Former Adelaide private schoolboy Alek Yerbury turned far-right extremist denies ‘dressing like Hitler’

A former Adelaide private schoolboy has become a public face of a British far-right group accused of spreading neo-Nazi views amid claims his outfit resembled Adolf Hitler.

Alek Yerbury at a Patriotic Alternative protest at Hull in the UK. Picture: Hull Live

A former Adelaide private schoolboy has become one of the most prominent figures in Britain’s biggest far-right extremist organisations, which has been accused of spreading neo-Nazi views.

Alek James Yerbury, 27, who attended Trinity College, Gawler, is considered a rising star of Patriotic Alternative, which has been accused of being a white supremacist organisation and whose leaders include some people who openly support Adolf Hitler.

Mr Yerbury, who said he finished Year 12 at the Anglican college, north of Adelaide, in 2012, sparked angry scenes in Hull, in Britain’s northeast, last weekend, after addressing a far-right rally in attire similar to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the effect heightened by his short moustache and haircut.

In a November 2021 report, the Hope Not Hate British charity described the group as “the largest and most active fascist movement” in the country with leaders having links to Nazi groups that “enabled new and potentially dangerous networks to flourish”.

Alek Yerbury is considered a rising star of Patriotic Alternative. Picture: Supplied

Alek Yerbury is a former Trinity College schoolboy. Picture: Supplied

The UK protest, during which Mr Yerbury wore a buckled full-length brown trench coat, railed against housing of “illegal migrants up and down the country”.

Standing in front of placards that claimed “stop the invasion” and “you pay, migrants stay”, he also criticised “the establishment” and a country “run by parasites”.

His social media shows similar public speeches across Britain, including one in Leeds, Yorkshire, 315km north of London, in December last year. Another speech was on the “struggle against Marxism”.

Sources said Mr Yerbury, who joined the British army after moving to England and was part of the Army’s 5 Rifles armoured battalion, joined the fascist group in mid-2021 before he was “quickly promoted” to a key speaker.

Leeds-based Mr Yerbury, who was also briefly a director at the White Indigenous Rights Alliance, defended his personal views.

Asked about the PA group’s ideologies, he replied: “It is normal for any nationalist organisation to be called ‘far right’ or ‘Neo-Nazi’.

Adolf Hitler. Picture: Getty Images / Digitally altered image

“I’m disinterested in such criticism unless the critics can demonstrate why anything I’ve said is untrue, which in every instance I’ve encountered they either cannot or will not.

“All ideologies and things throughout all time are mixtures of good and bad, and things which work in one instance or time do not work in others, and vice versa.

“Realistically, any opinions on Nazism (or) Hitler … are academic as these events are virtually beyond living memory and the rights or wrongs of them don’t go any way towards solving today’s problems.”

PA leader Mark Collett has been quoted as saying: “Hitler will live forever and maybe I will.’’

When asked about dressing and appearing like Hitler, Yerbury added: “My appearance is what it is. Can’t change it. Won’t change it.

“The notion that I would dress in order to ‘emulate’ anybody is ludicrous.” He said he wore the trench coat due to the rainy forecast.

“Whether or not it provoked a reaction was irrelevant,” he said. “It seems it did, that’s their (critics) problem not mine. That is the mundane but honest answer.”

PA’s deputy leader Sam Melia was quoted in the Hull Daily Mail as saying that “Alek was looking dapper as hell.”

Yerbury has previously spoken about quitting the army due to being disgusted at the “political class”.

His Adelaide-based father refused to comment at the family’s northern suburbs home this week.

Asked if he wanted to talk about his son’s UK activities, he replied: “No I don’t. Get off my property now.”

The group’s deputy leader, Laura Towler, refused to answer questions.

“I guess there must be no other news today if you’re writing an investigative article about somebody wearing a coat,” she said.

She told her social media followers after the protest: “For the record, the trench coat is a British invention.”

The college distanced itself and said if he was an old-scholar he would not be welcome in engaging with the school.

“Trinity College absolutely rejects Mr Yerbury’s world view and those expressed by the far right,” said the school’s head Nick Hately.

Originally published as Former Adelaide private schoolboy Alek Yerbury turned far-right extremist denies ‘dressing like Hitler’