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30/06/00 - PANORAMA "THE
NAILBOMBER" Transcript
PANORAMA "THE NAILBOMBER"
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 30:06:00
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McLAGAN
Last year David Copeland caused explosions in Brixton,
Brick Lane and Soho. He killed three people and he terrorised
London. At his trial Copeland admitted he planted the
bombs, but who inspired him to do it? Andrea Dykes and
her husband Julian had been married less than two years.
She was expecting their first child.
PHIL MADDOCK
She was going out and buying baby clothes and all sorts
of stuff. She'd even joined the book club for kiddies
to get the books all ready.
McLAGAN
John Light and Nick Moore were friends of Andrea and Julian.
John was to be godfather to their child. In April last
year they all met up for a drink in Soho. Minutes later
a nail bomb ripped through the building.
COLIN MOORE
Nick and John, all of us were very good friends. I spoke
to my brother every single day. We were like best buddies.
And suddenly that's gone.
McLAGAN
Andrea Dykes, John Light and Nick Moore were all killed.
GARY PARTRIDGE
They were all wonderful people. None of them would think
of harming anybody. It's a terrible waste of life.
McLAGAN
Seven hours later, in a quiet suburban street in Hampshire,
police officers from Scotland Yard's Flying Squad arrived
to visit a suspect. The officers are unarmed. There is
no backup. Their target is not a prime suspect.
(Reconstruction)
We're police officers. Does David Copeland live here?
McLAGAN
But in an upstairs room they find their man. They also
find he has cupboard full of explosives. Taken by surprise
they arrest him and hastily seal the room. The man they
arrested was 22 year old David James Copeland, and tonight
on Panorama you will hear his confession. Copeland is
a neo-nazi and the room where he lived alone was a shrine
to his beliefs. In custody he told the police everything,
making a full and detailed confession of how and why he
began his one man terror campaign. Panorama has obtained
that confession. It was made over many hours and runs
to over 200 pages. Tonight we will hear Copeland's own
account of what he did. The words you hear, spoken by
an actor, are David Copeland's own worlds. But you will
also hear about the men who inspired David Copeland to
do what he did.
It's Saturday, early afternoon, and the young man who
cycled away from this quiet house in Cove, near Farnborough,
could have been off to the local sports centre. But the
bag slung over his back didn't contain his sports kit.
It contained a bomb.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
Murder, mayhem, chaos, damage, to get on the news. It's
a top story really. My main intent was to spread fear,
resentment and hatred throughout this country.
McLAGAN
Leaving his bike chained up at the local railway station,
David Copeland boarded a train for London. He'd spent
the previous evening at home constructing his bomb. In
the morning he'd set the timer and primed it.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
It kept going round, floating round my head, day after
day after day. And then after a while I became that thought,
you know, I was going to do it. I was going to get it
out of my head, and the only way to get rid of it was
to do it.
McLAGAN
At Clapham Junction he got off and jumped into a cab.
His bomb was ticking away remorselessly. But he had plenty
of time. It wasn't set to go off for over an hour. His
target was Brixton. He was filmed on security cameras
as he wandered around deciding where to plant his bomb.
He'd never been to Brixton before. He thought it would
be a predominantly black area but he was surprised.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I always thought Brixton was.. I mean I'd stand out like
a sore thumb. I didn't. It's quite multicultural now.
That surprised me. I thought about it and then I thought..
well.. I'm here now. I'd say one in ten people could have
been white. But I didn't care about hurting them anyway.
If they want to live there, it's up to them.
McLAGAN
He left his bomb outside the Iceland Store by a bus
stop.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I left at about 17.00, about 25 minutes before detonation.
I put it up against a wall at the back. I put it there
to get the people walking by, and the people at the bus
stop.
McLAGAN
Copeland walked away south down Brixton Road. But his
bomb didn't stay where he'd left it. Someone picked it
up and moved it around the corner.
DENIS COSTELLO
A friend of mine who's got a flower stall along the road,
he came along and they got hold of the bag and took it
just along the road here and opened it. John said, "Oh
dear me, there's nails and a clock in it, and they put
it over outside Iceland."
