Wednesbury man who called for small boat migrants to be shot admits hate posts on X
Joseph Peter Ash, 32, made posts on X calling for migrants arriving in the UK on small boats to be shot.
A Wednesbury man has admitted making hate posts on X in which he called for migrants coming to the UK in small boats to be shot.
Joseph Peter Ash, 39, admitted four offences of publishing threatening or abusive written material on the platform formerly known as Twitter intending to stir up racial hatred.
The charges relate to multiple posts the defendant made in 2024 and the posting of a National Action video on September 18 of that year.
Ash, from Wednesbury, West Midlands, entered his guilty pleas at a hearing on Friday before Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb at the Old Bailey.
Prosecutor Kristel Pous told the court his posts had supported extreme right-wing ideology.
Some were antisemitic and promoted anti-Jewish conspiracy theory and others targeted migrants and “non-whites”, she said.
Ash referred to migrants and non-whites as “invaders and human trash” whose purposes were to “rape, kill and get free handouts”, the court was told.
In posts, he wrote about setting fire to migrant hotels and stated that “migrants who come to the UK in small boats should be shot”.
Ash denied a fifth charge of dissemination of a terrorist publication on “no less than nine occasions” between August 25 and September 6 2024.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the case would be heard at Birmingham Crown Court.
The senior judge set a plea hearing for July 24 and a trial from November 15 next year.
The defendant was granted continued bail.