Child terrorism warning after young neo-Nazi guilty of gun attack plot

One in five counter terrorism cases now involves children drawn into extremism, police have warned, saying ‘horrific’ material is accessible to youngsters in ‘a couple of clicks’.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of operations for the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, spoke out about the growing trend as Alfie Coleman, now 21, was found guilty of planning a mass gun attack.

From the age of just 14, Coleman began to trawl the internet for extreme right wing material including a neo-Nazi text which he downloaded on his iPad.

He penned a ‘manifesto’ in a diary and identified potential targets, including the Lord Mayor of London and a mosque.

Authorities first became concerned in the summer of 2023 when Coleman became increasingly active on online extreme right wing groups.

In early September 2023, he arranged to buy a Skorpion automatic weapon, an AK47 rifle and bullets in France, having identified a local mosque as his target – but quickly abandoned the plan.

Instead, MI5’s ‘highly sophisticated operation’ culminated in a Morrisons car park in Stratford, east London, on the morning of September 29, 2023.

That day Coleman, then aged 19, had arranged with an undercover officer to buy a Makarov pistol, five magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition.

Jurors saw dramatic video of Coleman dropping £3,500 in a Land Rover Discovery and picking up a holdall containing the handgun and ammunition from the boot.

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

A search of the home he shared with his parents and sibling revealed the extent of Coleman’s murderous ideology, including idolising Thomas Mair, the extremist who killed MP Jo Cox.

The Old Bailey trial had heard how Coleman was aged just 14 when he first become interested in extreme right-wing material on the open web and was heavily influenced by the manifestos of neo-Nazi mass killers whom he idolised as saints and warriors.

Ms Flanagan said: ‘Unfortunately we are seeing younger and younger individuals getting radicalised online. Now one in five people that we deal with in counter-terrorism is a child.

‘We are seeing more and more referrals to Prevent (the multi-agency programme which aims to stop individuals becoming terrorists) at a younger age. It is a concern for us around young people getting caught into terrorism through the online influence.

‘Alfie was 14 when he first started to look at content online and we had concerns about his behaviour.

‘I think where people are living their lives online they’re getting exposed, and there is an awful lot of horrific material online that is influencing young people.

‘So clearly we are keen to intervene at the earliest opportunity to prevent that ideation and radicalisation happening and turning into a real-world threat.’

The officer was keen to point out that extreme material is not just on the dark web but is easily accessible through a simple online search.

‘I think the perception is that it’s on the dark web and your children aren’t going to be exposed to that, but it’s not, it’s on the open web,’ she said.

‘With a couple of clicks, you can certainly start to see some of that horrific material. And the more you see, obviously with algorithms, the more you’re getting exposed to.

‘It is there available – and available to all our children.’

The accessibility of ‘manifestos’ by the likes of mass killers Anders Breivik, Dylann Roof and Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant remains an ‘ongoing challenge’ for police, Ms Flanagan said.

‘We’ve seen those individuals held as warriors, as people that inspire other attacks.

‘He (Coleman) read their manifestos and then created his own manifesto around carrying out an attack.

‘So it’s clearly concerning that we have got individuals that are influenced online and hold these people in such high regard.’

Ms Flanagan said parents and carers should take ‘basic steps’ and initiate conversations with their children to guard against radicalisation.

She said: ‘One click, two clicks to find material. So it’s about understanding what your children are doing and really trying to be quite intrusive with them around what they’ve been exposed to.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.