Radio Aryan host ‘was joking’ when he called himself ‘avowed racist’, trial told

A podcast host on trial accused of stirring up racial hatred has claimed he was joking when he described himself as an “avowed racist”.

James Allchurch, 51, from Pembrokeshire, is on trial at Swansea Crown Court charged with 15 counts of distributing audio material to stir up racial hatred over a two-year period.

The charges relate to recordings uploaded to a website named Radio Aryan, which has since been renamed Radio Albion.

Giving evidence on Monday, Allchurch denied that the podcasts – covering topics including grooming gangs, immigration, slavery and crime – encouraged hatred or racial violence.

He acknowledged using “impolite language” to describe mixed race people and was asked whether they would be upset by what he said.

“I am not speaking to them,” Allchurch said. “My audience is other nationalists who at the time used similar or worse terminology.”

Judge Huw Rees asked the defendant if he accepted that members of the public had “unfettered access” to the website where the recordings were available.

Allchurch replied: “They had to know the address, they had to know the name and look it up. We didn’t advertise anywhere that wasn’t already within the nationalist community.”

He was asked by his defence barrister Emily Baxter whether there was racial hatred within a comment he made saying white people were “superior in most measurable ways”.

Allchurch told the court: “Certainly not.”

The jury has been played 15 episodes of the podcast, published between May 17 2019 and March 18 2021.

In the recordings, Allchurch is often joined by guests including the now jailed National Action co-founder Alex Davies and American neo-Nazi Daniel Kenneth Jeffries, who went by the nickname Grandpa Lampshade.

Asked about Davies, Allchurch said he had not yet been charged or convicted when he appeared on the podcast.

“Alex had stopped having anything to do with them [National Action],” he told the court.

“One of the reasons for getting Alex on the show was to help demonstrate that he was doing nothing similar in any way to what he had been doing in National Action.

“He was just with us for around a dozen episodes, long before he was charged.”

Ms Baxter asked about an exchange during one recording about grooming gangs in which Allchurch described himself and Davies as “avowed racists”.

Allchurch replied: “It was just a joke. People accuse myself and others like me as racists.

“It was because of accusations of racism that all these crimes went uninvestigated. If the police had been more concerned with the welfare of the victims, it would have been investigated long ago.

“Anybody centre right, even the Conservatives, get accused of being racist.”

Allchurch previously told the court he is disabled and unable to work, and spends around 12 hours each day creating podcasts and maintaining his website.

He accepts donations through a Bitcoin link on the website but says he does not receive a formal salary.

Asked about the British Empire, Allchurch told the court there was “lots wrong with it” and insisted he was not advocating for it to be returned in one recording.

“It is encouraging people to be proud of their people and to be a good representative of them,” he said.

Ms Baxter asked: “Are you saying it is only white people who have things to be proud of?”

Allchurch replied: “Certainly not. All groups have things to be proud of. All groups have things we can learn from.”

He confirmed he was opposed to multiculturalism, telling the court: “You need to have a large enough group of your own people to grow your own unique culture.”

The defendant was asked about an image of people hanging from scales of justice, which illustrated a post about grooming gangs.

Allchurch said: “That is what would happen in Iran.”

Asked if he supported capital punishment, he replied: “I wouldn’t say pro-capital punishment but it is the biblical ideal for certain crimes.”

Jonathan Rees KC, prosecuting, previously told the jury that Allchurch used discussions on news and current affairs to “espouse his hateful views on racial supremacy, black people, other non-white people, Jewish people and the race war”.

Allchurch uses the alias Sven Longshanks – a reference to King Edward I, who was also known as Edward Longshanks and was responsible for expelling Jewish people from England in 1290.

He previously denied that the alias was antisemitic and claimed he did not know about any negative connotations until after he chose to use it.

The trial continues.