New Delay Prompts Fury in Spycops Inquiry

Today, the Undercover Policing Inquiry announced that the third set of evidence hearings will be postponed for many months.

These hearings, looking at the managers of the spycops units from 1968-1982, were due to take place in October 2021.

The only reason provided for the change is that is that a single new core participant in the Inquiry is going to require too much additional work. The new date given is ‘the first half of 2022’.

DELAYS UPON DELAYS

The Inquiry was announced in March 2014, and was originally scheduled to publish its report in mid 2018. After a huge amount of deliberate delay from the police, the plan was drastically revised.

In May 2018, the Inquiry announced an ‘ambitious’ timeline that planned to deliver the final report to the Home Secretary in late 2023. A redacted version would have been expected to be published some time in 2024.

The Inquiry had already fallen a year behind this schedule before the Covid pandemic added further delays.

Non-State Core Participants in the Inquiry, people who were targeted by the disgraced undercover units, are outraged by yet another delay.

‘Jessica’, one of the women deceived into a relationship by an undercover officer, said:

‘This farcical reason is another slap in the face. Yet again we have a high handed decision that impacts all of us, but they don’t care; this mismanagement just prolongs all our pain. Just what have they been doing the last six years? They need to stop messing around and release the files to us.’

The announcement comes on the back of recent news that the Inquiry has cost the public £36 million so far, and that the final bill may be over £100 million.

Significantly, the delayed set of hearings about management would explore who made the decisions about who was targeted for this intrusive abusive political policing, who knew about the sexual relationships of the undercover officers and who knew about the theft of identities of dead children.

JUSTICE DELAYED… AGAIN

The Non-State Core Participants have expressed their exhaustion at how long this has been drawn out. They fear it may take another five years or more before the final report is published.

Helen Steel, Core Participant, points at police demands for persuasive secrecy as exacerbating the delays:

‘It is now more than 10 years since campaigners and whistleblowers exposed the oppressive, sexist and racist actions of these undercover political policing units.

‘This Public Inquiry was supposed to open to public scrutiny the full extent of secret political policing in the UK, but instead the police have sought secrecy at every turn, and the Inquiry has colluded with this.

‘The huge cost and delays to the Inquiry so far are all a result of an obsessive culture of secrecy. Every document is being scrutinised by at least eight pairs of police or state eyes before it can be released to the public. It doesn’t take eight
pairs of eyes and endless argument to redact names for privacy. These documents relate to events 40-50 years ago, there is no need for this level of secrecy – this is a cover up to reduce political embarrassment for the police and the government.

‘The real cost is to those spied upon and to the public’s right to know the truth about these political spying operations.’

Tom Fowler, Core Participant, adds:

‘The one area in which the Inquiry has truly excelled has been at delay. Even the most casual observer will recognise this as just another cynical manoeuvre by an establishment institution who are well aware that justice delayed is justice denied. Campaigners believe that spurious grounds of national security are being used to protect the police from public scrutiny over unacceptable behaviour.’

 

–ENDS–

Notes
1. The Inquiry announcement may be found at:
https://www.ucpi.org.uk/2021/04/20/ucpi-t1-p2-hearings-start-wednesday/
The next hearings will begin on Monday 26th April at the Amba Hotel, Marble Arch, London, lasting until 14th May, with live evidence being given by undercover police and those they targeted. Topics expected to be covered will include many of the
significant events of the 1970s protest movement such as the death of Blair Peach, and the Anti-Nazi League.

As with previous hearings, COPS will be live tweeting the hearings and posting daily summary reports on our website.

Follow the COPS for more details and announcements:
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Facebook: campaignopposingpolicesurveillance
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