PAUL MASKILL
ICELAND MANAGER
My security guard came in, running around like Corporal
Jones out of Dad's Army saying "Don't panic, don't
panic, there's a bomb outside." At first I thought
he was joking and I didn't take much notice of him. I
got led to where it was and people were saying to me that
that must be a bomb. But my impression of a bomb is like
six sticks of dynamite tied together with an alarm clock
on top.
McLAGAN
The bomb exploded just before 5.30.
MASKILL
It went very dark and I could picture a flash and I could
smell a burning like the after effects of Guy Fawkes night.
I put my hands to my head to kind of like relieve my head
pressure or whatever and I felt a nail sticking out of
my head.
McLAGAN
Dozens were injured when the bomb exploded, flinging over
a thousand nails through the crowded market with the force
of bullets. One of the lasting images of the attack, a
baby with a nail impaled in his head. Miraculously he
survived. Equally miraculously no-one was killed, but
some of the injuries were severe.
MASKILL
I had three nails into my leg. I had one at the end of
my penis. I had one in my bottom, one in my ribs, one
under my arm and one in my head.
McLAGAN
Copeland strolled off, his mission accomplished. He got
a mini cab out of the area. He never claimed responsibility
for the bomb, but its intent was clear.
COMMANDER ALAN FRY
ANTI-TERRORIST BRANCH, METROPOLITAN POLICE
You are naturally drawn to a conclusion that this could
be racial in nature because of the very
symbolic location and the community were firm in their
belief that this was aimed at the black community.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I was prepared to take casualties but, you know, the thought
of killing someone, I don't enjoy the thought. I knew
it could happen. I don't feel sad about it. I was just
like a robot. I just felt nothing.
McLAGAN
David Copeland grew up in Yateley in Hampshire. It was
a very ordinary childhood, though at 9 he refused to go
swimming with another boy because he had darker skin.
His school record was mediocre and he dropped out of a
course at the local technical college. He was always a
bit of a loner and had few girlfriends. At home he felt
he was being teased about his lack of success with women.
He didn't like it when he thought he was being accused
of being gay.
JON COPELAND
BROTHER OF DAVID COPELAND
I think he just had a healthy dislike of gays, like most
of the male gender have, not a hatred, just a dislike.
McLAGAN
And as a teenager he began to earn a certain reputation.
He was labelled 'Mr Angry'.
JON COPELAND
It was only a joke by people in the pub calling him Mr
Angry because he'd sort of walk around the pub a bit drunk
and with a bit of a snarl on his face. But here was nothing
sinister in it. It was just a joke.
McLAGAN
In 1997 he moved to London. With his father he found work
on the huge underground extension to the Jubilee Line,
and soon his workmates were beginning to see signs of
the behaviour which had earned him his nickname.
PAUL MISFUD
I suppose the word that comes to mind is angry. You meet
this young man and you think my God he's angry. He was
so insecure and so full of fear. He was a child. He was
a child. He was a little boy, through the things that
happened and the conversations, you could tell.
McLAGAN
Copeland decided to move out of the family home at Yateley
and live closer to work in London. He lived alone in pokey,
squalid bedsits like this one in Bermondsey, and he began
to change.
JON COPELAND
He was a normal person, a normal teenager, happy, quite
attentive, quite enjoyed his work. Then he went to London
and the gap was.. what.. two years, and came back totally
opposite really, very reclusive, into himself.
McLAGAN
But if Copeland didn't find happiness in London, he found
something else. He came into contact with the British
National Party, for years the main voice of the extreme
right in this country. The man who would later be described
as a loner, acting for his own motives, had found his
spiritual home. Copeland attended BNP meetings in East
London, like this one where he's seen with BNP leader
John Tyndall after a fight with antifascists. For the
first time in his life David Copeland was being noticed.
For almost 40 years Gerry Gable and his magazine Searchlight
have kept a close watch on the extreme right. They monitor
their public activities, but they spy on them as well,
running infiltrators and informants.
