Podcaster faces prison after being convicted of stirring up racial hatred

A white-supremacist podcast host has been found guilty of stirring up racial hatred, with a judge describing his recordings as “a stain on humanity”.

James Allchurch, 51, from Pembrokeshire, Wales, was convicted of ten out of 15 counts of distributing audio material to stir up racial hatred over a two-year period.

Following a trial at Swansea Civic Centre, Judge Huw Rees told the self-proclaimed “avowed racist” and Adolf Hitler supporter that he faces a prison sentence measured in years not months.

Judge Rees adjourned sentencing until April 28 for a pre-sentence report to be carried out.

After the verdicts were returned on Friday, the judge said: “The language the jury has had to put up with is vile language, and it is unacceptable in my view that anybody should wish to express themselves in this way.

“What I have heard over the last fortnight I regard as a stain on humanity.”

Turning to Allchurch’s defence counsel, Emily Baxter, Judge Rees added: “My intention is to send your client to prison immediately. And that sentence will be measured in years, not in months.”

Asking the defendant to stand, he said: “James Barnaby Allchurch, you will be sentenced by me on April 28. I have directed a pre-sentence report be carried out so I know everything about you.

“I make it very clear to you that you should prepare yourself for a sentence of immediate imprisonment.”

Allchurch was again released on bail but with conditions to reside at his given address and to co-operate fully with the probation service.

The judge thanked the jury of six men and six women who he said had been “careful” in their deliberations.

“You paid very close attention to what has been a distressing case and you’ve heard language and viewpoints that you probably thought in this day and age you would never have to read or hear. I’m sorry about that,” he said.

“This is a court of reality and unfortunately the reality of this defendant’s world is entirely different from most right-thinking people.”

Each of the charges brought against Allchurch related to a separate audio file uploaded between May 17 2019 and March 18 2021 to a public website called Radio Aryan, which was later renamed Radio Albion.

The jury listened to each of the episodes, totalling about nine hours of audio, in which Allchurch can be repeatedly heard using racial slurs and propagating racist ideology while discussing topics including grooming gangs, immigration, slavery and crime.

The episodes were described by Jonathan Rees KC, prosecuting, as “highly racist, antisemitic and white supremacist in nature”.

Allchurch was joined in some of the episodes by National Action co-founder Alex Davies, 27, from Swansea, who was jailed in June last year for being a member of the banned far-right organisation, as well as other known extremists from the US and UK.

He used the alias Sven Longshanks, a reference to King Edward I, who was also known as Edward Longshanks and was responsible for expelling Jewish people from England in 1290.

Mr Rees told the jury: “In his own words, the defendant is an avowed racist and considers himself to be a national socialist.

“The very purpose of Radio Aryan was to spread his propaganda about racial conflict.”

Police arrested Allchurch, who said he is disabled and unable to work, at his home on December 17 2019.

Giving evidence, Allchurch denied the podcast encouraged hatred or racial violence.

He told the court that his use of racial slurs was not intended to cause offence, and said he believed he was using “accurate terminology”.

The defendant said he spent up to 12 hours per day creating podcast episodes and maintaining his website, which accepts donations via a Bitcoin link.

He said he was not a member of any proscribed far-right organisation.

When asked if people would be upset by what he said in the recordings, Allchurch replied: “My audience is other nationalists who at the time used similar or worse terminology.”

Judge Huw Rees asked if Allchurch accepted that members of the public had “unfettered access” to the website.

Allchurch replied: “They had to know the address, they had to know the name and look it up. We didn’t advertise anywhere that wasn’t already within the nationalist community.”

He was asked about Davies and told jurors the far-right group leader had not been charged or convicted when he appeared on the podcast.

In one exchange during a recording about grooming gangs, Allchurch described himself and Davies as “avowed racists”.

Allchurch told the jury: “It was just a joke. People accuse myself and others like me as racists. Anybody centre right, even the Conservatives, get accused of being racist.”