The trial of the host of a “highly racist and antisemitic” British podcast who allegedly owned the Radio Aryan podcast station resumed this week after a UK lawyers strike.
On Monday, a new jury was selected at Swansea Crown Court in the case against James Allchurch, 50, who is facing 15 counts of distributing audio material to incite racial hatred.
The charges stem from the two years he hosted the podcast that contained “highly racist and antisemitic” material that was “white supremacist in nature,” BBC News reported.
The prosecution said that Allchurch, who uploaded the podcast to the Radio Aryan website, whose name was changed to Radio Albion, used the podcast to spread antisemitism and hatred. His content included “threatening, abusive and insulting” rhetoric referring to minority groups in Britain, including promoting the idea that white people are in a race war against black people, the UK Jewish News reported.
The prosecution argued that Allchurch was the owner of the Radio Aryan/Albion website, the host of the podcast and behind the distribution of the audio episodes. But it was pointed out in the trial that he often had co-hosts and guests, including National Action co-founder Alex Davies, 27, who was sentenced in June 2022 to eight and a half years in prison for membership in the proscribed far-right group.
During the podcasts, Allchurch used the name Sven Longshanks in reference to English King Edward I, known as Edward Longshanks, who expelled the Jews in 1290 from England.
According to prosecutor Jonathan Rees, Allchurch also expressed admiration for Hitler and Nazi racial science ideology.
“The prosecution say that this defendant was responsible for the creation of a number of audio files containing commentary of a highly racist and antisemitic nature which were then uploaded to a website that was open to the public,” Rees told the courtroom.
“The defendant is an avowed racist and considers himself to be a National Socialist,” he said. “The very purpose of Radio Aryan was to spread his propaganda about racial conflict.”
The prosecution played over nine hours of the inflammatory podcast to the jury.
According to the prosecution, Allchurch recorded each episode from his home in Pembrokeshire, Wales, stating that the shows had an audience of approximately 4,000 people.
He was arrested at his house in December 2019.