'Miss Hitler' contestant set to be freed within weeks after serving 26 months of three-year jail sentence

12 October 2022, 10:29 | Updated: 12 October 2022, 11:18

A woman who competed in a 'Miss Hitler' contest and was jailed for being part of a banned far-right group is set to be released early within weeks.

Alice Cutter, 25, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2020 for being a member of National Action (NA), but has been granted parole after serving just 26 months.

Ms Cutter had a parole hearing in March and was told on Monday that she would be released within weeks.

She was jailed in June 2020 alongside fellow National Action members Mark Jones, Connor Scothern and Garry Jack.

A spokesperson for the parole board said: "We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has directed the release of Alice Cutter following an oral hearing.

"Parole Board decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.

"A panel will carefully examine a huge range of evidence, including details of the original crime, and any evidence of behaviour change, as well as explore the harm done and impact the crime has had on the victims.

"Members read and digest hundreds of pages of evidence and reports in the lead up to an oral hearing. Evidence from witnesses such as probation officers, psychiatrists and psychologists, officials supervising the offender in prison as well as victim personal statements may be given at the hearing.

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"It is standard for the prisoner and witnesses to be questioned at length during the hearing which often lasts a full day or more. Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.

"Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority."

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Ms Cutter will be released on licence, meaning she will have to wear an electronic tag and stick to a curfew, among other conditions.

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The extreme right-wing group National Action (NA), was labelled "racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic" by the then-home secretary Amber Rudd, and was banned in December 2016 after a series of rallies and incidents, including praise of the murder of MP Jo Cox.

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Cutter, who entered the Miss Hitler beauty contest as Miss Buchenwald - a reference to the Second World War death camp - had denied ever being a member, despite attending the group's rallies, in which banners reading "Hitler was right" were raised.

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At her trial, jurors were also shown messages in which the waitress joked about gassing synagogues, using a Jew's head as a football, and exclaiming "Rot in hell, b***h", after hearing of Ms Cox's murder.

Cutter's ex-partner Jones, a former member of the British National Party's youth wing and a rail engineer, was described at trial as a "leader and strategist" who played a "prominent and active role".

Jones, originally the group's London regional organiser, acknowledged posing for a photograph while delivering a Nazi-style salute and holding an NA flag in Buchenwald's execution room during a trip to Germany in 2016.

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Prosecutors described Cutter and Jones, both of Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, as well as Jack and Scothern as "active" group members, even after the ban.

Jack, of Shard End, Birmingham, had attended almost every meeting of NA's Midlands sub-group. He also had a previous conviction, from before the group was banned for plastering Birmingham's Aston University campus with NA's racially charged stickers, some reading "Britain is ours, the rest must go."

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Scothern, of Nottingham, was "considered future leadership material" and had distributed almost 1,500 stickers calling for a "final solution" - in reference to the Nazis' genocide against Jews.

Jones received a five-and-a-half-year prison term.

Jack was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, and Scothern was handed a sentence of detention for 18 months.

Speaking ahead of sentencing, the director of public prosecutions Max Hill QC described NA members as "diehards" who "hark back to the days of not just anti-Semitism, but the Holocaust, the Third Reich in Germany".