Landmark Scottish Spycops Court Case

Tilly Gifford

Tilly Gifford

Today sees a vital court hearing in the battle for truth and justice for victims of political spycops in Scotland.

Our new sister organisation, Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, explains the background:

After a series of “activists” were exposed as long-term undercover police spies, and the revelation that police undercover officers had been spying on political campaigners from 1968 to the present day, a Public Inquiry into undercover policing was ordered.

The UK government, however, chose to limit the Inquiry to England and Wales. Many of the same police spies now being investigated by the Inquiry also operated in Scotland. We know that they spied in Scotland, we know that they lied in Scotland, and we know some of them were with their unsuspecting activist partners in Scotland – something the Met concedes is a breach of fundamental human rights that police are sworn to uphold.

The Scottish government made repeated formal requests to the Home Office to extend the Inquiry to cover Scotland. Every party in the Scottish Parliament backed the call. They were repeatedly refused.

Rather than have their own inquiry, the Scottish government hired HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland – an organisation of career police officers – to do a report. It was the most brazen whitewash imaginable. It ignored all policing before 2000 and failed to even mention officers deceiving women into relationships.

Tilly Gifford, a social justice activist with the Plane Stupid climate campaign group, was targeted by spycops in Scotland in 2009. In 2016 Tilly took legal action to challenge the UK government over its failure to extend the Inquiry to include Scotland, and also to review why the Scottish Government failed to have its own independent public inquiry.

She was denied legal aid as the case supposedly had no merit. After considerable legal wrangling, and some crowdfunding, she got the decision overturned. The full hearing is happening today and tomorrow, the 19th and 20th of July.

Realising this crucial moment was coming, a month ago, Tilly and other activists, researchers and lawyers called a public meeting in Glasgow to form the Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (“SCOPS”).

SCOPS, along with its UK-wide counterpart Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, is an alliance of people spied on by Britain’s political secret police. SCOPS’ focus, however, is on political policing carried out by Scottish police forces and on political policing in Scotland. The first task for SCOPS is, of course, to support Tilly in her judicial review.

SCOPS believes that victims of political policing in Scotland deserve nothing less than a full, independent, Scottish public inquiry. We’ve looked in increasing horror at the undercover policing inquiry in England and Wales, and we are determined to learn from its mistakes.

It must be led by a panel of experts. One sheriff – or judge, in the case of the Inquiry down South – is not nearly representative enough. Time and again we’ve seen the Inquiry’s chair display his lack of awareness of modern life. Scotland can and must do better. Whatever the outcome of this week’s judicial review, SCOPS will continue to campaign for a proper independent public inquiry.

We hope you’ll join us on the 19th and 20th of July at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. But whether you’re able to join us or not – if you, or someone you know, has been affected by political policing in Scotland, or can share information on political policing by Scottish police forces, please do get in touch.

We believe political policing is likely to disproportionately affect Scotland, where trade union activism has always been strong. It’s notable that the construction industry blacklist – in which police help to illegally prevent political activists from working – has a disproportionate number of Scottish names. We strongly suspect recent campaigns in Scotland – from Faslane to the Independence Referendum – will have been targeted by spycops. Every piece of information that comes to light seems to prompt further revelations.

Our campaign is just beginning, and it won’t end until political policing in Scotland ends.

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