Spycops Back in Court Over Human Rights

Join us outside court on 27 February 2020 to support Kate Wilson in the next hearing of her landmark human rights case that could lay bare the inner workings and chain of command of Britain’s political secret police.

Kate was deceived into a long-term, intimate relationship with an undercover Metropolitan police officer, Mark Kennedy. She is bringing a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, Britain’s special court for human rights affected by state surveillance.

Even before the full case is heard, these preliminary hearings have brought significant victories. The Met said they concede Kate’s claim that they violated her fundamental right to freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The Met also admitted that there are many thousands of relevant documents, and the sample seen shows the fine detail in which her relationship with Kenedy was recorded, detailing a dozen visits to stay with her parents, even describing gifts he bought for her. Kennedy’s ‘handler’ officer watched them together.

It’s demolished the Met’s wall of denial, built up over years claiming such relationships were the actions of rogue officers acting without management approval.

Kate is one of eight women whose legal case against the Met elicited the police’s historic apology of 2015 in which we were told:

‘The forming of a sexual relationship by an undercover officer would never be authorised in advance nor indeed used as a tactic of a deployment’

That came a year after another official report into the spycops scandal was equally unquivocal:

‘There are and never have been any circumstances where it would be appropriate for such covertly deployed officers to engage in intimate sexual relationships with those they are employed to infiltrate and target.

‘Such an activity can only be seen as an abject failure of the deployment, a gross abuse of their role and their position as a police officer and an individual and organisational failing.’

– Chief Constable Mick Creedon, ‘Operation Herne – Report 2‘, 2014

We now have proof that those statements are lies. If this comes from a 200 page sample of the 10,000 pages that mention Kate, imagine what there is in the rest.

The demo is outside Kate’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday 27 February, 9.30am. Here’s an event listing for more details on that.

As for the basis of the case itself, here are the specifics:

Spycops Breaching Human Rights

Kate’s asserting that the Metropolitan Police breached five article of the European Convention of Human Rights:

Article 3

Article 3 prohibits torture and “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. This is an absolute right, there are no circumstances that make this treatment acceptable.

“I have experienced  the psychological damage that these operations can cause. It is deep  and it is long lasting, and I think that the intrusiveness and the  psychological violence that is inherent in these tactics, and not just  the sexual relationships, but the intimacy, the abuse of trust, which is  completely inherent to any undercover policing operation could be  seriously underestimated by anyone who has not been subjected to that  tactic.”
– Kate Wilson

In their 2015 apology, the Metropolitan Police admitted the relationships were a “gross violation of personal dignity and integrity,” and said officers “preyed on the women’s good nature and had manipulated their emotions to a gratuitous extent.”

These relationships caused serious long-term harm and psychological trauma to the victims and others close to them. This, and the nature of the deception involved, mean they were violations of Article 3.  If this is upheld in court, a change in the law around the authorisation of intimate relationships by undercover officers might be forced.

“What happened to us has been akin to psychological torture”
– ‘Lisa’

 

“It turns your life upside down. Everything that you thought you knew suddenly becomes unreal; everything changes. You do not know who you can trust any more. It destroys everything.”
– Helen Steel

Article 8

Article 8 provides a right to respect for one’s private and family life, home and correspondence.

“I have been abused in by an undercover police officer who was sent into my life, into my home, into my parents’ home, and into my bed by the Metropolitan Police.”
– Kate Wilson

Intimate and sexual relationships by undercover officers concealing their real identity from the other person/s in the relationship/s represent a clear violation of the right to respect for private and family life. These relationships involved intrusion into people’s families, with some officers attending family funerals, and helping women through the grieving process. In their Apology, the Met Police admitted it was a “gross violation” of the women’s privacy.

“I met him when I was 29, and he disappeared about three months before I was 35. It was the time when I wanted to have children”
– ‘Alison’

 

Articles 10 & 11

Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression, and Article 11 protects the right to freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form trade unions.

