Former HMRC Worker Jailed for Two Years Over Online Race Hate Posts

A Warwickshire man who used social media to call for violence against Jewish, Muslim and gay people has been jailed for two years.

Thomas Webster, 29, of Lapworth, was sentenced at Warwick Crown Court on Tuesday 8 September after pleading guilty to 12 offences. They were ten counts of publishing written material intended to stir up racial hatred and two counts of publishing threatening material intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of religion or sexual orientation.

A year of hateful posts

The court heard that Webster ran several accounts on X and Substack over roughly 12 months, between September 2024 and September 2025. He used them to publish antisemitic, racist and homophobic material, to promote white supremacist ideas and to encourage violence against people because of their race, religion or sexuality.

Several of his earlier accounts had already been removed by the platforms for breaching their rules on hateful conduct, but he continued to post from new ones.

Webster was a member of Patriotic Alternative, a far-right group. He also boasted online that he had discriminated against non-white members of the public while working at HM Revenue and Customs, including by deliberately giving them bad information. HMRC dismissed him in February 2025 following an internal disciplinary process.

Exposed by undercover filming

His activities drew wider attention after a documentary broadcast in January 2025, in which an undercover journalist spent a year inside a far-right network. Webster was arrested in September 2025. He admitted the offences at Coventry Magistrates' Court in August this year and the case was passed to the Crown Court for sentencing.

Frank Ferguson, Chief Crown Prosecutor of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: "Those who promote, encourage or condone violence against others will be prosecuted."

Detective Chief Superintendent Alison Hurst said the sentence sent a clear message that extreme racist views and promoting serious violence were "completely unacceptable".

The law on stirring up hatred

The offences Webster admitted fall under the Public Order Act 1986, which makes it a crime to use words or behaviour, or to publish or distribute written material, with the aim of stirring up hatred. The law applies equally to material posted online.

• Racial hatred: covers material that is threatening, abusive or insulting, where the person intends to stir up racial hatred or it is likely to be stirred up.
• Religious hatred and hatred on grounds of sexual orientation: set a higher bar. The material must be threatening, and the prosecution must prove the person intended to stir up hatred.

The offences carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. Prosecutions require the consent of the Attorney General, reflecting the need to balance the protection of targeted groups against the right to free expression.

Why the case matters

The prosecution was brought by the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, the unit that handles the most serious extremism cases in England and Wales. Webster's case combined a year of sustained posting, material calling for violence and his own boasts about how he had treated members of the public in a government job.

His dismissal from HMRC and the removal of several of his accounts both came well before the criminal case concluded, with his employer and the platforms acting on his conduct while the police investigation was still under way.

Image: Hassocks5489 via Wikimedia Commons, CC0