Nazi-obsessed terror attacker convicted of attempting to murder asylum seeker
Jurors deliberated for four hours before finding Callum Parslow guilty of trying to kill a man from Eritrea who was visiting a hotel near Worcester.
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A Nazi-obsessed knifeman who stabbed an asylum seeker in the chest at a hotel after writing his own “terrorist manifesto” has been found guilty of attempted murder.
Callum Ulysses Parslow’s trial was told the 32-year-old, who has Adolf Hitler’s signature tattooed on his left forearm, tried to send a post to X before his arrest claiming he “just did my duty to England” by trying to “exterminate” his victim.
The three-week hearing at Leicester Crown Court heard how the white supremacist stabbed Nahom Hagos in the chest and hand at the Pear Tree Inn at Hindlip, Worcestershire, after buying a “specialist” 1,000 US dollars (£770) knife online.
Parslow, who denied attempted murder but admitted wounding, told jurors he made a four-and-a-half-mile journey to the rural hotel on April 2 to stab “one of the Channel migrants” because he was “angry and frustrated” at small boat crossings.
Jurors deliberated for four hours and 18 minutes before finding Parslow guilty of attempted murder on Friday.
The trial was told Parslow ran off towards a canal after the stabbing, where he was spotted with what appeared to be blood on his hands.
The court heard that as police closed in, Parslow attempted to tweet the manifesto document, tagging in Tommy Robinson and prominent politicians including Sir Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman, but the message failed to send because he had copied in too many recipients.
In the document, the jury heard, 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 were responsible for demonising Christianity, white people and European culture.
Prosecutor Tom Storey KC told the trial it was clear the manifesto was intended for publication online as it ended with a list of X handles or tags, which also featured those of Ukip and news outlets including the BBC and GB News.
Laurence Fox, Nick Griffin, Donald Trump, Lee Anderson, Liz Truss, Michael Gove, Lord David Cameron, Richard Tice and Boris Johnson also featured in the list of those who Parslow tried to tag in, the court heard.
Mr Storey said a police search of Parslow’s flat in Bromyard Terrace, Worcester, led to the recovery of 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 decided after the stabbing that it gave rise to the suspicion that it was an act of terrorism and Parslow was interviewed by officers, but answered no comment to questions asked of him.
During the Crown’s opening speech, the jury was told CCTV footage from The Pear Tree Inn showed the defendant’s arrival at the hotel and his attack upon Mr Hagos, who is originally from East Africa.
Blood which contained a DNA profile matching that of 25-year-old Mr Hagos was found on the blade of the knife abandoned by Parslow, whose email address included the phrase “lordadolfreborn”.
Details of the trial could not be reported until a court order was lifted on Friday after Parslow pleaded guilty to an unconnected sexual offence and two charges under the Malicious Communications Act.
Parslow was remanded in custody and will be sentenced by Mr Justice Dove at Woolwich Crown Court on a date to be fixed.
Jurors were told the manifesto found on the former supermarket worker’s mobile phone also stated: “They will call me a terrorist, they will call me an extremist: I am neither.
“Become the White man they say you are. Become Albion’s vengeance. Become Britannia’s wrath.”
Some of the defendant’s tweets also advocated the use of extreme violence against immigrants entering Britain, with one stating: “Open the door with a knife in your hand and shout at them. If they attack you it’s fair game.”
Jurors were told Parslow had Hitler’s signature tattooed on his arm “in order to demonstrate his affiliation to the ideals of the leader of the German Nazi party.”
Explaining the circumstances of the attempted murder to the jury, Mr Storey said: “Mr Hagos (after being asked by Parslow where he was from) told him he was from Eritrea.
“The defendant then produced a knife with which he proceeded to stab and lash out at him, inflicting wounds to his chest and the back of his hand.
“The defendant’s actions that day were carefully planned, and were driven by a particular ideology, specifically an extreme right-wing ideology, which had led him to identify and target his victim on the basis of his ethnicity.”
Mr Hagos was eating a meal in a conservatory when he was attacked and said of his survival: “I still look at it as a miracle. God saved me.”
Opening the case for the Crown at the start of the trial, Mr Storey said: “Over the weeks leading up to this event, the defendant had planned what he was going to do, researching hotels which were being used to house asylum seekers on behalf of the government.”
He had also researched “the worst places to get stabbed” and whether neck wounds were always fatal, the jury heard.
Describing the manifesto which Parslow intended to publicise immediately after the stabbing, Mr Storey said it began “I just did my duty to England” and went on to say “I am but a gardener tending to the great garden of England.”
Mr Storey said: “That duty was – in his own mind – the killing of an asylum seeker – someone who, for whatever reasons, had fled his home country and who was hoping to make a life for himself here.
“The motivation for his attack is said by him to have been a desire to be arrested because he was being evicted from his flat after having lost his employment.”
The CCTV of the stabbing and its aftermath showed Mr Hagos, obviously bleeding and in distress, fleeing onto a car park and being chased by Parslow.
Mr Hagos was able to run back into the main reception area, where the hotel manager locked the front door, preventing Parslow from re-entering the building, although he later re-entered through another door apparently searching for further victims.
The hotel manager and a builder used a van to take Mr Hagos to hospital in Worcester, as they felt he was losing too much blood.
After his arrival at hospital, Mr Hagos was found to have an 8cm-long wound to his left chest, which had not penetrated any of his vital organs.
In his evidence to the court, Parslow claimed 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.
He showed no reaction as he was found guilty of attempted murder, and pleaded guilty minutes later to offences committed in July and August last year, including one of intentional exposure of his genitals in a video he sent from a Facebook account.