White extremist who was told by a judge to read Jane Austen after being found guilty of a terrorism offence is JAILED for two years after Court of Appeal overturns suspended sentence

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10418585/White-extremist-Ben-John-22-JAILED-two-years-suspended-sentence-ruled-unlawful.html

White extremist Ben John, 22, who was told by a judge to read Jane Austen after being found guilty of a terrorism offence is JAILED for two years after Court of Appeal overturns suspended sentence

• A neo-Nazi university student has been jailed after his sentence was quashed
• Ben John was caught with 67,788 white supremacist and neo-Nazi documents 
• He was also found to have downloaded The Anarchist Cookbook on a hard drive 
• But a judge told John to read classic novels instead of sending him to jail
• Attorney General Suella Braverman referred John's case to the Court of Appeal  
• Campaigners had branded the neo-Nazi's suspended sentence 'pathetic' 

By JACK WRIGHT and STEPHEN WYNN-DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:27, 19 January 2022 | UPDATED: 17:36, 19 January 2022

 

 

The Attorney General's Office referred John's sentence to the Court of Appeal after campaigners branded the suspended sentence 'pathetic'.

Today, John gave no external reaction as Lord Justice Holroyde quashed the original sentence, finding it was unlawful, and ordered him to serve two years in prison.

Lord Justice Holroyde said: 'We are satisfied that there must be a sentence of immediate imprisonment.'

John, who attended the hearing via videolink, must hand himself into police by 4pm on Thursday, Lord Justice Holroyde said. 

Solicitor General Alex Chalk QC attended the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London in person to argue John's sentence should be increased.

John had first been identified as a terror risk days after his 18th birthday and was referred to Prevent, the Government's counter-extremism body.

Despite repeated interventions, John continued to download 'repellant' far-Right documents as well as a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook, which includes diagrams and instructions on how to build explosives.

A jury found him guilty of possessing a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. 

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Judge Timothy Spencer QC concluded that the crime was 'an act of teenage folly', and sensationally ruled that John that he could stay out of prison as long as he read classics by Shakespeare and Dickens instead of far-Right work

Judge who told Ben John to read classic literature

After 22-year-old Ben John was convicted of terrorism at Leicester Crown Court in August 2020, judge Timothy Spencer QC ordered a two-year suspended jail term.

He concluded that the crime was 'an act of teenage folly', and sensationally ruled that John could stay out of prison as long as he read classics by Shakespeare and Dickens instead of far-Right work.

Campaigners branded the suspended sentence pathetic before the Attorney's General Office referred it to the Court of Appeal.

Today, the sentence was quashed after it was found to be 'unlawful' and John was sent to jail for two years.

In 2017, Judge Timothy Spencer QC was cleared of making inappropriate comments about the Travelling community when he sentenced 11 members of the same family for modern slavery offences.

Sentencing the Rooney family, the Guardian reported, the judge said: 'You claimed that what went on at Drinsey [in Lincolnshire] was no different from what was going on at any Travellers’ camp around this country, that all Travellers had workers operating under similar conditions.

'Sadly, I very much fear that you may be correct about that. But that does not make any of it right.'

Shay Clipson, the chair of the National Alliance of Gypsy Traveller & Roma Women, complained about the comments, sparking a two-week review by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO).

The JCIO concluded it was a 'damaging statement' made 'with no proof' but dismissed the complaint against the judge.  

Mr Chalk said John 'was, at the time of these offences, a confirmed extremist' and that 'there are very good reasons' to think he may still be.

Mr Chalk said John had accessed 'highly, highly troubling' material just this month, adding: 'It does not bear thinking about if some of this ideology is put into practice.'

The Court of Appeal was told the sentencing judge suspended John’s prison sentence after the ex-student promised to stop his interest in far-right ideologies.

Mr Chalk said: 'And yet, as the court knows, he did not comply with that promise.

'While there have not been any formal breaches of the SCPO (serious crime prevention order), the offender has continued to view online far-right material. That began within a week.'

He said this included ‘liking’ Nazi-themed content 'just five days after promising the judge he had put it behind him'.

Mr Chalk continued: 'He was not taxed with the fact that, within a week of leaving that court, with the promise ringing in his ears, he had gone back to looking at that material.'