Attorney General asks court to review “unduly lenient” sentence for student who downloaded nearly 70,000 neo-Nazi and bomb-making documents who was spared jail and told to read English literature instead

The Attorney General has asked the Court of Appeal to review the “unduly lenient” sentence given to a student who downloaded nearly 70,000 neo-Nazi and bomb-making documents but who was spared jail and told to read English literature instead.

Ben John, 21, was convicted by a jury at Leicester Crown Court on 11th August of possessing information likely to be useful for preparing an act of terror – a charge that carries a maximum jail sentence of fifteen years. The prosecution even told the court that the former De Montfort University student, who had collated 67,788 documents which contained a large quantity of National Socialist, white supremacist and antisemitic material, as well as information relating to a Satanic organisation, had previously failed to heed warnings by counter-terrorism officers.

Lincolnshire Police had also said that Mr John “had become part of the Extreme Right Wing (XRW) online, and was studying Criminology with Psychology in Leicester when he was arrested”.

Nevertheless, Judge Timothy Spencer QC said that he believed that Mr John’s crime was likely to be an isolated incident and “an act of teenage folly”. He labelled Mr John as a “lonely individual with few if any true friends” who was “highly susceptible” to recruitment by others more prone to action. Judge Spencer went on to say that he was “not of the view that harm was likely to have been caused”.

Speaking directly to Mr John, Judge Spencer asked him: “Have you read Dickens? Austen? Start with Pride and Prejudice and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.” The judge told the defendant to “think about Hardy. Think about Trollope”, before adding: “On 4th January 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.” The judge said of the defendant that “he has by the skin of his teeth avoided imprisonment.”

Mr John was instructed to return to Judge Spencer every four months in order to be tested on his reading. In addition, he was handed a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years plus a further year on licence, monitored by the probation service. Mr John 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.

However, Campaign Against Antisemitism and other concerned groups were incredulous that Mr John had been spared jail and was “let off with a mere suspended sentence and some English homework.” We added that “for all the novels that the judge has ordered Mr John to peruse as he enjoys his unearned freedom, it was notable that Crime and Punishment was not among them. Perhaps the judge himself ought to review that classic as he reflects on the risk that his sentence poses to the public.”

Now, however, Attorney General Suella Braverman has intervened, using her power to request that the Court of Appeal review the sentence.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said: “I can confirm that the Attorney General has referred Ben John’s sentence to the Court of Appeal as she agrees that it appears unduly lenient. It is now for the Court to decide whether to increase the sentence.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has been monitoring and acting against the threat from the far-right for years and continues to support the authorities following suit.