Six to face trial over alleged membership of National Action
Five men and a woman will be tried in Birmingham after being charged by an inquiry involving West Midlands Counter Terrorism unit
Five men and a woman will face trial in Birmingham accused of being members of banned far-right group National Action.
Nathan Pryke, 26; Adam Thomas, 21; Claudia Patatas, 38; Darren Fletcher, 28; Daniel Bogunovic, 26; and 24-year-old Joel Wilmore appeared at the Old Bailey.
All six were charged after an inquiry involving the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, supported by colleagues in four other regions.
The charges relate to being a member of a proscribed organisation between December 17 2016 and September 5 last year.
Thomas is also accused of possessing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
The five men gave their nationalities as British while Patatas told the court she is Portuguese.
Thomas and Patatas, both of Waltham Gardens, Banbury, Oxfordshire; Pryke, of Dartford Road, March, Cambridgeshire; Fletcher, of Kitchen Lane, Wednesfield, Wolverhampton; Bogunovic, of Crown Hills Rise, Leicester; and Wilmore, of Bramhall Moor Lane, Hazel Grove, Stockport, will face trial at Birmingham Crown Court on a date to be set.
Patatas was released on conditional bail, while the men were remanded in custody.
The decision by the Government to ban National Action came into force in December 2016, making membership of the group a criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
At the time the ban was brought in, the Home Office said the neo-Nazi group was the first far-right organisation to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
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