Neo-Nazi Desmond Liddington appeals jail sentence for attacking activist

A disgusting tattoo on the face of a thug who bashed on the door of an Indigenous rights activist has revealed his shameful descent into racism.

A disgusting tattoo on the face of a neo-Nazi has revealed his descent into racism, as a court heard claims of what sparked his spiral into intolerance.

Desmond Liddington, 39, was pictured outside court with a tattoo above his ear which shows an AK47 alongside the word RAHOWA, meaning “racial holy war”.

The phrase is used by extremists as a disgraceful rallying cry for the white supremacist cause.

The leader of a white supremacist group has successfully appealed his sentence at the Downing Centre District Court for the attempted home invasion of an Indigenous rights activist on December 4, 2021.

According to agreed facts tendered to court, Liddington and others from his group bashed on the door of the Black Lives Matter activist, causing the victim to run to the end of the house and lock another door while the men damaged his veranda.

Liddington has an AK-47 gun tattoo with the racist word RAHOWA above his ear. Picture: Ashleigh Tullis

Liddington, from Gregory Hills on Sydney’s outskirts, received a jail sentence of two years and six months earlier this year after pleading guilty to affray and intimidation.

But on Thursday, he had his sentence downgraded after his lawyer argued it was “excessive”.

The court heard Liddington became embroiled with a white supremacist group in prison after experiencing a troubled childhood.

“He grew up in a family where his mother was an alcoholic. His mother left his father, his father wasn’t very well. He moved between house to house and there was a lot of violence,” his lawyer said.

A court heard Liddington (r) joined a white supremacy group in jail. Picture: Ashleigh Tullis

“Then, he was referred to some counselling when he was a teenager. And then he said that basically, when he went into custody and became allied with this group, that he was a member; he said ‘I had had no other family’.”

Liddington’s lawyer said every time he was put back into custody, he returned to the same people and fell deeper into the group.

“He was working full time up until he was arrested in relation to these matters,” his lawyer said.

“He said he had been having periods of long abstinence from alcohol, which has been his problem in the past. But then he struggled with Covid And that’s when his drinking started to become difficult for him, and was a factor in what occurred on this particular day.”

Despite the crown prosecutor arguing the original sentence was appropriate, Judge Leonie Flannery re-sentenced Liddington to two years’ imprisonment with a 14 month non-parole period.