Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
In April 1999 during a two-week rampage .
22 david copeland embarked on a murderous campaign tom maim and kill on the streets of London
as the clock ticked the the body count rose.
The effect of the explosion ,would be more devastating that the other two attacks.
and with it ,the question why did someone so young wage a killing spree against the capital
when the second device goes off almost exactly a week later, then you do quickly start thinking , is there a link .
because he fundamentally hated anybody who wasn’t him ,he wouldn’t run out of victims to target.
using the killer´s own words
david copeland“…murder .. mayhem .. chaos…damage , to get on the news … it’s a top story really..
London , England
Sprawling’ area covering approximately 670 square miles of southeast England London
is home over 8 million people from all over the globe with a diverse mix of cultures ,religion and wealth , spred throught out a network of districts.
this vibrant city is continuously alive to the hum of its inhabitants.
30 April 1999
But during the afternoon of the 30th of april 1999,the buzz of London’s lively Soho District was about to be silenced.
as another busy week came to an end ,workers had begun to descend on many bars and clubs. the popular area had to offer celebrating the start of the weekend.
it was quite,quite that evening, for a friday night because it was very sunny outside and very warm for the first time that year.
a popular place to unwind was one of Soho’s oldest pubs,
the Admiral Duncan.
it was a very long narrow pub, low ceiling,wood paneling,like a cornish smuggler’s pub down on the coast.
The Admiral Duncan on Old Compton street had been trading since the early 19th century.
In recent years it had become a popular gay bar ,small and intimate.
It was known for its friendly and welcoming atmosphere and would often fill up with drinkers early on a friday afternoon.
There wasquite a few people who were driniking after work,a few people in suits, there was people who were on their way to the theater having a pre- theater drink .
But on this afternoon,the clientel were unaware that only minutes earlier an individual had been drinking amongst them whose intentinon was to cause enourmous harm to to everyone there.
6 :35 pm.
Inside the Admiral Duncan a black bag lay at the feet of those drinink at the bar .it had been placed approximately 20 minutes earlier.
Robbie Williams Millennium ,that had just started,it only lasted for about six or seven bars ,when the bomb exploded.
within a matter of minutes , the upbeat happy atmosphere had been torn apart. replaced by a bloody scene of carnage.
Photographer chris taylor was only street away when the explosion happnened and managed to capture images of the immediate aftermath.
It was pitch black ,there were smoke swelling around,strong smell of sulfur. the bomb nside the black bag had been packed with hundreds of nails ,which had ripped through the small space.
the smoke was so thick you couldn’t even see the street even though i t was sunny outside.
people were shouting and screaming and people asking for help.
One of the first on the scene to attend to the injured was was medic any wapling
there was glass, there ,was rubble , there were people micxed in amongst that debris .
Three people were killed by the explosion,including a women who was four months pregnant at the time . four lost limbs and 70 others were injured
the bomb left to detonate inside the Admiral Duncan pub had been the third explosion in a series of similar blasts across London over the past two weeks.
The devices were all made exactly the same.the explosives ,the nails , the plastic box , the holdall ,the timing mechanism of the clockk ,it’s all exactly the same.
In a hotel room,just a few miles away,the man responsible for building and planting all three bombs turned on the TV
22 year old david copeland watched as the news reported live, on the chaos caused by his devastating spree.
because he fundamentally hateded anybody who wasn’t him, he wouln’d run out of victims target and he would keep going until he got caught .
April 1999
During two weeks in April 1999, London’s emergency services were put to the test , as a ruthless spree killer
sent a wave of terror through the nation’s capital, three massive explosions ,in three different locations,ripped through the streets.
Injuring over a hundred people and tragically killing three others, the devastating bombs were the work of just one man.