GERRY GABLE
SEARCHLIGHT MAGAZINE
Searchlight, as part of our work combating fascism and
racism, has placed people inside far right groups. So
we've got our fingers on the pulse of what's going on.
McLAGAN
One of Searchlights infiltrators in the BNP codenamed
'Arthur' got to know Copeland. He's given Panorama a statement
and we've agreed to conceal his identity.
(Actor's voice)
When I first met Dave in the summer of 1997 he'd just
joined the party. I think he said he'd joined within the
last month. A young lad, very keen to get active, wanted
to make contact so he could know what was going on. Basically
he hated blacks but at the same time he didn't seem very
different from other young men in society. His language
was nothing out of the ordinary - nigger, paki, stuff
like that.
McLAGAN
Arthur, Searchlight's informant, filed regular reports
with Gerry Gable.
GABLE
Copeland's name appeared in a number of these documents.
It put him at a series of BNP meetings in London, it put
him at some street activity in London, and it also put
him at the BNP annual rally where he was an accredited
steward.
McLAGAN
This is the BNP rally where Copeland worked as a security
steward. Here amongst the agitators and race haters of
the British National Party, the ruthless young racist
was finding a role.
(BNP Rally Speaker)
We will fight on, work on, march on and struggle on to
build a country for which they died
and give Britain back to the British people. [Applause]
STEPHEN COPELAND
FATHER OF DAVID COPELAND
David is immature. He hasn't really grown up. He's still
a boy, even though he's 23, and I just believe he was
easily influenced by people, you know, that saw they could
indoctrinate him with their views.
McLAGAN
It was probably while he was in the BNP that Copeland
came across this book, the Turner
Diaries. Police found a copy in Copeland's room when they
arrested him. It's sold through BNP magazines.
MIKE WHINE
BOARD OF DEPUTIES OF BRITISH JEWS
The Turner Diaries posits the idea that small groups of
white revolutionaries should rise up in
insurrection against federal government and should carry
out acts of terrorism against targets
such as federal targets, the Jewish community, the black
community and so on.
McLAGAN
In America the book has already had a profound and deadly
effect. In the 1980s a group calling itself 'The Order',
and modelling itself on a group of the same name in the
Turner Diaries, organised armed robberies and murders
as they tried to imitate the strategy of racial tension
the book described. And when Timothy McVeigh bombed the
government building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killing and
injuring hundreds, he took the idea and the method directly
from the Turner Diaries. When David Copeland was arrested,
he too confessed that he had been influenced by the book.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
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.
McLAGAN
And there was one event that fired Copeland's imagination.
During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, a neo-nazi left a
pipe bomb at Centennial Park.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I had a thought once. It was that Centennial Park bombing.
The Notting Hill Carnival was on at the same time, and
I just thought why, why, why can't someone blow that place
up? That'd be a good'un, you know, that would piss everyone
off.
GRAEME McLAGAN
Copeland was also in contact with nazi Christian groups
in America. He was to claim later that after the Centennial
Park bomb, God gave him a mission in life. For the resourceful
Copeland, constructing simple bombs was never going to
be a problem, and technical advice was easily found. Copeland
knew the information on how to make bombs was available
on the internet. At this Internet Café in Central
London is where he came to get it. This manual goes into
great detail about bomb making. Some of the devices are
fairly sophisticated but others are much simpler, using
materials easily available in high street shops. In the
local shopping centre at Farnborough, security cameras
filmed Copeland as he bought the sports bags, the alarm
clocks and the bits and pieces he'd used to make his appalling
devices. He
also found the explosive materials for his bombs close
at hand at a couple of local shops in Farnborough. There
he bought large quantities of expensive, powerful fireworks.
In his cramped room, Copeland surrounded himself with
nazi paraphernalia and cuttings of massacres and atrocities,
including his own attack on Brixton. With only his pet
rat, Whizzer, for company, he locked himself away and
worked into the night, taking apart his fireworks and
building his bombs.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
The bomb itself was plastic pipe about a foot long. It
was glued at both ends. I put it in a cardboard box and
covered it with nails. They'd smash into windows, stick
into people, maim people and kill people.
