First UK police officer jailed for neo-Nazi links

The first serving British police officer to be convicted of belonging to a neo-Nazi terror group was jailed on Friday for more than four years.

Benjamin Hannam, 22, was found guilty this month at London’s Central Criminal Court of membership in the far-right group National Action, which was banned in 2016.

He had been working as a probationary officer for London’s Metropolitan Police for nearly two years before he was found on a leaked database of users of a far-right chat forum.

His arrest last year raised questions about how he evaded security vetting to enlist in Britain’s biggest police force.

Hannam, who pleaded guilty to possessing an indecent image of a child, was also convicted of lying on his application and vetting forms.

He was further convicted of possessing two terror documents, detailing knife combat and describing how to make explosive devices.

Hannam was sacked last week and handed a jail sentence of four years and four months on Friday.

“I consider what you did to be very serious and you have harmed public trust in the police by your deceit,” judge Anthony Leonard told Hannam at the sentencing.

The investigation into Hannam was led by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. Its chief Richard Smith said the disgraced officer’s views were “the antithesis of police values”.

“This case illustrates the real and immediate risk posed by hate-filled ideologies and those who promote them online and elsewhere,” Smith said in a statement.

After years of focusing on Islamist extremists, British police and intelligence chiefs are growing increasingly alarmed at the emergence of far-right threats.

In November, Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Neil Basu said enforced isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic had created a “perfect storm” for online radicalisation.

Basu, who is Britain’s top counter-terrorism police officer, said right-wing extremism was now the fastest-growing threat.