22 year old david copeland, but why had someone so young masterminded such a ruthless killing spree , designed to kill and maim spreading fear and panic across London.
copeland:” i knew that people would be hurt , they would be killed… i had to do it …it just wouldn’t leave my mind.. i just had to do it… it was my destiny”
15 May 1976
On the 15th of may 1976 david copeland was born in the west London ,suburb of handworth.
the middle child of three brothers , he was noticeably different from his siblings,being significant smaller than both,causing an early inferiority complex
he wasn’t very outgoing,he wa shy and windrawn sometimes ,so he fet massively inadequate relative to everybody else .
from the age of about 12, he’d begun to have dreams of violence, he apparently dreamed of killing his scholmates , he also dreamed coming back reincarnated as an SS officer and it seems to have been a strain of violence that was running through him
like a sort of submerged river,never quite bubbling to the top, nobody at school had any memory of him at all.it made absolutely no impression on the school or on the staff.
it’s possible safe to say that because he was such a non-descript individual who didn’t stand out in any way to his peers and his teachers,perhaps that’s a sign that he was truly a blank slate.
still small in stature and with few friends to protect him ,copeland remained a shy and reclusive student .marking him out for bullying with no one to confide in his festering inner thoughts remained largely undiscovered.
He was an individual who didn’t explode in erupt that other people could see but he harbored that resentment and anger and that fueled his fantasies into extrem direction thay took.
The 17th of April 1999 11: 00,farnborough hampshire seven hours before the deadly spree began
22 yars old david copeland completeded the final stages in construction of a a four – inch pipe bomb.up to 1500 now has been put in the bomb.turning it into a lethal concotion
police: What did that mean to you, putting nails in the bomb?
copeland:it meant i t would smash windows out .. stick in to people..maim people…kill people.
With a Target in mind and the device fully prepared copeland placed in a black bag and cycled the mile and a half to farnborough station there he boarded the first train to London
15.00 .pm.
having arrived at Clapham Junction Copeland hailed a taxi and headed to his intended target.
the District of Brixton
This is where david copeland first arrived by taxi and after being dropped off,he decides where he’s going to go and he walks off in the area …
…over here.
Brixton market on saturday afternoon is busy , lots of people there , it’s also a main thoroughfare going into central London.
copland spent some time in the area ,looking for the perfect spot in which to plant his deadly weapon . his intention to create maximum carnage . the timer was set for 5:25 pm.
this would mark the beginning of a killing spree that he hoped would spread fear and panic across the city of London.
16:50 pm.
with the bomb armed copeland placed the bag outside a supermarket, as the count down began he left the scene buoyed by the impending devastation that was about to be unleashed
so after copeland had left the device in the bag here , he walks off , the bag is now here for some minutes.
but copeland hadn’t accounted for the inquisitive nature of those walking by the unattended bag. someone came along ,probably not concerned there was anything dangerouse in the bag,but probably hopeful there was something valuable in the bag so they moved it.
They cross over electric avenue, still got the bag, and he puts the bag down here. a number of people saw the bg and investigated it. in fact , at one point someone took the bomb out of the bag and put it down
the lethal weapon was now located amongst some packing materials on the side of the street, so sitting on the pallet now is a plastic box containing explosives,batteries ,clock and large quantity of nails.
It wouldn’t have been clear to those passing by that the mystery package was in fact a live bomb so many of the shoppers and stall holders remained in the area.
17 :25
at 5 : 25 pm . almost 40 minutes after the bag was left outside the store .the bomb exploded.
the nails ripped through the flimsy market stalls ,hitting everyone in the immediate vicinity
There’s a vab , the door of it gets blown partly off of its hinges.
so the explosive itself wasn’t huge ,the fact that there were nails and sharpnel, which goes and travels a great distance at great speed is what does the damage.
The first numbers started,saying that there 30 plus people injured,it went up to maybe 50. allthough no one had been killed 48 were injured in the blast
as police began to assess the aftermath fragments of the device were quickly recovered.
When a bomb goes off it doesn’t destroy itself , so recovered from the scene then was parts of the timing device which to be a club and a chemical tests that was a flash powder consistent with coming from fireworks that you can start building up the picture of how the device was made before it went off.
The bomb itself was clearly desinged to kill and maim as many people as possible , it was not a sophisticated device but you don’t need to have a sophisticated device to kill people.
