David Copeland
Encyclopedia
David John Copeland is a former member of the British National Party
and the National Socialist Movement
, who became known as the "London Nail Bomber" after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London's black
, Bangladeshi
and gay communities.
Over three successive weekends between 17 and 30 April, Copeland placed homemade nail bomb
s, each containing up to 1,500 four-inch nails, in holdall
s that he left in public spaces around London. The first bomb was placed outside the Iceland supermarket in Electric Avenue, Brixton
, an area of south London with a large black population. The second was in Brick Lane
in the East End of London
, which has a large Bangladeshi community. The third was inside the Admiral Duncan pub
in Soho
's Old Compton Street
, the heart of London's gay community. The bombs killed three people, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs.
Copeland was diagnosed by five psychiatrists as having paranoid schizophrenia
, while one diagnosed a personality disorder not serious enough to avoid a charge of murder. His plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility
was not accepted by the prosecution or jury. He was convicted of murder on 30 June 2000, and given six concurrent life sentences. In 2007 the High Court ruled that he must serve at least 50 years.
, in the London Borough of Hounslow
, his father an engineer, his mother a housewife. He lived for most of his childhood with his parents and two brothers in Yateley
, Hampshire
, attending Yateley School
, where he obtained seven GCSEs
before leaving in 1992. British journalist Nick Ryan writes that Copeland was a late developer and resented that he was small for his age. His testicles were under-developed and he had only had one girlfriend, using prostitutes when he was older in lieu of a sexual relationship. Ryan writes that, as a teenager, Copeland feared he was gay; when his parents sang along to the Flintstones theme on television—"we'll have a gay old time"—he reportedly believed they were sending him a message. As an older teenager, he began listening to heavy metal bands and earned himself the nickname "Mr. Angry." Ryan writes that the staff at his school have no recollection of him during this period. It was as if he had become invisible.
After his arrest in 1999, he told psychiatrists that he had started having sadistic
dreams when he was about 12, including dreams or fantasies that he had been reincarnated as an SS
officer with access to women as slaves. He left school to a series of failed jobs, reportedly blaming immigrants for the difficult job market. He became involved in petty crime, drinking, and drug abuse. His father was eventually able to get him a job as an engineer's assistant on the London Underground.
, then leader. It was during this period that Copeland read The Turner Diaries
, and first learned how to make bombs using fireworks with alarm clocks as timers, after downloading a so-called terrorists' handbook from the Web. He left the BNP in 1998, regarding it as not hardline enough because it was not willing to engage in paramilitary action, and joined the smaller National Socialist Movement, becoming its regional leader for Hampshire just weeks before the start of his bombing campaign. It was around this time that he visited his family doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants after telling the doctor he felt he was losing his mind.
traders became suspicious, and one of them moved the bag to a less crowded area. It detonated just as the police arrived, at 5:25 in the evening. Fifty people were injured, many of them seriously because of the four-inch nails Copeland had packed around the bomb. One 23-month-old toddler had a nail driven through his skull into his brain (see right).
His second bomb, on the following Saturday, 24 April, was aimed at Brick Lane, the centre of the Bengali
area in the east end of London. There is a famous street market on Sundays, but Copeland mistakenly tried to plant the bomb on Saturday when the street was less busy. Unwilling to change the timer on the bomb, he left it instead in Hanbury Street, where it exploded. Thirteen people were injured, but there were no fatalities.
The third and final bomb was planted and detonated on the evening of Friday, 30 April at the Admiral Duncan pub
in Old Compton Street, the centre of London's gay village
when the pub and street outside were very crowded because the evening was the start of a Bank Holiday weekend. Andrea Dykes, 27, four months pregnant with her first child, died along with her friends and hosts for the evening, Nick Moore, 31, and John Light, 32, who was to be the baby's godfather. Andrea's husband, Julian, was seriously injured. The four friends from Essex had met up in the Admiral Duncan to celebrate Andrea's pregnancy, when the bomb exploded after being taped inside a sports bag and left near the bar. Seventy-nine people were injured, many of them seriously. Four of the survivors had to have limbs amputated.
identified Copeland from CCTV footage of Brixton. The image was given wide publicity on 29 April which caused Copeland to bring forward his bombing of the Admiral Duncan to Friday evening. Paul Mifsud, a work colleague of Copeland, recognised him from the footage and alerted the police about an hour and 20 minutes before the pub bombing. Copeland was arrested that night once the police obtained his address, a rented room in Sunnybank Road, Cove, Hampshire. He admitted carrying out the three bombings as soon as he opened the door to the police, telling them, "Yeah, they were all down to me. I did them on my own." He showed them his room, where two Nazi flags were hanging on a wall, along with a collection of photographs and newspaper stories about bombs.
