But, as with Tucker's gang, CI8 soon came to a gruesome end. Only six months after I'd appeared on the front page of The Order , CI8 broke apart. Incredibly, leader Charlie Sargent was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Wilf Browning's mate, Chris Castle, who was stabbed in the back with a nine-inch blade. Sargent didn't stick the knife in himself - he incited someone else to do the deed. From what I heard, Castie wasn't even heavily involved in 'the Movement'. He was just a good mate of Browning, and a popular and well-liked person.
Shortly before the murder - but nothing to do with it - the police had thwarted a C18 letter-bomb campaign, involving devices sent to, among others, Sharron Davies, the Olympic swimmer married to a black athlete. Her crime? Race-mixing. The devices had been sent by a supporter in Denmark, himself the product of a mixed-race relationship: his mother was Danish and his father, with whom he'd lost contact, was an American of Japanese descent. The would-be letter-bomber, who was arrested and imprisoned, also had a half-sister with a Pakistani father. In England, Wilf Browning was arrested in connection with the thwarted campaign, but wasn't charged, despite evidence of his extensive contact with the man who'd posted the bombs. At Charlie Sargent's trial, Sargent claimed that Browning had wanted to turn CI8 into a proper terrorist organisation. Most incredibly, it was revealed at the trial that Sargent had been stabbing CI8 in the back for some time. He'd been a long-term informer for the political police, the Special Branch. Sargent had tipped them off about the Danish letter-bomber, but his main job had been to keep his handlers briefed about C18's links with Loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland. This led to claims that, from its inception, C18 had been little more than a so-called 'pseudo-gang'.
'Pseudo-gangs' or 'counter-gangs' are a well-tried British intelligence counter-terrorist ploy involving the setting up of groups that can be attributed to the enemy in order to discredit that enemy. Such pseudo-gangs draw in extremists, cause splits in the wider movement and make sure everyone goes nowhere. A C18 'Information Bulletin' released before Sargent's trial described him as an 'arch-traitor', a 'poison dwarf', a 'misfit', a 'dickhead' and a 'cretin'. It said:
How on earth did we ever listen to Sargent? He's just such a mug . . . Sargent purposely split every movement he's been involved with and that's a fact!!
The BNP's new leader, Nick Griffin, later wrote that the state had created the 'Combat 18 pseudo-gang' in order 'to disrupt the BNP through lies, intimidation and physical violence against key officials'. Griffin admitted that C18 had seriously damaged the party for two to three years. Indeed, he failed to add, Griffin owed his new position to one of C18's indirect successes - the toppling of my old sparring partner, the BNP leader John Tyndall.
Adolf told me that his mate Tony Lecomber had planned to take over from Tyndall, but that the Cam bridge-educated Nick Griffin had convinced him that his criminal convictions would ensure that the media had a permanent, ready-made smear to use against him. This would 'taint' the leadership and prevent him ever being able to lead the party to electoral success. Adolf said Griffin had promised Lecomber a leading role in the party if he dropped his own leadership ambitions and supported Griffin's, which he did, urging branch activists to support Griffin. 'Mad Bomber' Lecomber became the BNP's 'national organiser'.
One CI8 faction regrouped under Wilf Browning and published the magazine Strikeforce. On the foot of each page, they printed the logo, 'Trust no one'. In Issue Two, published in spring 1998, they detailed the astonishing story of their former leader Charlie Sargent. Under the headline, 'End of the road for the 5 ft toad', the article began, 'After years of grassing, lying and outrageous treachery, Charlie Sargent's Special Branch career finally came to an abrupt halt as he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday 21st January 1998.' The article explained the sordid battle for power between Browning and Sargent that had led to the murder. It read:
It's ironic that Sargent was shown mercy by Wilf, who felt embarrassed for the fat mug after seeing him crying when confronted about his bullshit. Both he and his gutless brother Steve were offered the chance to sort it out like men, but they both bottled out. Instead, we had the spectacle of the two misfits sitting around their Chelmsford flat, heads facing the floor, not having the courage to admit what they had been saying behind Wilf's back, not having the guts to go outside and sort it out, either by fists or knives. Wilf openly laughed at Sargent about his interview where he said that he challenged people who slagged him off to a knife-fight to the death. Well, he was given the chance, but he bottled it. As Wilf said to him, 'You're pathetic. Look at yourself. You're meant to be the big terrorist leader.' So there you have it: this fat trembling coward was shown mercy because he was so pathetic. So what did he do? He plotted the death of Chris Castle, then tried to use the police to put Wilf out of the game.