With little prior knowledge of explosives copeland had taught himself how to build the devices through the internet,using everyday items bought locally .
the black powder was bought from firework shops and in fact on one occasion he had so many fireworks that he had to order a taxi to take him home .
he had experimented to make sure that the bombs would work .
he also set off one of the bombs on a common nearby ,just to see that the thing would work. weeks of planning and preparation had paid off ,the device had the desired effect and for now copeland haad got away with it .
police had no intelligence , no information,detective’s thoughts went straight to “who was it likely to be” detectives biggest fear what it turned out to be a criminal lunatic with no real history in our world ,certainly not in this sort of territory .
several years before planting that horrific first bomb in Brixton market , a teenage david copeland had become increasingly isolated from those around him.at school he failed to form any lasting relationships,prefering to spend his time as an invisible people .left to his own devices,few would ever take any notice of him
at the age of 17 or 18 he was drinking after taking drugs drifting through jobs. he didn’t have a lasting relationships he used prostitutes life by his viewers.
by late 1995
an increasingly isolated copeland was getting out of control his drinking had increased had he started to take a variety of drugs including cocaine ,crack and heroin.
unable to commit copeland drifted from job to job each new job he failed at strengthened a twisted sense of resentment towards the immigrant communities who he believed was stealing the best positions.
copeland: i think perfectly british people have the right to ethnic cleanse…yopu know british peiple didn’t ask these people over…they were brought over for the main reason as sheap labour… and every white man now, and woman ,has to work for cheap labour”
he’s floundering at life while his friends and people who don’t deserve to be as happy as him are clearly doing much better.
18 April 1999
the 18th of April 1999 in the immediate aftermath of the explosion that had ripped through the busy Brixton market,police had begun a massive hunt,to catch whoever had planned and prepared the device.
people were clearly scared but unsure of exactly what this was. the pressure on the service to catch the right person as quickly as possible is hard to describe , it was immense and it was intense.
Electric avenue and Brixton are flooded with police officers who have a questionnaire” were you here , did you see anything ” to try and jog people’s memories. it’s clearly that he’d been around for a bit , he must have been to work out where he was going to place the bomb . he may well have made visits beforehandand police may well have him captured on CCTV.
This borough had one of the best CCTV monitoring systems in London.26 cameras operating on that afternoon in the Brixton area,they set up teams of police officers to go through the CCTV on a 24 hour basis continuously.
throughout the week ,the police investigation crawled forward as specialists officers painstakingly reviewed several hundred hundred hours of recovered CCTV footage
In those days it was physically recovering casette tapes ,rather than relying on computer hard drives, so it’s a big piece of work and a very big investigative line of inquiry eventually a breakthrough was made.
what emerged five days later on the 23rd was a very blurred image, which would eventually prove crucial.
they spotted someone coming out of the tube station, going into a tube station , with a bag ,without a bag.it was an opportunity that clearly could be developed
The captured CCTV image although not conclusive was a major breakthrough for tthe investigation, hopes were high for an imminent arrest and an end to the bloody carnage on London streets.
just two days later those hopes were dashed.
17 April 1999
On the 17th April 1999 at 5:25 PM a bomb explosed,ripping through a busy market in Brixton London,48 were injured but fortunately no one lost their life.
and investigation swung into action and after hours of trawling through recovering CCTV image a blurred image of a potential suspect was discovered.however despite this apparent breakthrough, the perpetrator remained one step ahead of the police and was already planning the second act of his ruthless spree.
the 24th of April 1999 3:10 pm.
farnborough hampshire,just one week after the Brixton bomb . david copeland put his finishing touches to another explosive .
he then embarked on the now familiar 40 – mile journey to the center of London.this time, the target was Brick lane with a largely Asian population this vibrant part of East London is generally packed with people going about their daily lives
the community here at that time mostly it was bengali people ,brick lane is a market , if you like similar to Electric avenue and it would have been full of market traders,it would have been packed with people out doing similar shopping.