McLAGAN
Copeland's second attack was carried out exactly a week
after the Brixton explosion.
COLIN ELSON
Arrived at Sunnbank, a young lad came straight out. He
got in. He hit something against the passenger door. I
leaned over to see what it was, and it was the sports
bag. I said "Steady on mate, mind the paint"
and he apologised, ever so sorry and just put the bag
on the floor. He was relaxed and just seemed another happy-go-lucky
lad on his way out for a night out perhaps, instead of
on his way to London with a bomb.
McLAGAN
Again Copeland travelled to London by train, his bomb
primed and ticking away on his lamp. This time he got
off at Waterloo. Again he was filmed by security cameras,
his bag loaded down with hundreds of nails, was weighing
heavily on his shoulders. Outside the station he looked
for a cab. He was going to Brick Lane.
'RINO'
I didn't like the look of him, mainly because it was a
very hot day, he was overdressed. He had a shirt buttoned
up right to the neck and a baseball cap covering his head.
He wanted to know how long it would take us to get there,
not how much it would cost which I found it rather amusing
because most people would ask how much first rather than
how long it will take. He had a bag with him which he
was holding for dear life, and he didn't move. I mean
he had the money in his hand, like a five pound note what
he paid me with, and it was saturated with sweat. Obviously,
thinking back now, I can understand why.
McLAGAN
But Copeland's plan contained one massive miscalculation.
He'd picked the wrong day.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I presumed there was going to be a market of some sort
up there, but it wasn't. So then I was
in two minds whether to disassemble the device and go,
you know, come back Sunday. Then
I just.. you know, decided. I walked up Brick Lane looking
for somewhere to plant it. It was about an hour to go
before detonation. I didn't want to be seen planting the
device, so I went down Hanbury Street. There was two big
vans and I slipped in between them and walked out, they
masked my escape. It was like an aborted mission you could
call it.
McLAGAN
But just as in Brixton, the bomb was moved. This time
a passer by took it to the local police station a few
hundred yards down Brick Lane, but it was closed. So he
put it in his car outside the Café Naz across the
road, and that was where the bomb remained until it went
off.
MUQIM AHMED
My wife came over to drop my daughter to me as she was
going out shopping. She pulled up here and on the mobile
she asked me to come down here. I passed the bomb car
and came across here to take my daughter from her, and
as I took my daughter from her arms to mine the blast
went off.
EMDAD TALUKDAR
We got a very big blast. Suddenly I heard that I have
lost my hearing. So I just held my ear. I realised that
it's becoming wet and with something warm. So when I saw
this, I saw that blood is coming down from this side.
AHMED
And I saw a big pile of smoke followed by a ball of fire
right in front of my restaurant. There was lots of confusion
in the road. People were running around like headless
chicken, you know.
EMDAD
My friends, relatives, everybody is telling that Emdad
you are really, really lucky enough that Almighty has
saved you.
COMMANDER ALAN FRY
ANTI-TERRORIST BRANCH, METROPOLITAN POLICE
My first words at Brick Lane was that this is a race crime.
It had to be aimed at another vulnerable ethnic community,
that is synonymous with Brick Lane.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
Why attack blacks and Asians? Because I don't like them.
I want them out of this country. I'm a National Socialist
Nazi. I believe in the master race.
McLAGAN
But it was the bomb at Brixton, seven days earlier, which
provided the police with the first real clue about the
bomber's identity. Lambeth Town Hall houses the control
room for many of the security cameras found around Brixton
shopping centre. Tapes from these consoles and others
occupied thousands of hours of police time as officers
scoured them looking for an identifiable picture of the
bomber. From the Brixton tapes a suspect began to emerge.
A blurred indistinct figure who could just be seen, first
with a bag, then without. In America, at the space agency
NASA, the latest computerised techniques were used to
enhance and improve the images. A picture of the bomber
slowly emerged. When the photos were released, Copeland
was in the West End. He'd been preparing for another weekend
bombing.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
Thursday afternoon I went to do a recon, looking over
the place in Soho. I've gone in a few sex shops afterwards,
and I heard on the radio that you had pictures of me saying
that you'd got me. First of all I thought that's it, I'm
caught. So then I got an Evening Standard and it had my
picture in it.
