Joshua Bonehill

Joshua Bonehill-Paine (born 7 December 1992), also known as Joshua Bonehill and by the pseudonym Crewkerne Man, is an English political satirist and Conservative Party politician, and a former neo-Nazi, internet troll, and convicted criminal. He created the YouTube channel The Crewkerne Gazette in March 2025, which publishes AI-generated videos. He was imprisoned in 2015, but in 2018, following his release, said that he had abandoned his far-right views while in prison, and started delivering counter-extremism lectures.

In 2015 his blog, The Daily Bale ("Britons Against Left-wing Extremism"), published several racist and anti-immigration hoaxes, as well as false accusations against his opponents. He described himself as "a proud anti-semite". Bonehill-Paine's online activity led to criminal charges being brought against him for harassment, antisemitic commentary and hoaxing, including a 2013 online hoax that led to the owners of a Leicester pub receiving death threats, and other false accusations, for which he received a suspended prison sentence. He was described as an "internet troll" by the prosecutor at a 2014 court hearing. He was arrested in June 2015 for inciting racial hatred against Jews, for which he was found guilty in December, receiving a jail sentence of three years and four months. In 2016, he was sentenced to two years in prison for racially-aggravated harassment to be served in addition to his first sentence.

Bonehill-Paine said that he began to question his previous antisemitic views after reading the Bible during his second year in prison. He completed the Home Office-accredited Healthy Identity Intervention Programme while in custody and passed the government's Prevent deradicalisation programme. He was released from prison in May 2018; following his release, he said he had delivered counter-extremism seminars to schools, police and universities focused on challenging antisemitic conspiracy theories. He has been profiled in the press as a prominent figure in the emerging genre of AI-assisted political satire. Bonehill-Paine was publicly revealed as being the real identity of the Crewkerne Man in February 2026; he apologised for his past antisemitism.

In August 2026, Bonehill-Paine was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for the Crewkerne South ward in the 2027 Somerset Council election, although after controversy, he withdrew his candidacy.

Early life Joshua Mark John Bonehill-Paine was born in Yeovil, Somerset. After failing to be selected, on 11 March 2011 he broke into and burgled a police station in Chard, Somerset using his Conservative Party membership card, while drunk. He was discovered by a constable outside the station in the early hours wearing a police uniform, and noted their poor security.

In February 2014, Bonehill-Paine appeared in court in Yeovil on charges of malicious communications on Facebook, relating to comments regarding the UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, in October the previous year. That September, Bonehill-Paine announced that he was in the process of registering a political party in Yeovil, called the National British Resistance party. He described it as having "ambitions to replace the British National Party (BNP) and gain mainstream support", with the intention of contesting elections in a countering violent extremism programme. His selection was criticised by former Labour MP Baroness Berger, whose racial aggravated harassment by Bonehill-Paine in 2016 led to him being convicted and jailed. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch defended his candidacy, saying he had been rehabilitated and that her party "believes in second chances". After some controversy, he withdrew his candidacy on 5 August

Criminal acts, convictions, and imprisonment

Malicious claims on blog Bonehill-Paine's blog, The Daily Bale, ran hoax stories which were repeated as fact on social media, as well as false accusations against his opponents. He described himself as "a proud anti-semite". A story from The Daily Bale went viral in August 2013, falsely reporting that The Globe pub in Leicester had refused to admit members of the armed forces, so as not to offend immigrants. People who had read the story threatened the pub with arson and made death threats to the owners. Bonehill-Paine stated in an interview that his intention was to create "a shocking campaign" that people would "share quickly on social media". Security expert Graham Cluley called the stunt "utterly irresponsible and frankly moronic". In April 2014, Bonehill-Paine was sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work and two years supervision for malicious communications over this incident. A year later, for breaching this community order, magistrates added another 10 hours of unpaid work to the sentence.

In February 2014, a hoax story about a six-year-old girl from Croydon being kidnapped by an Asian child grooming gang was shared on social media. A September 2014 story made false claims about an Asian youth punching a baby and throwing it against a wall, which Bonehill-Paine later said had been written by an English Defence League member and published "without researching the actual article first".

In October 2014, he pleaded guilty to charges of malicious communications and harassment relating to articles on his Daily Bale blog falsely claiming that innocent people were paedophiles, drug dealers or religious zealots. During one hearing, he took issue with being called an "Internet troll" by the prosecutor, Dafydd Paxton. Sentencing was postponed until 12 January 2015 due to other "very serious" investigations involving him, including alleged incitement to racial hatred against a Member of Parliament, and later postponed again until 5 February. The hearing eventually took place on 9 February 2015, when he was given a three-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months, in addition to 80 hours' unpaid work and ten sessions of "education, training and employment". He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a victim surcharge of £80. the "contamination of goods", for publishing an article on his website suggesting that fruit and vegetables from Tesco were infected with Ebola. The offence carries a maximum 10-year sentence. The tweets were made by a hoax account purporting to be from a former UKIP candidate, and UKIP reported the account to the police.

