Owen Jones: Portsmouth man who assaulted Guardian columnist had football hooligan flag with Nazi symbols

James Healy, 40, from Laburnum Grove, also allegedly had a football hooligan flag adorned with SS symbols and a collection of pin badges linked to white supremacist groups.

One of the items bore the name of the Combat 18 neo-Nazi group, whose stated aims include ‘execute all queers,’ Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Healy admits his face was 'crunched up' in anger during a 'frenzied' attack on Guardian columnist Mr Jones outside the Lexington pub on the Pentonville Road in Islington, north London.

During legal argument, the court heard police found a black flag bearing the letters CYF (Chelsea Youth Firm), a hooligan group, when they searched Healy's Portsmouth home.

Prosecutor Philip McGhee said the flag was also adorned with a skull and crossbones symbol and SS lettering associated with the SS unit of the Nazis.

Officers also found badges associated with football hooliganism, as well as neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, including Combat 18, the court heard.

A birthday card, featuring a St George's flag, the skull and crossbones and the words 'you have been nominated and dealt with by the Chelsea Headhunters', in reference to another hooligan firm, was also recovered.

Mr McGhee described a photograph of Healy 'with his right arm raised straight out in front of him to the right.'

'It is plainly, when viewed in relation to all the other items in Mr Healy's premises, a Nazi salute,' he said.

The court heard the photo showed Healy as a teenager but had been printed out in 2015.

'The person who possesses these items, it can be properly inferred, holds, or has sympathies for, white supremacist, far-right organisations, and we say that with specific reference to Combat 18,' the prosecutor said.

Healy denies he was motivated by the victim's sexual orientation or political views, claiming he did not know who Mr Jones, who is gay and campaigns for LGBT rights, was.

Healy claims he assaulted Mr Jones because he barged him inside the pub, spilling his drink, and did not apologise.

The victim suffered cuts and swelling to his back and head, and bruises all down his body in the assault during his birthday night out on August 17.

Healy, who has admitted affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, is facing a trial of issue, with Mr Jones expected to give evidence against him on Friday.

Mr McGhee said: 'It is said, based on the evidence, that the assault was motivated by hostility borne by the defendant towards the victim either due to the victim's sexual orientation or political views, or both.

'The defendant asserts the only motivation is something that happened between him and the victim inside the public house, outside which the assault took place.'

Healy's barrister, Matthew Radstone, said: 'He accepts he did target him, he accepts his face was crunched up, he accepts using (a swear word).

'It is an assault he has pleaded to and a frenzied one at that.'

But he argued the items are inadmissible as evidence, telling the judge: 'That memorabilia is consistent with Mr Healy being a Chelsea football supporter and part of the Chelsea football supporters' group, who express themselves with memorabilia and behaviour of the type of insignia in that manner the flags perhaps suggest.'

He said Healy has a number of convictions for football-related violence and was known as a 'Chelsea risk supporter'.

Mr Radstone argued the items reflect his 'association with Chelsea Football Club as opposed to any right-wing political beliefs he may have'.

The judge, Recorder Anne Studd QC, ruled the evidence was admissible and she must now decide whether the assault was motivated by homophobia or political views.

Healy, from, Portsmouth, is due to be sentenced on February 1 along with Charlie Ambrose, 30, from Brighton and Liam Tracey, 34, from Camden, who have previously pleaded guilty to affray over the incident.

Ambrose and Tracey previously both denied a charge of ABH and the charge was left to lie on file, with prosecutors accepting their actions were not motivated by homophobia.

The trial of issue continues on Friday.