White supremacist, 23, has ‘excessive’ jail term reduced

A WHITE supremacist has had his prison sentence cut after the Court of Appeal heard he was not as racist as some of his Facebook friends.

Lawrence Burns, 23, who wanted to protect an “advanced warrior race of white men and women”, was jailed for four years for stirring up racial hatred following a trial at Cambridge Crown Court late in 2016.

But three judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London reduced the term to two-and-a-half years after analysing the case, stating the original judge had not taken account of the defendant’s “young age” and “poor educational background”. Mr Justice Phillips said four years was “manifestly excessive”.

Adrian Davies, who represented Burns, told the judges that his client had 98 Facebook friends. He said some of those people had extreme views that made Burns “seem moderate”.

Burns, from Cambridge, had posted racist material on Facebook when aged 20 and made a speech, subsequently posted online by another person, containing “hate-filled language” at a demonstration outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, when he was 21. Judges heard that he was a member of a “far-right supremacist group” and had written 140 racist posts under an alias on a Facebook account.

At his original trial, it was alleged that he commented on a Youtube video that he wanted to “hang the black race”, while sharing Adolf Hitler artwork. Mark Weekes, prosecuting, said Burns was an “extremist” and had expressed racist views, particularly towards the Jewish and Afro-caribbean community.

“On his public Facebook account, which has more than 90 friends, he expressed some of the vilest and most offensive sentiments possible,” he said.

A search of Burns’s home was said to have revealed a number of anti-semitic books, a scarf with a “neo-nazi” logo and a phone containing a further 125 photos depicting racist views.

There were also three audio recordings made by Burns, where he is alleged to have said a “real Holocaust” is the only solution to “ridding the Jews”.

Burns, who watched the appeal court hearing from prison via a video link, failed in his attempt to overturn his conviction.