The article ended with an unsubtle threat for their one-time Führer:
You've been exposed for what you are Sargent and we promise you this: whatever lifer jail you go to, your statement will follow and everyone will know what you are YOU FAT BACKSTABBING GRASS! . . . What he did was disgusting, cowardly and is unforgivable. He overstepped the line: he will have to pay the price for his treachery, but for the time being he will languish in jail.
The foot of the article was decorated with a drawing of a gallows and the words, 'IT AIN'T OVER TILL THE FAT MAN SWINGS'.
Disillusionment at discovering they'd been led by a man who was simultaneously grassing them up must have provoked some soul-searching. For in the same issue, someone wrote a very perceptive assessment of the whole Nazi scene. The article - apart from its nods to the good old days of the Third Reich - could have appeared in the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine. Unsigned and titled, 'They ain't alright just because they're white', it read:
I've been involved in the so-called 'right-wing' for a number of years now, but when I step back and look at our so-called Movement, especially more recently, I can't help saying to myself, 'Why am I surrounded by so many "misfits"?' I'm sure that, if you are honest, you would have to agree with me.
The writer said that most of the so-called 'right-wingers' around today wouldn't have been fit to dig latrine pits for the Waffen SS, yet they claimed to represent the white race and declared themselves to be 'the so-called vanguard'.
The problem now is that since the war the pro-white groups have been desperate for the numbers and will accept absolutely anyone just because they're white and call themselves racists. It doesn't matter what sort of lowlife they are as long as they are 'our way'. Obviously, not everyone is scum in our movement, so let's take a look at the sort of people attracted to it.
The genuine idealists: these are few and far between. It's refreshing when you meet people who genuinely believe in the cause and are normal decent people.
The cowards: these unfortunately make up the bulk of the 'right-wing'. Blokes who are nothing by themselves, join up to be part of a gang, give it the right large one when they are at a nationalist event, sticking the boot in when the numbers are on our side, but in reality are the sort of blokes who would watch a couple of spades push in front of them in a queue and do nothing about it, just look away. You all know the sort: without the beer for 'Dutch courage', they're nothing.
The inadequates and losers: again, the 'right' is full of these types. They join because no one else will have them. They don't fit in with any 'normal' groups of people, so they turn to the group that accepts anyone - the 'right-wing' - where they have instant friends and drinking buddies and, because there are so many other inadequates, they fit in perfectly.
The faggots: because of the nature of the Movement, which is comprised of a lot of young blokes, queers tend to be attracted to it for devious reasons.
The sickos and weirdos: these are the sort of freaks who believe in the Hitler = Evil equation that is spread by the media, and because they want to be 'evil' they latch on to us. These types are usually involved in 'Satanism', cults, paedophilia, yo
u name it. Luckily, these are small in number, but always prove to be the most embarrassing when they are exposed in the press and we are all tarred with the same brush. These types aren't National Socialists: if they hadn't infiltrated the 'right-wing' they would be in some sort of cult. Our enemies love deviants such as these, often encouraging them to join us.
The drunken bums: these sort of blokes are in their element in the 'right-wing' because most of it is just a big drinking club.
