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Two white supremacists jailed for terrorism offences after targeting Harry and Meghan's son in neo-Nazi podcast
4 January 2024, 19:57 | Updated: 4 January 2024, 20:06
Two "dedicated and unapologetic white supremacists" who targeted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's son in a neo-Nazi podcast have now been jailed for terrorism offences.
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At Kingston Crown Court on Thursday, 4 January, Christopher Gibbons was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment, and Tyrone Patten-Walsh, 34, to 10 years.
Both will also be subject to a 15-year-long notification order and serve three years on licence when they are released, to reduce their ability to cause further harm.
Gibbons, 40, described Harry and Meghan's son Archie as a "creature [that] should be put down" and called for the Duke to be "prosecuted and judicially killed for treason".
He made the comments on an extreme right-wing radio-style chat show he hosted with Patten-Walsh, who also had "profoundly offensive" extreme views, the court heard.
Using the aliases "Christopher White" and "Joseph Walsh", the pair aired homophobic, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and misogynistic views.
The two Londoners' podcast, called Lone Wolf Radio and later Black Wolf Radio, had by June 2020, when police intercepted it, 128 subscribers and around 9,000 views.
On the show, the pair promoted the view that "the white race was likely to be 'genocided' unless steps were taken to fight back", and approved of "the day of the rope", where people deemed "race traitors" would be hanged in a mass execution, in particular those in inter-racial relationships.
Black Wolf Radio episodes had cover images including one of a Nazi SS execution of a Jewish man kneeling above a pit filled with corpses and another advocating the hanging of Nelson Mandela.
Patten-Walsh, of Romford, east London, offended between March and October 2019 and Gibbons, of Carshalton, south London, from April 2018 to February 2020.
The men were convicted of all charges against them after a trial at Kingston Crown Court that ended on July 7 2023.
Both men committed eight counts of encouragement of terrorism.
Gibbons, who lives with his ailing mother, was further found guilty of two counts of disseminating terrorist documents through his own website "The Radicalisation Library", which had 2,191 subscribers by September 2020.
It contained material on the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, which argues a new multi-cultural society is replacing white people, and documents that encouraged people to commit terrorist acts.
Judge Peter Lodder KC, said the men used the appearance of a radio show as a "format to legitimise" their extreme views, calling them "dedicated and unapologetic white supremacists.
"The evidence demonstrates that you desire to live in a world dominated by white people purely for white people, your distorted thinking is that the white race has ceded too much influence to Blacks and Asians, to Jews and Muslims, to gays, to white liberals and to white people in mixed-race relationships.
"Although your beliefs are as preposterous as they are offensive to a civilised society, in our democracy you are entitled to hold them - however, your activities went far beyond what is permissible.
"So as to suggest the legitimate exercise of freedom of speech, you assumed the format of a radio show, but you used language and adopted iconography designed to encourage acts of extreme right-wing terrorism.
"You rejected democratic processes and supported the hate crimes and violence common in extreme neo-Nazi groups, you advocated Accelerationism, an extreme right wing ideology seeking the rapid and violent collapse of our multi-racial society in order to bring about a racist fresh start, with like-minded whites at its core."
Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, said the content could influence young people to extremist ideologies.
He said: "The material that Gibbons and Patten-Walsh shared is exactly the kind that has the potential to draw vulnerable people - particularly young people - into terrorism."
As well as targeting The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the men also endorsed the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016.
In addition, they praised Brenton Tarrant's 2019 shooting spree in Christchurch, New Zealand, where 51 people died at two mosques during Friday prayers.
They also made vile remarks about victims of the Manchester Arena bombing.