U.K. officer guilty of having neo-Nazi ties

LONDON — A rookie London police officer was found guilty Thursday of belonging to a neo-Nazi organization, the first time a British officer has been convicted of membership in an outlawed far-right group.

After more than 32 hours of deliberation, the jury at the city’s Old Bailey court found Benjamin Hannam, 22, guilty of being a member of the extremist group National Action. He also was convicted of lying on his application to join London’s Metropolitan Police, and of possessing terror-related documents detailing knife combat and the making of explosive devices.

Judge Anthony Leonard lifted a reporting ban on the case after Hannam admitted possessing an indecent image of a child, which was to have been the subject of a separate trial.

Hannam was granted bail ahead of his sentencing April 23 but warned that he faced jail.

He had been working as a police probationary officer for nearly two years when his name was found on a leaked database of users of the extreme right-wing forum Iron March, which he signed up to when he joined the London branch of National Action in March 2016.

Hannam’s association with National Action ended before he began working for the police, though he continued to meet high-profile people linked to the group in early 2017. Counterterrorism officers said they acted swiftly once they became aware of his past.

Hannam told the court that he had been attracted to fascism at 16 because of its bold artwork, and that he contacted National Action after seeing its propaganda online. “I was under the impression this was some kind of youth network,” he said.