A Metropolitan Police officer has been convicted of belonging to a banned neo-Nazi terrorist organisation.

Benjamin Hannam, 22, is the first UK police officer to be convicted of involvement in far-right terrorism.

Hannam, from north London, was found guilty of being a member of National Action, a right-wing extremist group that was banned and proscribed as a terror organisation by the UK government in December 2016.

Hannam had been a member of the group since March of that year, and remained a member of the group when he passed vetting checks and joined the Metropolitan Police in March 2018. 

He worked as a probationary officer with the force for almost two years before he was arrested, when he was found on a leaked database of users from an extreme right-wing forum.

Detectives would find images of Hannam in a police uniform with a Adolf Hitler-style moustache imposed on his face, as well as a guide to knife fighting, and the so-called “manifesto” of convicted right-wing terrorist and mass murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.

As well as the terror conviction, a jury at the Old Bailey in London found Hannam guilty of possessing documents useful for terrorism and for fraud. He also admitted possessing a prohibited image of a child. He will be sentenced later this month.