PANORAMA "THE NAILBOMBER" RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 30:06:00 ............................................................... 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] 1