Gary Staples, a jobless father-of-four who claimed disability benefits, has been jailed for sharing jihadist vdeos online
A jobless father-of-four who shared videos glorifying ISIS on YouTube months after he was released from prison for showing his son beheading clips was jailed again today.
Gary Staples, a 50 year old who was on disability benefits, showed violent footage of decapitations to his nine-year-old son.
He then drummed up support for ISIS by posting eight videos to his YouTube account in 2016. He told followers to ‘take a break, come to jihad’.
Staples, of south London, converted to Islam in 2012 and was convicted of child neglect on 8 January 2016 for showing his son the beheading videos.
He told probation and prevent officers he had no interest in jihadi material when he was released from custody in February 2016, but was sharing pro-terrorist videos while on license.
He was convicted of publishing statements which were reckless as to the encouragement of terrorism circulating a terrorist publication.
Staples, wearing a blue jumper, waved to his forlorn mother in the public gallery as Judge Anuja Dhir told him: ‘These videos were a call to arms.
‘You put together the images and added music in the form of nasheeds in such a way that each of them glorified terrorism. What I mean by this is the killing of innocent people in the name of Allah.’
Staples posted videos glorifying ISIS and their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (pictured)
The judge added: ‘Offences of this kind are particularly serious. They are intended to, and do, encourage others to commit terrorism in support of IS, an organisation which represents a real danger to the public worldwide and whose aims include the destruction of states based on freedom, equality, democracy and the rule of law.
‘Everyone needs to understand the possible consequences of such actions and everyone also needs to understand that anyone who disseminates this kind of material has to go to prison.’
Julia Smart, defending, said that Staples had tempered his radical views while at HMP Belmarsh thanks to the help of an Imam at the prison.
Staples posted films featuring images of ISIS fighters along with slogans such as ‘Live like rabbits die like rabbits’ and ‘May the eyes of the kafir never sleep’.
Many of the videos ended with the logo of video-making software Asus Mini-Movie along with its slogan, ‘Your life made awesome’.
Staples was arrested on 22 November 2016 following an investigation by the Met’s counter terror unit.
Staples’ Google Plus account had 1,180 followers when police viewed it in August 2016, while his YouTube account had 102 videos and 67 subscribers.
Prosecutor Ben Lloyd told jurors: ‘He was convicted of showing his son beheading videos. He said his child mistook the beheading videos of people being buried in the sand.’
‘One of the videos featured ex-prime minister Mr Blair alongside superimposed flames with text warning kaffirs (disbelievers) to “sleep with one eye open”.’
Staples was convicted of seven charges of encouraging acts of terrorism and one charge of disseminating terrorist material.
He was cleared of a further charge of publishing statements which were reckless as to the encouragement of terrorism.
Staples claimed some of the videos on his YouTube account had been uploaded by two mystery men called Bilal and Mustafa, which Mr Lloyd rebuffed as ‘nonsense’.