Two racists convicted of publishing racially inflammatory material on the internet have been refused asylum in America and will be returned to Britain to serve their sentences.
Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle fled to the United States during a trial at Leeds Crown Court last year. The jury had returned 11 verdicts of guilty out of 18 counts when the men jumped bail, travelled to Ireland and then flew to Los Angeles, where they claimed political asylum. It was the first prosecution of race hate on the internet.
The pair claimed they had been the victims of a “three-year campaign of harassment” by the government.
They have been held in Santa Ana prison in California since their arrival and now immigration judge Rosa Peters, in a reserved judgement, has told them that their applications have been refused.
The expectation was that the pair would draw out the process by lodging appeals to the decision.
But in a letter published on the website of the extreme right wing British People’s Party, Sheppard, 52, from Selby in Yorkshire, revealed that they will come home to “face the music.
Sheppard wrote: “We were thinking of appealing and sticking it out, but really this place is replete with people hanging on hoping for a miracle that's never going to happen and we don't want to join them. Better we think to go back to England, face the music and get it over with.”
The Crown Prosecution Service decided to hold a retrial for Sheppard in absentia on the counts on which the jury did not reach verdicts and in January, he was found guilty of a further five counts, making 16 in all. Whittle, 41, from Preston in Lancashire, was found guilty on all five counts with which he was charged. The pair are due to be sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on May 15.
An investigation into their activities started after a pamphlet called “Tales of the Holohoax” was pushed through the door of Blackpool Reform Synagogue while another copy was sent to a Jewish academic.
Some
of the material was also published on Sheppard’s websites, for which
Whittle wrote articles under the pen-name Luke O’Farrell. They were
charged with three different offences of publishing racially
inflammatory material; distributing racially inflammable material and
possessing racially inflammable material with a view to distribution.
Jewish Chronicle, 20/04/09
Race-hate pair who fled to US refused asylum
But immigration judge Rosa Peters has thrown out the case after rejecting claims the pair were victims of "a three-year campaign of harassment by the governing British Labour Party".
Lawyers in the UK had expected Sheppard and Whittle to lodge an appeal if the decision went against them, but it is now believed the pair have decided to return to Yorkshire to be sentenced.
In a letter to supporters, published on the British People's Party website, they wrote: "We were thinking of appealing and sticking it out, but really this place is replete with people hanging on hoping for a miracle that's never going to happen, and we don't want to join them...
"Better we think to go back to England, face the music and get it over with."
Sheppard's website, to which Whittle contributed, featured grotesque images of murdered Jews alongside cartoons and posters ridiculing ethnic groups.
Sheppard, who had been expelled from the British National Party, was even caught delivering racist pamphlets door-to-door in North Yorkshire.
The investigation into Sheppard began in 2004 when copies of a pamphlet, Tales of the Holohoax, were pushed through the letterbox of a Blackpool synagogue and sent to a prominent Jewish academic in London.
After the pamphlet was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard, police raided his flat and discovered the racist website, which typically attracted 4,000 visitors a day.
Sheppard, of Brook Street, Selby, was found guilty at Leeds Crown Court of 16 charges relating to the possession, publication and distribution of racially inflammatory material.
Whittle, of Avenham Lane, Preston, was convicted of five counts of publishing racially inflammatory material.
In July last year, before they could be sentenced, the pair skipped bail, travelled to Holyhead, caught a ferry to Ireland and boarded a flight to Los Angeles.
They have been held in Santa Ana Jail, California, for the last seven months and are believed to be the first UK citizens to be convicted of publishing racist material online.
They claimed they should be acquitted because the articles were posted on a server registered in the US beyond the reach of UK law.