having sadomasochistic dreams when he was about twelve years old, including dreams or fantasies that he had been reincarnated as an SS officer with access to women as slaves. He left school for a series of failed jobs, reportedly blaming immigrants for the difficult job market. Copeland became involved in petty crime, drinking, and drug abuse. His father was eventually able to get him a job as an engineer's assistant on the London Underground. Copeland's father called him "fairly intelligent" as a child. His parents separated when he was aged 19, and his mother told lawyers and psychiatrists after the arrest that he was a "happy lad" and showed no sign of what was to come. According to psychiatrists, Copeland also had a higher than average IQ. One of the doctors believed his behaviour started to change around 1995 when he was 19, isolating himself from friends and family. Political views Copeland joined the far-right British National Party (BNP) in May 1997, at the age of 21. He acted as a steward at a BNP meeting, in the course of which he came into contact with the party's senior members and was photographed standing next to John Tyndall, the leader of the party at the time. It was during this period that Copeland read The Turner Diaries, and first learned how to make bombs using fireworks with alarm clocks as timers after downloading a so-called "terrorist's handbook" from the Internet. Copeland left the BNP in 1998, regarding it as insufficiently hardline because it was not willing to engage in paramilitary action, and joined the smaller National Socialist Movement, becoming its regional leader for Hampshire just weeks before the start of his bombing campaign. It was around this time that he visited his family doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants after telling the doctor he felt he was losing his mind. Motivation Copeland maintained he had worked alone and had not discussed his plans with anyone. During police interviews, he admitted holding neo-Nazi views and talked of his desire to spread fear and trigger a race war. He told police, "My main intent was to spread fear, resentment and hatred throughout this country; it was to cause a racial war." He said, "If you've read The Turner Diaries, you know the year 2000 there'll be the uprising and all that, racial violence on the streets. My aim was political. It was to