This Neo-Nazi was planning an anti-LGBTQ+ shooting. Now he’s paying the price.

A neo-Nazi is facing years in prison after he was found guilty of intending to commit a terrorist act on an LGBTQ+ group in a nearby town.

Alan Edward is a 54-year-old former journalist in the United Kingdom who had a following of over 28,000 people on social media. He was known for glorifying Hitler, mocking the murder of Black Minneapolitan George Floyd, denying the Holocaust, and supporting far-right terrorist groups. He once wrote, “The quickest way to someone’s heart is with a high power 7.62mm round.”

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He also had a document on his computer where he praised Norwegian neo-Nazi mass shooter Anders Breivik, calling him “Saint Anders.” In 2011, Breivik killed 77 people, and detailed his own racist and Islamophobic ideology in a manifesto discovered after his arrest.

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Edward had an “armory of weapons,” consisting of a crossbow, machetes, tomahawks, a catapult, brass knuckles, a stun gun, a baton, a sword, and over 14 knives that were often branded with SS and Nazi insignias, police said. Officers also allegedly found a respirator, air pistol, an SS-style skull mask, pellets, ball bearings, fighting gloves that had hardened knuckles, and hunting tips with crossbows.

He also had an indoor cannabis plantation whose smokeable flowers he had planned on selling.

The court said Edward expressed “a set of ideals with a neo-Nazi outlook, incorporating notions of white supremacy, the notion of racial purity of whites, racism, anti-semitism, and hatred of homosexuals and transgender people.”

However, Edward denied all offenses. Nevertheless, a jury still found him guilty under the Terrorist Act of four offenses, including inviting support for a forbidden organization; possession of weaponry, ammunition and equipment for the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts; and encouraging terrorism and circulating terrorist publications. He was also found guilty of breaching the peace with racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

His plans to attack a nearby LGBTQ+ group in Falkirk were revealed through a series of exchanges he had with someone on WhatsApp. In one text exchange, he wrote, “It’s clearly time to hunt the f****ts down and beat them.”

“They have been pushing their luck for years, now they will pay in blood,” he added. “It’s time to kill [the] tr*nny, there is no place for them in this world…I hate them all I really do… Hunting time is nearly here… We should get masked up and go do a few of them in at their little gay club.”

He had written, “Communists belong in woodchippers,” “Time to fire up the ovens and step on the gas,” and, “Jews are behind it all. We will… send [them] back to hell where they belong”.

Edward also had accounts on the far-right social media site Gab.

Edward was arrested when police surrounded his house back in 2022, after he came to the attention of the authorities for posting a video of the far-right terrorist group National Action at a rally in 2016, shortly before they became designated as a terrorist group. He had posted the video on Juneteenth 2022 as an attack against Black individuals.

During the trial, Edward repeatedly denied any interest in violence, in spite of posts on his Gab account suggesting otherwise. He argued that his armory was actually a collection for “outdoor pursuits,” and that his Black Sun ring represented “life force” and not an homage to fascism.

Judge Fiona Tait deferred his sentence until October 21 at the Edinburgh High Court, suggesting he remain in custody until then. She also called for a lifetime Serious Crime Prevention Order, something meant to ensure the “lifetime management” of individuals who are deemed a threat to society, monitoring every action they make.

Prosecutor Paul Kearney KC said Edward was “a man who with clear neo-Nazi ideals… preparing for an act of terrorism which would include an ideologically-driven incident of serious violence.”

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