His mental state was assessed at Broadmoor Hospital
. There was no dispute that he was mentally ill, but the extent of it and whether he was unable to take responsibility for his actions became a matter of contention. Five psychiatrists said he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but prosecutors were not to accept a plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. A sixth psychiatrist said Copeland had a personality disorder but it did not diminish his responsibility. The jury convicted him of three murders and three offences of planting bombs, and he was sentenced to six life sentences on 30 June 2000. The trial judge spoke of his doubt that it would ever be safe to release him. On 2 March 2007, the High Court decided that he should remain in prison for at least 50 years, ruling out his release until 2049 at the age of 73.
. He told police, "My main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country, it was to cause a racial war." He said: "If you've read The Turner Diaries
, you know the year 2000 there'll be the uprising and all that, racial violence on the streets. My aim was political. It was to cause a racial war in this country. There'd be a backlash from the ethnic minorities, then all the white people will go
out and vote BNP."
After his arrest, Copeland wrote to BBC correspondent Graeme McLagan, denying that he had schizophrenia, and telling McLagan that the "Zog," or Zionist Occupation Government
, was pumping him full of drugs in order to sweep him under the carpet. He wrote, "I bomb the blacks, Pakis, degenerates. I would have bombed the Jews as well if I'd got a chance." Ryan writes that Copeland's first idea had been to bomb the Notting Hill Carnival
, after seeing images of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing
. When asked by police why he had targeted ethnic minorities, he replied: "Because I don't like them, I want them out of this country, I believe in the master race." While on remand Copeland also wrote to crime writer Bernard O'Mahoney
, who posed as a woman called Patsy Scanlon in the hope of duping Copeland into confessing. According to The Independent, the letters helped secure a conviction by giving prosecutors evidence about Copeland's state of mind.
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
and the National Socialist Movement
National Socialist Movement (United Kingdom)
The National Socialist Movement was a British neo-Nazi group active during the late 1990s. The group is not connected to the earlier National Socialist Movement of Colin Jordan.-Origins:...
, who became known as the "London Nail Bomber" after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London's black
Black British
Black British is a term used to describe British people of Black African descent, especially those of Afro-Caribbean background. The term has been used from the 1950s to refer to Black people from former British colonies in the West Indies and Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and...
, Bangladeshi
British Bangladeshi
A British Bangladeshi is a person of Bangladeshi origin who resides in the United Kingdom having emigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose parents did so; they are also known as British Bengalis...
and gay communities.
Over three successive weekends between 17 and 30 April, Copeland placed homemade nail bomb
Nail bomb
The nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device packed with nails to increase its wounding ability. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to greater loss of life and injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. The nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon...
s, each containing up to 1,500 four-inch nails, in holdall
Holdall
In American English, a holdall, or gym bag is a large bag made of cloth or leather typically with a rectangular base and a zippered opening at the top...
s that he left in public spaces around London. The first bomb was placed outside the Iceland supermarket in Electric Avenue, Brixton
Brixton
Brixton is a district in the London Borough of Lambeth in south London, England. It is south south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
, an area of south London with a large black population. The second was in Brick Lane
Brick Lane
Brick Lane is a street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It runs from Swanfield Street in the northern part of Bethnal Green, crosses Bethnal Green Road, passes through Spitalfields and is linked to Whitechapel High Street to the south by the short stretch of...
in the East End of London
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
, which has a large Bangladeshi community. The third was inside the Admiral Duncan pub
Admiral Duncan pub
The Admiral Duncan is a pub in Old Compton Street, Soho in the heart of London's gay district. It is named after Admiral Adam Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797.- Bombing :...
in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
's Old Compton Street
Old Compton Street
Old Compton Street runs east-west through Soho, London, England.- History :The street was named after Henry Compton. who raised funds for a local parish church, eventually dedicated as St Anne's Church in 1686...
, the heart of London's gay community. The bombs killed three people, including a pregnant woman, and injured 129, four of whom lost limbs.
Copeland was diagnosed by five psychiatrists as having paranoid schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, while one diagnosed a personality disorder not serious enough to avoid a charge of murder. His plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility
Diminished responsibility in English law
In English law, diminished responsibility is one of the partial defences that reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter if successful . This allows the judge sentencing discretion, e.g. to impose a hospital order under section 37 Mental Health Act 1983 to ensure treatment rather than...
was not accepted by the prosecution or jury. He was convicted of murder on 30 June 2000, and given six concurrent life sentences. In 2007 the High Court ruled that he must serve at least 50 years.
Early life
Copeland was born in IsleworthIsleworth
Isleworth is a small town of Saxon origin sited within the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane. Isleworth's original area of settlement, alongside the Thames, is known as...
