How DID Scotland Yard miss Nazi in its ranks?
First PC convicted of terrorism posed in Hitler moustache, went on far-Right training camps — yet still got through vetting for the Met
A SCOTLAND Yard officer who lived a secret life as a neo-Nazi was facing jail yesterday after becoming the first British policeman to be convicted of terrorism.
PC Benjamin Hannam, 22, attended training camps, went on graffiti sprees and recruited others to the banned white supremacist group National Action (NA), that supported the murder of MP Jo Cox.
He even became a poster boy for the neoNazi group and featured in their recruitment video just weeks before he applied to the Metropolitan Police.
Yet shockingly he managed to sail through the vetting process to become a probationary police officer two years after joining the proscribed terror group.
He continued downloading Nazi material – including a cartoon of a schoolchild writing ‘I miss u Hitler’ – even after he started training as an officer in March 2018.
Detectives discovered Hannam had downloaded a knife-fighting manual and a copy of the ‘manifesto’ by the Right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in bomb and gun attacks in Norway in 2011.
Officers also seized a USB stick that contained manuals detailing the production of biological weapons.
Hannam had also saved an image of a mural of Brenton Tarrant, who shot and killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
And an image found on his iPhone showed him in police uniform, with a Hitler-style moustache superimposed on his face.
Yesterday after Hannam was convicted of membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation, possessing terror documents and fraud, the force came under pressure to explain how a neo-Nazi fanatic was accepted into their ranks.
Hannam had Nazi propaganda posters plastered on his bedroom walls, National Action stickers, clothing badges and business cards. He also kept diaries detailing his meetings with the group.
But none of this showed up in vetting checks after he hid his sickening views and denied being a member of an extremist group.
Scotland Yard did not know it had a racist in its midst who worshipped Hitler as ‘the big man’, and said he didn’t like ‘people who’s skin is darker than mine’, until a chance leak of a neo-Nazi forum by a hacker provided details of Right-wing extremists.
Counter-terrorism police launched an investigation which revealed Hannam joined National Action in March 2016, two years before he became an officer working with the emergency response team and the minor investigation support team in Haringey, north London.
Until his arrest in March last year, colleagues had no idea of his secret life and some believed the wrong man had been held when they were questioned about his behaviour.
The astonishing blunder was only made public yesterday after reporting restrictions on his three-week Old Bailey trial were lifted.
A judge had ruled that his identity could not published because the defendant faced trial for possessing child pornography, but this prohibition was lifted after he pleaded guilty to that charge.
Yesterday the force was facing questions about its vetting and the extent of background checks into new recruits. When Hannam applied to the police he gave his university as a reference, despite having dropped out of his theology course after only one term.
No school reference was sought. Yet his teachers had warned of his ‘inappropriate’ anti-immigration comments and one refused to submit his A-level dissertation because of the 16-year- old’s ‘intolerant’ view of Islam.
Even at the age of 14, Hannam started researching the National Front on Wikipedia and looked up articles on the British National Party. In March 2016 he joined National Action, a group which rose to prominence when it celebrated the murder of Jo Cox, the
Labour MP for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire who was stabbed and shot in June 2016. It has been linked to several terrorist plots, including a plan to murder fellow Labour MP Rosie Cooper.
Hannam later became a recruiter for the organisation and continued to meet members for weekend activities after it was proscribed by the government as a terrorist group in December 2016.
As part of the police application process he declined ever being a member of the British National Party ‘or a similar organisation whose constitution, aims, objectives, or pronouncements may contradict police officers’ duty to promote race equality’. In answer
ing ‘no’, the jury found him to be guilty of defrauding the police out of the £66,000 spent on his wages.
Commander Richard Smith, head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, said: ‘[Ben Hannam] would never have been able to join had we known then of his interest in the extreme Rightwing and his previous membership of National Action.’ He said: ‘We found no evidence that he used his position as a police officer to further his extremist views.’
Mr Smith defended the Met’s vetting process for new recruits, saying: ‘The processes we have to vet potential members of the police service are proportionate, that’s not to say they cannot be absolutely exhaustive.’ But he added: ‘Clearly having a mindset of that type is completely incompatible with being a police officer. We are highly concerned that we have a serving police officer who has previously been a member of a proscribed organisation such as National Action and we have followed every line of inquiry as you would expect us to do so.’
Yesterday Hannam did not react as he was convicted.
He was granted bail ahead of his sentencing on April 23 but the judge, Anthony Leonard QC told him: ‘The likely sentence, subject to any observations your counsel have, will involve one which involves imprisonment.’