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Author: Nick Lowles | Date: December 2001
Darren Wells was one of the leading members of the nazi terror group Combat 18. In 1997 he was implicated in an attempted bombing campaign. He has been involved in fights and convicted on several occasions. He was also integral to C18's music operation, ISD Records. But since early 1999 he has been providing information to
You were an integral part of C18. What attracted you to it in the first place?
I'd always had this feeling that our country was being overrun with people that just didn't love the country, no respect for the country, who didn't try and integrate with us, didn't want to be part of it, just wanted to take over. When I first met C18 I found that they held the same views, but also took them one step further. I started drinking with them on three or four nights a week and you gradually become part of that group. It's not a point where you're sworn in or anything like that, it was just gradual, I became part of their drinking club.
What was C18 to you?
It gave me an opportunity to go out and vent anger about the things that I felt so disillusioned with in society, and that was great because I'd never had that opportunity before, I always thought that I was the only one that could see how bad the country was being treated.
Then other factors came into play. The more we got away with, the more powerful and important we believed we were. This sense of power was key for many of us. From nobodies to feared thugs and terrorists spurred people on.
How important was friendship and camaraderie to C18 activism compared to the political ideology?
I think the two just went together, although I don't think that either could have survived without the other. I mean that everyone had the same political beliefs but I don't think that would have bonded people together had there not been the social side.
We used to do all the German trips. It wasn't even a racist thing really, it was just like a wild boys' outing to Germany. You'd jump in the van, get a couple of crates of beer, a couple of pairs of socks and a pair of pants and that was it, you just head off on a wild trip. It was like a stag night every month.
Will Browning emerged as the driving force behind this violence. What sort of person was he?
He's just got an infectious personality, and I think my friendship to him was stronger than my commitment to the cause. Even though I believed all the stuff, I would always put Will above the cause. Maybe I went down some roads that I wouldn't have done otherwise, well certainly, when there was no one else around who would have done the things that Will wanted to do, that's for sure.
C18 preached race war and in 1997 attempted to send letter bombs from Denmark. What did C18 really believe they could achieve?
We thought we could rock the boat enough that something would happen. Of course it was all a fantasy, but we began living in our own surreal world. I don't think any of us ever really thought that we actually would be in control of the country, but we thought we could do enough damage and die this great big glorious death in order to be martyrs like The Order.
You also have to remember that a group of us were just basically all living one life. The feelings just built up and up. Like I say, you lose touch with reality because we were convinced that we were on the verge of doing something major, of going out in a blaze of glory, and that was all that mattered to us. And the only thing we were scared of was getting caught prior to that happening.
That's quite scary when you look back on it now and think my world had deteriorated to that point that my main goal in life was just to do the most outrageous, destructive possible thing, just so as I'd be remembered for doing that. And remembered by whom? Remembered by right-wing people, 80% of whom are dregs.
Will knew he was going to jail so he wanted to make a statement that a group within C18, whether it be known as that or not, were going to take it one step further. I think he also wanted to answer the critics who said C18 was all talk. But of course Denmark was only to be the beginning. There was talk of a second wave some time later, spending a whole week producing bombs, hundreds of them, and posting them all on the same day from different locations to destinations across Europe. The police would stop some but many would get through. Could you imagine it in England if like 150 got through and got blown up in one day? There'd be riots in the streets. No one had ever even contemplated that before.
But it didn't happen. Surely it was just pub talk?
Perhaps so, but back in 1996 a few people were totally consumed with the story of Robert Matthews [a US terrorist who led a nazi group called The Order] and wanted to emulate him here. That became the sole purpose in our lives; it took over from everything. People's lives, people's jobs, families meant nothing. Wanting to become our vision of The Order was all that mattered. But then Thomas Nakaba was arrested for the Danish bombs and, more importantly, Charlie Sargent murdered Chris Castle. This had an enormous effect, especially on Will. His objectives changed, from teaching the government a lesson, teaching any right-wing dissenters a lesson, his focus then moved totally to getting retribution for Chris Castle [a fellow C18 supporter].
How did the murder affect you?
I just lost all feeling of everything that we were meant to be fighting for. We believed that we were trying to make our country a better place, full of respectful people and decent people, and then you find out that the biggest scum of all were the ones you had been close to. I mean C18 from that point ceased to exist really. It just became an issue of "get Sargent". I think Will Browning was the same. From that point on, Will was just totally obsessed and consumed with Sargent.
