Podcaster faces prison after being convicted of inciting racial hatred

A white supremacist podcast host has been convicted of inciting racial hatred, with a judge describing his recordings as “a stain on humanity.”

James Allchurch, 51, of Pembrokeshire, Wales, was found guilty of ten out of 15 counts of distributing audio material to incite racial hatred over a two-year period.

After a trial at the Swansea Civic Centre, Judge Huw Rees has told the self-proclaimed “outspoken racist” and Adolf Hitler supporter that he faces a prison sentence measured in years, not months.

Judge Rees adjourned sentencing until April 28 for a pre-sentence briefing to take place.

After the verdicts were delivered on Friday, the judge said: “The language that the jury has had to endure is vile language, and it is unacceptable in my opinion that anyone would want to express themselves in this way.

“What I have heard in the last two weeks I consider a stain on humanity.”

Addressing Allchurch’s defense attorney, Emily Baxter, Judge Rees added: “My intention is to send your client to prison immediately. And that sentence will be measured in years, not months.”

Asking the defendant to stand, he said: “James Barnaby Allchurch, you will be sentenced for me on April 28. I have ordered a pre-sentence report to be carried out to find out everything about you.

“I make it very clear to him that he must prepare for an immediate prison sentence.”

Allchurch was again released on bail but with conditions to reside at his given address and fully cooperate with the probation service.

The judge thanked the jury of six men and six women who said they had been “careful” in their deliberations.

“He has paid close attention to what has been a harrowing case and has heard language and viewpoints that he probably thought he would never have to read or hear in this day and age. I’m sorry about that,” she said.

“This is a court of reality, and unfortunately, the reality of this defendant’s world is completely different than that of most sensible people.”

Each of the charges brought against Allchurch related to a separate audio file uploaded between May 17, 2019 and March 18, 2021 to a public website called Radio Aryan, later renamed Radio Albion.

The jury listened to each of the episodes, totaling approximately nine hours of audio, in which Allchurch can be heard repeatedly using racial slurs and propagating racist ideology while discussing topics including grooming gangs, immigration, slavery and crime. .

The episodes were described by Jonathan Rees KC, charging, as “highly racist, anti-Semitic and white supremacist in nature.”

Allchurch was joined in some of the episodes by National Action co-founder Alex Davies, 27, of Swansea, who was jailed in June last year for being a member of the banned far-right organisation, as well as other known extremists from the US and UK.

He used the alias Sven Longshanks, a reference to King Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks, who was responsible for expelling the Jews from England in 1290.

Rees told the jury: “In his own words, the defendant is an outspoken racist and considers himself a National Socialist.

“The very purpose of Radio Aryan was to spread its propaganda about racial conflict.”

Police arrested Allchurch, who said he is disabled and unable to work, at his home on December 17, 2019.

Giving evidence, Allchurch denied that the podcast encouraged racial hatred or violence.

He told the court that his use of racial slurs was not intended to offend, saying he believed he was using “accurate terminology”.

The defendant said he spent up to 12 hours a day creating podcast episodes and maintaining his website, which accepts donations via a Bitcoin link.

He said he was not a member of any proscribed far-right organization.

Asked if people would be upset by what he said on the recordings, Allchurch replied: “My audience is other nationalists who at the time used similar or worse terminology.”

Judge Huw Rees asked if Allchurch would agree to members of the public having “unrestricted access” to the website.

Allchurch responded: “They had to know the address, they had to know the name and look it up. We didn’t advertise anywhere that wasn’t already within the nationalist community.”

Asked about Davies, he told jurors that the far-right group’s leader had not been charged or convicted when he appeared on the podcast.

In an exchange during a recording about recruitment gangs, Allchurch described himself and Davies as “outright racists”.

Allchurch told the jury: “It was just a joke. People accuse me and others like me of being racists. Anyone from the center right, even conservatives, is accused of being racist.”

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