'Neo-Nazi' leader of National Action jailed for eight years

'Neo-Nazi' leader of National Action jailed for eight years

The leader of neo-Nazi group National Action has been jailed for eight years after he was found guilty of membership of the banned group . At the start of the trial, defendant Jack Renshaw, 23, admitted buying a machete for the purpose of killing another Labour MP, Rosie Cooper, as well as making a threat to kill a female police officer. The far-right group was banned by the Home Secretary over its support of the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was shot and stabbed to death in 2016 by neo-Nazi Thomas Mair. Image: Labour MP Rosie Cooper was the target of a murder plot

The plot was foiled after whistle-blower Robbie Mullen leaked details of a meeting between members to campaigner group Hope Not Hate in July last year. Image: Jack Renshaw, 23, pleaded guilty to preparing an act of terrorism and threatening a police officer

Head of Investigations for Counter Terrorism Policing in the North West, detective superintendent Will Chatterton, said: "Today's result has enabled the spotlight to be shone on the sickening activities of the banned extreme right-wing organisation National Action. The 23-year-old, from Lancashire, has also been convicted of stirring up racial hatred in speeches in 2016, it can now be reported. In his sentencing, Mr Justice Jay said that National Action meetings, under Lythgoe's leadership had continued on a "modest" scale after the group was banned by then-Home Secretary Amber Rudd. It had been claimed he encouraged a plan to kill Ms Cooper with a sword by telling Jack Renshaw not to “f*** it up” when they met at the Friar Penketh pub in Warrington. A jury deliberated for 20 hours at the Old Bailey to find him guilty of membership of National Action but not guilty of encouraging Renshaw. Christopher Lythgoe, 32, and Matthew Hankinson, 24, were found guilty at London’s Old Bailey Court of being members of National Action, a neo-Nazi organization that claimed a race war was imminent. The Old Bailey jury acquitted Garron Helm, 24, of Seaforth, Merseyside, of being a member of National Action. “The idea that there could be such a triumph without violence is arrant nonsense, despite the weasel words to the contrary.” The judge added: “Fortunately, and I can take this into account to some extent in the defendants’ favour, the truly evil and dystopian vision I am describing could never have been achieved through the activities of National Action, a very small group operating at the very periphery of far-right wing extremism. Lythgoe’s lawyer, Crispin Aylett QC, suggested Mr Mullen had implicated National Action in Renshaw’s plot because he was “in the pocket of Hope Not Hate” and it was what they wanted to hear. “The real risk to society inheres instead in the carrying out of isolated acts of terror inspired by the perverted ideology I have been describing.”

Mr Justice Jay told Lythgoe: “You are a fully-fledged neo-Nazi complete with concomitant, deep-seated racism and anti-Semitism.”

He added that Lythgoe “did nothing to stop or discourage” the plot to kill Ms Cooper.
The leader of the banned British far-right designated terrorist group National Action, Christopher Lythgoe, is jailed for eight years for being a member.