How an
English extremist with a Hitler tattoo hid in plain sight – and plotted to kill
Callum
Parslow’s extreme beliefs were known to police when he stabbed an Eritrean man,
but what lay behind his journey from bedroom fanaticism to attempted murder
Lizzie
Dearden
Sun 27 Oct
2024 06.00 GMT
When
neo-Nazi terrorist Callum Parslow walked into a countryside hotel on 2 April
and stabbed an asylum seeker in the chest, it was not the first time he had
come to the attention of the police.
The
31-year-old computer programmer was on bail, having been arrested four months
earlier for sending racist and sexual messages to a black female journalist.
The mindset that drove his attack was clear.
When police
searched Parslow’s home in Worcester on 13 December, they found a stockpile of
Nazi memorabilia, including rings and medallions from the Third Reich, two
copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and numerous other far-right books.
The items
were scattered through his bedroom, which had a huge St George’s flag on the
wall, 10 cans of cider on the desk and empty crisp packets and milk cartons on
the floor.
His laptop
and phone contained further indication of his beliefs: countless videos, images
and texts linked to neo-Nazi ideology, alongside evidence of his immersion in
conspiracy theories ranging from white genocide to “exaggerated pandemics”.
But Parslow
remained free, and would tell his eventual trial, which concluded on Friday
after three weeks, that his December 2023 arrest was the moment he started
considering launching an attack.
Last week,
Parslow was found guilty of attempted murder and will be sentenced at a later
date. Reporting restrictions have now been lifted and we are able to tell the
full story of Parslow’s crime for the first time.
Parslow
claimed his plans for an attack were accelerated by an eviction notice he was
handed in February – which he was given for posting what prosecutors called an
“extremely racist” note in his shared flat.
“I was on
bail and I [thought I] was going to prison, and I was going to get evicted, so
I knew I was going to attack someone,” Parslow told Leicester crown court.
“It was only
after the eviction notice that I thought ‘fuck it, I’m going to do something’.
I knew it would be going to attack a migrant at a hotel.”
Shortly
after his arrest in December, Parslow started writing a terrorist manifesto on
the Notes app on his phone. Intended for release after his attack, it read: “My
name is Callum Parslow and I just did my duty to England. They will call me a
terrorist, they will call me an extremist: I am neither. I am but a gardener
tending to the great garden of England. I removed the weeds; I exterminated
the harmful, invasive species.”
The document
railed against Jewish people, Marxists and “globalists” – blaming them for
everything from migration to falling living standards – as well as “queer
indoctrination”, and “[the] demonising [of] masculinity, meat consumption,
Christianity, white people and all European culture”.
The lengthy
tirade ended with Parslow voicing hope that his attack would be the “snowflake
that started the avalanche”, before issuing a call to arms to “fellow
Englishmen” and urging them to “become warriors … become Albion’s vengeance”.
While the
document remained secret, Parslow had made no effort to conceal his ideology –
quite the opposite. He had Hitler’s signature prominently tattooed on his
forearm, chose the X handle “cyberpunk Nazi”, and used an email address
calling himself “Lord Adolf reborn”.
After his
first X account was taken down in February, Parslow set up a new one and paid
for a blue tick that saw his racist posts promoted.
As the weeks
counted down to his attack, he glorified Hitler, posted a selfie performing a
Nazi salute and called Jews and non-whites “animals”, while occasionally
tagging the Home Office and Metropolitan police.
Two days
before he launched his attack, a user on X who had reported Parslow’s posts
received an official response from the social network saying his account had
“not broken our safety policies”, which include praising violence or wishing
harm on people.
During the
same period, Parslow had been making preparations. In December, he paid $1,000
(£770) for a handcrafted knife from America, and days after it arrived he made
online searches including “worst places to get stabbed”, the location of key
arteries, and “are neck wounds always lethal?”.
Parslow then
started researching previous far-right terror attacks in the UK, including the
2016 murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a neo-Nazi and the 2017 Finsbury Park van
attack targeting Muslims.
