The founder of the banned far-right terrorist cult National Action was identified as being at risk of radicalisation two years before he set up the British neo-Nazi group.
Alex Davies, now 23, was referred to the government’s Prevent programme for extremists in 2011 when he was 16-years-old and spent seven years on the scheme.
The former Warwick University student from south Wales had refused to take part in the programme for a number of years but eventually agreed to a number of meetings with assigned mentors, ITV News has revealed.
Alex Davies, now 23, was referred to the government’s Prevent programme for extremists in 2011 when he was 16-years-old and spent seven years on the scheme
In a written assessment dating back to 2014, the self-styled ‘intellectual’ behind the group was described as ‘the driving force behind the National Action’, before concluding ‘he simply considered black and Asian races inferior to white people’.
The case added: ‘A significant issue for him as is often the case with XRW (extreme right wing) rhetoric is racial mixing and preventing the dilution of the white blood line… Alex referred to women who were sexually active with black men very negatively.’
It also said Davies was a driving force behind trying to convert others to believe in his warped views, adding he was ‘attempting to indoctrinate others… particularly disaffected young white men’.
As leader of National Action, Davies set up messaging apps in the hope of creating a ‘National Socialist youth movement’ to fight what many members of their members believed would spill out into a race war.
It was declared a terrorist organisation by former Home Secretary Amber Rudd when the group celebrated the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox.
National Action supporters perform a Nazi salute during a march in Newcastle
National Action was outlawed by the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd. Pictured: The neo-Nazi cult during a march in Newcastle
Supporters of the group hold up flags during a rally in Newcastle
Wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Davies was doorstopped by ITV News in Swansea and repeatedly questioned about the banned white supremacist group he held start.
He was repeatedly questioned about why he set up the group, what he would say to the jailed members of the group and if he regretted his role in the movement.
Davies first replied it was ‘all a matter of public record’ but refused to answer any other specifics of the questions as he was quizzed while walking down the street.
He then walks into a property on the street using a set of keys, before waving to the cameras from inside the home.
Despite being outlawed, the group has now gone underground and just last week, Christopher Lythgoe, 32, from Warrington and Matthew Hankinson, 24, of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, were convicted at the Old Bailey for being members.
Earlier this year, Jack Renshaw, 23, from Lancashire, was jailed after admitting to preparing an act of terrorism after buying a machete to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper, as well as threatening to kill a police officer.
National Action member Jack Renshaw admitted to preparing acts of terrorism after buying a machete to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper
Robbie Mullen, a former member of National Action-turned-whistleblower, said everything ‘stayed the same’ and the meetings continued with the ‘same place, same people, same purpose’ despite being a banned organisation.
Giving evidence against his former comrades, Mullen said last month: ‘The politics was still the same – free white man. The group had gone, the name had gone, but the people were still meeting.’
National Action is thought to have splintered off into at least seven different groups, ITV News claims. One of the white supremacist organisations even fronts itself as a ‘church’.
The banned group has used a number of aliases and has become increasingly linked to a group called System Resistance Network. Its initials were graffitied on the walls of a school in Newport after an arson attack in May, and the group also believed to be behind inflammatory posters in London’s Peckham Rye.
Poisonous flyers screamed ‘Marxist maggots. We remember names, places, traitors’ faces,’ and features a blood-splattered fight and a knife.