Inside the neo-Nazi fitness club run by a Yorkshire prison officer

Members of White Stag Athletic Club perform a Nazi salute during a hike

Thirteen men stand proudly against a backdrop of jagged rocks on a snowy hilltop. Carrying backpacks and wearing boots, helmets, hats and gloves, they pose for a photograph to mark their ascent.

It would be a scene familiar to any climbing enthusiast, if not for one glaring detail: every member of the group is performing a Nazi salute.

This was White Stag Athletic Club (WSAC), a fitness group for which racism, homophobia and white skin were conditions of entry.

New recruits were required to answer questions such as: "Are you Jewish? Are you Muslim? Are you homosexual? What are your views on race mixing?"

They were vetted by the club's founder and leader, a South Yorkshire prison officer and "unashamed white supremacist" who called himself 'Sarge'.

'Sarge', real name Ashley Podsiad-Sharp, was jailed for eight years last week after being convicted of a terrorism charge for possessing a neo-Nazi "murder manual".

Ashley Podsiad-Sharp worked as a prison officer at HMP Armley for three years before he was arrested on terror charges

Before his arrest in May 2022, Podsiad-Sharp had lived a double life.

The married father-of-two from Barnsley worked as a prison officer at HMP Armley in Leeds and was well-liked by his neighbours and the reverend at his Presbyterian church.

But behind closed doors and online, the 42-year-old idolised Adolf Hitler, claimed the Holocaust did not happen, and advocated for racial segregation.

The judge who sentenced Podsiad-Sharp at Sheffield Crown Court said he was "extremely dangerous" and had used WSAC as "camouflage" to recruit "ignorant and disillusioned men" and incite them to violence.

Jeremy Richardson KC added he believed members of the group would eventually have committed acts of white supremacist terrorism.

Sitting in the dock at his sentencing hearing, Podsiad-Sharp wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "me ne frego" ("I don't care") - the motto of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's fascist paramilitary Blackshirts.

Podsiad-Sharp had set up WSAC in summer 2020, having previously co-founded a far-right podcast and helped to run an online forum that he described in court as "a bunch of fascist bodybuilders".

WSAC - which had more than 30 members at its height - was one of the largest in a network of "fascist fitness" groups which emerged online during the Covid pandemic, according to researchers.

These groups position physical fitness as part of a "wider political struggle" with "members' bodies as a battleground," said the anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate.

An introductory message on WSAC's Telegram channel, through which new members were recruited, vowed to "fight degeneracy through honour, tradition, and brotherhood".

"The most important part of White Stag is physical training. Through this struggle we forge ourselves into greater men," the message added.

White Stag Athletic Club's members posted gestures used by white supremacists alongside fitness regime updates

Those who passed the group's vetting process were expected to commit to a daily exercise programme, the details of which were published in a closed group on the encrypted chat app Wickr. They would write "hail victory" in the group when they had completed tasks.

Members also shared updates on their workouts in the group and met in person for hikes, including a climb of Pen-y-Ghent in the Yorkshire Dales in January last year.

Prosecutors said Podsiad-Sharp had led the group in training like soldiers for a race war.

Patrik Hermansson, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate who infiltrated WSAC's Wickr group, said members' motivations for physical self-improvement were "explicitly political".

"It was quite explicit in saying we are doing this for our people, we are doing this to become better fathers for our children, we are doing this for Hitler," he told the BBC.

Members discussed meeting up for hikes

Mr Hermansson said fascist fitness groups could "strengthen existing beliefs" and radicalise members further by linking far-right politics to "positive change in people's lives in terms of physical improvement and losing weight".

"After having been into them for a while you can sort of associate that progress in your life with fascism - you blend those together," added the researcher, who gained access to the group by giving fake answers on a "rigorous, long questionnaire".

One photo posted in WSAC's group chat showed a member performing the OK hand sign - a symbol used by far-right groups - while working out in a gym.

In other posts, alongside discussion of hikes and weights, members shared pictures of swastika flags and celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse - who shot and killed two anti-racist protesters in Wisconsin - being cleared of murder.

Members posted Nazi symbols including the swastika in the chat

On 21 March last year, the photo of 13 men doing a Nazi salute on a hilltop was posted on WSAC's Telegram channel.

"This is White Stag Athletic Club," said the caption, which claimed the group pictured had just completed an 8,200ft (2,500m) climb somewhere in the British Isles.

Members celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two anti-fascist protesters, being cleared of murder

Two months later, Podsiad-Sharp was arrested on suspicion of disseminating terrorist material in relation to racist and homophobic spoof rap songs he shared with the group.

He was later cleared of that charge, but counter-terrorism detectives who had been monitoring the activities of WSAC found a document called the White Resistance Manual inside a heavily encrypted "virtual safe" on his computer.

The 200-page handbook's anonymous author writes of a "struggle for white survival" and calls for the "absolute physical separation of the white race from all Jews and non-whites."

This will be achieved with "bullets and bombs," declares the document, which gives detailed instructions on how to build weapons and explosives, commit murder, carry out terror attacks, and evade detection.

Podsiad-Sharp claimed he had never read or shared the handbook, but a jury unanimously found him guilty of possessing a document likely to be useful in preparing an act of terrorism.

Judge Richardson KC said the "vile" document was "an integral part" of Podsiad-Sharp's "malign purpose" of inciting members of WSAC to commit violence against those he hated.

Ashley Podsiad-Sharp ran a fitness club for fascists

Giving evidence during his trial, Podsiad-Sharp was brazen about his neo-Nazi views - telling the jury he was "a Christian and a nationalist socialist" who believed different races should live separately.

But he denied being motivated by terrorism and insisted he was opposed to violence, claiming WSAC was intended as "a brotherhood" for isolated neo-Nazis to get offline and enjoy healthy activities.

Judge Richardson KC gave that claim short shrift, describing the group as "a cauldron of self-absorbed neo-Nazism masquerading as a low grade all-male sports club".

He told Podsiad-Sharp: "Having encouraged these ignorant and disillusioned men you had absolutely no means of controlling them or knowing how they would respond.

"I have no doubt you were inciting hatred and you were encouraging acute violence towards those you hate."

The judge noted Podsiad-Sharp had smirked and laughed as the racist songs he shared - some mocking the death of Jewish people in the Holocaust - were played in court.

He also expressed concern that Podsiad-Sharp's job at HMP Armley - where he worked as a prison officer for three years before being sacked following his arrest - would have brought him into contact with "disadvantaged and disaffected" white men who he could have attempted to recruit.

Ashley Podsiad-Sharp was a prison officer at HMP Armley in Leeds

The jury was played a video Podsiad-Sharp made, as he drove home from a shift at the prison in his uniform, in which he told a friend: "It's been a real good 'un this job actually. Kicking arse and taking names, basically. It's been really, really good fun. Lots of busts for drugs and a bit of violence."

While WSAC is believed to have dissolved after Podsiad-Sharp's arrest, Mr Hermansson said members remained active elsewhere online.

The researcher said it was "incredibly hard" to predict when people with extremist views would act on them and turn violent.

However, he warned fascist fitness groups were a real concern due to their emphasis on "transforming activists into soldiers that might be motivated to commit acts of violence".

He added: "They talk about the left, they talk about migrants, as direct threats, and increasing your physical capacity to confront that threat. It's definitely a danger."