He had
downloaded the manifesto of white supremacist terrorist Brenton Tarrant, who
massacred Muslim worshippers in New Zealand mosques in 2019, and that of 2011
Norway mass shooter Anders Breivik.
Parslow quit
his job as a computer programmer for a local metals manufacturer in
mid-February, and took out a £10,000 loan and new credit cards to fund a
six-week pilgrimage around the UK.
He travelled
to dozens of towns and cities that he felt had links to white British culture,
visiting cathedrals and historical monuments then returned to Worcester days
before his planned eviction on 3 April.
He planned
to launch his attack on 2 April, and already had a target in mind. Parslow had
become fixated on small boat crossings in the English Channel, believing they
were part of a Jewish-led agenda to “replace” white people in the UK.
He was
following numerous far-right influencers on social media, who were publicising
the locations of hotels used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
One such
hotel was the Pear Tree Inn, in a rural setting seven miles from Parslow’s
flat. Asked why he had chosen it as the target, Parslow told jurors he heard
about it through “multiple avenues”, including a “map on Twitter” and a video
posted online by an anti-migrant activist.
I would get
angry seeing a lot of the articles that were online. It just makes you angry
Callum
Parslow
What Parslow
did not know is that by the time he travelled to the hotel on 2 April, it had
been released from its Home Office contract and all asylum seekers had been
moved elsewhere.
Emanuel
Popa, the hotel manager, described how staff were redecorating and welcoming
a small number of guests as a “soft reopening” on the day. By chance, one
former resident had returned to the Pear Tree Inn to borrow a bicycle from
Popa, with whom he had struck up a friendship.
Nahom Hagos,
a 25-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea, had left the hotel in January after
a year there, and his own bike had been stolen.
Hagos was
eating lunch on his own in the hotel’s conservatory when, shortly before
1.30pm, Parslow walked in. He had concealed his knife in a pocket, and Hagos
initially had no idea he was at risk. “He asked me where the toilets were and
I showed him,” he told the court. “He asked me where I was from … I said ‘I’m
from Eritrea’.”
Thinking
nothing of the brief exchange, Hagos sat down to resume eating, but a minute
later Parslow returned. He immediately pulled out the knife and stabbed Hagos
in the chest and hand, pushing a table towards him and running away.
“He was
trying to kill me, I was calling out,” Hagos said. “I don’t know why he
punished me like this, I don’t know if the Lord was giving me another life.”
Hagos fled
into the hotel’s car park, bleeding profusely and shouting “why brother why,
why did you do this?”, as Parslow followed him at a steady walking pace.
His screams
alerted Popa, who managed to lock the hotel’s front door and tried to shield
Hagos in a bathroom. CCTV showed Parslow trying to open the door before walking
around the hotel in an apparent search for other asylum seekers.
Just six
minutes after his arrival, Parslow left, walking calmly back across the car
park and disappearing.
As he made
his way along a canal tow path, Parslow was in the process of trying to post
his terrorist manifesto on X.
Also tagged
in the unsent post were Tommy Robinson, Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Boris
Johnson, Suella Braverman, Lee Anderson and Nigel Farage.
Parslow, now
32, denied attempted murder and claimed he only intended to wound his victim as
a ploy to be imprisoned before he was evicted.
He
separately admitted two unconnected offences of sending grossly offensive
Instagram and Facebook messages to a black female journalist and “cyber
flashing” the same woman during summer 2023. The case caused reporting
restrictions to be placed on his terror trial, because Parslow originally
denied the offences and was due to go on trial next month.
Throughout
his case, Parslow defended his beliefs, at points appearing to be trying to
convince the jury of supposed evidence behind a vast array of conspiracy
theories.
Parslow said
he “spent a lot of time on the internet”, while working night shifts and having
no social life. “I would get angry seeing a lot of the articles that were
online,” he said. “It just makes you angry.”
West Mercia
police said “bail conditions were in place which were appropriate for the
nature of the offences.”. West Midlands police were contacted for comment.
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