Men accused of Aston University racist sticker campaign

Five men accused of plastering a university campus with racist stickers posed for a photo while performing Nazi-style salutes, a court heard.

Labels bearing messages such as "White Zone" were found at Aston University last July.

The men, said to be members of right-wing group National Action, bragged about upsetting "traitors" after the event, prosecutors said.

All five, on trial at Birmingham Crown Court, deny inciting racial hatred.

Kelly Brocklehurst, prosecuting, told jurors several batches of the stickers were deposited on campus.

He said one, found on an entrance sign, showed a white figure giving a Nazi-type salute, with the words "White Zone - National Action".

Another read: "Britain is ours - the rest must go."

He told jurors they would see an email from one of the accused, described as an "organiser", boasting of provoking a reaction from "butt-hurt", or overly sensitive, students.

An image showed some of the men with the far right group's flag, and two of them giving Nazi-type salutes, posed in front of the university.

While it was understood the defendants admit putting up the stickers, Mr Brocklehurst said, they deny inciting racial hatred.

There was "likely no dispute about what they did, the dispute is likely about why they did it," he said.

"When you are faced with something that says White Zone and the image of somebody with a raised right arm, stickers with swastikas, we say how can that not be threatening, abusive or at very least insulting?" Mr Brocklehurst said.

"That is exactly the aim, or one of the aims, of what these defendants were seeking to achieve."

Mr Brocklehurst said the bragging email showed "a clear indication that it would provide a reaction, a reaction the Crown say is in response to something threatening, abusive and insulting".

Chad Williams-Allen, Dean Lloyd, both of Tantany Lane, West Bromwich, and Garry Jack, of Heathland Avenue, Birmingham and two other men who cannot be named are accused of putting up the stickers on the afternoon of July 9, 2016.

The trial continues.