Nailing The Nail Bomber (Criminal Investigation Documentary) - Real Stories

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a bomb has exploded in London a number of people are hurt and have been rushed to hospital he wanted people to to associate him as being a mass murderer who the hell is this person who's gone from blacks to Asians to gays Shh I don't feel sadness also I hope you enjoy anything what I just had to do it [Music] this is the story of two terrifying weeks in London when a lone bomber held the city in the grip of terror no one knew where he'd strike next or why hundreds were maimed three people were killed the police manhunt faced an enormous challenge who among London's millions was behind the carnage how could they nail the nail bomber and save lives this is the gripping story of their race against time it's a story of high-tech surveillance and brilliant policing and it begins in April 1999 in a busy London market [Music] started off alright that day like it was it was busy and all freely afternoon it was coming up to packing up time and everyone just wanted to get home I was serving our customers fruit and veg and when I got told that there was a bag underneath the store I had to look into it and it was like a sandwich box with another little sandwich box on top and it was sellotape together and in the top box he had a clock with wires going into the bottom box and then it was a gun clicking lat ticking when I looked the awful that's just flat someone's made it up it may have looked improbable but the mystery package was now generating confusion and concern the security guard come running into the to the entrance of the store and to me he seemed to be running around in circles show net there's a bomb outside it had been three years since London's last terrorists bombed people's defenses were down I walked up to to shower placement my was and that's when he went off it was a big bang and windows on Iceland's one so Sharon and and everyone screaming and a big cloud of smoke just went off in the air lat and it was really bad emergency services arrived on a scene more like Beirut and Brixton and I look down and I see the knowing my father to Porto pooled Anila and let I hold it onto the knowing my hands and as in shotgun got hit with eight nails I got one in my head ear I got one lodged under my arm here I love one in my bottom I got freed there my legs and I got one at the end of my penis [Music] nine of the forty nine victims needed surgery they included a two-year-old boy with a nail lodged in his skull whoever had done this had intended to kill under Detective Chief Inspector Maureen Boyle the Met Police is anti-terrorist branch SL 13 was put an immediate charge of the investigation I was briefed that they've been an explosion caused by a bomb in in Brixton it had gone off around about half past five that evening and that we knew that it was a bomb and that the damage had been extensive and many many people had been injured mostly the damage had been caused by an actual fact flying nails because the bomb had actually contained significant number of nails and they had actually exploded and fired almost like bullets causing damage worryingly there were more questions than answers no warnings no apparent motive no claims of responsibility and yet an attack perfectly calculated to breed terror when this bomb exploded we had absolutely no idea who could be responsible for it or indeed what motives it wasn't what you would consider to be a natural target for potentially international or even Irish terrorism so I was quite surprised bewildered by what it could be in the 30-year war against terror on London's streets there'd be nothing quite like this before no calls no claims no suspects for Maureen Boyle and a team the Bombers silence and whirring signals it is unusual to have no intelligence in relation to a bomb our experience very much based around Irish terrorism and had different factors involved there was usually or often a warning given by the IRA in relation to arable that a bomb had been planted and if one bomb could be planted without warning and so could a second but when where and who was doing this to London the bomb in Brixton had ripped through a busy London market no one had been killed but the hundreds of nails had caused appalling injuries an immediate police manhunt was launched codename operation marathon well we had no crime suspects we were absolutely open-minded as to who could have been responsible and indeed the motivation however the style of the bomb and the location seemed to eliminate one potential set of suspects what we were able to do fairly early was to actually eliminate the the Irish terrorism link this was not a device that was in any way similar to the type of devices that Irish terrorism had used with one obvious prime suspect ruled out the manhunt turned to numerous terrifying alternatives we considered all different options as to what the motivation could be it could have even been a local dispute between the the market traders we even considered a local dispute between drug dealers also at that time that the war in Kosovo was very much at the front of the media and the news it could have been related to them but one theory made more sense than the many others well I was talking to other crime journalists who were ringing around their own contacts so we were talking and saying what do you what feedback are you getting people were saying