Free speech concerns raised after man jailed for two years for running “far-right” stickers library

Sam Melia, a regional organiser for right-wing organisation Patriotic Alternative, was in charge of an online collection of downloadable stickers that contained various anti-immigration messages for activists of the ‘Hundred Handers’ group....

During the trial, jurors were told that Melia administered an encrypted social media channel that had over 3,500 subscribers, and that members of the group would access the downloadable stickers before then sticking them up around their communities. The prosecution argued that the stickers were intended to stir up racial hatred.

Melia was charged in December 2022 after evidence showed he established and maintained the database of around 200 stickers. Counter Terrorism Policing North East said that many of the stickers were “racist” and “antisemitic” in nature. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), in its summary of the case, says that when Melia was arrested in April 2021, police “found in his wallet“ stickers that expressed “views of a nationalist nature”.