By Chris Williamson
Four men convicted of inciting racial hatred after plastering a university campus with racist stickers. and posing for a photo while performing Nazi-style salutes, will not face jail, a former police officer has said. On Wednesday, four men were filmed at Aston University in July 2016, the same day as a Black Lives Matter march in Birmingham.
The men, from West Bromwich and Birmingham and said to be members of right-wing group National Action, had denied the charges against them. They will be sentenced on 1 June. However, a former policeman, previously from the London Metropolitan Police has told The Eye Of Media.Com, they won’t face jail.
Speaking on the basis of anonymity, he told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”There is a culture of lukewarmness in the police force and in the courts when it comes to dealing with hate crimes. Hate crimes like racism are not considered to be serious criminal offences, and so the courts are generally not that stringent against it. There are big influential forces that govern the way such offences are dealt with, which is why most racist offences are punished with fines and minor sentencing.
”If racists were jailed each time, it would lead to the courts being over flooded with allegations of racism, since you can never fully eradicate it. Just imagine how often the police would be called if people thought racism was imprisonable offence. In reality, the state of the law in Britain at the moment is probably the most practical, except that fines should be made a lot bigger.
Chad Williams-Allen, 26, from Tantany Lane, West Bromwich; Gary Jack, 21, from Heathland Road, Shard End; and two other men who cannot be named for legal reasons, were all convicted at Birmingham Crown Court for posting racist stickers.
CCTV
The men were caught on the university campus’s CCTV, and have accepted posting the stickers but denied they incited racial hatred, claiming they were exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression.
A fifth man, 27 year old ,Dean Lloyd, also of Tantany Lane, West Bromwich, was cleared of the same charge.
The court heard one of the stickers, on an entrance sign, showed a white figure giving a Nazi-type salute and carried the words: “White Zone – National Action”.
A day after the stickers were put up, a message appeared on the Twitter account of National Action’s regional branch stating: “The fashy goys of National Action have hit Aston University campus.”
The stickers, posted on the evening of 9 July, were discovered by security staff two days later and reported to West Midlands Police.
The brazen display of racism by University students is horrifying and deeply disturbing. Only last week, law students at Exeter University were expelled and suspended for explicit racism posted on social media. It remains to be seen what sentence the court will impose on the men.