Killing of David Morley

David Roger Morley (3 October 1967 – 30 October 2004) was a barman known in London's gay community as "Cinders." He had worked as assistant manager at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho when it was bombed by David Copeland in 1999 as part of a series of nail bomb attacks targeting London's minority communities; Morley suffered burns in that attack and, according to friends, spent the following weeks visiting and comforting other victims in hospital. At the time of his death he was working at another gay bar, Bromptons, in Earls Court.

On the night of 29–30 October 2004, a group of youths carried out a series of eight attacks in the area around Waterloo station between 2:30am and 3:20am. A fifteen-year-old associate of the group later told police the plan was to beat up "tramps, druggies or just people on the street." At around 3:10am the group encountered Morley and his friend Alastair Whiteside sitting on a bench near Hungerford Bridge. One member of the group, Chelsea O'Mahoney, told Morley they were making a documentary about "happy slapping" and asked him to "pose for the camera." The group then attacked Morley and Whiteside and stole Whiteside's mobile phone before continuing the assault. According to Whiteside's witness testimony, O'Mahoney finished the attack on Morley by kicking him repeatedly in the head. The group went on to commit three further assaults that night, including one on a homeless man, Wayne Miller, during which CCTV footage appeared to show O'Mahoney filming.

Morley was taken to St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth, where he underwent surgery but was pronounced dead at 7:40pm on 30 October 2004. A post-mortem examination found 44 injuries, including five fractured ribs, and determined he died from a hemorrhage caused by a ruptured spleen and fractured ribs. The examining pathologist said the injuries were more consistent with a car accident or a fall from a great height than a typical assault. No footage of the attack on Morley was recovered, and an extensive forensic search of the assailants' phones found no images or video of any of the night's attacks.

In December 2005, four defendants — Chelsea O'Mahoney (14 at the time of the attack), Reece Sargeant (21), Darren Case (18), and David Blenman (17), all from Kennington, South London — were found guilty of manslaughter, having originally been prosecuted for murder. On 23 January 2006, Sargeant, Case, and Blenman were each sentenced to twelve years in prison, and O'Mahoney was sentenced to eight years. O'Mahoney was described in court as a "child of heroin addicts" with a "particularly chaotic and fragmented life," while her co-defendants were described as "immature and vulnerable to peer pressure."

More than 1,000 people attended a vigil for Morley at St Anne's Church, Soho, on 5 November 2004, with a speech delivered on behalf of then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who called Morley "well known and well loved in London's lesbian and gay community."