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ago, on the evening of 30th April 1999, that the Admiral Duncan in Soho's famous Old Compton Street was the scene of a bomb blast
that killed three people and wounded around 70. The bomb was the third that had been planted by Neo-Nazi David Copeland, who was attempting to stir
up ethnic and homophobic tensions by carrying out a series of bombings.
On this significant anniversary, we remember that horrific event by hearing from Michael Murphy who followed the trial of this racist homophobe at the UK's principal criminal court. | |
CCTV Pictures | After the first bombing in Brixton, when CCTV tapes were analysed, Copeland was clearly seen wearing a white baseball cap loitering outside the local Iceland store. Stills from this tape were published in The London Evening Standard two days before the Soho bombing. It led to LT engineer Paul Mifsud recognising the bomber as David Copeland, a work colleague on the Jubilee Line extension. He called the police with his suspicions, but tragically, his call was received only a matter of an hour before Old Compton Street experienced Copeland's third and final outrage. |
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It was described in court how Copeland had taken this third device to the
Vegas Hotel in Victoria, and then to the Admiral Duncan. "I put it down at about 10
to six, sort of in the middle of the pub. I had a drink and I was in the pub for about 25
minutes," Copeland told detectives.
He calmly walked back to Victoria and watched reports of his handiwork on Channel 4 News. He then checked out of his hotel, took a taxi to Waterloo station then a train to Farnborough, before cycling to his home in Cove. | |
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On the third day of the trial, some of those who were terribly injured in
the Admiral Duncan blast gave evidence to a silent courtroom. Jurors craned their necks to
catch every word from those for whom the horror of that fateful day will be forever etched
on their memories. By sheer coincidence, Copeland had a sudden bout of illness that
Wednesday morning and his counsel requested that he be excused from attending that day's
hearing. Thus Copeland avoided coming face to face with the survivors of his bombing attack.
Victims of the Admiral Duncan bombing at the start of last Easter's bank holiday weekend described the scene of devastation created when the explosion ripped through the low ceiling and narrow beams of the Soho pub, spraying nails across the crowded bar. | |
| Blast victim Julian Dykes told the court how the tragedy robbed him of his pregnant wife Andrea and their unborn child. Others attended court to tell of the moment when razor-sharp nails ripped into them as the jukebox played Robbie Williams' song 'Millennium'. |
Andrea & Julian Dykes |
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David Williams, a drinker in the pub, told how he had chatted to Copeland
at the bar moments before the explosion. He described Copeland as "fidgeting,
twitching, and looking around before leaving the pub to get some money".
Describing the moment when the device went off, Williams said: "It was like being dropped in a swimming pool. I wasn't blown off my feet, I was still standing. I went into auto pilot." John Light's partner, Gary Partridge, said the atmosphere in the pub was happy. In a voice heavy with emotion, he said: "All of a sudden I saw a flashing light... I heard a popping sound, like a champagne cork. I felt my head and covered my face - I didn't really feel any pain." Partridge told the court how an unnatural calm settled over the debris for a few seconds, before people began to shout and scream: "It was very dark and full of smoke and I was aware of things falling on my head. I could smell burning or singed hair," he told the jury. | |
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Continuing his evidence, he remembered how he saw his lover John being dragged out of the smoking ruins
by two men: "At first I thought he had lost a leg, but when I looked again I realised
that was because it was so soaked in blood."
In the hushed courtroom, tapes of Copeland's interviews with police were played to the jury. The court heard Copeland try to explain away his actions when he claimed, in a calm, matter-of-fact way: "I'm totally shot away - I'm just weird!" When pressed by police to explain his hatred of gays, he said: "One, they are a minority. Two, your open groups don't like them anyway. Three, I knew it would piss everybody off, especially Blair and Mandelson and all them lot." | |
| Forensic evidence was then presented which linked fragments found from the three London blasts to materials found by police when they had raided his Hampshire bedsit. They included items and chemicals listed in 'The Terrorists Handbook' that Copeland downloaded from the net, a copy of which had also been found during the raid. |
Admiral Duncan
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The police had also found press cuttings of his victims pasted to the walls of the bedsit. A
full-sized mock-up model of one of Copeland's devastating devices was then shown to the jury.
Michael Wolkind QC rose to begin the case for the defence. He described Copeland to the jury as a paranoid schizophrenic who had conducted his hate campaign against minorities. He told the court that Copeland would not be called to give evidence, instead appealing to the jury to judge him "dispassionately" on the evidence. | |
| The eight men and four women of the jury were told that the first defence witness would be consultant psychiatrist Dr Paul Gilluley, who would say that Copeland suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. | |
| Opening his defence case, Mr Wolkind said rows of victims had sat in the back of court during Copeland's trial "and not a single one need ever forgive him for what he has done. David Copeland has hurt - if not ruined the life of each. It is traditional to tell jurors to set aside emotion." |
Soho Victim
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Mr Wolkind said Copeland was running a hate campaign against minority groups: "He told police in military language he had allowed for casualties. He had sought to cause murder, mayhem and chaos. "Now I have to ask you to consider what each of you owe him," Mr Wolkind told the jury. | |
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"How you must be straining to deliver him justice. On the streets of
Brixton, Brick Lane and round Soho, ordinary people probably have a great idea of the
justice he deserves and the penalty he should receive.
But you are no longer ordinary people chosen by chance to be judges in a notorious case. You are chosen to dispassionately judge the evidence." | |
70 people injured in the bombing |
Copeland had denied he was ill.
"It is the common behaviour of a schizophrenic to deny they are ill," said Mr Wolkind. He said five doctors being called by the defence would say Copeland was a schizophrenic. They, with a sixth doctor being called for the prosecution, all agreed he had an abnormality of the mind. He had told a doctor he would be rescued by God during the trial, that he was a messenger who would be rewarded in the afterlife and who had a persecution complex about his parents. |
| His mental illness did not impair his ability to make bombs, but it was the reason for his behaviour, said Mr Wolkind. "We say of course he was suffering from diminished responsibility. He was turned into a robot, his illness obsessed him." | |