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A podcast host on trial accused of inciting racial hatred has claimed that the content of his show was not racist.

James Allchurch, 51, from Pembrokeshire, is on trial at Swansea Crown Court charged with 15 counts of distributing audio material to incite racial hatred over a two-year period.

Radio Aryan, which has since been renamed Radio Albion, was described by prosecutors as “highly racist, anti-Semitic and white supremacist in nature”.

Presenting evidence on Friday, Allchurch said he disagreed with the term racist, telling the court he thinks “we should celebrate our differences.”

Allchurch claimed that his use of racial slurs was not intended to offend, and said he believed he was using “accurate terminology”.

Dressed in a dark suit and tie, glasses and his hair in a ponytail, Allchurch told the court that he is disabled and unable to work, spending about 12 hours a day creating podcasts and maintaining his website.

The court previously heard that Allchurch accepts donations via a Bitcoin link on its website, but the defendant said he does not receive a formal salary from the platform.

Describing himself to the jury as an ethnonationalist, Allchurch said: “I am essentially a British nationalist, but I am also a European, that is my wider family. I have sympathies with my wider family in countries like the United States, Australia, who share the same ancestry with me.”

Allchurch said that race and ethnicity were “central” to his worldview and defended his belief that there are “measurable statistical differences” between races.

His defense attorney, Emily Baxter, said: “Some people might say that talking about race differences in that way is racist, would you agree with that term?”

Allchurch responded: “I wouldn’t. I think we should celebrate our differences.”

Fifteen episodes of the podcast published between May 17, 2019 and March 18, 2021 have been broadcast to the jury, in which Allchurch can be heard discussing topics such as gang preparation, immigration, crime, film and Other themes.

On recordings, Allchurch is often joined by guests including now-imprisoned National Action co-founder Alex Davies and American neo-Nazi Daniel Kenneth Jeffries, nicknamed Grandpa Lampshade.

Jonathan Rees KC, prosecutor, said the defendant used the news and current affairs discussions to “expose his hateful views on racial supremacy, blacks, other non-whites, Jews and race war.”

Under questioning by his own lawyer, Allchurch claimed that he did not intend to spread hate and only advocated “non-violent protest against multiculturalism”.

Allchurch, who on the podcast called himself Sven Longshanks, a reference to King Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks and responsible for expelling the Jews from England in 1290, said he did not believe his “stage name” was anti-Semitic. .

He added: “I do not consider King Edward I to be anti-Semitic. He cared about the Jews.”

Allchurch said she took a different name to avoid becoming a target of what she called “the opposition” who she explained were members of far-left or anti-fascist groups, often referred to as Antifa.

He claimed not to have known about the negative connotations associated with the name until after he had chosen it.

Allchurch, who has been described as a National Socialist by the prosecution, admitted in interviews with police to being a supporter of Adolf Hitler.

Continuing his testimony, Allchurch told the court that he is not a member of any banned far-right organizations, although the jury heard how Allchurch was associated with members of such banned groups, including Davies, through his podcasting activities.

He said he parted ways with American neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, on whose website The Daily Stormer hosted his first podcast, because he felt Anglin was “too extreme”.

Allchurch said it did not advertise the podcast except on the podcast’s Twitter account, which was suspended but later reinstated after billionaire Elon Musk bought the social media company.