Leader of banned neo-Nazi terror group, National Action, jailed for eight years

The leader of a banned Neo Nazi terror group has been jailed for eight years today.

Christopher Lythgoe, 32, was in charge of the white supremacist organisation, National Action, which was outlawed in December 2016 after endorsing the murder of Labour MP, Jo Cox.

Lythgoe was accused of granting permission to Jack Renshaw, 23, to carry out the murder of Labour MP Rosie Cooper at a meeting in a Warrington pub on 1 July last year.

Renshaw admitted buying a 19-inch 'Gladius Machete' in preparation for the murder plot, but jurors cleared Lythgoe of granting him permission to carry out the attack on behalf of National Action.

Lythgoe sent an encrypted email to several high-ranking National Action members on 11 December, five days before the ban, in which he says: 'It's going to be a piece of p***... we discard the name and symbolism of National Action...

"This operation will look different from the outside. We are just shedding one skin for another."

National Action was outlawed by the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, for its promotion of the idea that Britain would inevitably see a "race war".

Tweets associated to the group featured a picture of Jo Cox's killer, Thomas Mair, accompanied with the message "don't let this man's sacrifice go in vain".

As part of their activities, Lythgoe rented a gym close to his Warrington home where members practised boxing and martial arts, in order to "train for for the race war".

Lythgoe was convicted of belonging to a proscribed organisation, along with fellow Neo-Nazi Matthew Hankinson, 24.

Hankinson, from Newton Le Willows, Merseyside, was thought to be Lythgoe's second-in-command, and called for "race traitors" to be hanged from lampposts.

He gave a speech at a demonstration in Liverpool known as the White Man March, in in which he claimed: "A war is brewing, it is inevitable. We are not the ones responsible for instigating it but we will be the ones fighting it.

"We must be ruthless, if innocent people are cut down in the process then so be it. If we don't cut out the cancer eating away at the body of our nation, Britain will die. We must abandon this idea of so-called respectability."

Mr Justice Jay sentenced Lythgoe to eight years in prison and Hankinson to six years in prison.

He said: "You have been found guilty by the jury of being a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation, namely National Action."

The judge said the Home Secretary was "amply justified" in banning the group, which sought to achieve a "white Britain" by "any means necessary".

Addressing Lythgoe, he said: "Although you are not a charismatic individual it was clearly through your effort and ability that the torch of National Action was kept burning after December 2016."

The jury failed to reach verdicts on whether Renshaw, Michal Trubini, 25, and Andrew Clarke, 33, were members of the banned group.

Garron Helm, 24, was cleared of belonging to National Action.