Antisemitic protests In January 2015, Bonehill-Paine called for a "mass protest" in March that year against what he perceived as the "complete Jewification" of Stamford Hill in north London, an area with the UK's largest ultra-orthodox Charedi population,

In February 2015, Bonehill-Paine was arrested by police officers investigating allegations of inciting racial hatred relating to "two visual and written publications on the internet", and released on bail. He was arrested on suspicion of "racially aggravated harassment and malicious communications". in Golders Green, an area of north London with a large Jewish minority, on Saturday 4 July 2015. He stated his intention to destroy Israeli flags by hand and tread upon them (believing that by not burning the flags he could "avoid prosecution") and said he would be burning copies of the Talmud, a Jewish holy book, in a "private ceremony". Posts to Bonehill-Paine's website featured Auschwitz-Birkenau imagery and said that the demonstration would be an "absolute gas". On 25 June, he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police and charged with inciting racial hatred contrary to the Public Order Act 1986. Four days later, he was remanded in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court. He was refused bail at a Southwark Crown Court hearing on 13 July. At the next hearing on 21 September, he pleaded "absolutely not guilty" and was again remanded in custody.

The trial began at Southwark Crown Court on 14 December 2015. Mark Weekes for the prosecution described a poster on Bonehill-Paine's website which he invited visitors to print off to publicise the intended march on 4 July. The poster included an image of Auschwitz and a stereotyped cartoon of a Jewish man being sprayed with weedkiller, under the slogan "Join us on July 4 for what promises to be an absolute gas!" with an SS lightning bolt in the 'O' of Golders Green. Weekes said the poster "trivialises and mocks the death of millions of Jews during the Third Reich" and considered the use of Nazi imagery in reference to an area with a large Jewish population to be "incitement". On 16 December, Bonehill-Paine was convicted of inciting racial hatred against Jews. He was sentenced to three years and four months imprisonment. The Appeal Court upheld the length of Bonehill-Paine's sentence in May 2016. He also spoke of a desire to run for MP of Yeovil, his home constituency, in order to build a "rural utopia" that would "ignite the fire" to spread throughout the country.

Harassment of Luciana Berger In October 2014, Bonehill-Paine was investigated by police over antisemitic comments about the Labour MP Luciana Berger published on his website, after Garron Helm, a member of National Action, was imprisoned for sending antisemitic messages to her.

On 15 February 2015, it was reported that Bonehill-Paine had been arrested on suspicion of having sent antisemitic tweets to Berger. On 14 June 2016, he was charged with the racially or religiously aggravated harassment of Berger between October 2014 and February 2015. At a hearing at the Old Bailey on 19 July 2016, with Bonehill-Paine participating via a video link, he was sent for trial.

The trial began on 5 December 2016. The court heard that Bonehill-Paine had posted five "hateful and insulting" about Berger, holding her responsible for the imprisonment of another far-right activist, whom he considered a comrade. His defence counsel said Bonehill-Paine would not be giving evidence at the trial, but asserted that the defendant in posting his "pathetic, puerile rubbish" was, however, living in a country "where everyone is entitled to a voice".

On 7 December 2016, Bonehill-Paine was convicted of racially-aggravated harassment. The following day, he was imprisoned for two years, this new custodial term to be added to the existing sentence. A criminal behaviour order was imposed to restrict his internet use after his eventual release, including the barring of any attempt to contact Berger and other listed individuals, and the police were authorised to monitor his online activities for five years. He cites comedians Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as inspirations. A later profile in The Spectator said the video had been watched around 11 million times on social media, and credited it with significantly increasing attention on the channel and its use of generative AI for rapid political satire. The video was also referenced in subsequent press coverage discussing similar AI political parody content released by the channel.

The Crewkerne Gazette gained media attention in November 2025 after a rap video about Keir Starmer and Beth Rigby went viral.

In a profile for The Spectator, Max Jeffery described the Crewkerne Man as "the most important political satirist of the moment", crediting the channel's rapid-response format and high view counts with helping its videos break into mainstream attention. Jonathan Baz, writing for The Times of Israel, described the Crewkerne Gazette as being produced by "creative wizards" and as "merciless" in its parodies of leading British political figures.

Bonehill-Paine publicly identified himself as the "Crewkerne Man" in a video published on The Crewkerne Gazette on 10 February 2026, shortly after UK TV Channel 4 News contacted him to say that they intended to report his identity.

Personal life

Bonehill-Paine has three children, all boys, born in 2020, 2021 and 2024.