, in the London Borough of Hounslow
London Borough of Hounslow
-Political composition:Since the borough was formed it has been controlled by the Labour Party on all but two occasions. In 1968 the Conservatives formed a majority for the first and last time to date until they lost control to Labour in 1971. Labour subsequently lost control of the council in the...
, his father an engineer, his mother a housewife. He lived for most of his childhood with his parents and two brothers in Yateley
Yateley
Yateley is a suburban town and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire. It lies in the north-eastern corner of Hart District Council. It includes the settlements of Frogmore and Darby Green. It had a population of 21,011 according to the 2001 census...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, attending Yateley School
Yateley School
Yateley School is the largest secondary school in North East Hampshire. The school teaches over 1500 students aged 11 – 16, and the attached sixth form college caters for ages 16–18. The school has Arts College status. The school had its latest Ofsted Report in 2010.Yateley School contains three ...
, where he obtained seven GCSEs
General Certificate of Secondary Education
The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills...
before leaving in 1992. British journalist Nick Ryan writes that Copeland was a late developer and resented that he was small for his age. His testicles were under-developed and he had only had one girlfriend, using prostitutes when he was older in lieu of a sexual relationship. Ryan writes that, as a teenager, Copeland feared he was gay; when his parents sang along to the Flintstones theme on television—"we'll have a gay old time"—he reportedly believed they were sending him a message. As an older teenager, he began listening to heavy metal bands and earned himself the nickname "Mr. Angry." Ryan writes that the staff at his school have no recollection of him during this period. It was as if he had become invisible.
After his arrest in 1999, he told psychiatrists that he had started having sadistic
Sadism and masochism
Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
dreams when he was about 12, including dreams or fantasies that he had been reincarnated as an SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
officer with access to women as slaves. He left school to a series of failed jobs, reportedly blaming immigrants for the difficult job market. He became involved in petty crime, drinking, and drug abuse. His father was eventually able to get him a job as an engineer's assistant on the London Underground.
Involvement with the BNP and NSM
He joined the far-right British National Party in May 1997, at the age of 21. He acted as a steward at a BNP meeting, in the course of which he came into contact with the BNP leadership and was photographed standing next to John TyndallJohn Tyndall (politician)
John Hutchyns Tyndall was a British politician who was prominently associated with several fascist/neo-Nazi sects. However, he is best known for leading the National Front in the 1970s and founding the contemporary British National Party in 1982.The most prominent figure in British nationalism...
, then leader. It was during this period that Copeland read The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
, and first learned how to make bombs using fireworks with alarm clocks as timers, after downloading a so-called terrorists' handbook from the Web. He left the BNP in 1998, regarding it as not hardline enough because it was not willing to engage in paramilitary action, and joined the smaller National Socialist Movement, becoming its regional leader for Hampshire just weeks before the start of his bombing campaign. It was around this time that he visited his family doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants after telling the doctor he felt he was losing his mind.
Terrorist attacks
Copeland's first attack, on Saturday, 17 April 1999, was in Electric Avenue, Brixton. He made his bomb using explosives from fireworks, taping it inside a sports bag before priming it and planting it outside an Iceland supermarket. The Brixton MarketBrixton Market
Brixton Market comprises a street market in the centre of Brixton, south London, England, and the adjacent covered market areas in nearby arcades Reliance Arcade, Market Row and Granville Arcade ....
traders became suspicious, and one of them moved the bag to a less crowded area. It detonated just as the police arrived, at 5:25 in the evening. Fifty people were injured, many of them seriously because of the four-inch nails Copeland had packed around the bomb. One 23-month-old toddler had a nail driven through his skull into his brain (see right).
His second bomb, on the following Saturday, 24 April, was aimed at Brick Lane, the centre of the Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
area in the east end of London. There is a famous street market on Sundays, but Copeland mistakenly tried to plant the bomb on Saturday when the street was less busy. Unwilling to change the timer on the bomb, he left it instead in Hanbury Street, where it exploded. Thirteen people were injured, but there were no fatalities.
The third and final bomb was planted and detonated on the evening of Friday, 30 April at the Admiral Duncan pub
Admiral Duncan pub
The Admiral Duncan is a pub in Old Compton Street, Soho in the heart of London's gay district. It is named after Admiral Adam Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797.- Bombing :...
in Old Compton Street, the centre of London's gay village
Gay village
A gay village is an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live or frequent...
when the pub and street outside were very crowded because the evening was the start of a Bank Holiday weekend. Andrea Dykes, 27, four months pregnant with her first child, died along with her friends and hosts for the evening, Nick Moore, 31, and John Light, 32, who was to be the baby's godfather. Andrea's husband, Julian, was seriously injured. The four friends from Essex had met up in the Admiral Duncan to celebrate Andrea's pregnancy, when the bomb exploded after being taped inside a sports bag and left near the bar. Seventy-nine people were injured, many of them seriously. Four of the survivors had to have limbs amputated.
