A young neo-Nazi who idolised the murderer of MP Jo Cox has been sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison for plotting a mass shooting, following an MI5 undercover operation. Alfie Coleman, 22, from Great Notley in Essex, was convicted of preparing for acts of terrorism after a retrial at the Old Bailey. He must serve two-thirds of his term, minus the more than 1,000 days already spent on remand, before being eligible for parole.
Radicalisation and Planning
The court heard that Coleman was just 14 when he began searching for extreme right-wing content online, including a neo-Nazi text downloaded onto his iPad. A former part-time Tesco employee, he compiled a hate list of colleagues and customers, labelling them with racial slurs or branding them 'race traitors'. He drafted a 'manifesto' in a diary and identified potential targets, including the Lord Mayor of London and a local mosque.
Authorities first became alarmed in summer 2023 when Coleman grew increasingly active in online extreme right-wing circles. In early September 2023, he arranged to purchase a Skorpion automatic weapon, an AK47 rifle, and ammunition in France, targeting a nearby mosque before abandoning the plan.
The MI5 Sting
MI5's 'highly sophisticated operation' culminated in a Morrisons car park in Stratford, east London, on 29 September 2023. Coleman, then 19, had arranged to buy a Makarov pistol, five magazines, and 200 rounds of ammunition from an undercover officer. Jurors saw footage of Coleman depositing £3,500 into a Land Rover Discovery and retrieving a holdall containing the handgun and ammunition. As he walked away, armed counter-terrorism officers intercepted and pinned him to the ground.
A search of his family home revealed the extent of his murderous ideology. Officers found a rock bearing a Swastika, a Black Sun flag, extreme right-wing literature, and a collection of knives. They also discovered £2,500 in savings, a bug detector, and evidence of his idolisation of Thomas Mair, the extremist who killed MP Jo Cox in 2016.
Plans and Hatred
Electronic device analysis showed that in July 2021, Coleman had emailed the far-right group Patriotic Alternative, expressing a desire to participate in activism. He wrote down schemes for terrorist attacks, including hijacking an aircraft and targeting the Lord Mayor's residence. Other plans involved placing explosives in cashpoints and using knives and crossbows.
Prosecutor Nicholas De La Poer KC said Coleman was 'seething with hatred' when he compiled a list of work colleagues who had 'upset' him in September 2022. Among them was a white female colleague married to a man of mixed Indian and Seychellois descent. Coleman was 'captivated' by an extreme right-wing publication celebrating public hangings of 'white race traitors'.
Six days before his arrest, Coleman shared an image of a masked man with an automatic weapon, captioned: 'Coming soon here my man.' Two days before collecting the Makarov, he wrote: 'Just something has gotta be done, how long can we sit here and talk over the internet.' That same day, he bought a Gerber Strong Arm knife with a 4.8-inch blade.
Defence and Sentencing
In court, Coleman described loneliness and mental health struggles during Covid-19 lockdowns. He admitted attempting to obtain a firearm and ammunition but denied preparing for a terrorist attack. He had pleaded guilty to possessing 10 documents containing information useful to terrorists, including bomb-making guidance. Probation officers assessed him as 'posing a high risk of serious harm to the public', deeming it unlikely his deeply rooted feelings would change.
In mitigation, Martin Rutherford KC said: 'Alfie Coleman is not a young man without potential... Intelligent, articulate and polite, all of those things apply to him – but the reality is his obsessive personality took a horribly wrong turn back in 2020.' Judge Marks declined to impose a life sentence, citing Coleman's age, immaturity, autistic spectrum disorder traits, anxiety, vulnerability, lack of previous convictions, and the absence of actual physical harm.
Cdr Helen Flanagan, leading counter-terrorism policing in London, commented: 'He lived in a normal family [and had a] normal education. He was like any other child, any other teenager, who was spending a lot of time online behind closed doors. Sadly, living in that world, he was able to radicalise himself and be overexposed to a significant amount of influence in the extreme right wing.'
