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A CCTV image shortly after the Admiral Duncan blast shows Jonathan Cash (circled) |
The day nailbomb blasted a Soho pub
10 years on, victims of gay bar attack remembered
PRAYERS will be held in the gardens of St Anne’s Church on Thursday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Soho nailbomb attack that killed three people.
On April 30 1999 at 6.30pm a bomb exploded in the Admiral Duncan pub, in the heart of London’s gay community, killing Andrea Dykes, 27, who was four months pregnant, Nik Moore, 31, and John Light, 32. A further 129 people were injured.
The carnage sent shockwaves through an area that had considered itself an island of tolerance.
The man responsible for the attack, neo-Nazi David Copeland, 23, was convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey in February 2000.
Jonathan Cash, 40, was in the pub that day. He can be seen (circled) in grainy CCTV footage taken from the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Mr Cash has written a new play about the experience, called First Domino, which will be performed at the Groucho Club, which acted as an emergency hospital on the night of the bombing, on May 15.
“I couldn’t leave the house for months afterwards,” said Mr Cash from his home in Brighton. “It stopped me living for a good five years.
“What I remember most of all is that terrifying experience of being alone. It was such an alien thing, I couldn’t share it with anyone. The conviction was incidental to me.
“Yes, he [Copeland] was a lunatic, but it is the landscape of intolerance that gives these kinds of people air. I remember stumbling around on the street, and a girl pushing me out of the way to get a look at the ‘puffs’.
“To me this anniversary is about moving on. You can’t keep on defining your life by something like that. The play is a way of getting closure.”
The rector of St Anne’s, David Gilmore, will be leading the prayers. He said: “Maybe we should forget the evil, and hope we never experience something like this in our community or society ever again. Times have changed: society, in part, has become more accepting.
“Yet in reality this is an anniversary that cannot be forgotten and nor should it. As we are forced to look backward, we are confronted with how one person could systematically target different groupings around our capital resulting in lives lost and immense pain.”
St Anne’s Gardens in Dean Street will stay open an hour later than usual, where the Revd Gilmore will say a prayer for the victims of the blast.
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