Arrest and conviction
The Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist BranchMetropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch
The Anti-Terrorist Branch was a Specialist Operations branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service, formed to respond to terrorist activities within the capital....
identified Copeland from CCTV footage of Brixton. The image was given wide publicity on 29 April which caused Copeland to bring forward his bombing of the Admiral Duncan to Friday evening. Paul Mifsud, a work colleague of Copeland, recognised him from the footage and alerted the police about an hour and 20 minutes before the pub bombing. Copeland was arrested that night once the police obtained his address, a rented room in Sunnybank Road, Cove, Hampshire. He admitted carrying out the three bombings as soon as he opened the door to the police, telling them, "Yeah, they were all down to me. I did them on my own." He showed them his room, where two Nazi flags were hanging on a wall, along with a collection of photographs and newspaper stories about bombs.
His mental state was assessed at Broadmoor Hospital
Broadmoor Hospital
Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in the Borough of Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, England. It is the best known of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, the other two being Ashworth and Rampton...
. There was no dispute that he was mentally ill, but the extent of it and whether he was unable to take responsibility for his actions became a matter of contention. Five psychiatrists said he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but prosecutors were not to accept a plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. A sixth psychiatrist said Copeland had a personality disorder but it did not diminish his responsibility. The jury convicted him of three murders and three offences of planting bombs, and he was sentenced to six life sentences on 30 June 2000. The trial judge spoke of his doubt that it would ever be safe to release him. On 2 March 2007, the High Court decided that he should remain in prison for at least 50 years, ruling out his release until 2049 at the age of 73.
Motivation
Copeland maintained he had worked alone and had not discussed his plans with anyone. During police interviews, he admitted holding neo-Nazi views, and talked of his desire to spread fear and trigger a race warRace war
Race war is a term referring to developing hostilities between ethnic groups divided on the basis of racial group or skin color. The term may refer to specific violent acts or to general overt or covert hostilities between ethnic groups; compare ethnic conflict.-Manson:The murders perpetrated by...
. He told police, "My main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country, it was to cause a racial war." He said: "If you've read The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
, you know the year 2000 there'll be the uprising and all that, racial violence on the streets. My aim was political. It was to cause a racial war in this country. There'd be a backlash from the ethnic minorities, then all the white people will go
out and vote BNP."
After his arrest, Copeland wrote to BBC correspondent Graeme McLagan, denying that he had schizophrenia, and telling McLagan that the "Zog," or Zionist Occupation Government
Zionist Occupation Government
Zionist Occupation Government or Zionist Occupied Government is an antisemitic conspiracy theory which holds that Jews secretly control a given country, while the formal government is a puppet regime....
, was pumping him full of drugs in order to sweep him under the carpet. He wrote, "I bomb the blacks, Pakis, degenerates. I would have bombed the Jews as well if I'd got a chance." Ryan writes that Copeland's first idea had been to bomb the Notting Hill Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival
The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event which since 1964 has taken place on the streets of Notting Hill, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea , London, UK each August, over two days...
, after seeing images of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing
Centennial Olympic Park bombing
The Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a terrorist bombing on July 27, 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States during the 1996 Summer Olympics, the first of four committed by Eric Robert Rudolph...
. When asked by police why he had targeted ethnic minorities, he replied: "Because I don't like them, I want them out of this country, I believe in the master race." While on remand Copeland also wrote to crime writer Bernard O'Mahoney
Bernard O'Mahoney
Patrick Bernard O'Mahoney is an English-born crime author of Irish descent. Along with his book writing activities he is known for forming relationships with prisioners with a significant media interest and selling information gained in the course of the relationship to the press.-Personal...
, who posed as a woman called Patsy Scanlon in the hope of duping Copeland into confessing. According to The Independent, the letters helped secure a conviction by giving prosecutors evidence about Copeland's state of mind.
See also
- The First DominoThe First DominoThe First Domino is a fictional English play about a terrorist bomber, written by Jonathan Cash, who was injured in the 1999 bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, London....
, a 2009 play written by one victim of the Brixton bomb - Combat 18Combat 18Combat 18 is a violent neo-Nazi organisation associated with Blood and Honour. It originated in the United Kingdom, but has since spread to other countries. Members of Combat 18 have been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members...
- David Myatt
- HomophobiaHomophobiaHomophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
- White supremacyWhite supremacyWhite supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
- XenophobiaXenophobiaXenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
Further reading
- "Nailbomber 'followed Nazism'", BBC, 15 June 2000.
- "Life sentence for London nailbomber", The Job, London Metropolitan Police, 30 June 2000.
- "Admiral Compton Bomber", Rainbow Network, 21 July 2000.
- "Operation Marathon", London Metropolitan Police website, including photographs of Copeland's bedroom and excerpts of interview transcripts.