Former barrister Ian Millard given shockingly lenient sentence after being convicted of five communications offences
After over seven years of action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, the former barrister Ian Millard has been handed a shockingly lenient sentence at Southampton Magistrates’ Court.
In November last year, Mr Millard was convicted of five offences contrary to section 127(1)(a) Communications Act 2003 in relation to the posting of grossly offensive material relating to his assertions regarding the Jewish race on his blog.
However, Mr Millard was only prosecuted following seven years of work by Campaign Against Antisemitism, due to a reluctance to prosecute on the part of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The charges related to five blog entries dated between May 2021 and April 2022, which Mr Millard had posted on his website.
In one post on 10th May 2021, Mr Millard wrote: “Where Jews exist in any but very small numbers, non-Jews will always be exploited, and can never be free. That is as true in Europe (and including the UK) as it is in the Middle East.”
On 15th May 2021, Mr Millard wrote: “I lived on and off in the USA, mostly in the early 1990s though I did also spend time there in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Many Americans are fine people, but the mass media there is almost, not quite, 100% owned and operated by Jews. TV, radio, film, newspapers, magazines, book publishing. Americans have little choice but to see the world largely through the Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli lens. Fact. They are also brainwashed from childhood with ‘holocaust’ propaganda and fake history.”
In another, dated 20th November 2021, Mr Millard posted an image of an arm — which had a Star of David emblazoned on the sleeve — holding a hammer above a computer with the words “free speech” on it. Above the image, text read: “Wherever Jews have power, non-Jews eventually become victims or slaves. Look at history. The ridiculous thing is that, in the UK, many of those who oppose Jewish supremacism in Israel or occupied Palestine, effectively support the Jewish lobby in Europe, eg in the UK itself; they pay lip-service to the ‘holocaust farrago’, in particular, and applaud the Zionist efforts to destroy free speech.”
Defending himself in court, Mr Millard admitted to ownership and editorial control of the blog, but did not admit to posting the offending posts. He did, however, state that he agreed with all the sentiments expressed in the posts.
During the course of his time on the stand, Mr Millard attempted to portray himself as the victim of a Jewish plot to crush free speech, telling the court that the CPS had been able to highlight only five blog posts out of more than 1,600 that he had published. A cursory glance at his blog reveals that it is strewn throughout with antisemitic conspiracy theories and imagery glorifying Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
He went on to brag about how he had visitors to his blog from all over the world.
When confronted with the opinions expressed in his posts, he maintained that they were “perfectly acceptable”.
Attempting to defend his Holocaust-denial, he said: “There’s history and there are views of history and people are entitled to adopt whichever view they want.”
He further professed that there were “a great number of hoaxes” around the Holocaust, going on to lament: “It’s the only history that’s acceptable and I disagree with that.”
Mr Millard told the court that “Jewish control of media is pervasive.”
He also made the claim that British politics is controlled by Zionists, citing as evidence of this the fact that the Star of David — the flag of Israel — had been projected onto 10 Downing Street as a display of solidarity with the Israeli public following the 7th October Hamas terror attacks.
Parroting the far-right antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory, he asserted during his cross-examination that “They [Jews] are trying to get more immigrants into the country and the truth is coming out.”
While insisting that he could not recall if he had written any of the posts, owing to the fact that he allegedly blogs daily, he also said: “It’s not about whether I’m right or wrong. It’s about freedom of expression.”
He maintained that he had never set out with an intent to offend and that while some of the posts were “shocking”, they were not against the law and in fact merely satirical.
Despite the alarming number of inflammatory comments made by Mr Millard during proceedings, and the CPS referring in its own online post-sentencing report to Mr Millard’s “continuous barrage of offensive material”, it failed to challenge his asserted mitigation that, out of approximately 1,800 blog posts, the CPS could find only five that were grossly offensive.
At neither the trial nor the sentencing hearing did the CPS tell the court that Mr Millard’s blog is in fact awash with Nazi imagery, adoring photos of Hitler, the fetishisation of Aryan supremacy and extracts from Nazi texts, such as the SS doctrine.
During sentencing, Mr Millard was only given a nine-month community order and a costs order of £734, despite the severity of his offences.
Despite being told that, since his conviction, Mr Millard had continued to post material similar to that which had led to his prosecution,the court also denied a criminal behaviour order, which was requested by the CPS in order to tackle this persistent offending behaviour.
The police have confirmed that they are assessing new evidence supplied by Campaign Against Antisemitism, in relation to alleged further offending by Mr Millard in the period between his conviction and sentencing.
