Miller Rawcliffe has been jailed
A teenager who called for the killing of black people and said Adolf Hitler was “misrepresented” has been jailed.
Miller Rawcliffe, now 20, had his home searched by police when he was 17, leading to the discovery of terrifying materials.
Leeds Crown Court heard how he was found to have kept a copy of Mein Kampf, drawings of Swastikas and his own written manifesto, as well as terrifying videos showing the killings of black people. Rawcliffe, of Calf Hall Road, Blackburn, who was found guilty after a trial of two counts of disseminating terrorist material and four counts of collecting information likely to be useful to a terrorist, has now been jailed for four years.
His Honour Judge Crowson said he shared right-wing, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi ideology. The judge said he did not accept Rawcliffe’s claim during his trial that his “views” were “an attempt to be cool and edgy.”
Prosecutor Ashleigh Metcalfe told the court on Thursday: “The prosecution say that he possessed a library of extreme right-wing material. It showed an interest, verging on obsession, of topics like manufacturing explosives. He held racist, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic ideology. There was one search of his home on the sixth of December 2022, from which a mobile phone and laptop was seized from his bedroom.”
The court heard Rawcliffe provided PINs to both devices – one of which was 1488, which demonstrated an affiliation with right-wing ideology. Ms Metcalfe said: “The exhibits seized continued to show an interest in the Nazi-party ideology.”
The court heard material found included a copy of Mein Kampf, drawings of Swastikas, a piece of paper titled “How to make a powerful pipe bomb,” a notebook filled with handwritten poems and drawings “showing his hatred of those in the black community.”
The prosecutor added: “On the devices there was a series of social media messages on WhatsApp and Discord between him and others. The messages showed his interest in mass shootings and massacres including the Columbine school shooting and the Christchurch massacre…
“On the fourth of November 2022, he told a person how he had watched a video that had, he said, ‘Made me get really f****** racist’ and after, ‘I was pretty much a TND [total n**** death] advocate.'”
The court heard that in one message, Rawcliffe chillingly said: “I’m tempted every day to flip and start planning. If it weren’t for family and the racist girl I’m talking to, I would probably do it.”
Ms Metcalfe said Rawcliffe’s laptop was examined with key word searches, and topics including bombs, explosives and specific terrorists came back.
She added: “The prosecution say he is a person whose interest in the far-right goes beyond someone who has a minor interest in it. This was the start of something more sinister.”
It was said no charges had been made in relation to the material found, and the judge said he was prepared to accept the video was not taken by Rawcliffe.
Mitigating, Robert Fitt said Rawcliffe had no previous convictions. He added: “He was 17-years-old at the time these offences occurred. He’s now 20. You will recall the evidence that he gave to the trial, some of which is reiterated in the pre-sentence report, about him leaving school as a young teenager after the death of his father, and it does appear thereafter he was rather isolated and spent the majority of his time in his bedroom on the internet, and it was through that that he became involved, or rather exposed, to the far right-wing and racist material.
“That occurred, no doubt, at a rather formative age. You will recall some of the evidence, such as the notebooks and manifesto which was written by him when he was 15, or a little bit older than that.”
Speaking about material found on Rawcliffe’s phone while on bail, Mr Fitt said: “None of that material has been the subject of any charge so there it is not really possible to say there has been any escalation of his behaviour.”
The court was told that a doctor had provided a report, telling of Rawcliffe’s autism. Mr Fitt said: “In the words of the doctor, he was suffering from severe depression at the time these offences took place. In my submission, bearing in mind what the doctor has said, these are matters that reduce his general culpability. That, along with his age, means you’re not sentencing an individual who was a mature adult, who was not, I propose, in the best of health at the time these offences were committed.”
It was said by the judge that during his evidence, Rawcliffe claimed he was trying to be “cool” and “edgy” at the time, before claiming George Floyd had not been murdered, but had actually suffered an overdose.
He also said that he believed that Hitler had been “misrepresented” in history.
The judge said: “You expressed hatred of black people and Jews and shared images of the killing of black people.”
Far-Right Criminals 