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Race-hate pair who fled to US refused asylum
TWO men behind an internet race-hate campaign who jumped bail and fled to the United States are to be sent back to Britain to face justice.
Simon Sheppard, 52, from Selby, and York University graduate Stephen Whittle, 42, claimed political asylum in California after being found guilty of publishing racially inflammatory written material on a website viewed by thousands of Far-Right supporters.
But immigration judge Rosa Peters has thrown out the case after rejecting claims the pair were victims of "a three-
year campaign of harassment by the governing British Labour Party".
Lawyers in the UK had expected Sheppard and Whittle to lodge an appeal if the decision went against them, but it is now believed the pair have decided to return to Yorkshire to be sentenced.
In a letter to supporters, published on the British People's Party website, they wrote: "We were thinking of appealing
and sticking it out, but really this place is replete with people hanging on hoping for a miracle that's never going to happen, and we don't want to join them...
"Better we think to go back to England, face the music and get it over with."
Sheppard's website, to which Whittle contributed, featured grotesque images of murdered Jews alongside cartoons
and posters ridiculing ethnic groups.
Sheppard, who had been expelled from the British National Party, was even
caught delivering racist pamphlets door-to-door in North Yorkshire.
The investigation into Sheppard began in 2004 when
copies of a pamphlet, Tales of the Holohoax, were pushed through the letterbox of a Blackpool synagogue and sent to a prominent Jewish academic in London.
After the pamphlet was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard, police raided his flat and discovered the racist website, which typically attracted 4,000 visitors a day.
Sheppard, of Brook Street, Selby, was found guilty at Leeds Crown Court of 16 charges relating to the possession, publication and distribution of racially inflammatory material.
Whittle, of Avenham Lane, Preston, was convicted of five counts of publishing racially inflammatory material.
In July last year, before they could be sentenced, the pair skipped bail, travelled to Holyhead, caught a ferry to Ireland and boarded a flight to Los Angeles.
They have been held in Santa Ana Jail, California, for the last seven months and are believed to be the first UK citizens to be convicted of publishing racist material online.
They claimed they should be acquitted because the articles were posted on a server registered in the US beyond the reach of UK law.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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