Hateland

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  He told psychiatrists that his family - mother, father and two brothers - had often discussed his lack of girlfriends. He believed they thought him homosexual. He spoke of one episode when they sang the jaunty song of the television cartoon series, The Flintstones-. 'Flintstones, we're the Flintstones, we're the modern stone age family . . . we'll have a zoo time, a yabadoo time, we'll have a gay old time.'

  Copeland felt they kept emphasising the word 'gay' to mock him. His mother would ask if there was anything he'd like to tell her. She also said that, if he were gay, there'd be no problem. Copeland didn't appreciate her warm-hearted tolerance. His older brother, perhaps less tolerant, used to call him 'gay boy'. He told a psychiatrist he still wanted revenge against his family. He said, 'It makes me want to hurt someone.'

  He told police his bombing of the mostly gay pub (in which a pregnant woman had been among the three dead) had been 'personal'. He even said he preferred blacks and Asians to gays.

  Around the age of 13, he'd become fascinated with Nazism - and had dreamed of butchering, strangling and torturing his classmates. Indeed, his first ambition had been to become a serial killer or mass murderer. He told psychiatrists he'd often fantasised about being a Waffen SS commander. He'd imagined himself as tall, blond and powerful - with a harem of female sex slaves. Sometimes, he'd dream of being an SS man who'd pick a female, rape her, then shoot her dead. When he was writing to me, I flattered myself with the thought that my skill as a sympathetic penfriend was drawing him out. I know now that he'd probably have written enthusiastically to anyone who'd wanted him as a friend.

  In the years leading up to the bombing, he'd been isolated and friendless. At the time he planted his bombs, he'd been living alone in a bedsit with only his pet rat 'Whizzer' for company. His deep personal unhappiness had provoked suicidal thoughts, but, he told a psychiatrist, he'd been too cowardly to take his own life. After his arrest, he told a police interviewer that life in prison didn't bother him: 'I don't care. I had no life anyway. I'd say this is freedom to me.'

  He wasn't stupid. He had an IQ that put him in the top 10 per cent of the population, but he knew he was a nobody going nowhere, and that angered him, because he craved fame and notoriety. He told police, 'I wanted to be famous. I believe in what I believe in, and I took that belief to the extreme.'

  Small and insignificant, he dreamt of being omnipotent, with the sort of power over life and death possessed by his dictator heroes: Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. His bombing campaign had been inspired in part by reading The Turner Diaries - the so-called 'fascist Bible'. This novel, written by the American Nazi William Pierce, imagines a race war against ZOG, the Jewish-controlled Zionist Occupation Government. The book has a central male character, a hero who gains immortality for himself by his violent and ruthless struggle on behalf of the white race. This book also inspired the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.

  At one stage, Copeland had wanted to go to America to join the Ku Klux Klan. Copeland hoped his bombs would provoke a race war between blacks and whites, the end result of which would be a BNP government which would repatriate all foreigners - and release him from prison as a national hero. One of his former housemates said that, apart from his dislike of blacks and Asians, Copeland had also expressed a strong aversion to people from the north of England.

  Several psychiatrists diagnosed Copeland as a paranoid schizophrenic, partly because of his peculiar ideas. But Dr Joseph, the one psychiatrist who argued he could be found guilty of murder, suggested his colleagues hadn't appreciated the significance of the nail-bomber's reading material. He said Copeland had simply been repeating things he'd read in Nazi texts. He added that psychiatrists unfamiliar with such literature might think their patient delusional - but some intelligent people put forward such extreme views in all seriousness.

  Copeland's father later slagged me off publicly for having hoaxed his 'mentally-ill' son in such a 'cruel' way. He called me a low-life scumbag.

  After Copeland's trial, the government discussed changing the law to allow the preventive detention of dangerous psychopaths. Under the proposals, people with certain personality disorders could be detained - even if they'd committed no offence - if they presented a serious risk to others. The Home Office consultation paper listed ten characteristics of such people. They'd have to demonstrate at least six of the ten in order to be detained. I went through the list. Before his bombing campaign, Copeland would only have scored four out of ten.

