West Yorkshire, England – Two men who called Auschwitz a holiday camp for Jews have become the first in the UK to be convicted of inciting racial hatred online.

The pair fled Britain for the US after being convicted of running an internet campaign.

But their hopes of being protected by the US free speech laws ended when they were held in custody for a year before being deported to face sentence in the UK.

At Leeds Crown Court, judge Rodney Grant referred to articles published by both men on a website run by Simon Sheppard.

He told them: “I have rarely seen or read material which is so insulting or abusive towards racial groups within our society.”

Sentencing Sheppard, 52, of Selby, Yorkshire, to four years and 10 months, he told him the articles were “offensive in the extreme”.

Disgusting Stephen Whittle, 42, of Preston, Lancashire, was jailed for two years and five months.

The judge told him five articles he published on the site were “full of hatred and disgusting and abusive in the extreme.”

Both men were found guilty of publishing racially inflammatory material.

The court had heard earlier articles attacked black people as “not the equal of whites” and the Holocaust was “treated in an insulting fashion and survivors held up to ridicule”.

The pair claimed they should be aquitted as the articles were posted on a server registered in the US and beyond UK law.

But in a groundbreaking decision, judge Grant determined the publication of the offending material took place when Sheppard and Whittle themselves uploaded the information.