A 21-year-old neo-Nazi far-right terrorist was convicted today for plotting violent mass terror attacks, including plans to target a mosque and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Alfie Coleman, 21, from Great Notley, Essex, was found guilty following a retrial after a jury had failed to reach a verdict in a previous trial.
Coleman was found guilty of numerous terrorist acts, including compiling a list of “race traitors” he had intended to target, and trying to buy a Makarov pistol and ammunition in September 2023, which turned out to be an MI5 sting operation.
Police found that Coleman had penned a “manifesto” which included plans to target a mosque and that he was motivated by an “extreme ideology and hatred of people of other races and religions.”
It is thought that Coleman was also intent on targeting London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but mistakenly wrote down the address of London’s Lord Mayor, Dame Susan Langley.
Following his arrest, Coleman was also found to have terrorist manuals, including ones on how to make improvised explosive devices, alongside manifestos from other right-wing extremists such as Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims at a mosque, glorifying him as a “warrior”.
Arrest and police investigation
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Coleman was arrested in September 2023 during an MI5 sting operation which lured him to a car park in Stratford, east London, where he believed he was buying a pistol and ammunition.
He was caught in the act as Coleman dropped £3,500 into a Land Rover and picked up a holdall containing the gun, five magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition from the boot as officers swooped in on him.
The court heard how Coleman was a far-right “militant accelerationist” who was set on fighting a race war. He had become radicalised from as early as age 14, immersing himself in far-right extremist material online.
Commander Helen Flanagan, Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing London, said: “Coleman was an extremely dangerous individual, who was planning a lethal terrorist attack.”
Prosecutors said that Coleman had idolised figures like Adolf Hitler, and officers uncovered a rock with a swastika on a table, a Black Sun flag associated with neo-Nazism on the wall, and various extreme right-wing books.
In a detailed examination of his manifestos, he outlined his plans to carry out attacks and described other far-right neo-Nazi terrorists such as the Christchurch mosque shooter as a “warrior” and a “saint”.
He also wrote down plans for further terrorist attacks such as hijacking a plane and placing explosives in a cash machine, as well as the use of knives and crossbows, the court was told.
According to the investigation, Coleman had also compiled data, including car registrations, of people he believed to be “race traitors”, which included his colleagues and members of the public he had come across at a Tesco he worked at.
He was “seething with hatred” as he created a list of people at work who had “upset” him at the Tesco he worked at in September 2022, prosecutor Nicholas De La Poer KC said.
Sentencing and court proceedings
Coleman told the court that he had suffered from loneliness and mental health problems during the COVID-19 lockdowns, which was when he began to go deeper into far-right extremist ideology.
He had pleaded guilty to possessing 10 documents with information likely to be useful to terrorists, such as texts on weaponry and bomb-making instructions.
Following the verdict, Coleman was remanded in custody to be sentenced on July 8.
Flanagan said that “Coleman was still a child when he started on his pathway to radicalisation, and this is a trend that is sadly becoming more and more prevalent in our casework.”
“It is more important than ever that friends and family are taking an interest in what their children are doing online and if there are any concerns at all, then ACT Early and get in touch with us – before it becomes too late,” she added.
