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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
National
Tom Place

Dramatic moment Neo-Nazi teen plotting terror attack is arrested in London supermarket car park

This is the moment a young Neo-Nazi teenager was ambushed by police as he walked across a supermarket car park.

Alfie Coleman, 21, was convicted at the Old Bailey on Thursday of preparing for terrorist acts after being snared by MI5 in an undercover sting.

Coleman, from Great Notley in Essex, was just 19 when he was arrested in a Morrisons car park in Stratford, London, on September 29 2023.

He had arranged with an undercover officer to buy a Makarov pistol, five magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition.

Alfie Coleman (Met Police)

During the trial, jurors were shown the dramatic CCTV footage in which Coleman is seen dropping £3,500 in a Land Rover Discovery and picking up a holdall containing the deactivated gun and ammunition.

But before he had gone 30 yards, Coleman, who was still carrying his Tesco employee card, was confronted by armed counter-terrorism police and forced to the ground.

The court heard that Coleman believed in white supremacy and neo-Nazism, and that he compiled a hate list of “race traitors”, including a white female co-worker who was married to a man of mixed Indian and Seychellois heritage.

Alfie Coleman lying on the ground as he is surrounded by armed officers in a Morrisons car park on September 29 2023 (PA)

He also wrote a “manifesto” in a diary, identifying potential targets including Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and a mosque.

Neo-Nazi Alfie Coleman pictured in a skull mask (PA)

Jurors saw notes Coleman wrote in April 2023, outlining a plan to hijack a private plane, including instructions to “save up money” and “watch videos on how to fly planes”, before “once lift-off, hijack plane, kill pilots, and take control”.

Coleman told jurors the document did not reflect his real intent, noting: “It’s me having an intrusive thought and writing it down.”

Notes found in Alfie Coleman's prison cell which was shown to the jury in his trial at the Old Bailey (PA)

Det Chief Supt Helen Flanagan warned that Coleman was an example of a growing trend of children becoming radicalised online and drawn into terrorism.

She said: "Whilst this is rare and shocking, unfortunately we're starting to see this more and more in our casework, so this is not unique."

Coleman was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing at the Old Bailey on July 8.

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