1999 London nail bombings

X-rays from Great Ormond Street Hospital show a nail from the Brixton bomb embedded in an infant's brain.

The first bombing, on Saturday, 17 April 1999, was in Electric Avenue, Brixton, an area of south London with a large black population. The bomb was made using explosives from fireworks, taped inside a sports bag, primed and left at Brixton Market. The Brixton Market traders became suspicious, and one of them, Gary Shilling, moved the bag to a less crowded area after seeing perpetrator Copeland acting suspiciously. Two further moves of the bomb occurred by unconvinced traders, including the bomb being removed from the bag, which is when it ended up next to the Iceland supermarket. Concerned traders called the police, who arrived at the scene just as the bomb detonated at 5:25 pm. Forty-eight people were injured, many of them seriously because of the 4-inch (100 mm) nails that were packed around the bomb. The explosion was strong, sending nails in all directions, blowing windows and blasting a parked car across the street.[2]

The second bomb, on the following Saturday, 24 April, was aimed at Brick Lane in the East End of London, which has a large Bangladeshi community. There is a street market on Sundays, but perpetrator Copeland mistakenly tried to plant the bomb on Saturday when the street was less busy. Unwilling to change the timer on the bomb, he instead left it in a black Reebok bag on Hanbury Street. There it was picked up by a man who brought it to the police station on Brick Lane, which was shut. The man had placed it in the boot of his Ford Sierra car which was parked outside number 42 Brick Lane, where it exploded.[3] Thirteen people were injured, and surrounding buildings and cars were severely damaged.[4]

The third and final bomb was planted and detonated on the evening of Friday, 30 April at The Admiral Duncan pub on Old Compton Street in Soho, the heart of London's gay community. At the time the pub and the street outside were crowded because the evening was the start of a bank holiday weekend. The unattended sports bag containing the bomb, which was taped inside, was noticed by patrons of the Admiral Duncan; however, the bomb exploded at 6:37 pm just as the bag was being investigated by the pub manager, Mark Taylor.[5] Three people were killed and a total of seventy-nine were injured, many of them seriously. Four of the survivors had to have limbs amputated.[6]

The 2023 act of remembrance marking the anniversary of the bombing

Copeland joined the far-right British National Party (BNP) 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 party's senior members and was photographed standing next to John Tyndall, the leader of the party at the time. It was during this period that Copeland read The Turner Diaries (1978), and first learned how to make bombs using fireworks with alarm clocks as timers after downloading the Anarchist Cookbook (1971) from the Internet. Copeland left the BNP in 1998, regarding it as insufficiently hardline because it was not willing to engage in paramilitary action,[22] 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.[14]

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 war. 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."[23]

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.[18] 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."[24] Whilst 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.[25] In one letter to "Scanlon", Copeland wrote about how he was completely exaggerating any mental illness issues and was amazed by how many experts were buying into his lies; the letter was included in the trial and greatly damaged his defense team's hopes of getting a manslaughter conviction based on extenuating circumstances.

Copeland's mental state was assessed at Broadmoor Hospital. He was diagnosed by five psychiatrists as having paranoid schizophrenia, while one diagnosed a personality disorder not serious enough to avoid a charge of murder. There was no dispute that he was mentally ill, but the extent of this, and whether he was unable to take responsibility for his actions, became a matter of contention. At the Old Bailey, Copeland's plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility was not accepted by the prosecution or jury.[14]

On 30 June 2000, Copeland was convicted of three counts of murder and planting bombs and given six life sentences.[1] The trial judge doubted that it would ever be safe to release Copeland.[26]

On 2 March 2007, the High Court decided that Copeland should remain in prison for at least fifty years, ruling out his release until 2049 at the earliest, when he would be 73.[22] Copeland appealed; on 28 June 2011, the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.[27]

In June 2014, Copeland attacked a fellow inmate at HM Prison Belmarsh with a shiv, an improvised weapon made from razor blades attached to a toothbrush handle. In October 2015, he pleaded guilty to wounding with intent and was sentenced to a further three years in prison, of which he will serve eighteen months.[28]