Men who used podcast to incite violence convicted of terrorism offences

Two men who encouraged listeners of their podcast to commit violent acts against ethnic minorities have been convicted of terrorism offences.

The convictions follow an investigation by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command.

Officers identified Christopher Gibbons and Tyrone Patten-Walsh as the hosts of an online neo-Nazi podcast.

On the podcast, the two men shared homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and misogynistic views. They also encouraged listeners to commit acts of terrorist violence.

Gibbons also created an online library containing hundreds of extreme right-wing texts and other material. The online library had more than 500 videos of extreme right-wing-related speeches and propaganda documents. It had nearly 1,000 subscribers, and the content had been viewed more than 152,000 times.

The pair were arrested in May 2021 and both were both convicted of encouraging acts of terrorism following a trial at Kingston Crown Court which concluded on Friday, 7 July. Both were found guilty of eight counts of encouraging acts of terrorism (contrary to section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006) – each count relates to a different podcast episode. Gibbons was also found guilty of two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications (contrary to section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006).

The pair have been remanded in custody to be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday, 26 September.

Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “Gibbons and Patten-Walsh thought that the fact they were airing their hateful views and advocating terrorist acts in plain sight, on a radio and podcast platform, somehow gave them some legitimacy and meant they wouldn’t face any consequences.

“They were wrong, and both our investigation and a jury has found that they sought to encourage terrorism in how they expressed their abhorrent extreme right-wing views.

“During the course of the investigation, detectives reviewed hundreds of hours of material, and the result of their work was the compelling case that was presented at court which has resulted in their convictions.

“If you come across extremist content online, report it to police and we will act. Information from the public is vitally important in our fight against terrorism.”

Jim Linwood from London, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons