Jurors at the Old Bailey were shown dramatic video footage on Thursday of armed police swarming a supermarket car park to arrest a neo-Nazi teenager who believed he was collecting a gun for a terrorist attack.

Alfie Coleman, now 21, was filmed approaching a Land Rover Discovery outside a Morrisons in Stratford, east London, on September 29, 2023. Dressed in a black tracksuit with his hood up, Coleman left £3,500 in cash in the front passenger seat and collected a holdall from the boot containing what he thought was a Makarov pistol, five magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition.

Before Coleman had walked 30 yards from the vehicle, counter-terrorism police officers pointing stun guns confronted him. Shocked shoppers watched as he dropped to his knees and lay flat on the ground before being handcuffed.

“There was much shouting at the young man. More men appeared and took hold of the young man who ended up on the ground,” prosecutor Nicholas De La Poer KC told the court.

Coleman’s arrest was the culmination of what prosecutors described as a “highly sophisticated operation” involving MI5 undercover officers.

For months, the former Tesco worker from Great Notley in Essex had been chatting with people he believed were sympathetic to his extreme right-wing views on encrypted messaging platforms Wire and Telegram, seeking to purchase firearms. Unknown to Coleman, he was communicating with undercover officers who had been monitoring his activities.

Prosecutor De La Poer described Coleman as an “aspiring assassin” who wrote a manifesto “seething with hatred” and compiled detailed notes planning various terrorist scenarios.

Coleman has admitted to having a significant quantity of extreme right-wing material and pleaded guilty to possessing 10 documents containing information useful to terrorists. Among the materials were the Anarchist’s Cookbook version 2000, Knife Fighting Techniques from Folsom Prison and the White Resistance Manual.

He has also pleaded guilty to attempting to possess a prohibited firearm with a barrel less than 30cm in length and 200 rounds of 9mm ammunition without holding a firearms certificate.

The neo-Nazi’s defense team argues that Coleman dismissed the manifesto and online communications as “fantasy” and claimed he wanted weapons because he believed “the breakdown of society was coming” rather than to carry out terrorist attacks.