Neo-nazi sentenced to read Jane Austen admits he hasn’t started book

“On January 4 you will tell me what you have read and I will test you on it. I will test you and if I think you are [lying to] me you will suffer. I will be watching you, Ben John, every step of the way. If you let me down you know what will happen.”

He was confronted last week by a reporter for Scout News, an email newsletter tracking the far-right, and admitted he hadn’t read the assigned books. 

Speaking from his parents house, where he lives fulltime, he told the reporter:“I don’t know how to put it,” he said. “I’ve got them. I’ve not got to grips with any of them.”

But he also insisted that he still had time to read the works, saying: “I’ve still got a month.” 

When asked where the books in question were, he said they “buried somewhere” in a box in his home. 

The advocacy group  Campaign Against Antisemitism told Scout that they found Mr. John’s sentence incredibly lenient, saying:”“Ben John left court with a mere suspended sentence and some English homework. Given his extraordinary luck, it would be astonishing if Mr John does not even do the reading assigned to him, which would serve only to prove the critics of this incredible sentence right.”