David Morley

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David Morley (1967–2004) was a fatal victim of happy slapping killed near Waterloo station in London on the morning of October 31, 2004.

When news of the killing was first made public, there was speculation it had been a hate crime, motivated by homophobia. Morley, who was a gay man, was the manager of the Admiral Duncan pub when it was bombed by David Copeland on April 30, 1999, and suffered minor burns in the attack. At the time of his death, he was working at another gay bar, The Birdcage in Chiswick.

Laying flowers at the vigil in memory of David 'Sinders' Morley

Famously known in the gay community of London as 'Sinders', thousands of people attended a peace vigil at St. Anne's Church in London's Soho on 5 November 2004, to commemorate Morley's life. Speeches were given by his friends, and one on behalf of the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. The London Gay Men's Chorus also sang in his memory, along with a busker who wrote a song, simply entitled 'Sinder's Song'.

In December 2005, a 15-year-old girl, Chelsea O'Mahoney, and her co-defendants Reece Sargeant (21), Darren Case (18), and David Blenman (17), all from Kennington, in south London, were found guilty of Morley's manslaughter. "O'Mahoney had told Morley that she was making a documentary about 'happy slapping' before her gang of friends kicked him to death." [1]

On January 23, 2006, Sargeant, Case and Blenman were sentenced to 12 years in prison and O'Mahoney to 8 years. During the same night as the murder the gang had attacked eight people, in CCTV footage from the final attack O'Mahoney could be seen filming the attack on her mobile phone. O'Mahoney had been described as a "child of heroin addicts" with a "particularly chaotic and fragmented life". The other members of the gang were described as "immature and vulnerable to peer pressure". [2]