BNP police infiltrator convicted

THE BRITISH National Party’s efforts to try to pass itself off as a normal respectable party took a severe blow last week after a south London BNP member who had infiltrated the police was convicted on weapons charges. Searchlight anti-fascist magazine has reported that at the turn of the year officers from the Post Office Security Team based at London’s main sorting office at Mount Pleasant intercepted a package from the United States that contained a Tazer gun, known as a stun gun, now in widening use by the Metropolitan Police Service.
The addressee was a 23-year-old man, Ellis Hammond. The PO security team passed on the address and details of the contents of the package to the police in southeast London. It took them only minutes to realise that Hammond was a serving officer in the Police Community Safety Unit based in their command area.
In no time they were at his family home detaining him and carrying out what was said to be a very thorough search. They found the following: one CS tear gas canister, one police-style ASP retractable baton, one pair of Metropolitan Police issue Handcuffs, one knuckle duster and eight combat knives.
They also found DVDs containing hate material, various items of BNP literature, some obscene material, 25-30 mainly imported T-shirts from the US bearing Nazi and white power group symbols and hardline racist and Nazi slogans, four BB guns, one replica AK47 assault rifle and one copy of The Turner Diaries.
This is the US publication that has served as a blueprint for Nazi terrorism in the US, written by the late William Pearce, a close friend of the BNP who has played host to them at his National Alliance HQ in the US and was guest of honour at a BNP annual meeting in east London some years ago.
And finally, to top it off, they found a BNP membership card.
By sheer coincidence Hammond had left his mobile phone on a table in the canteen at the police station where he was stationed. A police officer turned it on hoping to find the identity of the owner but instead found a message from the BNP to Hammond. The officer acted with haste and sensibly reported it to one of his senior officers, who were already in the picture about the Tazer gun.
Hammond must have lied about his BNP connections to be eligible to join the Police Community Safety Unit and he appears to have had ambitions to become a full police officer.
He was not active in any of his nearest three BNP branches and appears not to have acted in a racist or fascist way or drawn attention to himself as a member of the unit.
Last week he appeared at Bexley Magistrates’ Court and pleaded guilty to two charges under the Firearms Act for possession and purchase of prohibited weapons relating to the Tazer gun and the CS gas spray, both of which carry prison sentences.
One would have expected the magistrates to send him to the Crown Court with a view to custody of longer than six months, the limit of magistrates’ powers, particularly as he had lied to join the Police Service and was a member of a banned organisation as far as the police and prison service go.
We were astonished to hear that the case had been dealt with there and then and that he got a conditional discharge for 12 months. At the time of writing his name still appears on a police service website as a community beat officer.
In a separate case a suspected neo-Nazi accused of hoarding bomb-making materials at his Grimsby home has appeared in court to face terrorist charges.
Nathan Worrell, 34, appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court via video link from Blakenhurst Prison, Worcestershire, for a short hearing.
Police allegedly found bomb-making manuals, weed killer and dismantled fireworks at his Cromwell Road flat, which was raided on 24th January.
Unemployed Worrell is also accused of possessing a collection of far-right wing political literature and propaganda. He is charged with possessing material for terrorist purposes and information useful for an act of terrorism.
He also faces a third charge of waging a racist campaign of harassment against an Asian man and his partner.