it's got to be a racer at racial attack there's no other possible conclusion that you can draw Jerry gable who monitors the UK's extreme right also believed the bombing was racially motivated then our concern was to try and work out which group or which individual might be responsible for this 36 hours after the explosion the police were contacted the caller claimed responsibility in the name of the extreme right group combat 18 but the call was a hoax we just felt quite solidly that if the bombings were being carried out by people inside c18 ivory the factions we would have heard something and we were hearing nothing we had our people inside and we also turned some of their people and hardly anything was going on within that organization that we weren't getting some prior knowledge of or knowledge immediately after the activity three days after the blast and the police still hadn't made a breakthrough back at the crime scene however painstaking forensics was unearthing Clues hidden amongst a shattered metal and glass experts were pinpointing the chemical profile of the nail bomber we actually want to do is to recover all the component parts that actually came from the device to give us a better picture and to inform us as to what kind of device had been used and how that had been made up and also to give us the opportunity forensic ly of obtaining either fingerprints or DNA the findings from the debris and the chemistry and the materials that were subsequently recovered identified it as being a relatively small unsophisticated explosive it was different to the sort of explosives that have been largely seen in terrorist type incidents in the past which tend to permit with things like semtex it was an inorganic explosive the type of things he would find in safe fireworks it was a start but it still wasn't enough there was no way from which you could attribute it to a particular group the materials recovered hadn't been seen before and couldn't be linked into anything their databases you probably wouldn't need explosives expertise to produce the bomb particularly if somebody were to be working from a recipe or a cookbook other clues had been found in Brixton now one of them would prove crucial the bomb had arrived and been contained within a black sports holdall which had the green writing of head on the side of the bag and that indeed the bag had actually been placed beside the bus stop on the main Brixton Road outside the Iceland store but the bag had not been destroyed after the bomber put it down market traders had moved it dumping it on top of some pallets beside the Iceland food store astonishingly an unknown person had removed the contents not knowing it was a bomb and then stolen the bag after the blast the police had recovered this key clue it was clean of DNA or fingerprints but the distinctive head bag would now prove Vikon the fact that we recovered it it actually gave us something to work on when it came to looking at the CCTV footage it helped that Brixton had one of the UK's highest concentrations of CCTV cameras our initial priority was actually to gather all the CCTV footage from not only the immediate area but the main intersections public transport intersections within the southeast London area those videos actually contained in the region of 26,000 hours worth of viewing so our officers actually had to look through all of that footage on the Saturday afternoon for five o'clock in the afternoon at Brixton market it was very busy and on the images that were recovered all you could actually see was head and shoulders so you couldn't physically see if someone was holding or carrying a bag by their side so that made it very very difficult the images were also of poor quality most tapes had been reused for shop surveillance hundreds of times they had to be viewed still by still to ensure that they actually could see with clarity what people were doing and what people were carrying meanwhile the investigation was dogged by yet more bogus claims of responsibility we had several calls from people purporting to be from extreme right-wing groups claiming Association and indeed supporting the fact that the bomb had gone off there was no intelligence or nothing to support that any of them were an actual fact responsible for the bottom six days after the blast and the police still had no strong leads and no one plausible claiming responsibility I actually thought they would catch whoever did it you know very quickly only somebody who was almost no suicidal estupid would go out to one of those areas with all the activity the police activity community activity around it would go out there again the following week and put down another bomb I thought was very unlikely I was wrong exactly one week after the bomb had exploded a Saturday the police staged a reconstruction in Brixton hoping more witnesses might come forward that same day in London's East End Brick Lane was quietly getting ready for its busy evening restaurant trade since the 1970s it had become the center of the UK's Bangladeshi community we thought that we would be the last target you know that anybody should attack us we mind our own business we get and get along with life so we thought we are pretty safe in Brick Lane mr. armored had been working in his restaurant and at about 5:45 had left to collect his daughter from his wife as she passed me my daughter over to me that's when the bomb went off and then the you know it was