A Scottish mother and daughter have been handed prison sentences for a campaign of online hate, where they shared extremist anti-Semitic, racist, and transphobic material across social media platforms.
Extremist Views and Disturbing Content
Shirley Craughwell, 51, and her daughter Hannah, 27, used their online accounts to spread virulent propaganda. Shirley Craughwell described non-white people as ‘a different species’ and posted comments praising Adolf Hitler, including one stating ‘Hitler was trying to save us’. In a particularly chilling post, she wrote: ‘The need for a new holocaust is never more urgent than now’.
Her online activity included using emojis associated with the Neo-Nazi movement and sharing links to publications like the Anarchist Cookbook. The court heard she also encouraged a young child to perform Nazi salutes and posted the footage online, an act the sheriff later described as a ‘significant aggravation’.
Her daughter, Hannah Craughwell, operated under the online alias ‘Hannah Hitler’. She labelled Jewish people as ‘the devil’s children’ and distributed flyers in her local community to promote a Neo-Nazi film called ‘Europa - The Last Battle’. Both women also propagated conspiracy theories linking Israel to the 9/11 attacks and the Covid pandemic, and denied the historical fact of the Nazi Holocaust.
Court Proceedings and Sentencing
The pair pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in November last year to hate crime offences, aggravated by racial and religious prejudice, committed between 2021 and 2024. They returned for sentencing on Tuesday, where Sheriff Charles Walls reviewed further video evidence of their online posts.
Sentencing Shirley Craughwell, of Galashiels, Selkirkshire, Sheriff Walls said: ‘The level of hatred, racism and anti-semitism expressed by you is deeply disturbing. Your messages were not just offensive, they are violent and threatening in relation to people of the Jewish faith.’ She was sentenced to 20 months in prison, backdated to November 27.
Regarding Hannah Craughwell, of Gilmerton, Edinburgh, the sheriff noted she had continued to ‘minimise’ her crimes and had distributed ‘highly inflammatory’ leaflets. The mother of two was jailed for 16 months.
Police Investigation and Defence
Police became aware of the women's activities in May last year after receiving intelligence about ‘racist, anti-Semitic and threatening’ material on their social media pages. Raids on their homes uncovered extensive evidence.
Shirley Craughwell had a Telegram account where she posted thousands of extremist comments, used the slang term ‘88’ (code for Heil Hitler), and circulated material supporting the alt-right ‘Highland Division’. Her lawyer, Simon Collins, said she had a long involvement in conspiracy theories, had been isolated during Covid, and expressed remorse.
Hannah Craughwell was found to have an account on the extremist chat site Gab and shared extreme content on Facebook and Instagram. Her defence agent, Richard Soutar, said she had ‘gone down a wormhole’ on the internet while socially isolated and suffering from poor mental health.
The case highlights the serious legal consequences for spreading hate speech and extremist ideology online in the UK.
