A neo-Nazi who produced propaganda for the banned far right group, Scottish Dawn, has been jailed after being found guilty of membership of a terrorist organisation.
Mark Jones was sent to prison after being convicted along with two other men, and a woman called Alice Cutter who was a former Miss Hitler beauty pageant contestant.
Jones and Cutter were convicted of membership of National Action after a trial in March, alongside co-accused Garry Jack and Connor Scothern.
The four were described as neo-Nazi “diehards” and sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on 9th June 2020.
National Action was banned in December 2016 after a series of rallies and incidents, including praising the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox.
Jones, a former member of the British National Party’s youth wing and a rail engineer, was described at trial as a “leader and strategist” who played a “prominent and active role”.
The 25-year-old acknowledged posing for a photograph while delivering a Nazi-style salute and holding a National Action flag in Buchenwald’s execution room during a trip to Germany in 2016.
The court heard that after National Action’s proscription, Jones produced propaganda for two splinter groups – NS131 and Scottish Dawn – both of which have since been banned.
Scottish Dawn emerged in Scotland shortly after National Action was banned by the UK government. Following an undercover investigation by The Ferret, Scottish Dawn was proscribed as a terrorist group in September 2017.
A recruiter for Scottish Dawn was covertly filmed by The Ferret in an Edinburgh pub admitting that the banned terror group National Action was involved with the group.
He said: “Basically there are some members in the group that were in National Action. It’s kind of hard to talk about it because it’s a prescribed (sic) terrorist organisation.”
Revealed: neo-Nazi terrorists are behind Scotland’s newest far right group
Our expose in June 2017 was published in tandem with the Daily Record newspaper.
Judge Paul Farrer QC told Jones he had played “a significant role in the continuation of the organisation” after its ban in December 2016.
Cutter is Jones’ former partner. Jurors heard she had entered the Miss Hitler beauty pageant under the name Miss Buchenwald – a reference to the World War Two death camp.
She denied being a member of National Action, despite attending the group’s rallies, in which banners reading “Hitler was right” were raised.
Jurors were also shown messages in which Cutter joked about gassing synagogues, and using a Jew’s head as a football.
Cutter, 23, was jailed for three years, and Jones for five and a half years. Jack, 24, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, and Scothern, 19, was detained for 18 months.
The three men and one woman were found guilty at Birmingham Crown Court on 19 March after a previous trial resulted in a hung jury in June last year.
One other man had admitted membership of the group before the first trial.
The second nine-week trial was the culmination of a two-year investigation into right-wing terrorism which had already seen eight people imprisoned for National Action membership, as well as other offences.
Detective Chief Superintendent, Kenny Bell, head of West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, said: “We have seen a significant increase of right-wing referrals to our prevent programme and we will investigate the threat as robustly as we would any other terrorist group, as well as training our officers on the signs to look out for and working with communities to increase awareness.
“Terrorists and extremists use this kind of ideology to create discord, distrust and fear among our communities and we strive to counter this. I would encourage people to report hate crime to us and it will be taken seriously.”
National Action was formed in 2013. In December 2016 it became the first organisation to be banned by the government since World War II.
so what is it exactly that they are charged with?