TWO racists launched appeals today against the UK's first conviction for inciting racial hatred online.
Simon Sheppard, 52, was sentenced to four years and 10 months, and Stephen Whittle, 42, was jailed for two years and four months at Leeds Crown Court in July.
During their first trial in 2008, they had skipped bail and fled to California, where th
ey sought asylum claiming they were being persecuted for their right-wing views, but were deported.
The investigation began when a complaint about a leaflet called "Tales of the Holohoax" was reported to the police in 2004 after it was pushed through the door of a Synagogue in Blackpool.
It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard.
Police later found published material including grotesque images of murdered Jews alongside cartoons and articles ridiculing ethnic groups.
The pair were charged, under the Public Order Act, with publishing racially inflammatory material, distributing racially inflammatory material and possessing racially inflammatory material with a view to distribution.
Sheppard, of Brook Street, Selby, North Yorkshire, was found guilty of 16 offences and Whittle, of Avenham Lane, Preston, Lancashire, was found guilty of five.
Sentencing, Judge Rodney Grant said that he had rarely seen material which was so abusive and insulting.
Today, at the Court of Appeal in London, Sheppard's counsel, Adrian Davies, said that the articles complained of were posted on a website in California where there was no doubt that they were "entirely lawful and enjoyed the highest degree of constitutional protection under the laws of the United States".
He said that there was no evidence that anyone in England and Wales, except for the police officer in the case - who the Crown did not rely on as a member of the public under the Act - had ever read any of them.
"Despite this, Mr Sheppard has been sentenced to a longer term of imprisonment than Abu Hamza", he told Lord Justice Scott Baker, Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Mr Justice Cranston.
"These are matters which, in my submission, ought to attract the closest and most careful scrutiny of the court of the supposed legal basis of these convictions."
Mr Davies said that the Act did not contemplate a situation where publication was in an electronic forum but only in "hard copy" form.
And publication did not result merely when a website was set up but only when someone actually looked at it.
He added: "The Crown says that Sheppard published words to the web server in California, but I say publication must be within the jurisdiction and to a section of the public within the jurisdiction."
The contested hearing is expected to last into tomorrow.