“I have been the subject of systematic surveillance and violations of my intimacy, my right to privacy, and my bodily integrity, for at least the last 18 years by police forces that are cooperating across European borders. Put simply it is a story of human rights abuse and persecution  by secret political police because of my beliefs and political activities”
– Kate Wilson

Women have been targeted because of their participation in social justice campaigns. Intimate and sexual relationships have been used as a tactic  to infiltrate campaigning and political organisatons. These relationships resulted in real psychological harm, violating the right to freedom of expression, and the right to freedom of assembly and association.

Any “like-minded activist” was considered a valid target for infiltration, and further authorisation was not sought for their inclusion into the operation, regardless of their relevance to any investigation. This approach clearly interferes with the right  to freedom of expression, and the right to freedom of assembly and association.

“There is probably more damage and violence that happens on a regular basis on a Friday night in town centres when people get drunk, but there is not a proposal to infiltrate every pub in the country on the off-chance that you are going to be able to prevent violence and damage. This is about political policing and trying to interfere with what is actually a recognised right to freedom of association and freedom of expression.”
– Helen Steel

 

“It has had a massive impact on my political activity…I suspected within about a month of his disappearance, and after about 18 months of different searches I came to believe it… I withdrew from political activity.”
– ‘Alison’

 

Article 14

Article 14 contains a prohibition of discrimination.

The relationships perpetrated by undercover police officers have overwhelomingly been men preying on women. It is institutional sexism. Undercover officers having sexual relationships with female activists plainly has a discriminatory effect on women being able to exercise their human rights under Articles 3, 8, 10 and 11.

“This highlights the sexist mindset that thought that it was acceptable for  the police to abuse women, and derail our lives in order to shore up the fake identities of these undercover policemen so they could undermine political movements and campaign groups.”
– Helen Steel

Qualified Human Rights

Whilst Article 3 – the right to freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment – is an absolute right, Articlethe others in Kate’s claim are qualified rights that can be breached in certain circumstances. But interference is permissible only if there is a legal basis, the interference is necessary in a democratic society, or the interference is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by carrying it out.

There is nothing in law which states that if a police officer suspects an  individual of involvement with a political movement, that officer is entitled to have a sexual relationship with the person to try to find out.

Sexual and intimate relationships cannot be said to be necessary – there are a multitude of reasons why any individual might decline to  become intimate with another person.  Given the level of invasion of privacy and the serious psychological harm caused by such relationships they cannot be thought of as proportionate for getting information on political campaign groups.

‘Collateral Intrusion’ and Human Rights

“He is in my mother’s wedding photograph, and I and my current partner have to see him in that.”
– ‘Alison’

Intrusion into the lives of people associated with the targets of the undercover officers is termed by the police ‘Collateral Intrusion.’ Perversely, its  authorisation appears to require less rigorous tests than intrusion into the lives of “suspects”

The depth of the intrusion into the claimants’ lives also meant a deep  intrusion into the lives of family members and close friends. For example, undercover police officers “infiltrated” deeply emotional family gatherings such as funerals, weddings and birthday celebrations. The psychological harm inflicted, not only on the claimants, but on close members of our family – including infirm, elderly relatives, and forming significant bonds with children – cannot be justified.

“There is no justification for somebody coming to my father’s funeral with me. There was no justification for putting an undercover cop into my family’s life.”
– ‘Lisa’

Collateral Intrusion is, it seems, a euphemism for violating the fundamental human rights of people who are not even the specific subjects of  surveillance, without any real consideration of the psychological damage that such deep deceptions might cause.

In the same way that it is not considered necessary and proportionate for undercover officers to form intimate sexual relationships, it is always wholly inappropriate for a police officer to insert themselves into extended families, in the way that being part of long-term relationships would necessitate.

Instead of being seen as ‘Collateral Intrusion’ that can be easily authorised, every individual whose Article 8 Human Rights may be breached by an operation should be afforded the respect of having the merits of that intrusion specifically considered and recorded, including the specific reasons why it is considered necessary and proportionate.

Join us outside court on 27 February 2020 to demand truth and justice for Kate Wilson and a nation whose political life has been corrupted by spycops.

 

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Originally published by Police Spies Out of Lives.