McLAGAN
Copeland knew it was only a matter of time before he was
picked up. But far from being put off from planting anymore
bombs, he made a fateful decision. He decided if he moved
quickly he could still plant one more bomb. But it wouldn't
wait until the weekend. He had to do it the next day.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I've immediately gone straight home. I've packed up all
what I needed into a holdall, got a train to Waterloo.
McLAGAN
Copeland went to Victoria and checked into a hotel. But
meanwhile the photos were beginning to stir memories.
First to contact the police was Rino, the taxi driver
who'd carried Copeland and his bomb from Waterloo to Brick
Lane.
RINO
That's when it clicked because I said to my wife, I said
that's the guy I had in the cab. I said there's no doubt
about it, that's him. Although the pictures weren't great,
you could see it was him, and that's when she told me
go and tell the police, you know.
McLAGAN
The Brixton pictures were bringing results but time was
running out. In his hotel room Copeland spent the evening
fashioning what would be the last of his bombs. His only
concern was planting his final bomb before being caught.
This time his target wasn't racial. This one, he said,
was personal.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I knew that Brixton was a focal point for the black community,
I knew that Brick Lane was a focal point for the Asian
community, I knew that Soho was a focal point for the
gay community. I'm just very homophobic. I've got a thing
about homosexuals. You know, I just hate them. I knew
it would piss everyone off - Mr Blair, Mandelson.
McLAGAN
Next morning he checked out and changed hotels. Then he
shut himself away for the rest of the day with his bomb.
But in Bermondsey at the Jubilee Line extension, the police
photos had sparked a discussion between his workmates
and his father.
PAUL MIFSUD
We went over to the caff, I went up to the counter, and
I glanced down, there was a paper down on the side. I
picked it up. It hit me, the picture, and sent, if you
like, a chill down my spine, you know, something deep,
and it had touched a nerve. There was recognition. I just
walked straight over to Steve. I showed him the picture.
I said look, doesn't that look like Dave. And he looked
at it and he went "Yes, it does a bit, but he hasn't
got a white cap."
STEPHEN COPELAND
FATHER OF DAVID COPELAND
It didn't, to me, appear to be David, and obviously the
fact that they were insinuating that this could be the
person responsible was something that I think your mind
tends to black because you don't want to think it's obviously
anything to do with your own son.
MIFSUD
I got in the car and started driving home. I kept looking
at the picture down there, and then I pulled up and I
bought all the daily papers and I started looking through
them all, and some of the pictures just didn't look him.
I thought yes, that's right, you know, you're being silly,
of course it's not him. Then I'd look at another one and
I'd think it looks like him, it really does. I went in
the garden and saw my wife and I said "If you asked
me what David looked like, I'd have to say like that"
and I showed her the picture. I said, you know, what shall
I do? And she said "Ring the Anti-Terrorist Squad
immediately." I walked straight in and I rang them.
McLAGAN
Now all the Anti-Terrorist branch had hard information
about Copeland's identify. Paul Mifsud gave them his name,
the fact that he lived near Farnborough, and his phone
number. But it was all happening too late to stop him,
because by then Copeland was already in Soho. A security
camera catches him walking up Old Compton Street, his
bomb over his shoulder. His target, which he'd visited
the day before, was a gay pub, the Admiral Duncan.
MARK TAYLOR
MANAGER, ADMIRAL DUNCAN
It was a Friday evening. It was very, very, warm outside.
The double doors were wide open. It was coming up to a
bank holiday weekend. It was a lovely day.
McLAGAN
Andrea Dykes and her husband Julian, expecting their first
child, had just come into the bar. They were with their
friends, Nick Moore, John Light, who had been Julian's
best man, and John's partner Gary Partridge.
GARY PARTRIDGE
PARTNER OF JOHN LIGHT
We were going to see the musical "Mama Mia".
