Anti-immigration stickers not race-hate - activist

Samuel Melia said he intended for the anti-immigration stickers to be seen

A far-right activist has said an online archive of anti-immigration stickers was designed to "start a conversation".

Samuel Melia, 34, from Pudsey, is on trial at Leeds Crown Court accused of publishing or distributing material which may stir up racial hatred.

He was the head of an anonymous group of activists responsible for a spate of stickering incidents between 2019 and 2021.

Mr Melia also denies encouraging racially aggravated criminal damage.

Leeds Crown Court heard Mr Melia set up a group called the Hundred Handers on the Telegram social media platform.

Its members would gain access to a library of stickers which they could download, print out and stick up around the UK and abroad.

Prosecutors claim the stickers, which included slogans such as "Labour loves Muslim rape gangs", "We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066" and "Mass immigration is white genocide", were intended to stir up racial hatred by telling non-white people "they were being targeted".

Giving evidence, Mr Melia said he had not intended to incite racial hatred with the stickers.

"The idea was always conversations about topics,” he said.

“They are topics like the grooming gangs or rape gangs that have been prevalent across this country."

'White advocate'

He said he had deleted one sticker from the library because it "got close to incitement", and that one of the Hundred Handers' rules was not to put stickers on private property.

"The idea of the messages is to start a conversation, not to make someone feel intimidated," he said.

Richard Canning, for Mr Melia, asked him if he had intended for the stickers to be seen.

"Oh God yes, it's not just for my own pleasure,” the defendant replied.

“What use would a sticker be sat in your bedroom drawers? I intended for them to be public."

Mr Melia added he thought stickering was an "accepted form of engaging in the democratic process".

"It never even crossed my mind it would be criminal damage," he said.

He said at the time of his arrest in April 2021 he had moved on from the Hundred Handers and was spending most of his time as the Yorkshire organiser for far-right group Patriotic Alternative.

He said he was a "pro-British or a white advocate" and denied hating people of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

"Everyone deserves their own homeland and I wish them well in that homeland,” he said.

The trial continues.