In one recording from March 2018, obtained by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Sykes threatens to “stamp your [journalist Luke McMahon’s] f***ing teeth into the sidewalk” and send associates to Mr McMahon’s house. “I’m going to torture you to an absolute delight little Lukey Luke. Absolute delight. And I have people looking at you right now staring at you from across the f***ing street from where you live, enjoy this mother-f***er,” Mr Sykes is recorded saying. “You’re dead, and baby, I’m catching up with you.” After The Age and Sydney Morning Herald questioned NSW Police about the decision to shelve the case, a spokesman said it was being reviewed by senior police.

Loading NSW Police failed to interview or arrest Mr Sykes after he left a series of chilling voicemail messages on the phone of Mr McMahon, a journalist and lawyer, in early 2018. A far-right group, United Nationalists Australia, also posted a message on its website on March 23 last year claiming that Mr Saleam had visited Mr McMahon’s Melbourne home. In another voicemail message, Mr Sykes warned Mr McMahon: “Pity you weren’t home, but at least we know where you live so, we’ll be saying 'G’day'.” Mr McMahon had earlier exposed Mr Sykes in stories in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald as being responsible for several racist and intimidating trolling campaigns targeting high-profile Australians, including ex-Racial Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, activist and Muslim woman Mariam Veiszadeh and Guardian journalist and left-wing commentator Van Badham. It's a crime to use a carriage service to "menace, threaten or harass" another person.

But the criminal investigation into Mr Sykes was assigned to a junior NSW police constable in around April 2018 after an initial investigation by the Victoria Police who, according to a spokesman, had established “the identity and address of the suspect.” A collection of Nazi dolls owned by Nathan Sykes. “As the suspect was living in NSW at the time of the alleged offending, a report was forwarded to NSW Police," a Victoria Police spokesman said. "The offending and criminal investigation falls within the NSW Police jurisdiction.” The spokesman also said that Victoria Police had helped Mr McMahon obtain a personal safety intervention order. On January 5, the NSW officer emailed Mr McMahon saying Mr Sykes would face no charges as “there is not enough evidence”.

On Wednesday, after The Age and Sydney Morning Herald sent questions to NSW Police, Mr McMahon said he was called by a NSW investigator who promised to re-open the probe. “He said they were now taking it very seriously. The handling of this case says to me that the threat posed by the far right has often been brushed aside without proper consideration. This effectively provides a green light to extremists to continue their abhorrent behaviour,” he said. Jim Saleam (left) and Nathan Sykes in Sydney Barrister Greg Barns of the Australian Lawyers Alliance said it appeared the case had been mishandled. “There needs to be much greater scrutiny of online threats of this type by police and action taken. This case has been badly handled by NSW Police and as I say if the alleged perpetrator were a Muslim of Arabic nationality the response might have been very different.”

Leading security consultant Neil Fergus, who has previously studied Australian far-right groups, said Mr McMahon’s treatment “absolutely needs to be prosecuted”. Mr Fergus said ASIO has been effectively monitoring far right groups for decades and, in partnership with police, had prevented several attacks and charged several white supremacists. Lawyer Luke McMahon of Doogue + George Defence Lawyers. Credit:Eddie Jim On Monday, former NSW Police Force deputy commissioner Nick Kaldas warned that policing agencies were failing to effectively monitor the growth of right-wing extremists. A senior federal security agency source said ASIO was doing enough to counter right-wing extremists, but there was a lack of co-ordination between state police forces who sometimes treated extremist activity as non-urgent “suburban crime matters”.