  To my horror, I realised that my brother Paul scored nine out of ten. The only point that didn't cover him was one relating to sexual offences. Copeland had collected photos that showed people suffering. He cut them from newspapers and magazines, then plastered them over the walls of his bedsit. The police found photos of famines, bombs, riots and atrocities. Until recently, my brother Paul used to do the same.

  It's desperately painful for me to write about Paul. His story leaves me feeling sad, bleak and, worse, helpless. I can no longer reach him. His madness has swallowed him up. The violence and mayhem that's marked every step of his way through life seems about to find its end in his premature death.

  And there's nothing more I can do for him.

  CHAPTER 19

  DEVIL DOG

  As young boys, Paul and I used to share a double bed in the front room of our house on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. We didn't have blankets. Instead, our mother used to cover us with heavy winter coats, the most comfy being a duffle coat with tartan-check lining that we used to fight over.

  We were all terrified of our father, but Paul seemed to fear him the most. At night, Paul would lie next to me, shaking. Then he'd wet the bed. His bed-wetting got so bad that my mother took him to the doctor, who referred him to a specialist. Even at that age - I was about four, Paul two years older - I knew my brother didn't need a specialist to discover why he wet the bed. But nobody dared tell anyone that my father was beating us senseless.

  I can remember Paul being admitted to a children's hospital on the Penn Road in Wolverhampton. Mum took me to see him. I think it's the only time I've ever seen him truly happy. He was driving around in a pedal car, playing with the other children. My father arrived as my mother talked to the consultant. I remember him shouting and swearing, and then we all - Paul included - headed for home on the bus.

  My father's demented cruelty turned me and Paul into violent and unruly children. Like me, Paul began venting his anger and frustration on others. Years later, he used to joke, 'At school, I wanted to be a surgeon, but the teachers had me locked up when I tried operating on the other kids.' Many a true word spoken in jest.

  At first, he remained content to assault only the other kids, but before long he started hitting teachers too. Aged 15, he approached a bearded English teacher who'd slapped me round the face. 'Oi, you,' said Paul. 'Did you slap my brother?'

  Taken aback, the teacher said, 'Oi? Oi? Who do you think you're talking to, boy? Are you chewing gum?'

  Paul confirmed he was. The teacher ordered him to remove it from his mouth. Paul did so - then rammed it into the teacher's beard, saying, 'That's for my brother, and this is for calling me "boy".' He punched him, sending him sprawling, then walked away. The headmaster expelled him later that day.

  I laughed every time I saw the teacher walking around the school with bald clumps in his beard where he'd had to cut the gum out. He never bothered me again.

  One of the saddest aspects of Paul's depressing story is that he was by no means the brainless yob that some saw. He was a very bright boy. He could bury his head for hours in books about warplanes, weapons and battles. By his mid-teens, he could have held his own with a military historian. He'd become fascinated by the police and military from an early age. He loved putting on uniforms and even joined the Air Training Corps. When I was in the army, he used to know more than I did about the equipment I used and the history of my regiment.

  Away from school, Paul's behaviour became criminal. On the outskirts of the village wa
s a fishing lake popular with boy anglers. Its owner, a confirmed bachelor in his 50s, lived alone in a grand house. Boys had to go there to obtain their fishing permits. Stories began to spread about the man's over-familiar behaviour.

  Paul saw a money-making opportunity. He called at the man's house and gave him an ultimatum. Either the man paid him to keep his mouth shut or he'd go to the police and allege the man had been fiddling with boys. The horrified man initially paid up, but when the fee began to rise extortionately he went himself to the police, and Paul was arrested for blackmail.

  For many years, violence and a bed were all Paul and I shared. Our lives mirrored one another's, they'd been formed in the same environment, but we could never talk about our grim inheritance. Most of the time, we could only communicate with our fists.

