National Action, a key part of whose strategy was to expand its membership within the armed forces. A self-confessed racist who believes in a coming "race war", Vehvilainen wanted to establish an all-white stronghold in the Welsh village of Llansilin. When arrested at his house there, police found a photograph of him giving a Nazi salute at a 1917 memorial to his native Finland's independence and an arsenal of weapons and swastika bunting. Another soldier, Private Mark Barrett, like Vehvilainen a member of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, was acquitted but is believed to have been dismissed by the Army. Alexander Deakin, 24, unemployed, was the Midlands regional organiser. He was seen on CCTV putting up racist stickers at Aston University. Deakin spread racist propaganda from his bedroom at his parents’ house, telling fellow National Action members via encrypted chat that in a future "race war" they would have a "KKK-themed death squad", alluding to notorious American group the Ku Klux Klan. He bragged that counter-terrorism officers were incompetent and would never catch him, but he was found hiding in a cupboard when he was arrested. He was sentenced in April 2018. In May 2018, Wayne Bell, described as a "poster boy" for the organisation, pleaded guilty to two counts of stirring up racial hatred and three counts of possessing multiple items in order to destroy or damage property. The court heard that he had written neo-Nazi graffiti on pillars and lamp posts in his home town of Castleford, and that he had made hundreds of racist and antisemitic posts on Twitter and the Russian social media site VKontakte. He was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. In March 2020, four people – Alice Cutter, 23, Mark Jones, 25, both of Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire; Garry Jack, 24, of Shard End, Birmingham; and Connor Scothern, 19, of Nottingham – were convicted of membership of National Action. In June 2020, Cutter, Jones and Jack were sentenced to prison for terms of between three and five-and-a-half years, while Scothern was to be detained in youth custody for 18 months. The court heard that Cutter took part in a "Miss Hitler" beauty pageant as "Miss Buchenwald". In April 2021, a serving Metropolitan Police officer, Benjamin Hannam, was convicted of membership of a proscribed organisation, two counts of fraud by false representation, two counts of possession of documents likely to