A far-right podcaster has been jailed for producing antisemitic and racist podcasts on grounds of stirring up racial hatred.
James Allchurch, 51 from Pembrokeshire, was discovered to have created the website “Radio Aryan”, later named “Radio Albion”, in order to upload antisemitic and racist podcasts.
Mr Allchurch was found guilty of ten offences contrary to section 21 of the Public Order Act 1986, and not guilty on five counts, and has been sentenced to two years and six months in prison.
Mr Allchurch was said to have distributed recordings that included the titles “Rivers Of Blood”, “Banned In The UK”, “The Leftist Supremacist Mindset”, and “The Usual Suspects”. The offences were said to have taken place in Gelli, a village in south Wales.
In hearings, Mr Allchurch requested that he be referred to as “Sven Longshanks”, his podcasting name which is apparently taken from King Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks, who expelled the Jews from England in 1290.
Last year, the prosecution, referring to the podcasts in question, told the court that “These recordings are insulting or abusive and were distributed with intent to stir up racial hated,” labelling the recordings “highly racist and highly antisemitic in nature” as well as “white supremacist in nature”.
The jury was played fifteen episodes of the podcast, in which Mr Allchurch reportedly introduced a song that said that the world was better when Black people were enslaved and Jews were persecuted under Adolf Hitler as “one of his favourite tracks”.
There was also talk about hanging Jewish people, while in another extract it was said: “No other race is equal to the white race.”
Other recordings allegedly made reference to Jewish people controlling the media, banks, and television and film industries.
In a raid of his home, police reportedly discovered a notebook belonging to Mr Allchurch containing usernames and passwords which included entries such as “JewsAreTheEnemy”, “RaceWarMessiah” and reference to the numbers 14 and 88.
1488 is often used as a coded reference to the neo-Nazi fourteen-word oath: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”, a slogan initially devised by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group “The Order” which was responsible for the murder of Jewish radio host Alan Berg. The number 88 refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, and is intended as a code for “Heil Hitler.”
Mr Allchurch was said to have been joined by guests on the podcast, one of which reportedly included Alex Davies, who was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison last year after he was convicted of membership of the neo-Nazi terrorist group, National Action.
Judge Rees, sentencing, said that Mr Allchurch “had an agenda of racial hatred’ and that “it beggars belief that someone would want to speak these words at all”.
He described the content of the podcasts as “vile”, and that “Listening to them as the jury had to was a disturbing experience.”
Speaking to Mr Allchurch directly, he said: “You were bent on inciting racial hatred…you chose your words carefully to that end.”
Nick Price, Head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: “The hateful and grotesque views that Allchurch shared on his podcast were a threat to our society, and it is right that the jury found him guilty of his crimes.
“There is no place in society for these beliefs, and the CPS will continue to prosecute all cases involving hate crime where there is sufficient evidence to do so.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The hateful rhetoric of the virulently antisemitic podcaster James Allchurch, who spoke of hanging Jewish people on his programme, has no place in civilised society. It is only right that this sick Hitler admirer has been handed a jail sentence. We commend the sensible decisions of the judge and jury.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism closely monitors the far-right, which remains a dangerous threat to the Jewish community and other minority groups.
