A LEADING figure in the "Raise the Colours" movement is due to stand trial accused of making indecent child images.
Ben Cullen, who led the Oxfordshire wing of the hard-right-backed movement, is due to appear before a jury at Reading Crown Court on July 1 having been charged with three counts of the offence.
Court documents say the 45-year-old is accused of making 22 indecent category A photographs, including one moving image, in Wallingford on March 25, 2021.
He is also accused of making indecent pseudo-photographs, namely 36 Category B images of children at the same place and on the same date as well as making 20 Category C images of children.
Cullen, who lives in Wallingford, has been a leading figure behind the Raise the Colours movement, which gained more than 4000 members on its local Facebook social media page but appears to have since been deleted.
The group has been putting up flags across Oxfordshire, from Wallingford to Wantage and from Oxford to Witney.
Motorists will have seen the flags flying from lampposts since last summer. And most of them were put up by the small group of people.
Key figures have said they are motivated by patriotism, but it has received criticism from others.
Earlier this month, Oxfordshire County Council won an injunction against the group and four members including Cullen to stop putting up flags.
Oxfordshire County Council said it brought legal action to stop people raising flags near highways, saying it involved safety risks, as well as trespass and obstruction.
After a short hearing at the High Court where the group represented themselves, the group members agreed not to put up more flags, not to encourage others to do so, and not to obstruct any council worker or contractor taking them down.
Cullen, of Wallingford, is due to appear at Reading Crown Court on July 1.
