British couple who named son after Hitler convicted of involvement with banned neo-Nazi group

A British couple who gave their son the middle name Adolf in honor of the Nazi Party leader were convicted on Monday for belonging to a neo-Nazi group that’s banned in Britain.

Prosecutors told a jury in Birmingham that Adam Thomas, 22, and Claudia Patatas, 38, shared photos of themselves dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan and giving Nazi salutes, Reuters reports. They were accused of belonging to National Action, a far-right group that was banned in Britain in 2016. Though they both previously denied it, the prosecution argued that their son’s name was a major clue to their involvement.

“Given that the child was born almost a year after National Action was banned, you may think the use of the name ‘Adolf’ — even as a middle name — was of significance,” prosecutor Barnaby Jameson told jurors, per the BBC. He also warned the jury that the case involved “a world in which any right-thinking person would wish did not exist.”

The West Midlands Police shared pictures in a Monday press release of the couple posing with their baby while holding a swastika flag. Another photo showed Thomas dressed in KKK robes and holding his baby son, while yet another featured him posing with a crossbow in front of a Confederate flag.

The police announced that four others were convicted on similar charges, three of whom had confessed to their involvement with National Action before the trial. Two others were convicted for belonging to the group in July, Reuters reports.

National Action was the first far-right group banned in Britain since World War II, a move brought on by members praising the murder of British lawmaker Jo Cox by “an extreme rightwing terrorist,” as the Guardian reported at the time.

“These individuals were not simply racist fantasists; we now know they were a dangerous, well-structured organisation,” Detective Chief Superintendent Matt Ward, with the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, said in the press release. “Their aim was to spread neo-Nazi ideology by provoking a race war in the UK and they had spent years acquiring the skills to carry this out.”

He explained that the group had researched how to make explosives, gathered weapons, and were trying to radicalize others. “Unchecked they would have inspired violence and spread hatred and fear across the West Midlands,” he said.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• Massachusetts mayor takes his terminally ill pup on cross-country road trip

• Man finds wife’s wedding ring in ashes of home that burned down in devastating California wildfire

• Moms use broken coffee mug as weapon in bus stop brawl that sends both to the hospital

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.