Help Force a Proper Spycops Inquiry for Scotland
SDS officer John Dines whilst committing human rights abuses on Barra in the 1990s. This will be ignored by the public inquiry & the Scottish police self-investigation.
Most known officers from Britain’s political secret police were in Scotland. It happened over a period of decades and included the targeting of women for relationships that the Metropolitan Police have conceded were ‘a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma’.
Despite this, the public inquiry is limited to events in England and Wales. The Scottish government formally asked for the remit to be extended to Scotland but was refused. They have commissioned a police self-investigation instead which will only look at events since 2000, a gesture so inadequate that it is insulting.
The same abuses were committed by the same officers, and if people deserve answers in England they should get them in Scotland too. More than that, we can only understand what happened by seeing the full picture. To look at officers or campaigns in an isolated way means we cannnot get the full truth.
On 24th October 2016 the Public Interest Law Unit through solicitors in Scotland launched Judicial Review proceedings against the Home Office and the Scottish government. The proceedings filed in Edinburgh challenged:
- the decision of the UK Government to refuse to extend the terms of reference of the Undercover Policing Inquiry into undercover policing to cover Scotland; and separately
- the decision of the Scottish Ministers to refuse to set up a Scottish Inquiry under and in terms of the Inquiries Act 2005 with terms of reference equivalent to those of the Inquiry but covering Scotland.
Despite this being a strong case, with good facts, supported by clear domestic and human rights law, in March the Scottish Legal Aid Board have refused the legal aid application.
This is where you come in.
A crowdfund campaign has been launched to raise £5,000 to take this case forward and to get the Court to grant permission for it to proceed to a full Judicial Review. We have a month to do it. Please share this widely and donate if you can afford to.