Author: Gerry Gable | Date: November 2005

Right-wing terrorism still alive and plotting

The arrests last month of a pensioner on the south coast and a youth in Swindon, both of whom are said to have British National Party links, are evidence of the continuing interest of the far right in bomb making.

The most notorious far-right bomber was David Copeland, who received a life sentence for planting three nail bombs in London in spring 1999, one of which killed three people and injured many others. Copeland, who joined the BNP in 1997 and the National Socialist Movement a year later, was not the first. Tony Lecomber, now a senior BNP officer, was jailed for three years in 1985 for offences under the Explosives Act.

Two years after Copeland, David Tovey was on the verge of a murderous killing spree. Unlike Copeland, who built his own nail bombs and other devices with information downloaded from far-right websites and some advice from fellow nazis, Tovey had a massive arsenal of state-of-the-art British military plastic explosive, remote control devices to set it off and dozens of other pieces of lethal hardware. His main target was Swindon mosque where according to informed estimates he could have killed 200 worshippers.

Today Tovey is serving an inadequate 11-year sentence and could be out in three or four years if he behaves himself in jail. Like in the Copeland case the police initially claimed Tovey was a loner with no political connections, but it was later revealed that he had made contact with the BNP.

Another man linked to the BNP was Stuart Kerr, 19, imprisoned for 12 years for bombing an Asian shop in Chichester around the time of the Copeland killings. He and his two associates were never charged with their other target that night, a police station car park which they firebombed, damaging a number of police vehicles.

Kerr had been caught on CCTV and identified, but his accomplices were not. His war was clearly not only against black and Asian people but also against the state. Many of the more interesting police finds during their investigations were never revealed to the court.

One potentially murderous nazi terror team operating on the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border at the same time as Copeland’s activities was never apprehended. Its target had been the Chesterfield May Day celebration, which was as much a community event as a political one. They had intended to set off a car bomb in the packed streets. One can only speculate with horror about the potential loss of life and injuries among the many families attending.

Good police work foiled the plot in the early hours of May Day when officers pursued a car reported stolen. The occupants fled into the night but the car contained the makings of the bomb.

Although the police had stopped the car, inter-force liaison failed because the organisers of the May Day event were only warned of a potential attack on the morning of the event.

Copeland’s bombings and arrest overshadowed this potentially more deadly plot. Earlier that week a letter was posted in Nottinghamshire containing a threat to attack the Mansfield TUC Unemployed Centre, a local focal point for anti-fascist activists. It also included a reference to something happening on May Day. The letter never reached the Unem-ployed Centre as it was intercepted by Nottinghamshire Special Branch. But by the time the police arrived in Mansfield, the premises had already been attacked and wrecked.

Early last month police arrested a 16-year-old youth in connection with a series of attacks in the Swindon area, including trying to burn down a mosque and daubing swastikas on a mosque and a Sikh temple with the exhortation to “kill Pakis”. The targets were the same as Tovey’s three years earlier. The youth cannot be named because of his age but the police have made it clear that they are investigating whether the youth and at least one other youngster were trying to build their own bombs. The police have not dismissed the suggestion of a BNP connection.

The BNP has been making a drive to recruit older school students and youths in the area for some time. Police were called to New College in Swindon last month after Mark Bullock, 21, a BNP youth member was involved in a scuffle with students. Bullock was chased from the college for handing out a leaflet headed Freedom And Security Not Diversity And Danger.

Police are investigating claims that he was assaulted by students offended at the material he was circulating. In March Mr Bullock and a second BNP member, Daniel Lake, crashed a multicultural diversity event at the college.

The other man who has shown an interest in bombing is 73-year-old Allen Boyce, who appeared at Lewes Crown Court on 7 October charged with inciting Terry Collins, a 27-year-old BNP activist, to make a dangerous explosive and to cause an explosion likely to endanger life or damage property. He was bailed until February.

Boyce from Eastbourne has been well known in far-right circles for more than 25 years. Collins is already serving a five-year prison sentence imposed in March for a 14-month terror campaign against the homes of Asian families in Eastbourne which included throwing fireworks through letter boxes. Collins, a former Territorial Army soldier, claimed in court that he had been brainwashed into committing acts of violence against ethnic minority people. Police caught him while he was trying to heave a lump of concrete through one family’s front window.

At the start of this month a group of six nazis were due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey for a range of serious offences of publishing and distributing extreme right-wing material that included bomb diagrams and the most vile abuse directed against black and Jewish people. Five of the group, who called themselves the Racial Volunteer Force, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to publish and distribute racially inflammatory material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred. Two of them also pleaded guilty to operating the RVF website to stir up race hatred and one to distributing a racist DVD. The sixth, Kevin Quinn, leader of the November 9th Society, pleaded guilty to possession of racist material.

The police investigation, conducted over nearly two years, involved several county police forces as well as Special Branch in London and a successful pursuit and extradition from Spain of one of the defendants. It started following the creation of a website that contained extreme right-wing material, which police traced to an address in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.

Peter Davies, Assistant Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, said: “It is difficult to imagine more extreme race hatred than was contained in the material which was seized during this meticulous enquiry. In addition to the guilty pleas today, we can draw satisfaction from the fact that the Lincolnshire Police investigation team has succeeded in discrediting and disrupting the organisation behind the production of this material. The conclusion of this case sends a clear message to anyone inclined to stir up race hatred that they will be tracked down and brought before the courts.”

Since the London bombings in July, the BNP has not ceased in its attempts to accuse virtually all Muslims of being terrorists. The truth is that if the BNP wants to find terrorists, it should start closer to home.

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