Police sealed off the area around Old Compton Street after the attack

The Admiral Duncan Memorial bench will stand in St Anne's Gardens, Soho, central London, just around the corner from the site of the explosion in April 1999.

Pregnant 27-year-old Andrea Dykes, her friend John Light, 32, both from Essex, and Nik Moore, 31, were killed when a pipe bomb packed with 1,500 nails exploded inside the Admiral Duncan.

Many others received serious shrapnel injuries and burns when the bomb went off in the pub in Old Compton Street, the centre of London's gay community.

It was the third attack in David Copeland's nail bomb campaign against London's black, Asian and gay communities - following explosions in Brixton, south London and Brick Lane in east London, that month.

It is thought Copeland, a homophobic neo-Nazi who was later given six life sentences, wanted to start what he called a race war.

Survivors and families and friends of the victims joined Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and Clare Herbert, the rector of St Anne's Church, at the ceremony on Tuesday.

The bench has been created by artist Simon Kidd as part of the Soho Green project, set up by West End residents to regenerate St Anne's Gardens.