A WHITE supremacist has been jailed after being convicted of posting violent and vicious racist messages on the internet.

Michael Heaton, aged 42, of Leigh, was one of two men convicted after the pair described Jews as “scum” and called for them to be “destroyed”.

“Proud neo-Nazis” Heaton and Trevor Hannington, aged 58, from Cardiff, were unanimously cleared of soliciting murder at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday but Heaton was yesterday jailed for 30 months after being convicted of four counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to stir up racial hatred.

Hannington previously admitted two counts of stirring up racial hatred, two further counts of possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism and disseminating a terrorist publication.

He was jailed for two years.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Irwin told Heaton his internet posts were “vicious and repulsive”.

He added: “You are clearly filled with racial hatred and also with violent and angry beliefs.”

The judge told Heaton his words were of the most “insulting and extreme nature” marked by “violent racism” and said only a significant jail term was acceptable.

Heaton, a packer for a food company, admitted in police interviews he was a founder member of the Aryan Strike Force (ASF), whose goal was “the eradication of ethnic minorities from Britain”, the prosecution said.

Heaton made more than 3,000 posts on the ASF site between January and June 2008, before he had a “bust-up” with the organisation and created his own, the British Freedom Fighters (BFF). The website changed its name to Legion 88 and then Wolfpack, before it was closed down.