John had recently been asked to be godfather to Julian
and Andrea's forthcoming child, and we were out celebrating
really.
PHIL MADDOCK
FATHER OF ANDREA DYKES
They did everything together, the three of them, inseparable.
They were really good friends.
And John was really pleased to be a godfather.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I got there about ten to six. The bomb was going to go
off at half past six. I put it down in the middle of the
pub, by the bar. I just watched it and made sure no-one
saw it.
PARTRIDGE
Nick went up to the bar to buy the drinks and we were
standing chatting in the middle of the pub, waiting for
the drinks.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
When I was there I see the people I was going to maim
and kill. I don't feel any joy about it. I didn't feel
sad. I didn't feel anything. I left it there and asked
one of the men if there was a bank nearby. He was standing
at the bar with me. He offered to look after the drink
for me. I think he was trying to chat me up.
TAYLOR
Veronica came and said like somebody's left their bag
down there. I went round to look at the
bag, came back again and I said to my assistant manager,
this is not like a joke.
McLAGAN
By then Copeland had made his way out of Soho and was
strolling down to Piccadilly. He mingled with the crowds.
Meanwhile, the tragedy he had planned was unfolding behind
him.
PARTRIDGE
All of a sudden there was a huge explosion. The whole
pub fell into darkness. Debris seemed
to be falling from the ceiling. I just stood there wondering
what on earth had gone wrong.
TAYLOR
Everything was like just jet black. And the smell! The
smell was the worst thing. I was choking and for like
at least 30 seconds I thought I was dead and I was like
speaking to myself in my head.
PARTRIDGE
There was so much carnage about. People were covered in
blood and screaming, and some looked like they had limbs
missing, and it was more like a scene from say Bosnia
than you'd expect to see on a London Street.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
I felt nothing. I don't feel sadness but I don't feel
joy. I did what I had to do. I didn't fantasise about
killing people. I don't get off on that. I fantasise about
the chaos and disruption that that's caused.
PARTRIDGE
When I got to the entrance of the pub, John was being
brought out. They took him out and laid him in the street
and I stayed with him from then on until the ambulances
came. He was conscious all of the time I was with him.
McLAGAN
More than 80 people were injured in the bombing. Four
lost limbs. Many suffered serious burns. And it was at
the Admiral Duncan that Copeland claimed his first lives.
Andrea Dykes and her friend John Light were both killed.
Also dead was John's friend Nick Moore.
COLIN MOORE
I couldn't believe it. He was just lying... This could
not have happened to my brother. You don't want to believe
it. It's just horrific and horrible. Me and my brother
Nick, and John, all of us were very good friends. I spoke
to my brother every single day. We were like best buddies.
And suddenly that's gone.
McLAGAN
Andrea's husband, Julian, was seriously injured in the
bombing. It was to be three weeks before he regained consciousness
to be told he'd lost his wife, his friends, and his unborn
child.
PARTRIDGE
I don't think he'll ever understand the devastation he's
caused, and the impact it's had on so many lives, family
and friends, John, Nick and Andrea. They were all wonderful
people. None of them would think of harming anybody. It's
a terrible waste of life.
McLAGAN
The sense of relief was almost tangible two days after
the Soho bomb when the police were able to announce that
Copeland had been caught.
ALAN FRY
Ladies and gentlemen, in the early hours of Saturday,
1st May, unarmed officers from the Organised Crime Squad,
the Flying Squad, arrested a 22 year old man in Cove,
Hampshire, in connection with the recent bombings in Brixton,
Brick Lane and Old Compton Street.
STEPHEN COPELAND
FATHER OF DAVID COPELAND
There were some pictures and a news report on the teletext
saying that it was someone from
Cove who they'd arrested. It then obviously dawned on
me in a big way that.. you know.. my god! It is David!
McLAGAN
The police were justifiably proud of the way they'd managed
to identify Copeland from the CCTV, but the investigation
had not been plain sailing. The police admitted that the
arresting officers were unarmed, and they admitted that
explosives had been found. They didn't mention that Copeland
had deadly weapons in his room. They'd found a loaded
hunting crossbow, they'd found hunting knives. They found
a gas-powered pistol. The unarmed officers who arrested
him had been in real danger. They weren't treating him
as a major suspect because they didn't know that he had
extremist connections. And at the police news conference,
the carefully chosen words seemed designed to play down
any connection with right wing groups.
