Family’s Care Plight as Race Hate Parents Jailed

Three children face being taken into care after their parents were jailed for stirring up racial hatred.

Jeremy and Jacqueline Oakley both posted messages on a far Right wing website.

A judge jailed them, despite a plea by a barrister to spare Mrs Oakley for the sake of their three children, two aged 14 and one 15.

The couple — who have previous convictions — live on Thorn Avenue in Thornhill, Dewsbury. They have recently split up and now live next door to one another.

They pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court yesterday to stirring up racial hatred by publishing material on a website run by the far Right White Nationalist Party.

Jeremy Oakley, 41, used the pseudonym Blitzkrieg 88 and his wife, 34, the pseudonym English Rose to post the messages.

Sentencing Oakley to 18 months’ imprisonment and his wife to nine months Judge Ian Dobkin said: “I’m punishing you for what you did, not what you think.

“The offence is the way you expressed your opinions on the internet.

“When these opinions leave the privacy of you and your home and are propagated elsewhere, the evil this kind of offence could lead to becomes more real as time goes on. There is very strong public disquiet about such conduct and opinions.”

Mrs Oakley’s barrister, Richard Clews, said the couple had been together for 18 years and she had fallen under her husband’s influence.

He said that since the couple split up in May — with Oakley moving into the house next door — his client Oakley had made new friends.

He said the prosecution’s case was that Mrs Oakley had posted one message on the website. He added: “It was a personal comment, not an exultation to others or a rallying cry.

“It was deep in the website, in a chatroom where it was unlikely anyone abhorring such views would have been.

“She needs education and rehabilitation, rather than punishment, and is ashamed of what she did.

“There is no-one who can look after her children and if she loses her liberty they will have to be taken into care.”

Judge Dobkin sentenced Jeremy Oakley first and he was taken to the cells before his wife was sentenced.

She stood staring in the dock after the judge passed sentence, as if she did not take in she was going to jail.

She then started to cry and said: “What about my kids? There’s no-one to look after them. What are my kids going to do?”

In the end she had to be led away by a dock officer.

Mrs Oakley has previous convictions for threatening behaviour, possessing an offensive weapon and public order offences.

Barrister Michael Smith, for Jeremy Oakley, who has previous convictions for violence and criminal damage, said his client had posted the offensive message on the website after a night’s drinking.

“There is no suggestion that this led to any acts of violence or disorder,” said Mr Smith.

“He no longer has any connection with any extreme Right-wing group.”

Oakley had escaped a jail term last September after admitting sending a malicious text message to an undercover journalist who had exposed the activities of the BNP in Yorkshire in a BBC TV documentary called Secret Agent.

Oakley was given a two-year community rehabilitation order and had to pay £100 compensation to his victim after pleading guilty to sending an electronic communication with intent to cause distress.

The message read: “Watch your mail you scum. Boom. From C18.”

C18 referred to Combat 18, an extreme far Right organisation.

Magistrates gave him a non-custodial sentence because of his remorse and guilty plea.

Yesterday, prosecuting barrister Nicholas Lumley said Jacqueline Oakley had been organiser of the women’s division for the White Nationalist Party.

He said police seized far Right leaflets and documents from the couple’s house.

He added that Oakley had been involved in violent far Right group Combat 18 in the 1990s and had been involved in street fights.