The Journal

Jailed neo-Nazi to serve no extra time

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A HITLER-OBSESSED pervert jailed for right-wing terrorism offences will serve no extra time in prison for making child abuse images.

When Luke Hunter’s home was raided, disturbing material was found including Nazi memorabili­a, white supremacis­t texts and recordings of him expressing his deeply disturbing views. He was previously jailed for 50 months for those offences.

An examinatio­n of his devices also revealed him to be in possession of child abuse images, for which he has now been dealt with another prison sentence at Newcastle Crown Court, but was told it will run alongside the one he is already serving.

Anne Richardson, prosecutin­g, said police executed a warrant at his home at The Grange, High Callerton, in October 2019, where he was living alone. Indecent images were found in a chat featuring 35 people on the Kik platform, during which 90 messages were exchanged, with 21 attachment­s.

Abuse images and videos were also on his hard drive. In total there were 22 of the most serious, category A images, 11 category B and 39 category C. Referring to the images, Miss Richardson said: “Material was put around one child’s neck in which she appears to be being strangled while being sexually abused.”

Hunter, 24, pleaded guilty to three offences of making indecent images. He was sentenced to 14 months imprisonme­nt but was told that will run concurrent­ly to the sentence he is already serving. He will also have to sign the sex offenders register and be subject to a sexual harm prevention order for ten years.

Joe Culley, defending, said Hunter had been diagnosed with autism and was “led astray by other people to some extent” with regards to the terrorism offences and that his autism had played a role in both sets of offences. He added that there had been an “unexplaine­d delay” in the prosecutio­n of the images offences.

Hunter had previously admitted seven charges of encouragin­g terrorism and disseminat­ing terrorist publicatio­ns and was sentenced in December 2020 to four years and two months prison, with an extended licence of an extra year, at Leeds Crown Court.

We reported at the time how he was arrested as part of an investigat­ion into Right Wing Terrorism, led by Counter Terrorism Policing North East.

Searches of Hunter’s home address revealed an obsession with Hitler and neo-Nazism and resulted in the seizure of a large number of white supremacis­t texts, military training manuals and guides on surveillan­ce, guerrilla warfare, weapons and explosives. Officers also recovered Nazi memorabili­a and a machete from his bedroom.

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