By Emeka Blast 
Teen Caught in MI5 Plot After Hailing Gunmen Headed to England
A 19-year-old teenager, Alfie Coleman, was arrested in a dramatic MI5 sting operation after allegedly hailing balaclava-clad gunmen as “coming to England soon” in encrypted online chats, the Old Bailey heard on Wednesday. Coleman, a former Tesco worker, was detained by counter-terrorism police in a Morrisons car park in Stratford, east London, on September 29, 2023, moments after collecting what he believed was a Makarov pistol, five magazines, and 200 rounds of ammunition from a Land Rover Discovery.
The sting, described as a “highly sophisticated operation” by prosecutor Nicholas De La Poer KC, involved an undercover MI5 officer posing as a weapons supplier. Coleman had allegedly engaged in months of online conversations on encrypted platforms like Wire, discussing the Troubles in Northern Ireland and posting an image of an armed, balaclava-wearing man with the caption, “Coming soon here my man.” The prosecution claimed Coleman expressed support for “before too long terrorists, men in balaclavas carrying automatic weapons, would be walking through the streets of England and people would be supportive of it.”
Coleman, now 21, denies preparing acts of terrorism, claiming he does not recall the conversation and that his interest in weaponry was not focused on extreme right-wing ideologies like Nazi Germany or the Second World War. He admitted to possessing a manifesto by Brenton Tarrant, the terrorist who killed 51 people in New Zealand in 2019, and to writing his own “manifesto” of intrusive thoughts, including a slogan, “Save the bees, plant more trees, clean the seas, shoot refugees.” Coleman denied being an “eco-fascist” but acknowledged holding those views at the time, insisting they were private and not meant to be shared.
Video footage shown to jurors captured Coleman, dressed in a black tracksuit with the hood up, leaving £3,500 in cash in the vehicle’s passenger seat footwell and retrieving a holdall from the boot before being confronted by armed officers with stun guns. The Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command led the arrest, highlighting MI5’s growing concern over young people drawn into online extremism, with 13% of terrorism investigations involving those under 18, a threefold increase in recent years.
