The hosts of a neo-Nazi podcast who launched an attack on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son Archie have been convicted of terrorism offences via Sky.
Christopher Gibbons, 38, and Tyrone Patten-Walsh, 34, both face jail after being found guilty of encouraging acts of terrorism on Friday, following a trial at Kingston Crown Court.
Gibbons described Archie as an “abomination that should be put down” in the podcast, which the pair used to voice their hatred of mixed race marriages. He went on to call for Prince Harry to be “prosecuted” and “judicially killed for treason”, jurors heard.
The pair also endorsed the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 and hailed Brenton Tarrant’s 2019 shooting spree in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claimed the lives of 51 people at two mosques during Friday prayers.
They also made vile remarks about victims of the Manchester Arena bombing. Both men aired homophobic, racist, antisemitic, Islamaphobic and misogynistic opinions – on some occasions encouraging their listeners to commit violence.
Gibbons also created a “Radicalisation Library” containing hundreds of extreme right-wing texts and material – including more than 500 extreme right-wing related speeches and propaganda documents. He uploaded videos to the library between March 2019 and February 2020, the court heard.
Gibbon and Patten-Walsh produced 21 episodes for their podcast, which had almost 1,000 subscribers with its content viewed more than 152,000 times.
Arrest
An investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command found some of the content breached terrorism legislation, leading to the pair being arrested in May 2021 and charged on 16 August in the same year.
They were both tried for eight counts of encouraging acts of terrorism, each relating to a separate podcast episode. Gibbons was also tried for two counts of dissemination of terrorist publications. Both men denied and were convicted of all the charges against them.
During the trial, prosecutor Anne Whyte QC said of the defendants: “(They) are men who hold extreme right-wing views. They are dedicated and unapologetic white supremacists.
“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.”
Gibbons, of Carshalton, south London, and Patten-Walsh, of Romford, Essex, have been remanded in custody to be sentenced at the court on 26 September.
