The stabbing of an asylum seeker by a white supremacist was “undoubtedly a terrorist attack”, a judge has said.
Nazi-obsessed Callum Ulysses Parslow, who had Hitler’s signature tattooed on his arm, attacked Nahom Hagos at a hotel in Worcestershire, claiming that he was “doing his duty for England” by trying to “exterminate” him.
The 32-year-old from Worcestershire stabbed the Eritrean refugee in the chest and hand using a £770 knife he had purchased online.
He then attempted to publish his own “terrorist manifesto” on social media, tagging Tommy Robinson, the former EDL leader, as well as prominent politicians including Sir Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman.
Others he tried to tag in the post on X included Laurence Fox, Nick Griffin, Donald Trump, Lee Anderson, Liz Truss, Michael Gove, Lord Cameron, Richard Tice and Boris Johnson.
But the message failed to send because he had copied in too many recipients.
Parslow was convicted of attempted murder following a three-week trial at Leicester Crown Court last year.
Parslow attacked Nahom Hagos at a hotel in Worcestershire – West Midlands Police
Sentencing him to life imprisonment at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday, Mr Justice Dove declared it a terrorist incident and said he would need to serve a minimum of 22 years before he would be eligible to apply for parole.
The judge told him: “You committed a vicious and unprovoked assault on a complete stranger, Nahom Hagos, who suffered devastating injuries as a result of your violence.
“He treated you with courtesy, showing you to the toilets, and after you had established that he was from Eritrea you returned his courtesy with cruel violence, brutally stabbing him in the chest and then continuing the ferocious assault upon him when he tried to defend himself.”
The judge said Parslow, whose email address included the phrase “lordadolfreborn”, had been motivated by a “far-Right neo-Nazi mindset”, which had fuelled his “warped, violent and racist views”.
He added: “This was undoubtedly a terrorist attack.”
The court heard how a search of Parslow’s home had unearthed a second knife in a sheath, an axe, a metal baseball bat, a red armband bearing a swastika, a Nazi-era medallion and copies of Mein Kampf.
Police also found numerous manifestos written by other terrorists from around the world.
The judge said: “In parallel with the terrorists whose books you owned you prepared a manifesto seeking to justify the horrifying violence which you intended to perpetrate.
“The text of the manifesto made plain your intentions. You perceived yourself as exterminating the ‘harmful invasive species’.”
Bodycam footage of the police arresting Parslow – West Midlands Police
In a victim impact statement, Mr Hagos said: “I had been living and pursuing a happy life before the incident. This is now a distant memory.
“I prefer to be on my own. I feel lonely and don’t feel safe on the street. My life has been turned upside down.”
In the statement he also said he struggled to understand why Parslow attacked him, saying: “I was a law-abiding, good person.”
Parslow told jurors during his trial that he made a four-and-a-half-mile journey to the rural hotel on April 2 last year to carry out the attack because he was “angry and frustrated” at small boat crossings.
He insisted that he had intended only to injure his victim’s shoulder after becoming angry that he was due to be evicted, saying: “The reason I chose to do it to one of the Channel migrants was that I was angry and frustrated. They are spending £5.6 billion-a-year housing them.”
He also claimed that the Nazi armband found at his bedsit was part of a fancy dress uniform he was putting together, while his Hitler-related tattoo was an attempt to annoy communist sympathisers.
Police found a red armband bearing a swastika during a search of Parslow’s home – West Midlands Police
In his manifesto document, jurors heard that Parslow railed against what he termed the “evil enemies of nature and of England” who he identified as “the Jews, the Marxists and the Globalists”. He said that they were responsible for demonising Christianity, white people and European culture.
Parslow carried out the attack while he was under investigation for offences of malicious communication and exposure.
Tom Storey KC, prosecuting, said that between July and August 2023, the defendant sent “grossly offensive” messages to a woman who was a prominent TV presenter at the time.
The messages were described by the judge as “sexist, racist and deeply offensive” and were sent from various social media accounts set up by Parslow under fake names.
He also sent her a sexually explicit video.
In a victim impact statement, she said she had lost her sense of security and often wakes up from sleep to check all the windows and doors are closed.
She said: “This incident has scared me as it has made me realise that there are people like the defendant who are not just keyboard warriors but who will go to extreme lengths to hurt people.”
‘Sexually graphic and violent’
Parslow sent messages to 13 different women from Facebook accounts with false names, which were “sexually graphic and extremely violent”.
The defendant was jailed for two years for having a bladed article in a public place, and 18 months each for exposure and the malicious communications offences, to run concurrent with the life sentence.
Bethan David, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division, said: “This attack was carried out to intimidate a section of the public – namely asylum seekers and those providing accommodation to asylum seekers.
“Callum Parslow’s neo-Nazi views motivated him to viciously attack a man based solely on the colour of his skin and the place he was from, and he sought to spread fear amongst a community.
“This was an act of terrorism, and the CPS will always prosecute crimes like this where the legal test is met.”