William Browning. Picture: Central News

A JERSEYMAN accused of paying £2,000 to import racist CDs into Jersey told a London court yesterday that the money was for a series of hard-rock gigs in east London.

William Browning (39), a former Les Quennevais School pupil, claimed that he needed the cash to promote Polish punk act The Gits and called the lead singer to give evidence on his behalf.

Mr Browning, who admits that he was member of violent right-wing organisation Combat 18, is accused of trying to incite racial hatred using Neo-Nazi ‘blood and honour’ records.

In July 2006 Jersey Customs officers intercepted a package of 100 CDs sent from Poland and addressed to a tattoo parlour in Hope Street owned by his childhood friend and co-defendant Jon Denny-Mallen (40). The albums, entitled Deutschland and recorded in the 1990s by one of Mr Browning’s former groups, No Remorse, contained inflammatory racist and anti-Semitic lyrics.

The two men are in the dock at Southwark Crown Court accused of trying to incite racial hatred by importing the CDs from Poland into Jersey. Mr Browning, who has addresses in Deptford and Almorah Crescent, St Helier, and Mr Denny-Mallen, of St Martin, both deny one charge of conspiracy to distribute material with intent to stir up racial hatred between 1 January and 13 July 2006.