GREGORY DAVIS
Britain First likes to portray itself as a law-and-order oriented movement. Its co-leaders, Paul Golding and Ashlea Simon, pump out a constant stream of social media posts decrying crime rates in the UK and portraying every social ill as being a recent phenomenon driven by immigration and multiculturalism.
Yet Britain First is much less keen to discuss the extensive and shocking criminal history of its own membership, which includes of violent thugs and extremists who frequently find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
While Golding rails against the supposed lawlessness of London under Mayor Sadiq Khan, for example, he is less keen to address the fact that his own brother unleashed an astonishing crime wave against the residents of London and Kent in the mid 2000s, culminating in his confession to 171 burglaries across the region (see below). Paul Golding himself has a long list of convictions we have outlined elsewhere.
The range of convictions held against current and former members of the group is disturbing, with offences including property theft up to terror charges and even child abuse. Read on for a sample of Britain First’s worst offenders:
On 10 June 2022, Anthony Barraclough (AKA Ant Barra), based in Shoreditch, East London, was jailed for six years for terrorism and public order offences, having admitted to three counts of disseminating terrorist publications and seven counts of distributing materials to incite racial hatred between November 2020 and February 2021.
During this period, Barraclough was an active member of Britain First’s Eastern branch, protesting outside of hotels alleged to be housing migrants and accompanying leader Paul Golding to the Millwall stadium in December 2020 to support fans who booed the taking of the knee by their team.
Barraclough was a regular at Britain First’s activities up until May 2021, even donning the black uniform of its Defence group. He continued to post on Britain First’s chat group after he stopped public activity.
L-R: Brian Tilbury, Andy Frain, Geoff Miles and Anthony Barraclough
Another figure that has cycled through Britain First and also carries an extensive record is Tomas Kai Downing, a former English Defence League (EDL) activist from Barrow-In-Furness, Cumbria.
Downing has twice been convicted of harassing women online and handed restraining orders, committing the second offence in 2021 while still on licence for a similar conviction in 2019.
Downing (centre) with BF leader Paul Golding, 1 August 2020
In early 2022, Downing was again hauled before the courts and convicted of an unprovoked attack on a fellow football fan outside a stadium, during which he was reported to have said “I’m Barrow’s top dog”, knocked his victim over and rained punches down as he lay on the floor. Downing was handed a 28-week prison sentence and banned from attending football matches for six years.
Andy Frain (right) at the vote count in Salford, May 2022
Andy Frain was, until last summer, one of Britain First’s most active members. As a core member of the Britain First Defence group, the Chelmsford, Essex-based activist attended numerous actions across the country and campaigned in during the 2022 local elections, even attending the vote count alongside Golding and Simon in Salford. His activity in Britain First earned him an “Elite Activist” award at the 2021 annual camp.
However, for many years Frain was better known as one of the UK’s most violent and notorious football hooligans. A leading member of the infamous Chelsea Headhunters gang, Frain has dozens of convictions, mostly for violence and drunken behaviour but also importing drugs, burglary, assaulting a police officer and other offences.
Nicknamed “Nightmare”, Frain has been associated with the Headhunters since the early 1980s. Earning a fearsome reputation, by 1995 he was one of only two hooligans in Britain to be banned from travelling abroad to watch Chelsea and England.
Frain was also immersed in the UK’s extreme right during a particularly violent period in the 1990s, joining the Nazi terror group Combat 18 on its inception. Named after Adolf Hitler (the digits 1 and 8 representing his initials), the group terrorised minoritised communities and political opponents for a decade.
Frain was also a member of the British chapter of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), even travelling to the US for training, only to be deported for violence. Frain was also at the centre of a brawl at an event organised by Blood & Honour, the Nazi skinhead music scene.
Frain (left) in Belfast
Warren Gilchrest, a former Britain First member, was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to violent disorder in Manchester during the disorder of 3 August 2024. Gilchrest was convicted for filming an attack on a black man while repeatedly shouting “kill him” and “stamp on his face”, and went on to assault two police officers who were trying to rescue the victim of the attac
Child sex offender Warren Gilchrest (circled) – who is serving time for his role in the 3 August disorder in Manchester – with Britain First in Rotherham, 24 August 2019.
It later emerged that Gilchrest has dozens of previous convictions, including sexual offences against children under the age of 13. Police also found disturbing Nazi material, some of which included depictions of children, at his home.
