Nazi follower from Castleford jailed over sick Facebook rants about 'firing up the ovens' for Jews

Neil Lloyd posted several comments when the war between Israel and Hamas began in October last year, signing off his comments with “HH”, which the court came to mean shorthand for “Heil Hitler”.

Officers arrested him at his home on St Andrew’s Road in Castleford on October 20 and found various Nazi videos and books ere found, along with a flag bearing a Swastika and the insignia of the SS was drawn on the former outside toilet at his home, Leeds Crown Court was told.

He even asked for a copy of Hitler’s books Mein Kampf when in police custody. He admitted publishing material likely to stir up racial hatred, but claimed it was reckless, telling the court that he was watching the news on Al Jazeera at the time and it upset him, and that he was sorry for what he did.

He also claimed signing off the messages with HH was meant to mean “haha”, but this was rejected by Judge Richard Mansell KC who said it was “implausible”, “unconvincing” and labelled it “nonsense”. He jailed Lloyd for 15 months and told him he was “fanning the flames” of anti-Semitism.

Prosecutor Adam Birkby said the 61-year-old posted nine comments on Facebook between October 7 and 19 last year. Among the comments he said “Go go Palestine”, “Hitler should have paid the gas bill” and “all they want is that land, fire up the ovens”, clearly reffering to the murder of Jews in gas chambers during the Second World War. The court heard he got a minimal amount of likes from his followers for the comments.

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After his arrest he told officers they were his beliefs but tried to pass off the the comments about gassing Jews as his “sense of humour”.

Mitigating, Richard Canning said: “He does regret this incident. He does show genuine remorse. He is not a young man. What he did was wrong and he accepts that.”

Lloyd told the court he also had no friends, did not go out, was blind and had serious health problems.

But Judge Mansell told Lloyd that custody was inevitable. He told him: “You have precious little insight into the gravity of what you have done. You clearly hold entrenched racist views against Jewish people.

“I’m satisfied you were intending to stir up racial hatred. You were fanning the flames of anti-Semitic sentiment.”