The ground floor of 18 Denmark Place was used for storing hotdog carts. Above were two unlicensed nightclubs with no emergency exits: The Colombian, a Salsa club, was on the first floor; The Spanish Rooms was at the top. At the time of the fire, , it is thought 150 people were in the clubs.
At about 3.30am on Saturday 16 August 1980, a few hours after accusing a barman in one of the clubs of overcharging him, John Thompson, a small-time criminal, poured petrol through the letterbox and threw in a lit match.
There was no inquiry into the fire. In May 1981 John Thompson was tried for one murder, that of Archibald O'Donnell Campbell, 63. Thompson's real name was John Albert Andrews (September 1937, London – 2008) married with children but estranged. He had previously used the same technique in an arson attack on a squat in King’s Cross. He died in prison of cancer while serving a life sentence for murder. In a strange coincidence he died on 16 August, the 28th anniversary of the attack.
Until the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire this arson attack was the deadliest fire since the war. However it was quickly forgotten, possibly because the victims were largely not seen as British, and because attending a nightclub in seedy Soho was not seen as respectable.
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