British Fascist Leaders In Court

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29913, 29 August 1962, Page 20

British Fascist Leaders In Court

tn'.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, August 27. Police told a London Court today that uniformed men, who gave the Fascist salute, held a military exercise with mock killings and captures in the English countryside.

They gave evidence for the prosecution in a case against four members of the British National Socialist Movement —the leader, Colin Jordan, aged 39. and three associates, John Tyndall, aged 28. lan Kerr-Ritchie, aged 42. and Denis Pirie, aged 23. The four, charged under a section of the Public Order Act of 1936. banning quasimilitary organisations, were remanded on bail till tomorrow when a magistrate will continue the hearing. Police witnesses told of open-air camps by armed men, with Nazi songs and speeches against negroes and Jews. Request for Funds The prosecution said police found at Jordan’s home a copy of a letter to a colone! of the United Arab Republic, asking for funds. Mr Mervyn Griffith-Jones prosecuting, said police found tins of weedkiller that could be made into explosive by adding sugar. The tins were labelled "Jew Killer.” Extra police were mounted outside the court to check spectators who booed and hissed the men on entering and leaving. In the public galleries some spectators wore swastika badges and others Jewish Star of David emblems. Mr Griffith-Jones told the Court the four men were officers of an elite group of 25 in the British National Socialist Movement. They were trying to emulate the brownshirts and storm troopers of Adolf Hit-

ler’s regime in Nazi Germany.

The group inside the movement was called "Spearhead,” he told the Magistrate at Bow Street Court, Sir Robert Blundell. Conducted Own Cases All four men, wearing National Socialist Movement badges in their lapels, were accused under the act that they “organised, trained or equipped persons in such a manner as to arouse reasonable apprenhension that this was done to enable them to be employed for the display of physical force in promoting a political objective.” Jordan and the other three conducted their own cases today. Before the Court were weapons, pictures and literature, which police said were seized in a recent raid on the movement's London headquarters Mr Griffith-Jones said: “At Jordan’s address in Coventry, there was a copy of a letter from Tyndall to a Colonel Shazley, of the United Arab Republic, asking for funds to finance the movement. A total of some £15.000 was required in part to set up a transmitting station.” At another point George Lincoln Rockw’ell, the American Nazi Party leader deported from Britain after attending a Fascist - style rally, was mentioned in court. Detective Inspector Trull described hearing the “Horst Wessel" song, and shouts of “Heil” and Sieg Heil” at a rally at Guiting Wood. near Cheltenham. Gloucestershire, on August 4.