DAVID VENESS
The man is not a member of any of the groups which have
made claims of responsibility for the bombing, nor did
he make any of the claims using their name. It is understood
that he was working alone for his own motives.
McLAGAN
You gave the impression that he was not connected to any
extremist groups. Do you still stand by that?
DAVID VENESS
Assistant Commissioner
Metropolitan Police
I think what we have learnt subsequently is that there
were linkages. I think again they appear
to be not of longstanding, or of particular depth. But
I wouldn't dismiss for one moment that he has not had
association with the background, the linkages, of various
rightwing organisations. One wouldn't dismiss that.
McLAGAN
Copeland's name was not on any police database of rightwing
extremists, but should the police have known about him?
Because three months earlier he'd joined another nazi
group, even more extreme than the British National Party.
GERRY GABLE
SEARCHLIGHT MAGAZINE
I think that there was a transitional period for him,
as an impressionable young man, between going from the
BNP to something even more extreme, if you can imagine
that, and I think that transition was the reading of hate
literature, probably seeing hate videos, probably listening
to music that's full of hate lyrics, and deciding that
the BNP, to some extent, in its present form, is a bit
of a paper tiger.
McLAGAN
Copeland found what he was looking for in a much more
openly nazi group - the National Socialist Movement.
MIKE WHINE
BOARD OF DEPUTIES OF BRITISH JEWS
This is a very small but very violent neo-nazi group.
Their whole programme is one of terrorism, even in the
written word or in actual fact against Jews, against blacks
and against Asians.
McLAGAN
This appeared on an NSM run website on the internet.
"A practical guide to Aryan revolution. Racial war.
This means creating tension and terror within ethnic communities
and damaging or destroying their property and their homes
by fire bombs and/or explosive devices. Part of this involves
attacking individuals and killing some of them."
McLAGAN
The NSM was formed when another nazi terror group - Combat
18 - split violently in 1997. C18's leader, Charlie Sargent,
ended up doing life for murder. His brother, Steve Sargent,
from Essex, was one of the hard line nazis who split away
to set up the NSM. When Copeland applied to join the NSM
in January 1999, Sargent was one of those who approved
his membership. But he's not keen to talk about it now.
Mr Sargent, we want to talk to you. Can we talk to you?
We're from Panorma. We'd like to talk about David Copeland
and the National Socialist Movement. The National Socialist
Movement inspired David Copeland to do his bombings. What
have you got to say about that?
McLAGAN
But even more involved with Copeland was the NSM's leader,
Tony Williams. It was Williams who wrote to Copeland to
tell him he had been accepted as a full NSM member.
"It's always a special day for us when a new comrade
has the strength of purpose and the courage to step forward
and join."
McLAGAN
A little later Williams wrote to another activist living
in Basingstoke suggesting Copeland should be visited and
checked out. In February Williams wrote to Copeland again
appointing him unit leader, in charge of the NSM in his
own area.
"Welcome to leadership, responsibility and accountability
to your comrades. Yours ever. Heil Hitler."
McLAGAN
But like Steve Sargent, Williams is not at all keen to
discuss his involvement with Copeland.
Mr Williams, we're from Panorama. We'd like to speak to
you about David Copeland and the National Socialist Movement.
Can you please come to the door.
McLAGAN
He was at home but he refused to talk to us. But despite
all these letters between Copeland and his political leaders,
when his terror campaign began, the police Special Branch
had never heard of David Copeland.
GERRY GABLE
SEARCHLIGHT MAGAZINE
The authorities don't appear to know anything about that
correspondence. Now we all know
that mail gets opened in this country as part of tackling
terrorism and organised crime and international drug dealing.
It's beyond me why a clearly established extremist group,
advocating violence publicly like the NSM is not monitored.