HOPE not hate subsequently revealed that GIlchrest had previously been active in Britain First, accompanying Paul Golding and Ashlea Simon on actions in Burnley and Rotherham in 2019.
Once among the group’s regular activists and a member of the Britain First Defence security team, Paul Golding’s younger brother Jamie has travelled the country in support of Britain First activities, regularly appearing in the Britain First Defence uniform at public events.
However, the younger Golding’s history of criminality is shocking in its scale, occurring at a time when his brother was a rising star in the BNP and lived just a few streets away from him.
Jamie Golding made national news in 2002 when he and five accomplices, part of a gang known as the “Slade Green Massive”, were served with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders for a two-year reign of terror against residents of the Slade Green area that included carjackings and violent assaults. Having spent months on the run after skipping bail, he would later be sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for his role in a crime ring that stole vehicles and property to the value of £300,000 over a five month period.
Shortly after his release, Jamie Golding would immediately embark on another staggering crime spree. In 2006, he and an accomplice pled guilty to 171 burglaries on homes across South East London and Kent, carrying out up to six burglaries per day and netting an estimated £1.9 million pounds worth of property, of which only £1.2 million was recovered by police.
L-R: Simon Mayhew-Sanders, Paul Golding, Jason Marriner, Jamie Golding
Another of those to plead guilty to violent disorder in Manchester for the events of 3 August 2024 is Shaun Holt. Holt is a former Britain First activist who was involved in the anti-Muslim political party at least between 2017 and 2020, acting as security for the group’s co-leader, Paul Golding.
Holt is also the founder of the Elusive Child Protection Unit (ECPU), one of several so-called “paedophile hunter” vigilante groups with close ties to the far right. The EPCU has so far been silent on the activities of local offender Warren Gilchrest, who, as mentioned above, is also an ex-member of Britain First.
Desmond Lundy, a former Britain First member from Belfast, was previously arrested during police anti-terror raids targeting the North Belfast UDA in September 2016.
According to the Belfast Telegraph, Lundy admitted to possessing materials in preparation for an act of terrorism and that he was recruited in 2016 into the Belfast UDA to “make up numbers” after splits had left the group decimated.
Lundy also has other criminal convictions which include threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend, stamping on her head, and choking her with a shower hose. Lundy posted pictures of himself in front of Britain First banners as late as September 2020.
In June 2023, Richard Osborne was jailed for three years and ten months after admitting to stirring up racial and anti-LGBT+ hatred.
The 53-year-old had posted images in support of banned nazi terror group National Action and shared his membership card for the National Front. Over 130 posts on his VKontakte (VK) profile contained Holocaust denial and calls for violence against Muslims, Jews and LGBT+ people.
A baton fashioned out of a metal bar was found in his car and an unlicensed shotgun was found under his bed.
HOPE not hate revealed that Osborne had engaged in anti-migrant activism with Britain First, including posing with other activists with a banner outside a Coventry hotel in August 2020.
Yet another former Britain First activist to be jailed after the August riots, Hull-based William Riley was involved in Britain First in the group’s early years, joining the group as it stormed into mosques in Bradford and Edinburgh.
Riley was also a leading figure in the Hull EDL and has been involved in recent anti-migrant campaigns in Rotherham and Hull.
64-year-old Riley was handed an eighteen month prison sentence for punching a police officer in the jaw and distributing eggs to throw during the riot in Hull on 3 August 2024.
Mason Yates from Widnes, Cheshire pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in June 2022 for possessing instructions on how to make explosives from Telegram. Yates, now aged 21, was in the Prevent programme already at age 13. According to a support worker, Yates claimed: “I have not been radicalised, I would be the one radicalising other people” and “I am as far-right as you can be”.
Yates was an active member in Britain First and is pictured at protests outside of hotels housing migrants in Warrington and in the North West of England.
Yates explicitly identified himself as a Britain First activist and was friends with several high ranking Britain First members on social media, including Ashlea Simon, Paul Golding, Geoff Miles and Sam Cochrane.
In addition to the terror offences, Yates was convicted of possession of an extreme pornographic image.
Mason Yates (middle) at Britain First action with Ashlea Simon and Geoff Miles
Britain First paints itself as a respectable political party, but our undercover investigation reveals its true fascist nature. Over the course of six months, our undercover investigator infiltrated the group, rising through the ranks and even being awarded ‘Best Activist’. What we uncovered is shocking and demands to be seen. Watch the full investigation today.