  When I was ten, Paul smashed me in the mouth with a rifle butt because I'd been lippy with my mother. The dentist had to remove various nerves. To this day, I still have no feeling in some areas of my mouth.

  In later years, I can remember my youngest brother Michael bringing home for the first time his new girlfriend (and future wife) Carol. He wanted to introduce her to my mother. Michael and Carol walked into a bloodbath in the sitting room. I'd smashed a dinner plate over Paul's head. His blood had then spattered the walls as we'd grappled with each other in what one of his war books would have described as bitter hand-to-hand fighting. My mother was doing her best to separate us. I can't even remember what we were fighting about. It was just another violent and bloody row.

  This madness was the norm for our family, though not for Codsall, which was then a quiet, picturesque village, not some inner-city slum littered with dysfunctional families. Indeed, gangs from Wolverhampton used to visit looking for trouble, because they regarded Codsall as 'posh'.

  It was one such gang that Paul attacked when he was 16. They'd come to Codsall to fight the locals, but only Paul showed willing. With a screwdriver in each hand, he stabbed three people before being beaten senseless. He was sent to Borstal. With good behaviour, he could have got out in six months, but he refused to respect the rules, which included having to wear a coloured tie. Different colours signified the different stages towards release.

  From the first day, Paul said, 'Fuck your ties. I'm not wearing a poncy tie.'

  They said, 'Well, then, you won't be allowed any privileges or visits.'

  Paul said, 'Fuck your privileges and visits.'

  They said, 'You can be out in six months or we can keep you here for two years. It's up to you.'

  Paul said, 'I don't give a fuck.'

  He ended up serving the full two years - with an additional two months for crimes committed while inside. He didn't receive a single visit in that time. By law, including the ones he'd broken in there, they couldn't keep him any longer. In the end, I think they had to beg him to leave.

  His spell in Borstal hardened him further. It was soon after his release that he bashed my father, who, wisely, left the house next day, never to return.

  Within the week, Paul had also left home with no forwarding address. He just packed a rucksack, told us he'd see us later and drove off on a motorbike. 'Later' turned out to be the best part of five years.

  I'll always remember him with the big green army rucksack on his back, like a soldier going to war, trying to kick-start the motorbike. He couldn't get it going. Eventually, he ran with it. The engine bump-started with a roar and Paul zoomed off up the road. I watched him disappear round the bend of our estate. A few days later, the police called. They said they'd found Paul's bike near a small village some miles away It had broken down. Over the next five years, he didn't phone once, let alone send a postcard. He just disappeared, like my father.

  In 1981, while serving in Northern Ireland, I got three days' leave. I rang my mother to tell her I'd be home for a few days. She told me Paul had just got back in touch. He'd phoned her from London, but hadn't explained where he'd been. He'd asked her to get me to phone him.

  I rang him after I arrived at Heathrow. He didn't say much. He only wanted to know about the six counties of Ulster. Had I been in any fire fights? Had I shot anyone? Had I tortured any prisoners? Could I get him a classified field book (containing mugshots of IRA suspects and the like)? Would I be able to get hold of guns and ammunition? Without needing to ask, I knew Paul was all right - being his old self, that is.

  I arranged to meet him at Birmingham New Street Station next morning. Within a few minutes of our greeting each other, we were engaged in close combat on the station concourse. I don't know why. Perhaps I'd asked him why in five years he hadn't phoned our tormented mother. Perhaps I'd asked him the time. Whatever - I'd taken some diabolical liberty that merited a violent assault. After a few minutes, we stopped punching. We wiped the blood from our faces, then went to a pub round the corner where we drank a lot, argued and talked about the joys of Northern Ireland. It was our first talk as adults. The one thing we didn't talk about was 'us', our family and what we'd been through as children. I could still feel that sense of hopelessness we'd shared.

  I had to squeeze in a court case during my leave, so I had limited time with Paul. However, we travelled together on the train back to London. At Euston, we jumped on a tube heading west to Heathrow. A few stations down the line, as the nameplate for Green Park flashed past our eyes, Paul said, 'This is me.' He just stood up and got off. No goodbye, no good luck, no 'we'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when'.

