A CONTROVERSIAL YouTuber running in the MEP elections for UKIP has defended comments about child sex and claimed that others in his party are jealous of his success.

Carl Benjamin from Purton is standing as UKIP’s MEP candidate for the south west and also runs a YouTube channel under the name Sargon of Akkad.

Comments from an interview with another YouTuber called the Justicar are being investigated by police.

During the lengthy YouTube video, Mr Benjamin discussed the Justicar's very early sexual experiences and claimed that the age of consent should be judged on a case by case basis because it depends on the child and some children mature faster than others.

Mr Benjamin told the Adver: “I was having a discussion on the difference between Greek and Roman pederasty with an academic who was a victim of paedophilia.

“There is a certain type of gay man who starts engaging in sexual relationships when they are a young child and think they are the ones initiating it. I don’t agree, of course, but I don’t know how to approach that topic, they are insistent that they are not the victim and it seemed wrong to insist that they have been abused because that would hurt them, so I humour them, I don’t want to hurt anyone.

“Imagine taking a Jimmy Carr or Frankie Boyle joke out of context and then presenting it as a serious statement.

“It was clumsy phrasing but it was obviously not serious, we laughed about it afterwards, I haven’t taken the video down and I stand by everything I said.”

Mr Benjamin hit out at the UKIP member who collected a dossier of his offensive comments, including screenshots of tweets which he claims are fake, and sent it to the Mail on Sunday and Wiltshire Police.

He added: “It’s jealousy from someone who has seen me come into the party and have quite an impact, that’s the source of it all.”

This is far from the first time that Mr Benjamin has hit the headlines over the past fortnight.

First, he came under fire for telling Labour MP Jess Phillips on Twitter that he “wouldn’t even rape her”, then BuzzFeed News posted a three-minute audio clip of him repeatedly using racist and homophobic slurs, including “you are acting like a bunch of ******s. You guys can’t even act like white people, it’s amazing to me” and “Jewish people have got to drop the identity politics. I’m sorry about the Holocaust but I don’t give a ****.”

When questioned about this clip, he told the Adver: “My online community is very porous and there was a group of neo-Nazis who had got in there and were harassing me for months, so I tried to get them out by calling them all those things they call everyone else. I won’t apologise for insulting neo-Nazis.

“The problem is the press, they’ve been openly lying and misrepresenting me.

“The local press has been fairer than most but the national press has been quite gruesome.

“I can imagine that people can see these quotes as emotionally distressing but maybe one day we can ge away from this and actually talk about my political ideas for a change.”

Mr Benjamin previously said that he will “disavow” the Swindon Advertiser, then messaged us after the Mail on Sunday’s article was published.

He said he would be taking legal action over the tabloid’s ‘smears’ and asked for an interview in order to give his side of the story.

Wiltshire Police have confirmed that they are looking into Mr Benjamin’s comments after receiving the dossier.

A spokesman said: “We can confirm we have been given some material in relation to this matter and it is being reviewed.”