So there it is. You may not want to hear it, but it's true. The 'right-wing' accepts ANYONE - it has NO standards. We set ourselves up as though we're better than everyone else and talk about the general population as though they're scum and we are somehow above them. Well, the truth is that percentage-wise we most probably have ten times the number of scumbags in our movement than exist in the so-called 'non-racist' general population.
The writer said 'the Movement' had either to clean up its act and introduce some standards or carry on being a freak show for society to laugh at.
Personally, I don't want it to be the latter and I doubt if you do. So, it's up to the decent activists to give the freak show a wide berth and clean up our movement - dump the misfits, let 'em join the NSM!
The NSM was the 'National Socialist Movement', which had become the refuge for the wing of CI8 that remained loyal to Charlie Sargent. It had about eight members, including Sargent's brother Steve. It described itself as 'the political wing of Combat 18'. In fact, it had been formed originally by another fruitcake of my vague acquaintance called David Myatt, who was an unusual Nazi in that he had a posh accent, a long ginger beard, pebble glasses and a tweed flat-cap.
I met him once at a paper sale in Brick Lane. I thought he'd mistakenly come to stand on the wrong side of the police barriers, because he looked more like a tree-hugging leftist than an Aryan stormtrooper. Indeed, Adolf regarded him as 'a deviant' and whispered that 'a naive young northerner' such as myself should steer well clear of him. Under no circumstances, said Adolf, should I accept an invitation from him to view his stamp collection. Myatt later resigned from the NSM after an anti-fascist group exposed his links with Satanism. I understand he's since abandoned Nazism - and converted to Islam.
The same issue of Strikeforce carried an article about the so-called 'Mardi Gra' bomber who'd been planting explosive devices at branches of Barclays bank and the supermarket Sainsbury's since late 1994:
Although the 'Organised Crime Group' has proved successful in dealing with groups and organisations thanks to its heavy use of informers and agents, it has up until now failed to stop the lone 'Mardi Gra' bomber. The 'Mardi Gra' bomber is ZOG's nightmare: he is intelligent and capable of making bombs and booby traps; he works ALONE and it seems he is totally autonomous; he strikes at random and without warning.
The article concluded with the observation:
We at Strikeforce don't know the 'Mardi Gra' bomber's political orientation, his race or his motives, and we don't condone his attacks on stores where innocent shoppers could be hurt, but we have to agree that he is very effective and his 'modus operandi' is proving to cause ZOG a few problems. Look at the trouble he is causing, yet he is a one-man cell. Imagine if there were fifty White Resistance 'Mardi Gra' Bombers. Think about it!
So the moral of this story is:
Don't let your granny go shopping in Sainsbury's.
LEADERLESS RESISTANCE DOES WORK!
In fact, the 'Mardi Gra' bomber was caught in April 1998 while the magazine was at the printer's. He turned out to be a reclusive white man in his 60s called Edgar Pearce. His motivation had been financial, not political. He'd demanded ten million pounds to stop. Pearce was jailed for 21 years in April 1999.
In that same month, London was terrorised by another 'lone-wolf' bomber. On 17 April, a bomb exploded in Brixton, south London. Shoppers were blasted with hundreds of nails; 42 people were injured. A 4-in. nail embedded itself in the brain of a 23-month-old boy; two people lost eyes.
When I first heard news of the bomb, I thought Adolf might have planted it. I knew Brixton had no political or military significance for Irish terrorists. But to the far-right, the area represented the black face of Britain. Adolf had been present 14 years earlier when Tony Lecomber's bomb had detonated in his car in nearby Clapham. And I couldn't help but think that Adolf might have had something to do with this one.
A week later, another bomb exploded in Brick Lane in London's East End, an area with a large Asian population. It injured six. The third and most devastating bomb exploded the following Friday in Soho, the hub of London's gay scene. At the Admiral Duncan pub, two people died instantly, one of them a pregnant woman. A third person died in hospital. A hundred and thirty-nine were injured; four people lost legs. Callers allegedly from Combat 18 and a hitherto unknown group, the White Wolves, claimed responsibility.