  However, surprisingly, this time he kept in touch with my mother. When I left the army, I moved to London and began to see a bit more of him. He'd tried joining an army himself - the Spanish Army. If he'd just wanted to carry a gun and wear a uniform, he could have applied to join the Hell's Angels, like my oldest brother Jerry. But Paul wanted more. He wanted real-life adventure, the sort he'd read about in his military books. So he became a paratrooper with the Spanish Foreign Legion.

  After basic training, they sent him to the 8th Airborne Battalion stationed on some forgotten piece of colonial territory somewhere in north Africa. But he kept falling foul of the petty rules and regulations. Paul, in his mind, is always right. Others know nothing. So he spent most of his time in the guardhouse. He decided to desert.

  He stowed away on a holiday cruise ship bound for England - and arrived in Grays, Essex, still wearing his legionnaire's uniform. I understand the Spanish Army no longer accepts foreigners in its ranks. I think its experience with Paul may have provoked it to change its policy.

  It was Paul who introduced me to Adolf. For a while, Adolf became his best friend. They'd worked together as hod-carriers at the building of a hospital in Croydon. Their boss, a King's Cross villain, asked them to work for him as 'strikebusters'. Their new job - for which their boss provided them with a Jaguar car, well-tailored suits and a licence to maim - involved their threatening, bullying and, if need be, beating union reps who visited, or tried to visit, sites run by the boss. If a strike still managed to get off the ground, then Adolf and Paul would visit striking members at their homes to point out the error of their ways. That was Paul's first taste of far-right politics. He learnt the Nazi approach to negotiation.

  However, although Paul and Adolf seemed close for a while, their friendship came to a sudden end one day when Paul stabbed Adolf. I've heard both versions of what happened - and there's no disagreement about the facts. Paul had been sitting in Adolf's front room as Adolf had started arguing with his mother. Adolf's tone of voice and choice of words had displeased Paul, who said, 'Don't talk to your mother like that.'

  Adolf said, 'I'll talk to my mother how I like. What are you going to do about it?' Paul jumped out of his armchair, pulled a nine-inch bayonet from somewhere and thrust it into Adolf's stomach. It came out his back.

  Paul then ran off. He travelled back to our mother's house in Codsall, where he burnt his clothes in the garden. When my mother asked him what he was doing, he told her he'd killed someone.

  The knife hadn't hit anything vi
tal, so Adolf survived. He refused to tell the police what had happened, so Paul was never questioned, let alone charged. Paul did later make some sort of gesture of apology to Adolf, but their friendship never recovered. Understandably, like almost every human being who meets Paul, Adolf started avoiding him.

  We had a favourite uncle called Bernie. He was one of my mother's brothers, and I was named after him. He'd lived with us briefly in Dunstable and he visited us now and again in Codsall. He was a good, decent man, but misfortune and unhappiness dogged his life. In 1985, Paul and I had to identify his body.

  In the '60s, Bernie had served a short prison sentence in Ireland for assault. He came to England to start a new life. He married a woman he adored and they lived together happily. He could never bring himself to tell her about his prison sentence, because he felt ashamed. On a trip to Ireland, someone raised the subject and the marriage hit its first rock. His wife couldn't accept he'd kept his past from her. Eventually, she left him.

  Bernie turned to drink. He soon lost everything else - his job, his fixed address and his hope. One evening, a security guard saw him sitting alone on a bench in a communal garden near the subways of Birmingham's Bull Ring shopping centre. He was holding an unopened bottle of Australian wine.

  A few hours later, another security guard saw him lying on the ground, his face covered in blood. Bernie was semi-conscious when the guard went to help him. Before passing out, he mumbled, 'No, no. Stop it.' He died a few days later, never having regained consciousness. The bottle of wine lay unopened by his side, and he still had money in his pocket, so he hadn't been the victim of a robbery. The police put up posters and a sign appealing for witnesses to 'an incident', but none came forward.