Ashley Podsiad-Sharp

Ashley Podsiad-Sharp, 42, of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was a serving prison officer at HMP Armley in Leeds when he was investigated by Counter Terrorism Policing. He was convicted at Sheffield Crown Court by a jury of one count of possessing terrorist material under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, after the jury acquitted him of a second count of disseminating terrorist material. He was sentenced on 31 August 2023 by Judge Jeremy Richardson KC to eight years' imprisonment plus five years' extended licence. The sentencing remarks are published on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.¹

Evidence

The terrorist material for which Podsiad-Sharp was convicted was the White Resistance Manual, a 200-page publication containing detailed guidance on: committing arson; poisoning people; sabotaging public utilities and communication systems; bomb-making; knife techniques for killing; building improvised firearms; and evading police identification and capture. The document opened with a white supremacist manifesto calling for armed resistance to the "threat to the white race" from Jewish people and non-white communities.

Police recovered the manual on Podsiad-Sharp's computer devices during a search. He had, in the judge's assessment, gone to "considerable lengths" to conceal the document on his devices.²

National Action History and White Stag Athletics Club

Podsiad-Sharp had been a member of National Action before its proscription in December 2016. Following National Action's proscription, he founded or operated what Judge Richardson described as "a cauldron of self-absorbed neo-Nazism masquerading as a low-grade, all-male sports club": the White Stag Athletics Club, based in South Yorkshire. The club required prospective members to hold white-supremacist views; its vetting process asked candidates whether they were homosexual, mixed race, or had Jewish or Muslim heritage. Richardson characterised the club as "a recruiter of disillusioned white men" for racially motivated purposes.²

Prison Officer Employment

Podsiad-Sharp was a serving prison officer throughout the period relevant to the offence, employed at HMP Armley, a Category B local prison in Leeds. His employment as a prison officer while holding these materials and running the White Stag Athletics Club is an instance of far-right extremist entryism into a law enforcement or custodial context, structurally analogous to the Benjamin Hannam case in the Metropolitan Police, though Podsiad-Sharp's O9A connection is less directly documented than his National Action history.

Judge Richardson stated that Podsiad-Sharp displayed "not one iota of remorse."²