Right-wing extremist Ricky White loses jail appeal over email addresses

A right-wing extremist who burned down a church and made anti-Semitic threats of extreme violence has lost his appeal against jail time.

Right-wing extremist Ricky White who burned down a church and made anti-Semitic threats of extreme violence has lost his appeal against jail time for using “contemptuous” email addresses referencing skinheads and Chelsea Football Club.

White, 30, one of the first people in NSW to be monitored under tough anti-terrorism laws, had breached the terms of his extended supervision order which was imposed for the safety of the public after he was released from jail in November last year.

The self-confessed skinhead was approved to use only two email addresses under his own name but within days he had changed his profile to “ausskinhead” and then to “Chelseafc Sharp”. The agreed facts said that “Chelseafc” was a reference to Chelsea Football Club and “Sharp” an acronym for “Skinheads against Racial Prejudice”.

Right-wing extremist Ricky White lost his appeal against jail time.

In July 2021, he was jailed for a total of 16 months with a non-parole period of 12 months in Campbelltown Local Court which said included seven month for “ausskinhead” and five months for “Chelseafc Sharp”.

The court said that while the Chelseaafc Sharp was not as contemptuous as ausskinhead, it was still against the court orders.

White, from Ingleburn in southwestern Sydney, also pleaded guilty to breaching his ESO by using other email addresses “Blackplaguepileup Hatchet Trick” and “Skinoioioi Aus.”

The court was told that the first referenced a band he played in, which landed him a three-month sentence, and the second was his nickname in the band, which landed him seven months.

“One thing that is of concern is the continued association with the name skinheads, which for most people, as far as I am aware, would have a very poor connotation in regard to white supremacy and racism and violence,” Magistrate David Degnan in Campbelltown Local Court said.

He said the breaches of the ESO were flagrant and contemptuous and the names White adopted were associated with “white supremacy … racism and violence”.

White, who has repeatedly breached terms of his ESO, appealed the sentences to the Supreme Court, arguing the magistrate had not properly considered all possible alternatives to imprisonment before imposing a sentence of full time jail.

The right wing extremist, previously convicted of setting fire to the Destiny Pentecostal Church in Taree in 2016, was also being electronically monitored after drinking beer at a barbecue before he was arrested in April on these offences.

Courts have previously been told he is at “moderate” risk of extremism.

In the Supreme Court, Justice Robert Beech-Jones refused White’s appeal.

“Extreme nationalism and racist violence have a long history together,” the judge said.

White’s neo-Nazi offending began in 2014 when he and two others used his mobile phone to make a series of seven telephone calls to the Sydney Jewish Museum, threatening extreme violence and sexual assault.

White was put on a 12-month recognisance and fined.

In 2016 he was jailed for 22 months with 12-months nom-parole for burning down the church.

Upon his release in 2018, he was made subject to an ESO when the Supreme Court ruled that unless he was supervised “he poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence, namely, an offence consistent with his previously held white supremacist views”.

He was the back before the court in 2020 for shaving off his beard because he was not allowed to change his appearance without telling police first.