The co-founder of the proscribed organization National Action has today (7 June) been jailed for eight and a half years.
A jury at Winchester Crown Court heard 27-year-old Alex Davies, from Swansea, who set up the group with Ben Raymond in 2013. They aimed to create a National Socialist, or neo-Nazi, the youth movement in the UK, describing themselves as a “white jihadist group”.
They modeled themselves on Nazi SS stormtroopers and toured the country joining flash demonstrations, which often turned violent.
In York, in May 2016 Davies was seen shouting into a megaphone in front of a banner containing the words “Refugees not welcome: Hitler was right.”
By December of the same year, National Action became the first far-right organization to be banned by the government since the Second World War, but its members continued to meet in secret using encrypted messaging platforms to communicate.
Davies, a previous BNP Youth member, was known as a recruiter for the group and personally vetted people to establish how useful they could be. He was extremely careful around security and traveled hundreds of miles, preferring to meet in person rather than risk written communication.
He went on to set up a splinter group – NS 131 – in the spring of 2017. This too was banned just a few months later.
Following a lengthy investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing officers in the West Midlands (CTP WM CTU), Davies last month became the 19th person to be convicted of membership of the banned far-right organisation National Action, following the conviction of fellow co-founder Raymond last November.
Davies was sentenced at the Old Bailey today (7 June), and will spend an extra year on license after the eight-and-a-half-year sentence finishes.
Detective Superintendent Anthony Tagg, from CTP WM CTU, said: “Our officers have worked tirelessly to secure convictions of men who posed a significant threat to communities across the country.
“They were not merely armchair terrorists, they actively planned a race war. They recruited from positions of trust – the military and the police.
“They stockpiled weapons and researched explosives and bomb-making. They trained their members in boxing, martial arts, and knife fighting.
“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 crimes to us and it will be taken seriously.
“As a result of these investigations, we have seen a significant increase of right-wing referrals to our Prevent program.”