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Satanist neo-Nazi pleads guilty to making an indecent photo of a child
Harry Vaughan is the son of a House of Lords clerk
June 15, 2023 11:55
Harry Vaughan is the son of a House of Lords clerk
June 15, 2023 11:55The son of a House of Lords clerk who became a Satanist neo-Nazi after disappearing "down a rabbit hole of the internet" has pleaded guilty to making an indecent photograph of a child.
Harry Vaughan, who is now known as Harry Blake, admitted 14 terror offences and accessing indecent images of children two years ago, when he was 18.
The former top pupil, who received four A* grades in his A Levels, was handed a suspended sentence at The Old Bailey when a judge acknowledged his parents were helping him “change for the better”.
The court heard Vaughan developed an interest in right wing extremism, Satanism, the occult, and violence after being radicalised online from the age of 14.
He received a two-year suspended sentence, a terrorist notification order for 10 years, and a 60-day rehabilitation order.
Now 21, Vaughan has pleaded guilty to making an indecent photograph of a child in September 2022.
Appearing again at The Old Bailey, he also admitted three charges of possessing extreme pornographic videos, three counts of failing to comply with a Serious Crime Prevention Order and three breaches of his notification order.
The breaches concern Vaughan’s failure to inform authorities of his cryptocurrency accounts and an email address.
The former-grammar school future was first arrested in 2019 following a police investigation into Fascist Forge, an online far right group forum.
Vaughan was found to have been in possession of thousands of images and hundreds of files relating to antisemitism, neo-Nazism and Satanism.
These included images glorifying acts of terror and footage of the Christchurch Mosque shootings, in which a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people.
Online, he had shared material about school shootings, expressed homophobic views, and downloaded indecent images of underage boys.
Officers found posters in his bedroom that showed Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik and the words “every girl loves a mass murderer” and “it’s okay to be a Nazi”.
When Vaughan applied to join the "System Resistance Network" in 2018, he wrote: “I could handle myself in a fight. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to further the cause.”
In 2020, prosecutor Dan Pawson-Pounds said he had an "entrenched" extreme right-wing and racist mindset and an interest in Satanism.
Defence barrister Naeem Mian KC said: “He is somebody who has disappeared down a rabbit hole, a rabbit hole of the internet, and he is in a very, very dark place, or certainly was. And he was there, it would appear, from the age of about 14.”
At the time, the head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, Richard Smith said: “Harry Vaughan is an intelligent young man… yet, online, he was an enthusiastic participant of right-wing terrorist forums.
“His case illustrates it is possible for any young person to be susceptible to radicalisation, so today I really want to appeal to everyone to be as vigilant as possible for signs that a young loved one may be in trouble.”
Fascist Forge advertised itself as the “Home for the 21st Century Fascist” and attracted members from around the world.
Its users advocate violent tactics and “are generally intolerant of anything other than the most extreme ideology, and express frustration and outright disdain for the more mainstream white supremacist movement,” say the Anti-Defamation League.