A Nazi sympathiser told to read classic literature as he avoided prison for a terror offence will now be jailed, after the sentence was ruled to be unduly lenient.

Ben John was given a suspended two-year sentence last year after he was caught with nearly 70,000 white supremacist and neo-Nazi documents, as well as bomb-making instructions.

The 22-year-old had been found guilty at Leicester Crown Court of having in his possession a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

At his sentencing hearing last August, Judge Timothy Spencer told the university student he should steer clear of white-supremacist writings and instead indulge in novels such as Pride and Prejudice and A Tale of Two Cities.

The Attorney General’s Office referred his sentence to the Court of Appeal under the unduly lenient sentencing scheme and, on Wednesday, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Lavender and Sir Nigel Davis, quashed the original sentence.

John, who appeared via video link in a dark shirt, was told he would instead have to serve a three-year sentence, with two years to be spent in custody and a further one year on licence.

He will have to surrender to a police station in Lincoln by 4pm on Thursday.

Following the ruling, John could be seen on the video link sitting with his head in his hands.

John ‘broke promise’ on leaving far-Right interests behind

Alex Chalk QC, the Solicitor General, earlier told the court that John “resumed his interest in the far Right” within five days of his sentencing hearing.

John had provided assurances in a letter he wrote to the judge prior to sentencing that he had put his far-Right interests “behind him”, the court heard.

This, Mr Chalk argued, was undermined by a subsequent examination of his social media activity by a supervisory police officer who was overseeing his case.

He told the court: “It is worth focusing for a moment on what he said, ‘I have abandoned the far right wing as a pursuit’ .

“And yet, and yet, and yet, on his Twitter account – and I stress this was within five days – he researched the image of Adolf Hitler, he researched and ‘liked’ images of what appear to be Nazi soldiers.

“The reason that is important is that it undermines the submissions made by the defendant.”

Lord Justice Holroyde said that the court had concluded the original sentence was unlawful because the judge in the lower court had “no power to impose a suspended sentence as he did”.

He also noted that the original sentence, of two years, was “clearly a very lenient sentence”, but added that, in their view, it was not unduly lenient on that basis alone.

“We are satisfied that there must be a sentence of immediate imprisonment,” he said.

A tale of two sentences

The original sentencing judge had told John, as he imposed a five-year serious crime prevention order, that he would test the defendant on his knowledge of classic literature when he next appeared at a review hearing.

Earlier this month, John – of Addison Drive, Lincoln – brought copies of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to his first review hearing at Leicester Crown Court. 

The judge asked him to write down the books he had read since they last met, to which John replied: “I enjoyed Shakespeare more than I did Jane Austen, but I still enjoyed Jane Austen to a degree.”

“Well, I find that encouraging,” the judge said.

Following the Court of Appeal’s ruling on Wednesday, Mr Chalk said in a statement: “The Government is committed to confronting terrorism in all its forms, including from the extreme Right wing. 

“We remain focussed on disrupting the activities of the most dangerous extremists, supporting those who stand up to their hateful rhetoric, and protecting vulnerable people being drawn into terrorism.

“I referred Ben John’s sentence to the Court of Appeal, and chose to personally present it, because I believed it to be unduly lenient. I am pleased that the Court of Appeal agreed and chose to increase his sentence today.”