A Fife man who shared a Neo-Nazi group’s propaganda video online has been convicted of distributing a terrorist publication.
Colin Webster, 61, reposted the footage by National Action (NA) – proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK Government – in December 2021 on social media website GAB and on Twitter.
A trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard he had a combined 457 followers on the sites.
The video shows people at a demonstration in Darlington in 2016, dressed in black and carrying flags bearing the National Action logo.
Webster was prosecuted under Section 2(1) of the Terrorism Act 2006.
Racist slurs on video
The trial heard Webster was interviewed by counter-terrorism detectives after his home was searched and his mobile phone seized.
Webster told police he did not realise he could not repost the video.
He said he had heard of National Action on the news and was told about their leaders being jailed.
The film in question, shown in court, included historic war footage and racist language used by a man on a megaphone.
The speaker shouts “this used to be a white country – white men, white women, white children, white families, white culture, white values” and if someone did not fit that profile 50 years ago they “did not exist here”.
Other statements include “where is the resistance?” and “why isn’t anyone trying to stop it?”
Part of the clip contains an antisemitic slur that: “The Briton has been trampled underfoot by hook-nosed bankers”.
In her closing submissions, prosecutor Nhabeela Rahmatullah highlighted a call to action at the end of the video and the phrase “we cannot do it alone”.
Legal debate
Sheriff Susan Duff found Webster guilty of distributing or circulating terrorist publications of a proscribed organisation on social media website GAB on December 1 2021.
The charge says he intended the effect to be direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or the provision of assistance in the commission or preparation of such acts, or that he was reckless as to whether his conduct had this effect.
Defence lawyer Pete Robertson had argued there would need to be a finding of fact that a reasonable person would view the video as a terrorist publication beyond reasonable doubt.
He said it was an “abhorrent, racist video” but makes no mention of what it is asking people to do.
The solicitor said examples (of terrorist publications) might be videos glorifying beheading or about how to make bombs.
He said it would be speculative to infer from language such as “where is the resistance?” that this was a call for terrorist action.
The lawyer said the only reference to violence in the clip was pictures of the First World War.
Mr Robertson said a reasonable person would not know NA was a proscribed organisation and argued his client did not endorse any of the conduct in the video as it was a repost without any comment.
‘Endorsement’ proved
Sheriff Duff pointed out Webster accepted distributing the 105-second video and knew at the time NA was a proscribed organisation because he “got ‘telt their leaders were jailed”.
The sheriff highlighted statements made in the video and said they meet the reasonable person test in law and that it is a terrorist publication.
Sheriff Duff said Webster’s response to being asked by police what he hoped to achieve by posting it was: “Nothing – just people that follow me are maybe wanting to see it”.
The sheriff said: “That’s endorsement”.
Sentencing on first offender Webster, of Station Road, Kelty, was deferred to December 18 to obtain background reports.
Detective Inspector Jon Pleasance, of the Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, said: “Webster shared this hateful content online with a complete disregard of its corrosive impact or the radicalising effect it could have on others in our communities.
“It is entirely unacceptable to promote terrorism or extremism, and sharing material of this nature could ultimately endanger the public.
We will not hesitate to investigate online behaviour or content which breaches terrorism or other criminal legislation.”
‘Virulently racist, antisemitic, homophobic’
The UK Government describes National Action as a racist neo-Nazi group established in 2013.
It says the group is “virulently racist, antisemitic and homophobic” with an ideology that Britain will inevitably see a violent “race war”, of which the group claims it will be an active part.
Members of the group celebrated the actions of murderer and neo-Nazi Thomas Mair, who killed MP Jo Cox in June 2016.
The organisation was proscribed in December 2016 – the first extreme right wing group to be banned in the UK.
At the time, the Crown Prosecution Service called his organisation: “A small and secretive right-wing group which espoused hateful violent rhetoric.
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