Two members of the banned neo-Nazi group National Action, including its leader, have been jailed.

Christopher Lythgoe, 32, of Warrington, was arrested by police investigating a plot to murder the Labour MP Rosie Cooper and a female police officer. He was jailed for eight years at the end of a six-week trial at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.

Matthew Hankinson, 24, of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, was also found guilty of belonging to National Action and jailed for six years. A jury acquitted Garron Helm, 24, of Seaforth, Merseyside, of being a member of the group.

Christopher Lythgoe, 32, leader of the banned neo-Nazi group National Action, has been jailed for eight years. Photograph: Greater Manchester police/PA

Jack Renshaw, 23, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, has pleaded guilty to preparing to engage in an act of terrorism in relation to the plot against Cooper and threatening a police officer. He has also been convicted of stirring up racial hatred in speeches in 2016, it can now be reported.

Renshaw’s plan was foiled by a whistleblower, Robbie Mullen, 25, who leaked details of a meeting at the Friar Penketh pub in Warrington to the campaign group Hope Not Hate in July last year.

Lythgoe was found not guilty of encouraging Renshaw.

Mr Justice Jay described National Action as having a “truly evil and dystopian vision” of waging a race war. Without Lythgoe’s obsessive determination to keep it going it would have “withered and died on the vine”.

While numbers were too small to achieve its aims, there was a real risk it could have inspired acts of terror by its perverted ideology, the judge said.

He told Lythgoe: “You are a fully fledged neo-Nazi complete with deep-seated racism and antisemitism”. He added that Lythgoe “did nothing to stop or discourage” the plot to kill Cooper.

Matthew Hankinson, 23, has been jailed for six years after he was found guilty of membership of a proscribed organisation. Photograph: Greater Manchester police/PA

The judge said Hankinson was also a prominent member of National Action who hated ethnic minorities and Jews, and advocated violence.

Cooper, who sat in court as the men were jailed, in a statement thanked Mullen, whose information she said had “saved my life”.

“I think it’s awful that any public servant – teacher, nurse, doctor, police, MP – should be targeted and threatened with violence simply because of the job they do,” she said.

“I’d also like to thank Lancashire and Merseyside police and the counter-terrorism police who have supported me greatly, and who have kept me, my staff and the general public safe.”

Duncan Atkinson QC, prosecuting, told the court that since 2013 National Action had engaged in a campaign of “virulently racist, antisemitic and homophobic propaganda through which it sought to stir up a violent race war against ethnic minorities and others it perceived as race traitors”.

These activities, culminating in the group’s support of the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox, led to its proscription in December 2016, making it the first extreme rightwing group to be banned since the second world war.

Jack Renshaw, 23, has pleaded guilty to preparing to engage in an act of terrorism and threatening a police officer. Photograph: BBC

At its height, National Action had a membership of up to 100 young white men, drawn from universities. Dressed in black skull masks, they would gather for demonstrations, waving banners and making Nazi salutes.

Jurors were told Lythgoe reacted to news of the ban by telling members that they would “just shed one skin for another”.

Mullen, who became disillusioned with the group, began leaking information to Hope Not Hate, and a significant amount of evidence came from him.

The defendants denied being members of National Action. Lythgoe’s lawyer, Crispin Aylett QC, suggested Mullen had implicated National Action because he was “in the pocket of Hope Not Hate” and it was what they wanted to hear. Mullen denied this.

Renshaw was accused of being a member of National Action along with Lythgoe, Hankinson, Andrew Clarke, 33, Michal Trubini, 35, and Garron Helm, 24.

The jury failed to reach verdicts on Renshaw, Clarke and Trubini.

In his sentencing, Mr Justice Jay said that, under Lythgoe’s leadership, National Action meetings continued on a “modest” scale.



They kept alive “an aspiration which was truly insidious and evil - the idea that this country should be purged of its ethnic minorities and its Jews, that the rule of law should be subverted, and that once the ideological revolution had taken place this national socialist worldview would triumph”, he said.

“The idea that there could be such a triumph without violence is arrant nonsense, despite the weasel words to the contrary.”

The Labour MP Rosie Cooper: ‘I think it’s awful that any public servant ... should be targeted and threatened with violence simply because of the job they do.’ Photograph: PA

The judge added: “Fortunately, and I can take this into account to some extent in the defendants’ favour, the truly evil and dystopian vision I am describing could never have been achieved through the activities of National Action, a very small group operating at the very periphery of far-rightwing extremism.

“The real risk to society inheres instead in the carrying out of isolated acts of terror inspired by the perverted ideology I have been describing.”

Det Supt Will Chatterton, head of investigations for counter-terrorism policing for the north-west, said outside court that the verdict had enabled the spotlight to be shone on the activities of the group.

“Today’s result is a body blow to extreme rightwing organisations such as National Action. It sends out a clear message that counter-terrorism officers and partner agencies will rigorously identify and investigate any violently extreme individual or group who seek to bring a reign of terror to our shores.”