Shutterstock/Getty“Ginger extremist” Mark Colborne, who fantasised about assassinating Prince Charles so that fellow redhead Prince Harry could ascend to the throne, has been found guilty of plotting a terrorist attack “for the Aryan people”.
The 37-year-old had likened himself to notorious Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and, according to notes in Colborne’s diary, he actually formulated a plan to assassinate royal heir Charles with a high powered “silent” sniper rifle.
Colborne also bought the ingredients for the deadly poison cyanide over the internet, and stockpiled dust masks, metal filter funnels, plastic syringes and latex gloves.
ReutersAnders Breivik
He was only caught, in June last year, when his half brother uncovered the chemicals and papers detailing his racial hatred stashed in his bedroom at the family home in Southampton.
In his retrial at the Old Bailey, the jury heard that Colborne felt alienated and marginalised for being a white, ginger-haired man and also suffered from agoraphobia and depression.
Prosecutor Annabel Darlow QC said Colborne’s notes expressed hatred for “non-Aryans” who he referred to as “blacks and Caucasian idiots”.
GettyStatue of the Scales of Justice at the Old Bailey, London
In his notebook, Colborne wrote:
I’m looking for major retribution, a mass terrorist attack which will bring to the attention our pain, not just mine but my brothers around the world. I don’t want to be a serial killer. I’m more of an Anders Breivik. I have left potential targets open.
I was waiting for an opportunity to kill one of them. Let it be Prince Charles which would be good. Take up a good position and put a bullet in Charles’s head. He is protected but not too protected. I would sacrifice my life for that one shot. Kill Charles and William and Harry become king. Kill the tyrants.
GettyPrince Charles and Prince Harry
In his defence, Colborne admitted buying the chemicals and writing the diary but dismissed the entries as “angry rants” which he wrote during a period when he was not taking medication for his depression.
Judge John Bevan QC commented that it was a “very strange” case involving a “very strange person”, before he adjourned sentencing until November 3.
