Soho bomber to stay in prison for 50 years
A High Court judge has ruled that the Soho nail bomber should not be considered for release for fifty years.
David Copeland, now 30, terrorised London’s minority communities for thirteen days in the spring of 1999.
Bombs in Brixton and Brick Lane caused serious injuries.
The nail bomb he planted in gay pub the Admiral Duncan, in London’s Old Compton Street, killed three people and injured eighty.
Mr Justice Barton ruled today that the original recommendation that he should serve 30 years before being considered for parole was too lenient.
Copeland was 22 when he carried out his 13-day hate campaign.
When he was captured, his lawyers tried to claim he was mentally ill and he was tried on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The judge called Copeland’s case “deliberate, multiple murder” and extended his tariff, the time he will remain in prison, by 20 years.
“A defence was put forward by the defendant of diminished responsibility, which the jury rejected,” the judge said, according to PA.
“It was in any event clear that the defendant suffered from a serious mental condition.
“A consultant psychiatrist from Broadmoor Hospital concluded that he suffered from a serious mental illness, the nature of which is psychotic and the diagnosis schizophrenia.”
After his arrest, Copeland told detectives he was a neo-Nazi and said he wanted to start a race war in Britain.
The first explosion was aimed at London’s black community.
The bomb he detonated in Brixton on a busy Saturday afternoon in April 1999 injured fifty people.
The following Saturday a bomb aimed at London’s Asian community exploded in Brick Lane, injuring 18.
Six days later, he targeted gay people.
He chose the first gay pub from an alphabetical list and on Friday 30th April, his nail bomb ripped through the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho.
Andrea Dykes, 27, who was four months pregnant with her first child, died in the bomb, along with her friends, Nick Moore, 31, and John Light, 32.
They were having a drink in Soho before attending a West End musical.
Mr Light was to be the baby’s godfather. Andrea’s husband, Julian, was seriously injured.
Some of the wounded had limbs amputated.
Copeland’s attack on London’s gay community remains one of the darkest days in the city’s history.