Videos were “designed to provoke violence against ethnic minorities” in Dewsbury
A MAN who called for a ‘holy war’ in Yorkshire in videos posted on video-sharing website YouTube has been jailed.
Gareth Hemingway pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to five offences under section 21(1) of the Public Order Act 1986 and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
He used the popular video-sharing website to distribute videos of “a racist and inflammatory nature”, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Hemingway uploaded five videos between January and June 2007 which included titles such as ‘red, white and blue through and through’, ‘oi monkey’ and ‘Dewsbury needs help’, and featured racist references and imagery including an assault on a black man by a white man.
The material came to the attention of the police when a local journalist researching Dewsbury on the internet came across the videos Hemingway had posted and reported them
When police arrested Hemingway, they found a collection of Nazi and racist memorabilia at his home.
Stuart Laidlaw from the CPS said Hemingway had edited the videos which were “designed to provoke violence against ethnic minorities” in Dewsbury.
The videos called for a ‘racial holy war’, described acts of violence and made supportive references to far right groups such as Combat 18 and POWER – Patriots of White European Resistance.
Mr Laidlaw said: “Freedom of speech carries with it responsibilities. Publishing something that is abusive and insulting and that is likely to stir up racial hatred is against the law and the CPS will work with the police to prosecute robustly anyone who does so.”