I also saw the pain that Chris's wife went through. I saw the pain that Will went through with what happened to Chris. That made it all very real. He was especially cut up about it. Chris was doing him a favour by being there in the first place and then he literally dies in Will's arms. People in the right wing go on about the Aryan family, honour and all these fine phrases. But this is all just bullshit. A friend dies and hardly anyone seemed to care.
The murder made me realise that what we were trying to achieve, the people that we would put in place are worse than what's already there; and then you think to yourself, I don't know, it stops being a game. It became real. It really did. I know it sounds awful but really Chris dying probably saved lives because that put an end to any plans for race war.
C18 was never the same again afterwards, was it?
I don't think any of us were the same, regardless of the movement. Will changed as a person after that. I'm sure I did as well. Some people stayed on one side and some on the other and some just, like, kept well out the way and drifted out of it because they knew where it was heading. I don't think many people had the stomach for it. I think it pushed a lot of people away, and a lot of people did think that about Will, they thought he's bad news to be around. They liked him, as a person. Most people say that he's a genuine nice guy, but that he will get you into trouble.
How can you talk about racial superiority when you have the perverts, satanists and weirdoes that are constantly attracted to the right within your ranks?
Why did you start working for Searchlight?
I was fed up with the right wing. I had started to see it for what it was. In late 1998 someone suggested that I travel to Germany to build and post some bombs. I began to take stock of my life and realised that my heart wasn't in it any more. I also saw the futility in the right wing and particularly many of the idiots within it. How can you talk about racial superiority when you have the perverts, satanists and weirdoes that are constantly attracted to the right within your ranks? When you're involved and are totally committed to the conspiracy theories and simplistic way of looking at life, it is easy to forget just what sort of people are involved. There were some decent ordinary people, family types, but there were also the trash.
In early 1999 the police began coming down hard on us and I realised that I had choices to make. However, I still had friends in there. By working for Searchlight I was giving something back, trying to make up for the mistakes I had made in the past and the misery my politics might have caused people. At the same time by passing information over I was trying to keep my close friends out of trouble. I thought that if I could preempt things before they happened then those I cared about wouldn't get arrested for something bigger. It might sound stupid but that was part of my motivation.
Many of these close friends will now consider you a traitor. How do you feel about that?
Of course no one wants to be considered a grass but obviously I'm aware that people will condemn me for what I've done. To be honest, I'm not concerned about what most people think, there are only a few that matter. I only hope that they will think about what I've done. It would have been easy for me to go to the police, get a stack of money, and send them all to prison, but I didn't. At some stage in the future, maybe many years down the line and probably when they are beginning to have doubts about nazism themselves, they will look back at what I've done and think that perhaps I did do something which is honourable. They might even thank me for persuading them not to do certain things which would have got them locked up for years. I'd like to think so.
How would you describe your politics now?
Well nothing like they were then. That's the first, most obvious difference. I've still got a thing about big governments but I mean thousands of people feel like that. So I just don't like big federal bureaucracy. I hate the way that governments think they can get away with butchering people and talking to you like you're dumb and you're not going to understand what the real picture is.
Probably the biggest difference is that I don't stereotype people any more. I don't generalise. There are plenty of white people, there are plenty of Asian people, there are plenty of black people that I don't like as well, but that's because of the way they are and not because of what they are. I'd rather just spend my time worrying about me and spending time with decent people, regardless of their colour, rather than spending time with people initially for their colour regardless of how they are.
How did you arrive at those sorts of thoughts?
It was a gradual process. I think the truth probably is that all along I knew that not all black people nor all Asian people nor all Jewish people were bad. That's probably the truth of it. But I was having so much fun going along with the thought that they were. Yes, that's probably the crux of it. I suppose it was during the making of the World in Action programme in 1998 that some of my C18 mentality began to unravel. I spent a long time discussing, and sometimes arguing, about politics with you and Andy Bell. While I didn't want to appear defeated, I went away and thought about things a lot. It took time but eventually I began to realise that I'd rather be with a decent nice black guy than a trashy white guy. There's no doubt, is there? I'd like to think that's how I lead my life now.
I stopped a riot
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© Searchlight Magazine 2001