Alex Davies: Founder of neo-Nazi group National Action jailed for eight-and-a-half years | UK News

The founder of a notorious neo-Nazi group that infiltrated the police and army has been sentenced at the Old Bailey to eight-and-a-half years in prison.

Former philosophy student Alex Davies was found guilty of terrorism offences on 17 May.

He was described by the prosecution as the “extremist’s extremist” who had a unique place in history as an individual who founded two different far-right groups that were banned under terrorism legislation.

He is the last of the 25 members of the neo-Nazi group National Action to be jailed after he was convicted of keeping the organisation running following a ban for encouraging the killing of MPs.

Prosecutors described him as an “innocuous-looking, educated and intelligent” student at Warwick University when he founded the group, aimed at recruiting students and young people to the neo-Nazi cause.

The group was said to have paramilitary aspirations with an emphasis on boxing, martial arts and knife fighting.

Members collected knives, daggers, machetes, high-velocity crossbows, rifles, pump-action shotguns, knuckle dusters, CS spray, baseball bats and a longbow.

National Action described itself as a “white jihadist” group and a “throwback to the 1930s, dedicated to all-out race war”, Barnaby Jameson QC, prosecuting, said during the trial.

“It advocated the same Nazi aims and ideals – the ethnic cleansing of anyone who did not fit the Aryan Nazi mould: Jews, Muslims, people of colour, people of Asian descent, people of gay orientation, and anyone remotely liberal,” Mr Jameson said.

The court was told that the group targeted female MPs who were seen to be in favour of immigration and they openly celebrated the death of Jo Cox in June 2016.

Members included Jack Renshaw, who was jailed for plotting to kill MP Rosie Cooper with a sword, Mikko Vehvilainen, a serving soldier who was stockpiling weapons and Ben Hannam, who joined the Metropolitan Police.

Jack Coulson constructed a pipe bomb and posted an image on social media of the Bradford skyline, threatening to eradicate Muslims from the town.

Among other recruits was Alice Cutter, who entered a “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant, calling herself the Buchenwald Princess.