An alleged member of a neo-Nazi terror group entered a “Miss Hitler” beauty contest in the hope of attracting new members, a court has been told.

Alice Cutter, 23, entered the “sick” on-line pageant in June 2016, in a bid to find new recruits for terrorist organisation National Action, a jury at Birmingham Crown Court heard.

The prosecution claims Cutter's entry name for the competition, Buchenwald Princess, was inspired by her partner’s recent visit to Germany’s Buchenwald concentration camp.

Cutter and her boyfriend Mark Jones, 25, both of Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, West Yorkshire, deny being members of the “unapologetically racist” group between December 2016 and September 2017.

The pair are on trial alongside Garry Jack, 24, from Heathland Avenue in Birmingham, and 18-year-old Connor Scothern, of Bagnall Avenue, Nottingham, who also denied membership of the banned group.

Opening the case on Tuesday, Barnaby Jameson QC, for the prosecution, accused all four of being part of “a fellowship of hate” made up by some “50 or 60” hardcore activist members of National Action.

He told the jury: “We are talking about a tiny, secretive group of die-hard neo-Nazis with no compunction about attaining their objectives with the use or threat of terror.

“A group with a common admiration for Hitler and the architects of the Holocaust.”

After showing jurors an image of Jones and another man posing at Buchenwald, while holding a National Action flag, Mr Jameson said the Nazi-era camp was now a permanent museum to victims killed there.

Around seven weeks after Jones returned from Germany to Britain National Action staged a beauty contest titled NA Miss Hitler 2016, the court heard.

Cutter, who is alleged to have been photographed while giving a Nazi salute on the steps of Leeds Town Hall during a National Action demonstration on May 9 2016, is said to have entered the contest the following month.

Mr Jameson told the jury panel: “On 24th June 2016 National Action staged, if you can believe this, a beauty contest that was titled Miss Hitler 2016.

“This was, no doubt a publicity stunt to raise the group’s profile and attract more members.

“Amusing perhaps to a teenage schoolboy until you look at the detail.

“Alice Cutter entered the competition under the name of ‘Buchenwald Princess’ and she set out her mission statement in a detailed interview.

“It is anything but funny.

“The name ‘Buchenwald Princess’ was perhaps no coincidence given that Jones had visited the execution room at Buchenwald the previous month and that Jones and Cutter at this time or thereabout had become an item.”

Jurors were shown examples of media coverage of the “sick” contest.

Earlier, Mr Jameson claimed that members of National Action shared “pathological racial prejudice and conviction in brutal white supremacy” alongside an enthusiasm for “ethnic cleansing”.

“Ultimately this is a case about a fellowship of hate,” he told the jury.

“Immovable and unrepentant hate.”

Mr Jameson told jurors they would be wrong to believe the “undiluted Nazi ideology” of Germany’s Second World War-era Third Reich had died with Hitler.

Other members of National Action had equipped themselves with weapons and the ability to produce explosives, the court heard, and in one instance had constructed a pipe bomb.

Mr Jameson told the eight men and four women of the jury: “The Crown should make it clear at this early stage that this case, involving as it does Nazi fanatics, will by its nature lead you, the jury, into a world as dark as a black sun.”

Additional reporting by PA.