Random acts of violence

Terrorism made itself very personal today. Shortly after 1:00am this morning an unidentified man parked a green Mercedes outside one of the city’s largest nightclubs on Haymarket and ran off into the night. The vehicle was later found to be packed with petrol, gas and nails; a simple but deadly effective car bomb. Bomb experts manually disabled the "potentially viable explosive device" by dawn.

A second car bomb was identified later in the day. Apparently a blue Mercedes parked less than a block away had been ticketed by wardens about 2:30am, then unwittingly towed to nearby car pound on Park Lane. This vehicle was also made safe once its true nature was discovered. Subsequently, for much of today the streets around Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus were sealed off as police conducted extensive forensic investigations.

This evening as my parents and I were returning home from a West End show, we stopped outside Tiger Tiger nightclub to view the scene. A lone police van stood vigil and several television reporters were camped out in Piccadilly Circus. The reality of today’s news hit home as my parents recalled walking past the same nightclub less than a month ago. Next week also marks the second anniversary of the July 7 tube bombing.

In the mid-70s my Aunt Shirley narrowly missed being killed by an IRA bomb in Piccadilly Circus. Moments after she'd descended into ticket hall beneath the street a bomb exploded outside the entrance. She recalls the incredible sound it made. Had it been timed to detonate a minute sooner she'd had been walking past the bin in which it was hidden. Too close for comfort.

I find it hard to comprehend that the street we were on tonight had once again been primed for mass murder. The size and scale of these bombs was such that the resulting death and destruction would have been significant. Tiger Tiger was hosting a ‘ladies night’ with more than 1700 patrons inside. This wasn’t happening in some remote suburb, or on a tube line I rarely catch. This was a street I’d walked along at least three times in the last four weeks. Such random violence makes no sense.