a big huge noise in a deafening noise the building shook and I felt it was the end of the world I thought it was not great second I looked around and I saw the boot of the car going in up into the air the black smoke and a ball of flame on the top and then I realized it's a bomb so I think it was all the miracles that God was smiling on us that day that nobody got hurt amazingly only six people needed treatment for minor injuries an hour or two later and brick lane would have been heaving with people for Operation marathon it was a horrifying new development I was absolutely shocked to hear that that second bomb had gone off because it confirmed what was mine and others worst fears that this would happen again we were fairly certain immediately that the Bricklin bomb was indeed connected to the Brixton bomb it was too much of a coincidence to have a bomb take place in another significantly minority ethnic community the police were now confident that the attacks were racially motivated but once again no warning and once again no claim of responsibility slowly they pieced together what had happened at Brick Lane a witness had noticed a black hole door lying in the street he put the heavy bag in the boot of his car whilst he walked to a police station to report it before he got there the bomb had blown his car apart it minimized the damage at both the property and the injury to people but it also actually contained the explosion within the roofers car which actually helped us recover the component parts of the bottom quite quickly forensics backed up initial suspicions the same bomber or bombers were behind both blasts and now there were more clues the police submitted a fragment of clockface and there was some typeface on that and this piece of clockface bore type on it that indicated that the clock was an active brand clock time was now literally of the essence - bombs - saturdays it could happen again but where as detectives traced every shot that sold the trademark clock the capital tried to adjust to the presence of a deadly serial bomber in its midst we were extremely shocked and seriously seriously worried when the Bricklin bomb went off we knew then that eat up the ante brixton was not a one-off it was a campaign it was already you know the biggest news story around at the time but suddenly we thought this is really really serious two bombs on successive saturdays in both cases london's ethnic communities appear to be the target a third attack now seemed inevitable throughout the city the sense of alarm was mounting after Brick Lane exploded we then knew that this was going to be a series of bombings and yes the clock was going to be against us we clearly anticipated that there could and was likely to be another bomb and potentially again annex aturday but we didn't know where the two places I would have thought they were going but somewhere like Southall we're crowded streets on the weekend very Street street life packed with that Asian people or the Jewish community with any number of potential targets it was a nightmare situation for the police but on day 9 of the investigation they finally got the breakthrough they so desperately needed it took over a week for us to identify an image that we thought was potentially the the person that had planted the bomb [Music] officers had worked around the clock to review the thousands of hours of CCTV footage they attract the movements of every person on the tapes carrying bags now they had a suspect we were actually able to identify the suspect arriving and walking in Brixton Road carrying the whole doll we were later able to track him walking away from the Electric Avenue Junction up the Brixton Road without any holdall at all and that was what actually confirmed to us that this was the person who had planted the Brixton bomb the image stayed isolated was little more than a blur but it seemed to answer a critical question that s Oh 13 had asked from day one were they looking for an organized group or a lone bummer it was always a possibility from day one that it could have been a loner [Music] but in a city with 12 million inhabitants how would blurred CCTV images of a lone suspect bring the police closer to an arrest I sent the tapes to other agencies within this country to see if they can enhance the image we also said that it overseas to America to see if they can enhance it the team were still trolling through the CCTV trying to follow that initial image backwards in time and when they identified some images that were actually clear enough for us to go forward and publish them and put them in the media we decided we would go public with the recognizable images on that Thursday they had a suspect they had him on video and of course they wanted to get it out into the newspapers they wouldn't do it on television as fast as possible in the hope that somebody would recognize this man the first pictures of the prime suspect for both the Brixton and Brick Lane bombings appeared in Thursday's Evening Standard and I felt fairly confident that if we published some image that was recognizable that the public would help us and identify that person to respond to that we set up a team of officers experienced detectives to answer the phones from the public when they were phoning in those detectives had a list of questions that they would ask all the people who run in so that that enabled us to actually evaluate some of the information that we got two bones