16: 00
wearing identical clothes to the day of the Brixton attack copeland arrived in brick lane but immediately realized something was wrong, the normally bustling streets, were unusually quite.
saturday is the quietest day of the whole week , because a lot of the shops don’t open on saturdays. sunday are busy,sunday is the market days.
undeterred by his error and with a bomb set to explode in a matter of hours,copeland decided to go ahead with his plan intent on continuing his spree.
could he have taken the device away and come back aanother day? yeas ,he could have done ,but he decided to leave it armed put it between two vehicles outside of a resturant and just to see what injury or damage it caused.
coupland’s pattern of behavior in planting bombs was simplistic ,he wasn’t interested in anything fancy or show off his abilities,he just wanted to make as many victims as he could.
the bomb had been left in hambury street about two-thirds of the way down brick lane between two vans. and it was in a sports bag
somebody , a man picked it up and wounder what it was. for a second time copeland had not counted on the inquisitive of nature of the General Public.
the guy who found the bag carried it two or three hundred meters to his car ,put it in the boot of his car opened it ,thinking he’d found some tools , looked in and with the publicity and his own belief ,he then thought ” has he got a bomb in a his car.
discovering the police station closed the man left the bag in the boot of his car and and went to alert the authorities
5:54 PM
the sound was so horrendous, so big , for a split seconds people thought it must be an earthquake then they relalized that it was a bomb and could see the bunrt of the car flying up in the air.as with the first bomb,this second device had been packed with nails.
into the numbers of passes by and damage of number of shops,but it had none of the distruptive power that the first bomber had.
you could see the smoke , there was a mistiness a fogginess around the street where the smoke was lingering
there’s confusion in the state , people crying ,shouting , screaming.the nails traveled about at least 100 , 200 feet . you could see the nails ,big nails.
so it wasn’t the level of casualties that we’d seen in Brixton the previous week ,fairly susperficial injuries.
police didn’t know what has happened , nobody knew what really has happened this year why it just happened. nobody knew ,everybody were all frightened everybody were all worried
and it was a real anxiousness about this ,you could feel it , you could sense it, actually everybody were not o ut of the woods , this was a second attempt now , this was somebody very clearly on an agenda.
The secpmd explosion to some extent of course gives you more investigative leads to go on , more witnesses to interview more another forensic scene to recover but it also creates more confusion and mo complexity .
In the space of just seven days,two similar bombs had exploded in two seperate minority communities of London .allthough no one hade been killed another 13 people had been injured in the brick lane blast.bringing the total to 61
Initially the thought was in regards to Electric Avenue , was it Terrorism,was it extremism,was it racism, when the second device goes off almost exactly a week later then you do quickly start thinking is there a link , is there a chain and is there a connection.
that had an attack on black area and now an attack on Asian area, so the assumption had to be that they were dealing with somebody whjo would strike again.
police: so your aim waa more than just to plant bombs and hurt people?
copeland: that’s right my aim was political . it was to cause a racial war in this country….
Two years earlier in the late spring of 1997 david copeland now 20 years old had finally manage to secure a solid job as an engineer’s asistant with the London underground.
the job paid well but the work meant moving from the comfort of his family home in yateley to a shabby basic bed set in the mixed race community of newham.here copeland increasingly racist views boiled over.
He began to take intereest in political groups, he started of with British national party,for the first time copeland finds group of people who are like- minded to him, they share very similar extrerme views and that support groups like-minded individuals with extreme views can be very seductive , it can be a very strong reinforcer.
whilst attending meetings and activities for the BNP copeland became exposed to increasing amounts of far -right literature ,including the terrorist handbook and the Turner diaries
Turner Diaries was an american novel written by a white extremist a supremacist and it told about the main characters and protagonists how they plants bombs and starts race wars and eventually the withe race becomes supreme.
copeland: iam an Nazi ,i admit that . but , i believe what i believe in…
police: what do you believe in son?
copeland: A national socialist state.
police : what’ does that mean?
copeland: well, it means the Aryan domination of the world… the white race is the master race ..
copeland’s abhorrent racist views became increasingly affected by what he read.and the literature served to shape his impressionable mind with ever more radical views .
