Here is PC Benjamin Hannam s progress from schoolboy, to neo-Nazi, to Metropolitan Police officer:
2011-2017: The neo-Nazi online forum Iron March is active.
August 2013: National Action (NA) emerges from Iron March with stickers and flash demonstrations. Its neo-Nazi ideology includes a belief in Aryan purity and hatred of non-white groups, particularly Jews; it venerates Hitler as divine and celebrates war and genocide.
2014: Hannam says he first became interested in fascism around the age of 16. He also began a three-and-a-half year secret relationship with his Muslim girlfriend.
May 24, 2014: In a Skype conversation, Hannam says: I m not racist, I just don t like people who s skin is darker than mine .
Sitting in a quiet corner of a Wetherspoons pub near Paddington Station, the small group attracted little attention from other customers.
But for a fresh-faced 17-year-old boy who sat sipping a Coca-Cola beside a bricklayer and a bouncer, listening to the tales of a handsome, charismatic stranger, it was ‘an awakening’.
Benjamin Hannam, now 22, would later describe his excitement at the fateful first meeting with the neo-Nazi group, National Action, on March 6, 2016, writing in his diary they are ‘a good bunch of lads’ and he ‘can’t wait to get more involved’.
Within two days of watching propaganda videos by the banned terror group, Hannam was ‘completely swayed’, eagerly describing his ideology to other members as ‘fascist’.
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By Press Association 2021
A selfie of Benjamin Hannam which was shown to the jury during his trial at the Old Bailey in London (Metropolitan Police/PA)
Young, white and socially-awkward, Benjamin Hannam was a prime target for neo-Nazi group National Action (NA).
Frustrated at being rejected by his Muslim girlfriend’s family, Hannam was swallowed up by a dangerous online world.
It led him to join NA’s London branch, seduced by free stickers, outdoor activities and the friendship of a “cool” big brother-type figure.
Benjamin Hannam spray painting graffiti (Metropolitan/PA)
Even after it was banned in December 2016, Hannam – who has autism – continued to associate with some of the same people.