McLAGAN
Shouldn't the intelligence services have been across such
an organisation and known that Copeland was a member?
COMMANDER ALAN FRY
ANTI-TERRORIST BRANCH, METROPOLITAN POLICE
The security services are looking at extreme right wing
groups collectively. They are looking
at those who pose a danger to the security of the state.
We have a group here that had not actually carried out
any violent activity. We have to act within the law within
data protection and I think we sometimes have an expectation
of the tentacles of the Security Service which are far
wider than their actual role, their actual scope and their
ability.
McLAGAN
So now a fatal chemistry was taking place. Copeland, the
loner, deeply insecure about his sexuality, nursing a
loathing of black people and gays, was feeding on a diet
of literature which developed and sharpened his hatred
and his anger. From the Turner Diaries he'd absorbed the
idea of sparking a campaign of terror against the enemies
of his race. That idea was fuelled by the writings of
the NSM whose literature also provided the internet website
address from which Copeland got his instructions in bomb
making.
(Actor's voice - Words from David Copeland's confession)
My aim was political. It was to cause a racial war in
this country. There'd be a backlash from
the ethnic minorities. I'd just be the spark. That's all
I will plan to be, the spark that would set fire to this
country. Chaos, damage, fire, it's okay.
McLAGAN
But the man whose ideas had more influence than most on
Copeland was David Myatt from Worcestershire. The NSM's
first leader, the intellectual who shaped the ideas propelling
Copeland on his road to terrorism. A man who once said
the nazi movement needed people prepared to get their
hands dirty, and perhaps spill some blood.
Mr Myatt, we're from the BBC. We're from Panorama. We
wanted to ask you some questions about the NSM and David
Copeland, the London nailbomber.
DAVID MYATT
I have no comment to make.
McLAGAN
You called for the creation of racial tension and that's
exactly what Copeland did. You inspired Copeland indirectly
to do what he did.
MYATT
I have no comment about anything to do with that.
McLAGAN
But two years ago, when you were head of the NSM, the
NSM was calling for the creation of
racial terror with bombs.
MYATT
I have no comment to make about the past, as I said,
and as...
McLAGAN
Well the fact that you're making no comment, doesn't that
make it clear that you are excepting some responsibility?
MYATT
I have no comment to make about responsibility and anything
to do with that.
McLAGAN
Any guilt?
MYATT
What I feel is between me and God. It is nothing to be
made public. It is a private matter.
McLAGAN
Are you keeping a closer watch now on the extreme right?
DAVID VENESS
ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER
METROPOLITAN POLICE
I hope I've made that clear that that was a commitment
that we recognised was absolutely necessary and needed
to be reinforced during the time of the nail bomb inquiry,
and as a result of listening to the community, understanding
their concerns, and that is a very significant resource
commitment, not only that we made, but we're going to
keep it up.
McLAGAN
Today David Copeland was convicted of three counts of
murder and three of causing explosions. He was given six
life sentences. We now know that in building and planting
his bombs, David Copeland acted alone. But how much do
others share responsibility for what he did?
PHIL MADDOCK
FATHER OF ADNREA DYKES
We have a democratic system and free speech, and whether
you're Conservative, Tory, Liberal, Communist, I haven't
got a problem with that. I have got a problem when these
rightwing fascists going out there actually saying to
people "stamp on a queer" or "kill a black"
or whatever. That to me is abhorrent and it shouldn't
be allowed in any civilised society.
STEPHEN COPELAND
FATHER OF DAVID COPELAND
I don't think David is a rotten, evil swine. I think he's
just been badly advised, badly misled. He's a boy that
hasn't grown up. He hasn't matured. And he's just gone
down the wrong road I'm afraid, and no-one, including
myself, has noticed.
GERRY GABLE
SEARCHLIGHT MAGAZINE
I think you have to look at a young man like Copeland
and think here's a young guy who's done terrible damage
to our society. He's killed. He's done terrible damage
to himself and his family as well. Who at point (a) is
responsible for all of this? Who wrote those terrible
ideas up in that boy's mind? And I think you just go and
see who produces this hate material and you know.
[END] |
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