He was able to develop the know-how to build very rudimentary but effective time.device bombs.
and this he began doing in his bedroom.
by 1998
copeland had become disillusioned and frustrated by the BNP , they were neither active enough for his liking nor were they extreme enough so he went to smaller groups that were more extreme .
copeland very quickly joins another extreme group the national socialist movement and this underground group of right- wing extremists and white supremacists, who believed the action and terrorism wass the way to succeed with their political views.
here copeland is said to have flourished with the like-minded members and before long he had meade inquiries with his superiors at the party about progressing through the ranks.
copeland’s involvement was possibly the first time in his adult life that he’d been successful at something .
on february the 25th 1999
copeland received a letter from NSM.he had been promoted to unite leader for hampshire and wiltshire
so he moved from groups to group becoming more extrerme lesser known but perhaps more dangerous groups ,he still wasn’t satisfied he took the decision to go it alone .
he was essentially a loner although he’d achieved the modicum of success in his views and membership of parties ,he wasn’t naturally a sociable person ,he wasn’t a team player and he felt the need possibly out of a need for security to fall back being alone wolf operative.
just a weeks after receiving his promotion witihn the national socialist movement copeland would embark on his spree planting the first bomb that exploded through Brixton market .he got the bombs alone, he formed his plans alone ,he went out out on it ,he did the damage alone
29 april 1999 .
Thursday the 29 of april scottland yard , london.12 days after the first bomb explodeds at Brixton market , extensive worrk had been continuing on recovered CCTV footage.
the quality is pretty poor and one of the best bits that detectives were slow to identify is on the iceland camera. that records people going into the shop is where we get one of the best shots of the suspect .
on the 29 th of april the best photos available and there were wight in all were released to the media to see if he could be identified by anyone who knew him.
police belive this was their man a lone bomber attacking the minority communities of London but they were still missing motive for the attacks. and were unsure if he was going to strike again.
once could feel the sense of urgency and the pressure detective’s were under to get the right conclusion as quickly as they could .
the concern and the fear was palpable an entirely natural reaction to such an unpredictable and vicious assault on completely innocent group of people simple going about their business. it’s how terror works.
during later interviews,police would get to understand just how warped copeland’s motives really were. by tha st age.
police : your intent was to really to harm as many people as syou can?
copeland:my main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country.
30 April 1999 10 :00.
friday 30th of april 10 .am. the day after police released CCTV images to the media ,david copeland woke in a London hotel room .
having seen his image dominating the headlines and news bulletines, he knew his time was running out and had spent the night hurriedly preparing a third bomb.
he possibly knew from the very firsty bomb that planted that his days of bomb planting would be finite and limited which explains why he tried to do as much as he could ina short time as possible .
meanwhile, the response from the released images had an almost immediate effect and calls came flooding in .
one man a cabbie thought that he’d taken an individual very much like the suspect in the picture to brick lane to waterloo.
so the police gegan to look at CCTV at waterloo to see if there was any sort of match.
the lead proved positive
match was made with the Brixton CCTV footage , in bothe he wore the same clohes and carried a similar distintctive black bag.
late that afternoon police recewived another break .and it’s not until about 5:25 ,that a phone calls comes in,that gives a name to the suspect.
one of david copeland’s workmates looked at the picture and began to think if the bore resemblance and eventually in the late afternoon arount about 5:30 rang the police to tell them that he was concerned about a workmate called david copeland.
It was the first time david copeland’s name had had been linked to the explosions. Unfortunately it was too late.
