VIDEO: Spycops – The People’s Inquiry

On 8 July 2018, people targeted by Britain’s political secret police held a ‘people’s inquiry’ at Conway Hall in London.

Exasperated by the state public inquiry’s bias towards secrecy as it drags on for years without even formally starting, the victims of spycops held this theatrical event to envision what an effective inquiry would look like.

It was part of a weekend of activities celebrating 50 years of progressive political campaigns achievements despite being infiltrated by counter-democratic police.

Our Youtube Channel has three short videos from the People’s Inquiry session.

This first one has an overview of the People’s Inquiry event, showing the kind of first-hand testimony that was heard from a diversity of people whose lives were invaded in a wide variety of ways, and it also shows thirst for justice in those present.

One of the people giving testimony was veteran anti-racist campaigner Marc Wadsworth. In the 1980s he led the Labour Party’s black section, and in the 1990s he was leader of the Anti-Racist Alliance.

Asked by Stephen Lawrence’s family to help build their campaign for justice, Marc was targeted by officers from Britain’s political secret police. He is a core participant at the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

At the end of the afternoon the panel gave a list of recommendations for an effective inquiry, a list of demands to remedy what is absent from the increasingly pointless, expensive and secret state inquiry

Our 13 Recommendations following the Peoples Public Inquiry:

1. Full disclosure of all names – both cover and real – of officers from the disgraced political police units, accompanied by contemporaneous photographs

2. Release of the names of all groups suspected to have been spied upon

3. Release of all personal files on activists

4. Extension of the inquiry to all countries where the British spycops are known to have operated

5. The appointment of a diverse panel with experience relevatnt ot victims to assist the chair in making decisions and judgements

6. Inclusion of children and young people who had contact with spycops as Core Participants in the Inquiry

7. Urgent and immediate review of convictions where spycops had involvement in the cases & misled courts – 50 wrongful convictions have already been overturned and this is likely to be a fraction of the true total.

8. The Inquiry must extend its scope to understand political policing and its impact on democracy. This must include a thorough investigation into racist, sexist, anti-working class, anti-democratic behaviour on behalf of the spycops and those that instructed them to operate in this manner. Such political policing and political policing units must be abolished.

9. An urgent review into all undercover police activities to investigate whether the bad practice exposed by this inquiry has been extended to other areas of undercover operations

10. Make available the necessary resources of the judge to be able to do their job in the available time

11. Equalising of resources, the police are spending millions on stonewalling the inquiry, victims have almost nothing

12. Increase the severity of penalties for non-compliance with the inquiry

13. Investigation into collusion between police and corporate spies