An official of the British National Party told a jury yesterday that he had no intention of stirring up racial hatred when he made election speeches to the party’s supporters.

Mark Collett said the aim was merely to motivate them to take part in “legal and democratic” political campaigning. He and the BNP’s leader, Nick Griffin, 47, who are on trial at Leeds Crown Court, deny inciting racial hatred in speeches filmed secretly by an undercover BBC journalist.

The court has heard that in speeches given at two Keighley pubs before the 2004 local elections Mr Collett, 26, compared asylum-seekers to cockroaches and spoke of “gangs of Asian males going to all-white schools and soliciting white children for sex”. He called the Bradford riots “aggression” by Asians “trying to destroy us”.

Asked yesterday by his barrister, Stuart Lawson-Roger, QC, if he had intended to stir up racial hatred, he said that he had not. The meetings were not open to the public, and it had been ensured that only BNP members and supporters were there. He said: “The people admitted to the meetings are like-minded people. They already have that viewpoint.”

Mr Collett, from Rothley, Leicestershire, said that the aim was to convince supporters that they could achieve their aims by lawful means, without violence. He ended one speech by saying: “If you want these people out, if you want to stop the asylum-seekers coming in, vote BNP and help us to win.

“This is our big chance and if you don’t grasp it there might not be enough white people to grasp it the next time it comes around . . . so let’s show these ethnics the door in 2004.”

The case, a retrial, continues.

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