27/09/2023
The Independent Newspaper reports that a former prison officer at Leeds Prison is himself behind bars at the start of a thirteen year term for recruiting white young men to his Neo-Nazi sect. Forty two year old Ashley Podsiad-Sharp was described by prosecutors as a “racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi terrorist”. Mr Podsiad-Sharp further told the court that he considered himself a fundamentalist Christian as well as a staunch right winger who opposed multiculturalism. He founded an athletic club where white supremacist young men were taught virility and strength in a paradoxically highly masculine environment. However, the sentencing was not without its critics. Mister Podsiad-Sharp possessed a white supremacist archive of literature but had not acted on any of it, raising questions about whether one can have a thought crime in a democracy. Furthermore, one or two gay commentators have questioned the severity of the sentencing. One person, identifying as a liberal gay man, said "Whilst one welcomes a homophobe behind bars, this case does raise worrying implications. Could the state now go after radical gay groups or eco activists, or the left because they have committed a thought crime? What about those gay men who are into heavy SM porn - could they also fall foul of the law?"
