A badge for the Nazi association for women was found at the home of a far-right terror suspect who took part in a “Miss Hitler” beauty contest, a court has heard.
Jurors trying Alice Cutter were shown a picture of the Deutsches Frauenwerk badge after her barrister referred to a “misogynistic” National Action propaganda image showing a woman being attacked.
Cutter, 22, and her 24-year-old partner Mark Jones, both of Mulhalls Mill, Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, deny being members of National Action after it was banned by the government in December 2016.
The court has heard Cutter entered a National Action beauty pageant in June 2016 – allegedly in an effort to attract new members to the group.
In an “interview” accompanying a webpage giving details of the contest, Cutter wrote: “It is important to me that there’s a balance of feminine to masculine in the movement – without feminine involvement, what would a movement be?
“Women are the most important figures when it comes to teaching and raising the next generation to be strong and proud.
“We need to step up, be the lionesses we ought to be and rip apart the hyenas laughing at us as we get raped, beaten, brainwashed and de-feminised en masse.”
On the fourth day of a trial at Birmingham Crown Court, Cutter’s barrister, Liam Walker, asked prosecution witness Professor Matthew Feldman – an expert on the radical right – to comment on several “deeply misogynistic” memes issued as propaganda by far-right groups.
Feldman told the court that the Nazis had used the German phrase “Kinder, Kuche, Kirche” – translating as children, kitchen, church – to describe the role women could play in the Third Reich.
After Walker had questioned Feldman, prosecutor Barnaby Jameson QC asked the witness whether it was right to say that women had played an important role within Nazism.
Feldman replied: “I think in some accounts they were the majority of voters and certainly the heads of an important auxiliary organisation.”
The jury was told that there was no dispute that Cutter had entered the beauty contest under the name “Buchenwald Princess” – a reference to a Nazi-era death camp at which tens of thousands of people were killed or starved.
Feldman then agreed with a suggestion by Jameson that the “interview” posted by Cutter was an “echo of Nazi Germany” in its reference to “raising the next generation to be strong”.
Following the questioning of Feldman, the jury of seven men and five women were shown a picture of the Deutsches Frauenwerk badge found in September 2017 at the home Cutter shared with Jones.
Garry Jack, 23, from Heathland Avenue, Shard End, Birmingham, and 18-year-old Connor Scothern, of Bagnall Avenue, Nottingham, also deny belonging to the banned organisation between December 2016 and September 2017.
Cutter refused to answer questions after several Nazi-themed items, including a flag and earrings, were found at her home.
Pictures of Cutter holding a firearm and posing beside a Nazi flag have been shown to jurors, who were told Jones and Jack had also declined to answer questions put to them by counter-terror officers.
Jones and Jack claim they were “committed and unapologetic” members of National Action but quit the organisation when it was outlawed.
Meanwhile, the court has been told, Cutter maintains she has never been a member of National Action, either before or after the ban, while Scothern claims to have quit the group a day before it was made illegal.
The trial continues.