A neo-Nazi student who carved a swastika into his girlfriend’s buttock is to be sentenced for his leading role in an extreme right-wing group.
Andrew Dymock, 24, the middle-class son of academics, told jurors “Thank you for killing me” after he was found guilty in June of 15 charges, including 12 terrorism-related offences.
He will be sentenced by Judge Mark Dennis QC at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.
The court heard that Dymock promoted the now-banned System Resistance Network (SRN) group, which aimed to “stir up a race war”, through a Twitter account and a website.
He used online platforms to raise money for the organisation, which “preached zero-tolerance” to non-whites, Jewish and Muslim communities and described homosexuality as a “disease”.
Dymock, who at the time was studying politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales, denied being behind the accounts, claiming he was set up by an ex-girlfriend, who had failed to recruit him to join banned terrorist group National Action (NA).
Police found a picture on one of Dymock’s devices showing a swastika cut into the woman’s buttock and he told detectives in a January 2019 interview he had used his nail to scratch the symbol.
Dymock’s computer revealed longstanding extremist views dating back to when he was 17, including a Google translation of the words “Kill all of the Jews”.
The court heard that SRN was one of a small number of groups which filled a “dubious gap” left following the proscription of far-right group National Action and was itself banned in 2020.
On October 8 2017, Dymock wrote about the creation of SRN on a right-wing webpage, stating that the group was “focused on building a group of loyal men, true to the cause of National Socialism and establishing the Fascist state through revolution”.
Dymock was expelled from the SRN in late February 2018, four months before he was arrested at Gatwick Airport as he tried to board a flight to America.
Police found in his luggage extreme right-wing literature including Siege, an anthology of pro-Nazi essays written by James Mason, and Mein Kampf, along with clothing bearing neo-Nazi logos.
He also had books, flags, clothes and badges associated with the extreme right-wing in his bedroom at home and university.
Dymock claimed material linking him to content on the SRN website and Twitter account was “planted in his possession without his knowledge”.
He denied being a neo-Nazi and told police: “In fact, I am bisexual but lean towards being homosexual, in direct conflict with Nazism.”
He went on to tell jurors that he had Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto – along with books on Satanism – for “research” on right-wing populism.
The jury found Dymock guilty of five charges of encouraging terrorism, two of fundraising for terrorism, four counts of disseminating terrorist publications, possessing a terrorist document, stirring up racial hatred and hatred based on sexual orientation, and possessing racially inflammatory material.
Dymock had been supported throughout his trial by his parents, Stella and Dr David Dymock, a professor of dentistry at Bristol University, with whom he lived with in Bath, Somerset.
In previous email chat, Dr Dymock had sought to distance himself from his son’s views, telling him not to send “any of your political stuff to my work email account because I work in a multicultural institution, am proud to do so, and believe in the values of that institution.
“I would hate anyone who might see my emails to think that I sympathised with fascist views in any way.”
Credit: PA
UPDATE (21/07/2021):
Andrew Dymock has received a seven year prison sentence after being convicted of 12 terror offences and three hate crimes last month. He led the groups System Resistance Network (SRN) and Sonnenkrieg Division – both are proscribed terror groups. Tell MAMA has profiled the SRN since its emergence in 2017 – in September that year, we speculated that the SRN would be proscribed (this occurred in 2020).