Dowager guilty of hate charges

The 80-year-old Dowager Lady Birdwood faces a possible prison sentence after being convicted of possessing and distributing an anti-Jewish booklet entitled The Longest Hatred.

A jury at the Old Bailey found Lady Birdwood guilty by a 10-2 majority of two charges of stirring up racial hatred by possessing and distributing 'threatening, abusive and insulting material', but decided she had not deliberately set out to produce such an effect. Lady Birdwood, of west London, will be sentenced on 15 April after reports have been prepared. In October 1991, she was convicted of similar offences and was warned by the trial judge: 'You should know if you continue to break the law you will go to prison.'