two successive Saturdays and 48 hours to go to the next one what anyone recognize the man in the cap before the third Saturday came that night the call started to come in with everyone aware the bomber was likely to strike again soon if I'm honest I didn't fancy working on the Saturday as I thought you know the two previous incidents had been on Saturdays I thought I was fairly safe coming in from the overtime shift on the Friday it had been quite an unusual day for me anyway I'd already had a call to London Zoo for one of the keepers they've been attacked by one of the elephants 24 hours after releasing the picture the anti-terrorist branch had been inundated by over 250 calls a new information was still coming in I can't came into police through the hotline at about 5:25 p.m. this particular call gave us the name of David Copeland has been a potential suspect at looking like the image that had been released from the Brixton bomb David Copeland's name was now in the frame as the police hastily followed that and other new leads London carried on as normal it was the beginning of the bank holiday and so there were lots of people on the streets Sun was shining and there was almost a bit of a carnival atmosphere really and so that I mean I was walking along with a bit of a spring and mistake I suppose and thought I'll pop into the ball Duncan which is a pub that I had been into once or twice before the Admiral Duncan is a popular gay pub in the heart of London's West End so far the bomber had appeared drawn to ethnic targets there was no reason to expect an attack here [Music] as Gary had a drink the pub welcomed it's early evening trade amongst them was John light who had traveled to London for a night out he was there with his friends Andrea Nick and Julian Andrea and Julian for a time it worked with John that they were all best friends and he was taking them out to a show his shout as far as I can gather because he was so delighted about being best man at the wedding earlier and now being invited to be the Godfather of Andrea's baby [Music] as John celebrated with the happy couple others in Soho got into the party mood and called the weekend the Sun shinin make the most of it go yeah have have a meal have a drink go clubbing and have a really nice day [Applause] [Music] I had probably taken about two three sips out of it and then back [Music] [Applause] just like you're completely gone with the noise and hovering about you but I just got thrown right against the wall with the bike but if unpacked the bomb I could actually feel myself slating than wrong [Music] and the first thing that hit me was silence complete and utter silence and I thought somebody spiked my drink that was my first my first thought and looking across where the bottles and glasses and the barman and things it should be was just black just black and boards that's all I remember and wisps of smoke and two or one very bright light which I later learned was an emergency light and I wasn't aware of anybody being around me it was it was very it was a very strange strange feeling and so I turned to my right to see where everybody was or what it what had happened and I felt myself falling that's it that's that's all I remember of that day I thought I was dying I just thought that was that yeah how the pain was saw tremendous in the legs everybody assumed to be like necks getting function your body it took me about four minutes on the motorbike to arrive in old Compton Street and I rode up on the bike to the junction of Dean Street and then right in front of me was the building the ground floor had just been completely devastated and the whole front of the actual shop or that's what I thought it was at the time had been blown out there was glass everywhere [Music] you couldn't tell that it was a pub at all really most of the chairs and tables have been literally blown apart and it was still a small fire at the back of the property inside there were people lying about moaning some with partial amputation limbs quite a few people with severe burns and there was an awful lot of nails I mean we're talking six inch nails so you could see them protruding out people's arms legs faces chests I mean it could have been a hardware store to be honest with the amount of nails that were there when that explosion went off [Music] I was devastated because we we released the images on on the Thursday we were actively following lots of information that had come through and we not succeeded in arresting him before he committed his next offence my stock in trade is terrorism murder rape robbery all these dreadful events that's what that's what I deal with but even I just couldn't take this in you think yeah in the middle of Soho on a Friday afternoon you think you know what sort of person is doing this who the hell is this person he's gone from blacks to Asians to gays this bomb is the most horrific in the confined bar two people had been killed and many more were critically injured among them John Light my mum knew he was there in London and was fairly distraught to the point where she tried to phone him over and over again on the hour every hour and it wasn't until the next morning that it all became you know apparent that John was caught up in all this what was meant to be a happy occasion for John and his three friends had ended in tragedy Julian dykes was also battling for his life Andreea dykes who was four months pregnant and Nick Moore had been