APRIL 1999
On the 17th of april 1999 ,22 year old david copeland embarked on a vicious spree across London
the nation’s capital was rocked by two massive explosion over a period of just seven days.61 people had been seriously injured .
the police has several suspects identified and the race was on to catch the killer before he struck again.
as teams rushed together what information they could on their potential perpetrator one suspect david copeland. was already standing at the bar of the admiral Duncan in central Soho
copeland : it was full of men , you know what i mean… all hugging up to each other and kissing each other …
police: indicate to me where you left the bomb…
copeland: i went up to get a drink, slipped it off my shoulder and put it on the floor…
Around about 6:10 after standing there for some time , he sad to a man near him
copeland” would you mind looking after my bag, i must get some cash , can you tell me where the nearest cash point is”
he then disappeared and left the pub
on the floor inside the bag the bomb ticked away .Now he decided to attack a gay bar area. it was something he felt quite personally about and he always seems to have had a feeling since his teens that people thought he was gay ,when he wasn’t gay.
He had the clreaest recollection that as a child he watched the flintstones TV cartoon program and the scene june included the words” you’ll all have a gay old time” and he thought that he remembered his parents singing it and they were effectively singing at him as if they thought he was gay.
when he was selecting minority groups to target , maybe he had one reason for black people maybe he had a similar reason for Asian people each of them stealing his work but maybe he had a special reason for gay people this was really personal .In a later interview copeland would atempt to justify his deep-rooted homophobia
police : so, how does the gay people fit in with your political beliefs then?
copeland: cos they´re different you knwo, they´re wrong, thet´re perverted , they’re degenerates…
18:30 the bomb exploded
But this was a particular vicious attack,because it was left in a crowded bar where the effect of the explosion would be even more devastating than the other two attacks.
survivor /Gary :” the explosion didn’t seem to spread out as you expected it to . it almost selected which people to injure, there were people further back than me that were injured and i wasn’t”
74 people were seriously injured in the blast , four would require amputations,
John Light , Nick Moore and newly married Andrea Dykes.
tragically this time the blast was deadly enough to kill three people.
with a group standing close to the bag when it exploded ,andrea dykes was four months prenant at the time with her first child.
By now copeland had returned to his hotel room to watch as the events unfolded on the news .he calmly left boarded a train back to Farnborough and retreated to his room on sunnybank road.
Across the country individual police teams were frantically following up leads on the named individuals fitting the profile of the suspect caught on CCTV.among those onthe list was copeland.
they decided very late that night to send a team of flying squad officers down there.they surrounded the house where he lived in bed set, and what they found was an extraordinary room
decorated with a large swstika .
pictures cuttings from the first two bombs
plastered on the wall.
He almost readily admits that he has been expecting them he’s the bomber working alone and it was as if it was just he was waiting for it to happen.
With copeland under arrest ,durring interrogation, he freely admitted to his crimes
Police : was you aware thet 3 people have died as a result of your device on friday night?
copeland: i feel nothing , i don’t feel sadness but i don’t fell joy …i feel sorry for the women and child . i think the women was pregnant , i feel sorry for her…i don’t feel no guilt for the others …
He wanted to talk ,he told detectives how he made the devices, why he did it and he was driven by this part to known , he believed in this Aryan state and he he was a racist.
copeland’s inention was to start a race was ,Copeland wanted a reaction from the very communities that he was targeting
he thought the minority would rise up,particularly if they made the mistake of thinking that he wasn’t alone that he was part of a bigger group that worst lay ahead.
He said to the police that he didn’t would really mind being arrested and going to trial because it was his little moment of fame . Before copeland could be deemed fit to stand trial, assessments were made on the state of his mental health.
Some believe that he showed very strong florid symptoms of schizophrenia paranoid schizpophrenia other psychiatrists thought there was more evidence there pf long -term personality disorder,paranoid personality disorder which is not a mental illness in the way that we would know it today , so lots of conflicting psychiatric evicence ultimately sit suggested that he was bad rather then mad and that he was going to face the full penalty for his crimes.
The trial to convict copeland of murder and causing explosions began on 5th of june 2000.
On the 30th of june 2000 having lasted only 19 days ,the trial was brought to a close
copeland was convicted of three counts of murder and three of causing explosions, he received six life sentences.
copeland was found guilty of thecrimes he committed insanity was not a defense and he will be detained for at least another 40 years.
Whether he can be rehabilitated and made safe is something completely different. there is nothing wrong with him whatsoever other than he’s a criminal a terrorist and a killer .