With a satanic bible in the boot of their car and using a tourist guide to pilgrimage sites they selected holy places of worship where they claimed Catholic saints had raised ancient Celtic pagan monuments replacing them with Christian churches and chapels.

They scrawled satanic symbols and inverted crosses on premises they defiled - all in the name of their sect, True Armorik Black Metal.

The Court heard how two of the group all aged in their twenties were members of a Black Metal music group, the words in their songs glorified Hitler as the new anti-Christ and invoked scenes from “The Silence of the Lambs”.

In Court in Quimper the defendants all from western Brittany, denied worshipping Satan and having adulated Hitler and the Nazi Party.

An “orgy of profanity” culminated on the night of 15th June 2007 when the four set fire to the ancient Chapel of the Cross near Loqueffret, a granite Chapel situated in the depths of the Huelgoat Forest. They broke into the Chapel and torched ancient oak pews and closets using petrol from a plastic can.

The following morning only the smoking granite walls of the church remained. On the same night the Court heard they climbed up onto ornate carved granite crosses and swung on them until they crashed to the ground.

Gendarmes chased the four men a week later on the 21st June, the summer solstice, as they were about to commit a further series of attacks on churches and cemeteries.

Calling for prison sentences to be imposed on Anthony Bodivit, 25, Bernard Le Gac, 24, Benoit Hascoet, 23, and Yann Marette, 28, the state prosecutor called them “a gang of vandals inspired by a misguided and hateful philosophy”. The case was adjourned.

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