Posted on April 4, 2023

Podcaster Faces Prison After Being Convicted of Stirring Up Racial Hatred

Bronwen Weatherby and Claire Hayhurst, PA Media, March 31, 2023

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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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

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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.”

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