Above people complained the summary I provided assumed people had read the original article. It's difficult to summarise this because there is so much in there. Anyway below is an 860 word attempt at this.
DAVID COPELAND
[NFB, Winter 2000-2001, pages 14 - 37.]
In April 1999, a series of three nail bomb attacks took place in London. On Saturday 17th April, a bomb exploded in Brixton. On 24th April, a second went off in Brick Lane. On Friday 30th, the third attack, on the Admiral Duncan gay pub in Old Compton Street, Soho, killed three people. Over the three attacks, 79 people were also injured. On Saturday 1st May, David Copeland, a 22 year old fascist, was arrested in Cove, Hampshire. On 30th June 2000, Copeland was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attacks.
A number of questions are asked through the three NFB articles - [NFB 3, NFB 5, 2003/04 pages 16 - 19, NFB 6, 2005, pages 43 - 47] Several themes occur:
(1) How soon was Copeland identified as the bomber?
Why did it take 12 days for the Brixton photograph to be released?
(2) When and how did it become known that gays were a known target?
Was Copeland tailed by police and lost?
(3) Did Copeland have accomplices?
Material about his political trajectory through the BNP and NSM.
The possibility of secret state influence or manipulation.
(4) What are the implications of the state / media cover up?
The co-option of the LGBT advisory group.
Searchlight's activities during the bombing campaign and after.
The 261 + club.
CCTV coverage of Copeland's activities, offered at his trial, had a number of gaps, and time-frame discrepancies, which suggest he may have met up with others, or have been followed, particularly in Brick Lane. More significant is the 12 days delay between the Brixton bomb and the release of the picture. Media shuffling with regard to the Brixton picture is also indicative. It was claimed the pictures from the Brixton Iceland supermarket had to be sent to the USA for enhancement, but the picture which brought eventual public identification was from a street camera. The Brixton bombing brought a great deal of police attention down on the district whereas the police were much less interested in the Brick Lane attack.
Warnings the gay community were to be targets were passed from the intelligence community to gays via gays in the military group member Duncan Lustig-Prean, on the 'Digital Diversity' website, 24th April 1999, and via David Northmore in the 'Pink Paper' which went to press 3 days before the third attack. Interestingly, both of these back-tracked afterwards, denying their foreknowledge. Prior to the last attack, police visited just four gay venues, to issue warnings, three of which were in Old Compton Street.
Copeland was at one point, a member of the BNP. He was present on 20th September 1997, when BNP leader John Tyndall was attacked by anti-Fascists in East London. Testimonies differ as to how many BNP meetings Copeland attended. 'Searchlight' made much of his proximity to Tony Lecomber, a BNP member previously jailed for bombing (1985). At the trial it was stated that Copeland downloaded bomb manuals off the internet in April 1997, prior to meeting Lecomber. Other BNP people who may have influenced Copeland are also named.
In late 1998, Copeland joined the NSM (National Socialist Movement, a small Combat 18 splinter-group). One figure associated with this, David Myatt, was said by 'Searchlight' to be the author of the 1993 Yorkshire 'White Wolves' document, urging racial war, and suggesting practical ways of kicking this off. There was no proof that Myatt was indeed the author of this, and it is likely that the 1993 'White Wolves' document was a Kitsonite psy-op by the intelligence agencies. Copeland did not follow the 'White Wolves' paradigm in several significant ways, and there is no evidence that he ever read it, or even knew of its existence. Prior to, and during the bombing campaign, a number of racist stencilled communiques were sent to newspapers and prominent figures, making threats and claiming responsibility, on behalf of the White Wolves, under the codeword 'Nemesis'. A telephone call claiming Brixton on behalf of Combat 18, was made from Well Hall Road, Eltham, on 19th April. Following Copeland's arrest, Tony Williams, NSM fuhrer, hastily disbanded the group.
The media's role in this includes failure to ask important questions, and the suppression of information. Was Copeland being followed immediately prior to the third bomb, and if so, how did the police acquire him? What are the circumstances of him being 'lost' in Broadwick Street? Was he being allowed to run, by the intelligence services, for the cynical reason that 'More Bodies = More Budget'? Another aspect of this is the role of 'Searchlight' in forwarding Copeland's name as a handwritten amendment to a list of 261 names, to the police, 24 hours after the public release of the Brixton photograph. The role of 'Agent Arthur' as a possible catalyst/ provocateur / fiction is also questioned. It was elsewhere claimed Special Branch were monitoring a neo-Nazi cell in Hampshire, but this trail was promptly dropped afterwards. Newspaper reports of a third man being arrested on a train near Woking have yet to be explained. The co-option of the Metropolitan Police LGBT monitoring group, in to a police agenda, is also examined.
Hope this is helpful,
Steve
