Police investigate BNP documentary over violence claim

Police in Yorkshire will consider what action to take today against members of the British National Party after a television documentary showed followers of the right-wing group admitting violence and racism towards Asians.

The BBC film The Secret Agent, broadcast last night, showed the BNP chairman, Nick Griffin, condemning Islam as a "vicious, wicked faith". And last night he stood by these comments.

Footage of a meeting in Keighley, West Yorkshire, showed Mr Griffin saying: "You've got to stand up and do something for the British National Party because otherwise they [Muslims] will do for someone in your family."

A West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said it would be investigating the programme's claims to find out if any offences had taken place.

Ann Cryer, the Labour MP for Keighley, said the documentary exposed as a sham the BNP's claims that it was now a respectable party. "If people think they are voting for a normal party they are mistaken," she said. "They have a very intense hatred of people's religion and colour. They're playing on the fears of the white community in Keighley. "

The hour-long documentary was filmed by Jason Gwynne, a reporter, who spent six months undercover with the BNP during the approach to the local and European elections in June. After being helped by Andy Sykes, a former BNP member who said he turned against the party after being asked to commit acts of violence, Mr Gwynne managed to infiltrate the party. He recorded one of the group's activists, Steve Barkham, confessing to taking part in a racially motivated attack on an Asian man during the 2001 Bradford riots.

The documentary also showed Stewart Williams, a BNP candidate in the local elections, saying: "All I want to do is shoot Pakis."

Another candidate, David Midgley, told the reporter that he spent three weeks putting dog excrement through the letterbox of an Asian restaurant.

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the documentary revealed the lies behind the BNP's attempts to clean up its image. "The BNP have long been exploiting a loophole in our legislation which outlaws incitement to racial hatred, but does not forbid incitement to religious hatred," he said. "This lacuna has allowed the BNP to modify the focus of its poisonous invective explicitly against the British Muslim community.

"This documentary provides additional evidence of the immense harm this is doing to community relations in our country and confirms once and for all that there is a direct link between the vile and hateful language of the BNP and serious acts of criminal violence."

Last night on BBC's Newsnight, Mr Griffin apologised unreservedly for comments made by activists in the documentary. However when asked whether he thought Islam had expanded due to rape, he replied: "It's one of the ways in which it's expanded; it's also expanded as the Koran tells its followers to do so ­ a special programme to dissect the Koran and I will show you that we have a monster in our midst."

Before the programme was broadcast, Mr Griffin said Mr Midgley and Mr Barkham would be expelled from the party. Mr Williams, he added, would face an internal disciplinary tribunal.

But he also accused the programme-makers of selectively editing the speech that he is seen delivering. He said: "If Mr Blunkett wants to put me on a show trial about whether we're entitled to warn about the dangers of Islam, I will be absolutely delighted."

Less than an hour after the documentary was shown, the BNP's candidate Lawrence Rustem took nearly a third of the votes in a by-election for Barking and Dagenham borough council in east London. He was only about 10 per cent behind Labour's winning candidate Donald Hemmett.