A short time later, the police announced the arrest of a single, 23-year-old London Underground worker from Farnborough in Surrey called David Copeland. At a press conference after his arrest, the police ruled out Copeland's links to the Nazi groups who'd claimed responsibility. Most journalists, who didn't pay close attention to the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner's phrasing, assumed he'd said that Copeland had no links whatsoever to extreme right-wing groups. That was my reading too. In fact, the Assistant Commissioner had only said that Copeland had no links to the groups who'd claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The police presented him as someone 'working alone for his own motives'. These words seemed to rule out political motives. I didn't believe this. My friends and I had never officially joined any Nazi groups either, but we'd still worked for 'the Movement'. I knew from Copeland's choice of targets that he had to have a fascist background, even if he'd worked alone in devising and carrying out his bombing campaign.
In the week following the press conference, I rang Adolf. He'd been greatly excited by the bombs and, like me, had guessed immediately that Nazis stood behind them. In fact, Adolf had already heard on the grapevine that Copeland was a member of the National Socialist Movement, the refuge for the discredited Sargent faction of Combat 18, slagged off by the other faction as a dumping ground for 'misfits'.
I hadn't forgotten Sargent's threat to me in the editorial of The Order or that he'd posted my photo both on the Internet and on the magazine's cover. I remembered his words, 'Not so clever now, are you!' I thought, 'We'll see who's fucking clever. I'll have the last - and longest - laugh.'
Although Copeland had been working alone, without help from his NSM comrades, I knew those comrades would be delighted at what he'd done. By hoaxing Copeland, the new National Socialist hero, I hoped to remove a little bit of their delight - and get a little bit of revenge in the process. I decided in that moment that David Copeland would become the target of my next letter-writing campaign.
Over the years, and quite by accident, I'd developed an unusual sideline in writing to 'nonces' - the sex murderers of women and children - usually in a bid to get them to confess to crimes they'd denied. I'd had some extraordinary success.
I'd written to the Yorkshire Ripper posing as a blonde barmaid called 'Belinda Cannon'. Over a few months, he'd answered every question I'd asked him - from his favourite colour to why he'd wanted to commit mass murder, signing his letters 'with big juicy hugs'.
Parallel to my correspondence with Sutcliffe, I'd also written to another nonce, Richard Blenkey, who'd been charged with sexually assaulting and strangling a seven-year-old boy. Our correspondence had lasted a year. Initially, he'd said he intended pleading not guilty. Then, remarkably, three weeks before his trial he confessed to me in a letter that he had indeed murdered the boy. The prosecution produced the letters at the trial - and Blenkey immediately pleaded guilty. He got a life sentence with a recommendation he serve at least 20 years. The father of the victim publicly thanked me for having saved the family the ordeal of a trial from which the murderer might easily have walked to freedom.
I was named in nationa
l newspapers as the person who'd 'forced a child-killer to confess'. By the time of Copeland's bombing campaign, I'd had similar success with another child-killer.
Now it was Copeland's turn. The main purpose of my hoax would be to coax from him details that might damage him at his trial. And getting one over on Sargent and the NSM would serve as an added bonus.
When I wrote my first letter, I knew nothing more about him than what I'd gleaned from the media - single, 23-year-old London Underground worker from Surrey. In addition, as he'd bombed a mostly gay pub, I assumed he might be heterosexual, though perhaps not a practising one, as it had been reported that he didn't have a girlfriend. I decided to supply him with the female company he obviously lacked.
I didn't need the police's description of him as a 'loner' to know he'd turn out to be a bit of a loser. Inevitably, there'd be some serious disturbance in his background, something that had probably destroyed his childhood. Inevitably, also, whatever had wounded him as a child would have left him with a deep-seated grievance against the world - and the belief he had the right to hit back violently.
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