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Neo-Nazi who tried to convert to Judaism jailed for National Action membership

Last month the JC revealed Adam Thomas once spent a number of months in Israel as he attempted to convert to Judaism, before joining antisemitic group

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A couple who named their baby after Hitler have been jailed, after being found guilty of being members of an illegal neo-Nazi group.

Adam Thomas, 22, and Claudia Patatas, 38, of Waltham Gardens in Banbury, Oxfordshire, were among six people sentenced for being members of National Action at Birmingham Crown Court.

Thomas was jailed for six-and-a-half years and Patatas for five on Tuesday morning.

Jurors heard they gave their own baby the middle name Adolf in “admiration” of the Nazi dictator, and had decorated their home with swastikas and Ku Klux Klan iconography.

Photographs recovered from electronic devices showed Thomas holding his young son at home, while wearing hooded KKK robes.

Last month, the JC revealed that Thomas once spent a number of months in Israel as he attempted to convert to Judaism, even attending a yeshiva in Jerusalem, before being turned away.

A spokesman for the Machon Meir yeshiva said at the time: “We will confirm that he attempted to study in the Conversion Department of Machon Meir.

“But we sensed after a while that he was a real meshugeneh. This was not evident immediately. He was quite knowledgeable in Torah, mild mannered and even somewhat pleasant.

“He has a fantastic memory and was passionate about Torah knowledge. He has a very dark side as well, and a pull towards extremism. Once this side came out we knew he was not worthy for giur studies.”

Machon Meir confirmed that Thomas registered under the name “Avi Thomas”, while classmates said he went by “Avi Ben Avraham”.

Thomas and Patatas, who is originally from Portugal, were sentenced alongside alongside fellow neo-Nazis Darren Fletcher, Daniel Bogunovic, Joel Wilmore and Nathan Pryke.

In conversation with another National Action member, Patatas said “all Jews must be put to death”, while Thomas had once told his partner he “found that all non-whites are intolerable”.

Judge Melbourne Inman, sentencing Patatas, said: "You were equally as extreme as Thomas both in your views and actions.

"You acted together in all you thought, said and did, in the naming of your son and the disturbing photographs of your child, surrounded by symbols of Nazism and the Ku Klux Klan."

The judge said of National Action: "Its aims and objectives are the overthrow of democracy in this country by serious violence and murder, and the imposition of a Nazi-style state which would eradicate whole sections of society by such violence and mass-murder.

"The eradication of those who you consider to be inferior because of no more than the colour of their skin, or their religion."

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