Two neo-Nazi podcast hosts, who condemned mixed-race marriages and made disparaging comments about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s biracial son, were convicted on Friday after they were found guilty of encouraging acts of terrorism.
According to Sky News, the verdicts were handed out to 38-year-old Christopher Gibbons and Tyrone Patten-Walsh, 34, after a trial at the Kingston Crown Court in the United Kingdom. The hosts were accused of going on a tirade against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as well as their son Archie.
Gibbons allegedly labeled Archie as an “abomination that should be put down” and also demanded that Prince Harry be “prosecuted” and “judicially killed for treason.” The convicted men also expressed their support for the 2016 murder of Labour MP, Jo Cox, as well as the fatal 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand. The pair also launched attacks on the Manchester Arena bombing victims.
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Besides making homophobic, racist, antisemitic, Islamaphobic, and misogynistic comments on their podcast, the convicted men also occasionally used their platform to urge their listeners to commit violence, per Sky News.
Gibbon and Patten-Walsh’s podcast had nearly a thousand subscribers while it was also viewed over 152,000 times. Authorities arrested the men in May 2021 and later brought charges against them after the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command determined some of the things they said in their podcast violated terrorism legislation.
“(They) are men who hold extreme right-wing views. They are dedicated and unapologetic white supremacists,” prosecutor, Anne Whyte QC, said during the trial. “They thought that if they used the format of a radio show, as good as in plain sight, they could pass off their venture as the legitimate exercise of their freedom of speech.
“In fact, what they were doing was using language designed to encourage others to commit acts of extreme right-wing terrorism against the sections of society that these defendants hated.”
The pair, who remain in custody, will be sentenced on September 26. “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,” Commander Dominic Murphy said after the pair were convicted.
“They were wrong, and both our investigation and a jury have 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.”
Murphy also urged the public to report such extremist online content to the police when they come across it. “Information from the public is vitally important in our fight against terrorism.”
