Money is being given to families of people involved in riots whom far-right groups are calling ‘political prisoners’

Riot police face protesters in Bristol in August. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Far-right activists are trying to raise funds for people jailed over their roles in the summer riots, describing them as “political prisoners”, in an attempt to generate support by giving money to their families.

More than £14,000 has been raised by a leading group, which has been promoting the start of its “gifting” of funds to families of “political prisoners”.

One of the leaders of Patriotic Alternative (PA) recently met a teenager in HMP Hull who had been jailed for racially aggravated harassment during the disturbances, his wife told supporters.

The white nationalist group is sharing the names and prison addresses of some of those jailed and encouraging supporters to write to them.

A former prison governor who led an independent government review of Islamist extremism in prison said he hoped a strategy was already in place when it came to managing the threat posed by the far right in prisons

Ian Acheson, who reviewed the threat of Islamist extremism in prisons in 2016, cautioned against a move towards viewing the many hundreds who were convicted of criminal offences during the riots as a single group susceptible to far-right ideas, a narrative that could be welcomed by extremists.

“We have to be extremely careful about gifting these people with an ideology and it’s notable that many of those convicted in the riots had previous convictions,” he said. “That is not to say that the prison service shouldn’t be trying to get ahead of the curve and look at who, if anybody, in the steadily growing population of extreme rightwing offenders might be trying to proselytise others.”

Acheson, now an adviser on countering extremism and a visiting professor at Staffordshire University, said that when he advised the government in 2016, he was clear that there should be separate units for “charismatic” Islamist prisoners acting as self-styled “emirs” and exerting a controlling and radicalising influence on the wider Muslim prison population.

“I was also clear to say that this can be applied regardless of ideological positions,” he said.

PA has been focusing much of its energies on a campaign around one of its leaders, Sam Melia, who was jailed for two years in March after he was found guilty of inciting racial hatred after a series of “stickering” incidents between 2019 and 2021. A judge described him as an antisemite with “Nazi sympathies”.

His wife, Laura Towler, recently told supporters online that her husband had spoken to one of the prisoners in HMP Hull, a teenager who she said had been sentenced to 26 months for attending a protest.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We have robust measures in place to manage offenders and prevent them from radicalising others, whether far-right or otherwise. This includes specialist staff training, monitoring of communications, and targeted interventions, both in custody and upon release, to disrupt harmful ideologies and reduce reoffending.

Existing powers in prisons do provide for administrative segregation in the interests of “good order or discipline”. This includes allowing prisoners to be compulsorily segregated as a punishment or to maintain order. In the case of terrorist offenders and those suspected of radicalisation, such prisoners are put into separation units on the basis of intelligence

PA, which is led by the former BNP youth leader Mark Collett, emerged out of splits in the BNP and other groups. While it had been growing in recent years, lately it suffered from its splits, while its momentum has faltered.

Some of its followers were involved in the neo-Nazi group National Action, which was subsequently banned under terrorism laws.

A PA spokesperson said they were “delighted to hear that you are considering raising awareness of our fundraiser”.

Acheson also addressed the need to respond intelligently to the cohort of young men in prison for far-right related offences, particularly around communications.

“Clearly, punishment has a role but it also has to have a purpose and that includes working with prisoners to get them to dissociate from their acts,” he said. “Unfortunately, the prison system is so degraded that we should not be expecting these people to come out with views that are any different to the ones they went in with.”