UK: Police/MI5 operation nets "neo-nazi" soldiers
01 March 1999
Within weeks of the Express leaking a story that Scotland Yard and MI5 were involved in covert operations against violent racist organisations, a joint action was carried out on March 5. A series of police raids, which also involved the military police and Special Branch, arrested three Combat 18 (C18) members in raids at 14 addresses in London, south Wales, Lancashire and Humberside. The raids are part of an investigation into neo-nazi links with the army and with loyalist paramilitary gangs in Northern Ireland. It was carried out under the Public Order Act (1986) which covers acts intended to stir up racial hatred. Two soldiers were arrested in Lancashire, one served with the Parachute regiment, the other is a private in the King's regiment. Police found live ammunition, knives, racist literature and computer discs which were removed for examination.
The use of the army as a training ground for aspiring nazis has been profusely documented over the years. In its March issue Searchlight magazine published an article, "Defending the Nation", in which it named a dozen soldiers who were members of C18 or other neo-nazi groups. Many of them were in the Parachute regiment, which has earned a particularly brutal reputation following the Bloody Sunday killing of 14 civil-rights demonstrators in Derry in January 1972. The regiment's new far-right recruits openly support loyalist paramilitary gangs active in Northern Ireland. Several were photographed with a fascist mob that attacked the annual Bloody Sunday commemoration march in London in January. Others had "stewarded" earlier Apprentice Boys marches in the capital.
Searchlight claims that in west London Darren Theron (Parachute regiment) was reported to work closely with Mark Atkinson and Will Browning the leaders of C18. Browning was in the Territorial Army in the mid-1990s and Atkinson was recently released from prison for publishing racist material. In east London, Gary Deathridge, a part-time soldier with the Territorial army, former British National Party election agent and prominent C18 activist with a conviction for attacking a black man, has been suspended from his job as a postman pending investigation of alleged connections with paramilitary loyalist groups according to local press reports. Searchlight also reported that in Lancashire a serving soldier, Carl Wilson, was photographed with the gang that attacked a recent Bloody Sunday commemoration, which led to his being questioned by military police. His colleague Mark Taylor (King's regiment) is alleged to have also attended a number of C18 and loyalist functions.
Press reports have suggested that other military staff are being investigated. However, Searchlight has asked why the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which knew of the allegations a year ago, was so slow to take action and why it was "so keen to keep the issue out of the press". In February, Armed Forces minister, Doug Henderson, found "heartening" the MoD's desire to promote racial equality practices throughout the Services, and to ensure real, meaningful and lasting progress is made. Efforts to recruit more ethnic minority personnel and to introduce a more inclusive culture which fully embraces racial diversity will not be relaxed.
Searchlight point out that neither of the arrested soldiers has been suspended from duty and ask if the army's anti-racist statements are "worth the paper they are written on?"
MoD press release 10.2.99; Searchlight March, April 1999;