A key architect of the summer riots was a neo-Nazi who shared a topless selfie performing a Heil Hitler salute, posted “f*** Jews” and owned a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Taxi driver Andrew McIntyre, 39, was sentenced to seven and a half years for incitement to violent disorder and possession of a knife.
Liverpool Crown Court heard the case involved a "sinister aspect" of extremist violence.
McIntyre set up the Telegram channel "Southport Wake Up" in the immediate aftermath of the knife attack at a children's dance class in Merseyside on July 29 in which three young girls were murdered.
The Telegram channel was identified by the anti-racist group Hope Not Hate as a "catalyst for and origin of a series of posts" concerning incidents of violence, prosecutor Arthur Gibson said.
Selfie posted by McIntyre, July 2022 (Hope Not Hate)
According to Hope Not Hate, McIntyre "helped turn local unrest into a national crisis” and played an “outsized role in inflaming the riots".
McIntyre, of Rufford, near Ormskirk, Lancashire, used the alias “Stimpy” when he called for a mob to target a local mosque just one day after the murders of the three girls.
That evening, a mosque was attacked and over 50 police officers were injured. McIntyre was arrested for carrying a knife – when he was released the next day he immediately set about organising further violence.
He went on to organise a similar riot targeting a mosque in Liverpool days later, according to Hope Not Hate.
In one message he urged his followers to make Molotov cocktails and bring them to the mosque.
McIntyre posted a neo-Nazi image from a now-deleted account in June 2023 (Hope Not Hate)
In another, he suggested that synagogues could be targeted and posted about “k*ke ideology”.
Then, in July 2022, he posted a topless selfie doing a Heil Hitler salute and in June 2023 he posted a neo-Nazi image of a woman doing the same.
Just one day after attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers last August, he shared a video of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attack, coupled with a caption lauding the shooter: “WHITE LEGEND. F*** ISLAM. F*** JEWS”.
In response to another Telegram user, McIntyre posted that he said “a prayer every night” asking for civil war in the UK.
He created a list of 39 locations, predominantly offices of asylum support organisations, and encouraged violence.
Although none of the sites were attacked, the list provoked fear across parts of the UK, prompting school closures and early business shutdowns.
McIntyre posted a neo-Nazi image from a now-deleted account in June 2023 (Hope Not Hate)
McIntyre used over 160 anonymous accounts across Telegram, YouTube, TikTok and X. Most of the accounts were used for just one or two days.
He created “burner accounts” to gain access to particular chats and was usually swiftly removed by administrators.
Hope Not Hate pieced together his online presence by tracing his linguistic quirks and shared his identity with Merseyside Police who arrested the taxi driver on August 9.
Police searched his house and found a knife in his car boot and weapons and a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf in his home, the court heard.
Joe Mulhall, director of Hope Not Hate research, said: “The country is safer with Andrew McIntyre behind bars.
“The overall picture of McIntyre’s social media use is of a man so consumed with hate and violence that he could find little satisfaction in activities that did not immediately quench his desire for harming others.
"There is a stark contrast between McIntyre’s short-lived efforts to engage with offline far-right groups and the intense energy with which he pursued his vicious online harassment campaigns and incitement to violent rioting.
“His motivation to spread fear and violence was not an expression of political dissatisfaction or even solely an output of his extreme ideology, but a seemingly pathological desire to harass, abuse and cause suffering to others.”
