thank them for the restraint and resilience they showed following what was an unusual event.

“Public safety is our number one priority and we, together with all our security service partners, continue to work tirelessly to apprehend people like Morrice.

“If you are concerned about someone’s behaviour please contact us. We will be able to help with support, and where necessary, take appropriate action.”

Every year thousands of reports from the public help police tackle the terrorist threat and we need the public’s help and would always encourage people to report anything suspicious.

Avon and Somerset police

Andrew Dymock, the son of two academics from Bath, has been convicted of multiple terror offences following an Old Bailey trial.

The university student, who founded and led two banned neo-Nazi terrorist groups, was first exposed by the BBC.

In the summer of 2017, racist and homophobic propaganda posters began appearing in cities throughout the UK.

Bearing the logo of a new neo-Nazi group, the material abused and sought to intimidate gay, Jewish, black and Muslim people.

The group, System Resistance Network (SRN), also emerged online, using its website and social-media accounts to spread vile imagery, videos and diatribes.

Dymock admitted being in images provided to the court by Counter Terrorism Policing North

Much of the material went beyond stirring up hatred, crossing instead into open encouragement of violence and genocide.

In December 2016, National Action had become the first neo-Nazi group to be banned in the UK as a terrorist organisation, but a subsequent increase in terrorism prosecutions relating to right-wing ideologies had yet to begin.

The BBC began tracking SRN’s street-level activity and, over the following months, found at least 10 cities had been targeted – from Dundee to Southampton, Newport to Cambridge.

It became clear SRN’s presence in such disparate places was due to its requirement that aspiring members proved themselves by covering their local areas with propaganda.

The organisers hid behind masks and online aliases, making them hard to identify, although there seemed to be links to National Action.

There was a clear connection to the US terror group Atomwaffen Division, with the organisations referencing and promoting one another.

Atomwaffen, linked to five murders in the USA, draws on the most violent parts of the white-power canon, blending them with obscure Satanist-occult beliefs, to promote the apocalyptic idea an inevitable societal collapse should be accelerated through terrorism and criminality.

One of the SRN leaders used the alias Blitz.

There were suggestions Blitz was an already-notorious figure from National Action – but the information the BBC found contradicted this claim.

When, in spring 2018, Blitz split from SRN, following a row over his adherence to Satanism, he created an even more extreme group, Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD).

The group lionised the Moors murderer Ian Brady and cult-leader Charles Manson, with its racist and misogynistic online material promoting the rape and murder of women and children and calling for the Duke of Sussex to be shot for marrying Meghan Markle.

The BBC obtained private-chat logs, containing SKD members, in which Blitz:

criticised Adolf Hitler for “not slaughtering the subhuman British at Dunkirk”
said the age of sexual consent should be 12
called for police officers to be raped and killed

The chats revealed that SKD was created as a European version of Atomwaffen Division.

Some of the young men discussed vulnerable girls they had encouraged to self-harm, laughing at the hurt they had caused.

One member, later revealed to be Leeds student Michael Szewczuk, mocked a girl he had asked to cut a Swastika into herself, writing she “can’t even carve her own skin properly”.

Blitz used a series of aliases but left clues about his real identity, including:

seemingly at university, he identified himself as coming from the west country and being in a “very wealthy tourist town”
a reference to planned travel to the US, to meet Atomwaffen members, on a certain date
stating his “parents pay for everything”, implying he was from a materially comfortable background
mentioning shopping at Morrisons

But his bedsheets were the giveaway.

Blitz posted a photo in the chat of a neo-Nazi book resting on distinctive rainbow-coloured sheets.

The same bedsheet was visible in photos, shared by Blitz elsewhere, of a girl naked on a floor while he brandished a copy of a neo-Nazi text over her, as well as an image of her with wounds and swastikas carved into her skin.

Separately, the BBC found a selfie of Blitz lying on the same sheets.

Eventually, investigations led to a name: Andrew Dymock.

Dymock seemed to be the son of two academics, from the wealthy town of Bath in the west country, and at university, in Wales.

His Bath flat was next to the only Morrisons in the city. He had tried to travel to the US on the date mentioned in the chats but had been arrested at the airport and turned back.

Enquiries on the ground confirmed that Dymock was the person in the Blitz selfie.

