No jail over Nazi shame
Schoolboy stuck up racist stickers
A schoolboy “radicalised” by far- right racist groups who encouraged him to plaster Ayr with bigoted stickers avoided jail.
Connor McKechnie, 18, appeared in the dock after admitting placing sticker bearing disgusting slogans such as ‘ multiculturalism is genocide’ and ‘ don’t test on animals, test on subhumans’.
Neo- Nazi group National Action provided the former Belmont Academy pupil with the stickers, and incited him to put them around the town as a recruitment tool.
Racist killer Thomas Mair, who murdered MP Jo Cox last year, was linked to the group which advocates white supremacy.
Depute fiscal Scott Toal said: “During July and August last year a member of public observed various stickers near her home address and near the town centre.
“She perceived them to be racist in nature due to the imagery and language.”
We reported last summer about racist stickers appearing near Turner’s Brig in the town centre. McKechnie was spoken to by police in October, but wasn’t charged until February of this year.
The National Action group became a “proscribed” organisation in December, meaning membership is now a criminal offence.
The member of the public who raised the alarm searched the group online, where she discovered the ir racist nature.
McKechnie admitted the charge of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, which was likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm by repeatedly placing a quantity of stickers in public places portraying offensive racist and homophobic messages.
He spent a short period serving in the army before leaving due to his mother’s ill health, and his defence agent Peter Lockhart said this had caused a sense of “disillusionment with his country”.
He met with a representative of the racist group at Glasgow Central Station, where he was handed the stickers and told to share them out.
And the court heard how he had taken steps to atone for the hurt caused by the racist propaganda, including trying to mend his relationship with a Muslim friend.
Sheriff John Montgomery told McKechnie he had only been narrowly persuaded not to jail him for his part in displaying the offensive stickers.
He said: “This is not all that different from the way in which young Muslims end up becoming radicalised.
“Fortunately you were detected at a relatively early stage.
“According to social work reports you realised the error of you ways and appear to have apologised profusely for any offence your actions have caused.
“That doesn’t take away from the fact that is a serious offence.”
McKechnie will be made subject to a Community Payback Order where he will be supervised for the next 12 months.
He will also carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.