Dr Fredrick Toben, the Holocaust denier who avoided extradition from Britain to Germany last year, is finally behind bars in Australia.

Toben, 65, the director of the Adelaide Institute in South Australia, was found guilty in May on 24 counts of contempt of a 2002 court order to remove antisemitic material from his website.

This included claims that gas chambers did not exist at Auschwitz and that the Holocaust was “a lie”.

The action against the German-born historian was brought by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. He was sentenced to three months in prison and his appeal was rejected last week.

In their verdict, the full bench of the Federal Court said the issue was not the Holocaust but whether Toben had complied with court orders.

“Obedience to the orders of the court is not optional,” Justice Jeffrey Spender said, adding that Toben had committed “serious” contempt.

The judges said the three-month sentence “cannot, on any stretch of the imagination, be considered excessive or unwarranted”.