Police get extra time to question father of terror suspect

Police have been granted a further seven days to question the father of a suspected member of a white supremacist group which has alleged links to Northern Ireland paramilitary “Mad Dog” Johnny Adair.

Ian Davison, 41, a wagon driver and former pub DJ who was arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000, remains in custody at a West Yorkshire Police Station following a successful application by Durham Police to a judge in chambers. Police wearing protective clothing continued to search Davison’s terraced home in Myrtle Grove, Burnopfield, near Stanley, County Durham, yesterday after what police believe to be traces of the deadly poison ricin were found in a jam jar in a kitchen cupboard.

Meanwhile Davison’s son Nicky, 18, a milkman who was charged under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, was bailed to return to his home in Grampian Way, Annfield Plain, Stanley, a property he shares with his mother and three siblings. Bail conditions included that he observes an overnight curfew, reports to his local police station and wears an electronic tag. The conditions also ban him from contacting his father, using a mobile phone, the internet or a camera, or contacting members of a racist group known as the Aryan Strike Force.

The Aryan Strike Force has close links to the Racial Volunteer Force, which describes itself on its website as “an international militant pro-white organisation”. The Racial Volunteer Force (RVF) is described on Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, as “a violent splinter group of the British neo-Nazi group Combat 18 with close ties to far right paramilitary group, British Freedom Fighters. The RVF has also maintained links with Ulster loyalism and it has been claimed that supporters of the group were involved in sheltering the notorious Johnny Adair in Bolton, Greater Manchester.”

Belfast-born Adair, a feared former paramilitary boss, fled to the British mainland on release from prison in Northern Ireland, where he had been serving a 16-year sentence for directing a campaign of terror in Belfast. Adair has been warned that he was on the hit-list of the Ulster Defence Organisation (UDA), a loyalist paramilitary organisation, after an internal feud which saw Adair’s family and allies driven out of Belfast.

Combat 18 was formed in the early 1990s from a British National Party breakaway group composed largely of former members of the party’s security team who were disillusioned with its change of policies and image and increasing focus on electoral politics.

Combat 18’s involvement has been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants and other members involved in a bloody civil war inside the group. The “18” in its name is commonly used by neo-Nazi groups, and is derived from the initials of Adolf Hitler; A and H are the first and eighth letters of the Latin alphabet.

Anindya Bhattacharyya of the campaigning organisation Unite Against Fascism, said the Aryan Strike Force was a group he had not come across, but added: “There are always far-right splinter groups forming amongst people disaffected by the British National Party’s (BNP) attempts to adopt a cloak of respectability. This sounds like one of these. There are always far-right splinter groups forming amongst people disaffected by the (BNP).”

Journal Live