| Hateland -
Articles |
30/06/00
- Murderer surfed web for bombs
David Copeland was a man of few talents. Floating between
jobs and without the knowledge or ability to make an
indelible mark on society, he needed help to carry out
his destructive bombing campaign. He did not need to
look far for assistance.
Soon after his arrest it emerged that Copeland had constructed
the crude explosive devices using information from the
Internet. His parents had bought a computer to help
Copeland and his two brothers with their homework as
they grew up, but it had no Internet link.
Copeland gathered the information while visiting an
Internet cafe - it takes only a few minutes to tap into
websites which include details on how to make bombs.
Copeland, along with the notorious Columbine School
killers in Colorado, in the United States, were linked
by learning their expertise online.
The key word "bomb", fed into common search
engines on the Internet brings up a dizzying number
of sites which show how explosive devices can be made.
One site entitled "Bombs to destroy and maim"
is headed with a disclaimer which says: "We are
not responsible for, nor do we assume any liability
for, damages resulting from the use of any information
on this site".
But below that it lists about 400 different subject
areas including "22 ways to kill a person",
"Make your own pipe bomb for that special someone",
and "More GOOD bomb recipes". Copeland's own
bomb-making attempts resulted, according to police,
in "crude and unsophisticated" devices.
He used powder from fireworks or shotgun cartridges,
which are easily available from outlets across the country.
Copeland was understood to have bought large quantities
of fireworks from a shop called Raison Brothers in Farnborough.
The shop declined to comment, but local Tory councillor
Graham Tucker, who lived opposite Copeland, said the
shop had become suspicious at the amount of fireworks
he was buying and tipped off police. The device which
devastated the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho consisted
of the explosive packed into a cardboard container the
size of a shoe box with up to 10lbs of nails and pieces
of metal packed around it.
Copeland used a clock and batteries to make the timer
and detonator, which he put in a plastic box and taped
to the cardboard container, with wires connecting it
to the explosives. Although he joined the ranks of other
notorious bombers, Copeland's methods and motives were
very different to two other high-profile criminals.
Mardi Gra bomber Edgar Pearce set a series of explosive
devices outside branches of Barclays banks and then
Sainsbury supermarkets in an attempt to extort money
from the two major companies. He was jailed for 21 years
last year, when he was caught after taking some of the
money he believed he had extorted out of a cash machine.
In the United States, the so-called Unabomber, former
professor Theodore Kaczynski, eluded American investigators
for 18 years as he mounted a string of terrorist attacks
from a remote mountain hideaway. Kaczynski, who killed
three people with his home-made bombs , which contained
a gruesome shrapnel of razor blades and nails, was jailed
for life.
His motives for his attacks were never clear, but had
sent newspapers a rambling 62-page manuscript in which
he railed against technology, the Government, and major
corporations. Copeland's technique for an explosion
was, like that of the Unabomber, to construct a device
which would spray shards of metal shrapnel across a
wide area when it went off.
Remarkably, his devices failed to kill anyone before
the final blast, in Soho, where he killed a pregnant
woman and two men. Many other casualties lost limbs
in the Soho bombing, and others needed surgery to remove
nails which were embedded in their limbs. In the Brixton
blast, a 23-month-old girl was left with a four-inch
nail stuck in her head.
Even after his arrest, Copeland wanted to use the Internet
as a way of continuing to protest and get his messages
out to the world. While he was being held on remand
at Broadmoor high-security hospital, he spoke to his
father Steve, who had set up his own Internet website
as part of a campaign to win back his gun licence after
it was revoked following his son's arrest.
Steve Copeland wanted to use the website to transmit
"official statements" from him or his son
because that way they "cannot be edited, misconstrued
or misrepresented". On his website, Steve Copeland
said he had written to the Police Complaints Authority
on a "serious matter" about the Metropolitan
Police's anti-terrorist branch.
He also railed against his ex-wife Caroline, saying:
"If it is ever established without doubt that David
was involved in what he is accused of, then she must
accept some of the blame for what has happened to him."
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| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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