Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

A neo-Nazi terrorist who called for violent white supremacist terror against Muslim and Jewish communities online will spend the next two years locked up in a young offenders institute.

Thomas Leech, 19, from Preston, pleaded guilty to encouraging acts of terrorism and stirring up religious or racial hatred at Manchester Crown Court.

When arrested by counter-terror officers, Leech confessed that he was a Nazi. Following bail, Leech continued posting extremist, racist content online.

Leech also admitted possessing and creating child abuse images, per the Lancashire Post.

The court heard how Leech promoted racist conspiracies about Jewish communities -including historic antisemitic canards about so-called ‘global influence’ and Holocaust denial.

He also promoted the infamous white supremacist conspiracy of the so-called “Great Replacement,” which has inspired various acts of racist terror globally – including the murder of 51 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Leech glorified various neo-Nazi terrorists – Anders Breivik, Robert Bowers, Dylann Roof and the Christchurch terrorist.

The racist screeds of Thomas Leech on GAB also came to the attention of the antisemitism watchdog and charity that works to support Jewish communities, the Community Security Trust in 2020, whose research includes how extremist platforms like GAB serve as hotbeds for racist conspiracies about Jewish communities – notably when it concerns Covid-19.

In mitigation, Leech’s defence said, “He was doing it because he needed a feeling of belonging and significance and literally had time on his hands.”

Two years prior, police issued Leech with a warning over claims that he planned a shooting at his school in Wetherby, West Yorkshire in early 2017, which they claimed was a mere “prank”.

Leech also engaged with Prevent but  “dropped off the radar” after relocating to Gillingham, Kent, in the summer of 2017.

Detective Superintendent Will Chatterton, head of CTPNW investigations, said: “Leech’s comments and behaviour online was despicable and a thorough investigation was able to identify these posts and evidence them before the courts.

“CTPNW will always take complaints of this nature very seriously and exercise full powers to bring offenders to justice.”

Judge Alan Conrad QC branded Leech’s action as “deeply disturbing”.

Leech is one of several cases of successful convictions of neo-Nazi terrorists in the UK, who overwhelmingly fit an age profile of under thirty.