killed instantly the investigation was now a murder inquiry the bomber had struck on a Friday not a Saturday he chosen Soho's gay community not Southall's asian community the pressure on the police was mounting we were responding to the the media appeal and indeed then second simultaneously in actual fact managing what was a new crime scene and while many officers dealt with the carnage in Soho others continued working on the new leads coming in among them David Copeland Copeland had been identified from the CCTV footage by a work colleague at around 11:30 that Friday night officers were sent to Hampshire to check out his last-known address we've been out to several other addresses and just dealt with people who plainly weren't involved in the bombings at all originally we were sent down to Hampshire and this was just another bit of information there were many other individuals that officers across England and indeed London were tasked to that evening in relation to good likenesses to the image and indeed there was no intelligence even when the research was conducted that actually made David Copeland any more likely to be the suspect [Applause] but as the officers neared Fernbrook Copeland's name was swinging ever more into the frame Scotland Yard were telling us that they were more excited with this intelligence that hadn't happened before the other addresses I'd been to in fact a cab driver had called the hotline saying he'd picked up the CCTV suspect at Waterloo the mainline station serving Fondren we unanimously decided to go on cold call on the address to to see who David Copeland was everybody knew what needed to be done some of us approached the door some officers went to the front of the side and as best they could the back of the address so it was surrounded in effect and then for about the next ten minutes we started knocking on the doors knocking on the windows eventually the door opened the officers were told to David was living there and they headed up the stairs to his room it was di Burnett who knocked on the door there's a voice from from within saying who is it so we said yes it's the police what do you want we want to speak to David Copeland what about and I said if you open the door I'll tell you and then there seemed to be a lapse in time before the door opened and there was a bang there's a knock of some sort from inside the room and the door opened then they're standing in front of us was David Copeland as soon as you saw him there was no doubt that he was the man in that picture the officers quickly stepped into the room the first thing that stood out there was a big German Nazi flag on the wall and underneath it there was like a collage of pictures that were taken from newspapers and magazines of the bombs that he'd done there was a loaded crossbow in the corner of the room one small single bed is quite a small room there's some shelves and that was where the container can contain in a the explosives were there were some boxes of fireworks underneath the bed I arrested him straight away of has been involved in the bombings in Brick Lane in Soho and in Brixton straight away he said yes they're all down to me three nail bombs in 13 days of traumatized the Capitol City but just hours after the third bomb in Soho the police had made an arrest David Copeland had immediately confessed to the crimes he appeared very nervous he was shaking we asked him some questions about whether there been other explosives in the room he said there was a 10 of us and I think he was ammonium nitrate or something so straightaway we had a crime scene which had possible explosives in it Copeland was put in a forensics suit and bundled into a car back to London meanwhile his home address was searched for clues receipts for items used in the bombs and fly word powder matching the explosive labs findings were quickly discovered fact that he told us that he actually had some of the bomb-making kit and in the firework powder within his room actually corroborated the fact that he was responsible for these offences [Music] in London Maureen Boyles team prepared to interview Copeland what was crucial was to identify why he'd committed the offenses and what his motivation was and to actually identify whether he had indeed acted alone or whether he had acted with other people or indeed both provocation David Copeland was 22 years old the middle son of an apparently ordinary family he'd grown up in Farnborough leaving school at 16 with only a few low-grade GCSEs he drifted from job to job and for the previous two years had been working as an engineers assistant on the Jubilee Line extension before his interview had even begun the death toll from the soho blast at risk john light had bravely hung on to life for almost 24 hours his family had hurried from southwest England to be with him after we had arrived he died in front of us It was as if and I firmly believe that he did hang on until the at least heard mum or felt her presence in the police interview room Copeland was no talking he started off as a joke you know it just laughed it off and after a period of time I just I just kept thinking about it isn't in the morning before when the bed in that day so I'm not gonna get help me yet and eventually I'll wake up one morning and they weren't thinking about it anymore as McDivitt my name is political this cause a racial war in this country so you would hope the what applauded the bombs in Brixton and brick