A UKIP candidate accused of having Nazi body art has defended his choice of tattoos.

Kevin O’Doherty, of Combermere Road, Hastings, has tattoos depicting a German eagle, a Star of David and war planes.

He told The Argus: “My tattoos tell a story of good and evil. The right side of my body is all good things and the left side is things that represent evil.

“On the right side I’ve got God, a gay hieroglyph, a dove of peace – in fact I think that one looks a bit like the Lib Dem logo. Funny that should be the one I regret a bit now.

“On the left it’s things that represent evil.”

Mr O’Doherty said the Eagle is not the Reichsadler used by the Third Reich. 

He said: “This is not a Reichsadler as there’s no swastika. And these are not German planes they are British planes defending the

Star of David. “I’ve had these tattoos for nine or ten years and I’ve never had a single comment of criticism about them.

“There’s a narrative to them.”

Mr O’Doherty hit the headlines when pictures of him posing naked with his tattoos were published.

He said the pictures had been taken for an art book and they had not been intended to be widely published.

Defending accusations he was a Nazi sympathiser, he added: “I’m not a Nazi. “I’m a gay man in a civil partnership.

“I spent four years at art school studying fashion.

“I’m married to a Belgian man. So I don’t fall into the class of being a Nationalist. “If I was going to be a Nazi I would fail the induction criteria. It’s just an easy answer for some people.

“If you’re going to make the judgement that I’m a Nazi, that’s the sort of thing you’d expect from Putin.”

Mr O’Doherty also claimed that previous comments he made on social media saying “there’s no such thing as a benign Muslim” were not Islamophobic and had been taken out of context.

He said the comments were made in relation to a discussion about faith schools.