Dymock was exposed in December 2018 as the SKD founder.

He was arrested the next day and charged with 15 offences the following year after a detailed police investigation.

Since his arrest, Atomwaffen, SRN, and SKD have all been outlawed as terrorist organisations by the government, with SKD also becoming the first right-wing extremist group to be banned in Australia.

Seven people linked to Dymock or his groups have been convicted of terror offences and hate crimes, including the son of a House of Lords clerk and the youngest person to be convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK.

At trial, Dymock denied ever being a neo-Nazi and claimed he merely had an academic interest in the subject

He said he was gay, meaning he was opposed to homophobia, and blamed a vast conspiracy – involving neo-Nazis, the police, and mysterious unknown men – for framing him

The jury rejected his lies.

Dymock, who sought to terrorise others, now faces years in prison.

BBC News

A politics student who called for the “extermination” of Jewish people has been found guilty of 12 terrorism charges.

Andrew Dymock, from Bath, established the banned right-wing groups System Resistance Network (SRN) and Sonnenkrieg Division.

He also published an article stating that Jewish people were a “cancer”.

The 24-year-old was convicted at the Old Bailey and is due to be sentenced on 24 June.

From his parents’ house in Bath and his student bedroom in Aberystwyth he established two now proscribed groups.

Dymock believed in what is known as the “Siege” ideology which advocates rape as a political weapon.

The groups claimed they were committed to using violence to end democracy and drive non-white people out of Britain.

The son of two academics, Stella and Dr David Dymock, a professor of dentistry at Bristol University, Andrew Dymock was first exposed by a BBC investigation in 2018.

As the verdicts were delivered, he told jurors “thank you for killing me”.

In total he was convicted of 15 offences:

Five counts of encouraging terrorism
Four of disseminating terrorist publications
Two of terrorist fundraising
One of possessing material useful to a terrorist
One of possessing racially inflammatory material
One of stirring up racial hatred
One of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation

Det Ch Supt Martin Snowden, head of counter terrorism policing north east, said as he had established two terrorist organisations Dymock was a “key leader” and his conviction was a “key step in protecting the UK”.

The trial heard he used the SRN website to publish an article stating Jewish people should be exterminated.

He stated a “racial holy war is inevitable” and “every stabbing, bombing, shooting further plays into our hands”.

Dymock had also engaged in terrorist fundraising by seeking and receiving financial donations via the SRN website using a dedicated Paypal account he created.

He used the SRN Twitter account to share extremist texts and called for “total war”.

The court also heard police had found a picture on one of Dymock’s devices showing a swastika cut into his girlfriend’s buttock.

He told detectives in a January 2019 interview he had used his nail to scratch the symbol.

Dymock denied responsibility for the accounts, claiming he was set up by his now former partner, who had failed to recruit him to join banned terrorist group National Action (NA).

captionAs the verdicts were delivered, he told jurors “thank you for killing me”

Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward earlier told jurors he was not being prosecuted for holding racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic beliefs, or for his “adherence to a neo-Nazi creed”.

She said: “Rather, he is facing prosecution for his encouragement of terrorist activity, of violence, as a means to shape society in accordance with his beliefs, rather than through free speech and democracy.”

An examination of Dymock’s computer revealed longstanding extremist views dating back to when he was 17, including a Google translation of the words “Kill all of the Jews”.

On 8 October, 2017, he wrote about the creation of SRN on a right-wing webpage stating the group was “focused on building a group of loyal men, true to the cause of national socialism and establishing the fascist state through revolution”.

Dymock admitted being in images provided to the court by Counter Terrorism Policing North

Jurors heard how he was expelled from SRN in late February 2018.

Dymock was arrested at Gatwick Airport the morning after a BBC News investigation in December 2018 exposed his extremist activities.

Police found extreme right-wing literature in his luggage along with clothing bearing neo-Nazi logos.

He also had books, flags, clothes and badges with links to the extreme right wing in his bedroom at home and university.

Dymock claimed he was “set up” by others, and that material linking him to content on the SRN website and Twitter account was “planted in his possession without his knowledge”.

At trial he denied being a neo-Nazi and told police: “In fact, I am bisexual but lean towards being homosexual, in direct conflict with Nazism.”

He claimed he was instead the victim of a conspiracy.

BBC News