“Probably the biggest Nazi of the lot.”

That is how jurors heard Alex Davies, a “terrorist hiding in plain sight”, described during his latest trial.

Davies, 27, from Swansea, co-founded the neo-Nazi group National Action in 2013. He had seen it “grow from its small base in south Wales” to a national organisation, a judge said.

He was convicted of membership of a proscribed organisation between December 2016 and September 2017 after a trial at Winchester Crown Court in May.

Davies was then jailed for eight and-a-half years during sentencing at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey in London on 7 June.

National Action was one of the most extreme British far-right terror groups since World War Two.

Its members openly celebrated the death of Jo Cox MP and called for a “race war”.

One expert said the group was “so extreme you can’t go any further”.

Davies, who was once pictured giving a Nazi salute in a German concentration camp, remains an ardent national socialist with extreme far-right views.

His organisation preyed on young people, grooming them to follow his racist beliefs.

He lived in Uplands, Swansea, and his parents disagreed with his racist views.

Describing himself as “polite” and “high-achieving”, with others referring to him as bright and articulate, Davies said he “survived school and college but got into trouble at university”.

He joined the far-right British National Party as a teenager and was identified as a potential extremist through the Prevent counter-terrorism programme when he was just 15 or 16 years old.

A few years later, he left university when his far-right beliefs were exposed.

He then focused much of his time in growing National Action from his base in Swansea, heading up the south-west “branch”.

His attempts to spread his beliefs far and wide led to ambitions to stand for election in Swansea in 2017 after National Action was deemed a terrorist organisation by the UK government.

He attended National Front meetings in Bridgend in 2017, and wanted to stand as a county councillor.

Det Supt Anthony Tagg, a senior counter-terrorism officer, said he remained a danger.

He said: “He admits that he still holds that ideology, but states there’s nothing wrong with him holding that ideology, that he’s free to have those thoughts and ideas.

“We would say those are very dangerous thoughts and ideas. Somebody who sought, through violence, to forward that neo-Nazi ideology, we would say, remains a very dangerous individual”.

He added: “Working with partners and others we will seek to continue to mitigate any risk Alex Davies poses to communities across the UK.”

However, Davies was far from the only member of National Action with links to Wales.

Ben Raymond, who co-founded the group with Davies, lived in Mumbles, Swansea, and was responsible for much of its racist, offensive propaganda.

He coined the term “white jihad” and was jailed last year for being a member of National Action.

Mikko Vehvilainen was a serving British Army soldier based at Sennybridge barracks in Powys when he was a member of National Action.

A self-confessed racist, he built up a private arsenal and wanted to turn the village of Llansilin in Powys, where he had a house, into a white nationalist stronghold. He was jailed in 2018.

Alex Deakin, a former student in Aberystwyth, ran the West Midlands branch of National Action and spoke about modelling the group along the lines of the “IRA and Viet Cong”.

He was found with two explosives manuals, including a guide to making explosives, and was convicted of membership of National Action.

In 2015, Zack Davies, a 25-year-old National Action member from Mold, Flintshire, used a hammer and machete to attack a Sikh dentist in a Tesco store because of his skin colour.

Zack Davies shouted “white power” during the assault and was later convicted of attempted murder.

He had earlier posed for a selfie in front of a National Action flag while holding a blade.

Several members of NA had read and accessed copies of the manifesto of mass-murderer Anders Breivik – who killed 77 people, mostly children, in bomb and gun attacks in Norway in 2011.

Members held vocal rallies up and down the country, dressed in black, reminiscent of Oswald Moseley’s fascists of the 1930s, delivering Nazi-style salutes and carrying flags, some stating “Hitler was right”.

Alex Davies has become the 19th person to be convicted for membership of the banned fascist group.

Alex Davies was described as “the founder, the galvaniser, the recruiter”, and would welcome fellow neo-Nazis to Swansea, take them for days out in Mumbles and for ice cream.

He jokingly told jurors: “The life of a terrorist.”

Prosecutors and counter terror police believe Alex Davies is unique in British history for founding two far-right terrorist organisations.

First National Action, and then the “continuity group” as it was described in court, NS131. They are organisations that now sit alongside the likes of so-called Islamic State, the IRA and Al-Qaeda.

It was put to Alex Davies in court: “You are a neo-Nazi, yes?”

He replied: “Sure.”

BBC News

A 27-year-old man described in court as a Nazi has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years for being a member of a banned fascist group.

Alex Davies, of Swansea, was a member of National Action (NA) after it was outlawed in December 2016.

A jury found him guilty after it heard NA had not disbanded after its ban, but morphed into regional factions.

He was sentenced on Tuesday at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey in London.

Judge Mark Dennis QC also ordered him to spend a further year on extended licence.

During his trial at Winchester Crown Court, he was described as “probably the biggest Nazi of the lot”.

Some members of the group had celebrated the murder of MP Jo Cox and advocated a so-called “race war”.

Addressing the defendant in the dock, Judge Dennis said: “You are an intelligent and educated young man but you have held, over a period of many years, warped and shocking prejudices.”

‘Continuity faction’

Davies co-founded NA in Swansea in 2013, before leaving to study at Warwick University, in Coventry, a university he was subsequently forced out of due to his extremist views.

Prosecutor Barnaby Jameson told the court Davies had set up a group called National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action or NS131, which was also banned by the UK government.

Mr Jameson described it as a “continuity faction” of NA that covered the southern part of Great Britain.

Saying it was “expanding and recruiting”, he called Davies a “terrorist hiding in plain sight”.

Mr Jameson said NA and NS131 used the same colours, encrypted internet provider and ideology – a throwback to Nazi Germany – as well as the same leader, and regional structure.

He added: “Who was at the centre of all this? The founder, the galvaniser, the recruiter, one Alex Davies of Swansea. He was probably the biggest Nazi of the lot.”

‘Ideology of hatred’

In his defence, Davies claimed that NS131 was not set up as a continuation of NA and had different aims and processes, and he was only “exercising his democratic rights”.

Davies was the 19th person to be convicted of membership of NA, the first right-wing organisation to be banned since World War Two.

Fellow founder Ben Raymond, 33, of Swindon, had previously been found guilty at a separate trial of membership of a banned terrorist group.

In December last year, Raymond was jailed for eight years with a further two years on extended licence.

Together, Davies and Raymond had worked since the group’s creation in spreading an “ideology of hatred”, described as “incredibly dangerous” by counter-terrorism police.

The government acted after members of the organisation celebrated the actions of murderer and neo-Nazi Thomas Mair, who killed MP Jo Cox in June 2016.

Among those convicted of membership since December 2016 have been British soldier and Afghanistan veteran, Finnish-born Mikko Vehvilainen, and former Met probationary police officer Ben Hannam.

One of the group’s associates was convicted of making a working pipe bomb, while another, Jack Renshaw, of Skelmersdale, Lancashire, later admitted plotting to kill MP Rosie Cooper with a machete.

Social media savvy

He was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years.

Renshaw’s plot was only foiled after a National Action member blew the whistle on his former friends, reporting the plan to counter-extremist group Hope Not Hate, which passed the information to police.

NA was social media savvy, boasting self-taught propagandists among its ranks, though its membership never exceeded 100.

They created slick computer-generated imagery – including logos, and slogans for stickers, leaflets and posters – and targeted young people in particular for recruitment.

Some of their literature called for “white jihad”, but they had also created a policy document to “make way for national socialism to enter British politics”.

Other material had designs glorifying the anti-semitic messaging of Hitler’s Germany or praising the work of SS death squads.

BBC News