lying there be a backlash from the communities why'd you put nails in it makes it smash windows he'll stick into people aim people yet can't pick this up but whenever we speak to you about the guys you have to close your eyes and you seem to be quite intense 13 yeah I just yeah I'd never dealt with someone like Copeland before I don't think many of us had dealt with someone like Copeland before first of all there's only the blacks in the oceans the quickest and how do you not have been caught what would have happened next so anything about it now we were a few days past you know if you're not in classes I don't feel sadness will so I don't you enjoy anything what I just had to do it after just four hours of interview David Copeland was formally charged on the Sunday with the bombings even though there was evidence of links with right-wing groups the police quickly went public with their view that Copeland had acted alone from the examination of the debris and the materials from David Copeland's home address there was nothing to indicate that he was doing anything other than acting alone David Copeland went on trial at the Old Bailey in June 2000 with three counts of causing explosions and three counts of murder many of his victims and their relatives attended the trial and Nia was while I was there I needed to know that this guy was going to be put down and locked away so he couldn't do it to anybody else but it was very emotional it was very physically demanding Coquelin pleaded guilty to the charges of causing the explosions but denied the charges of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility whilst awaiting trial he'd been moved from Belmarsh prison to Broadmoor a secure Hospital question of mr. Co police responsibility was the nub of the trial whether he was responsible for his actions or whether he was suffering from some form of mental illness which substantially impaired his mental responsibilities and that would reduce murder to manslaughter and I interviewed him on three occasions in February and March 2000 and in order to assess his state of mind at the time of the bombings there was no doubt in my mind that mr. Copeland had psychological problems came back a long way problems with size dyslexia and anxiety had existed since childhood but the major issue for the trial was more recent Copeland was telling doctors but the voice of God had told him he'd been chosen to cause mayhem but the important question was whether he could control these thoughts and fantasies was whether he wanted to do it or whether he didn't want to but felt compelled to do so in my opinion he was not suffering from such psychotic symptoms as he did not try and resist it he actively pursued it and in particular importance was that the third bombing took brought it forward because he knew that the police were on to him and he was likely to be arrested on Friday June the 30th 2008 Copeland was found guilty of all charges and given six life sentences one for each of the bombings and one for each of the murders I think there was a sense of closure from our point of view but I I have a feeling that for many it wasn't but for us it helped Gary Reed and Tommy Douglas were also there to see the verdict both had suffered horrific injuries in the blast David Copeland has not achieved his aims of Fame and power today's verdict prove his proves he is a dangerous pathetic nobody there was now where he belongs Tommy lost both legs below the knee and had spent months in hospital asking why how do you hold Conway I asked myself so many times you don't walk in your testicles and pick up a bomb like a loafer brave daughter there's a lot I thought a lot of Prayer it was only these things Gary lost his left leg at the hip I don't know is it's to me it was just such a waste everything that was just such a waste of lives people's lives were in ruins for nothing and so I didn't feel like celebrating David Kopel was a young man who festered a hatred for black Asian and other minority groups and he planted the bombs with a purpose of killing people he wanted people to associate him as been a mass murderer I don't think Copeland should ever be released I don't think you can rehabilitate somebody who carries out bombings with that amount of devastation and destruction and death so even when he's a very old man I think he belongs behind bars and until he's carried out there in a coffin [Music]

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Channel: Real Stories

Views: 482,491

Rating: 4.5482039 out of 5

Keywords: david copeland, timeline, BBC Three, Documentary Movies - Topic, Documentaries, Real Stories, tlc, 2017 documentary, Amazing Stories, investigation, itv, Full length Documentaries, TV Shows - Topic, BBC Three documentary, bomb, only human, Channel 4 documentary, true crime, Extraordinary people, BBC documentary, Full Documentary, Documentary, nail bomber, Amazing Documentaries, soho

Id: 2K9WLAvI2to

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Length: 47min 20sec (2840 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2017

Reddit Comments

what a dick

👍︎︎ 7 👤︎︎ u/OverlySexualPenguin 📅︎︎ Apr 18 2019 🗫︎ replies

They’re coming, see!!

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/darkestb4thedonald 📅︎︎ Apr 18 2019 🗫︎ replies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_London_nail_bombings

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/rupert9bear 📅︎︎ Apr 18 2019 🗫︎ replies