On 21 April 2021, Tranche 1, Phase 2 of the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) began. It will last for just over three weeks, examining the actions of the Metropolitan Police’s undercover political unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), from 1973-82. Subsequent hearings will look at the unit’s later years.

This report summarises the main points of the first three days. For more details, see our daily reports: Day 1: 21 April, Day 2: 22 April, and Day 3: 23 April. For background information on the Inquiry, see our UCPI FAQ.

ABUSE WAS THE PURPOSE

In stark contrast to previous claims of it all being the fault of ‘rogue officers’, then ‘rogue units’, the vintage evidence newly released by the Inquiry for these hearings confirms clear knowledge of SDS operations and tactics within the Metropolitan Police, MI5, and to the highest level of the Home Office.

These operations included:

• deliberately deceiving activists and other women into forming intimate sexual relationships with them
• stealing the identities of dead children to create their undercover identities
• rising to the highest levels of the groups they infiltrated, directly influencing and undermining those groups

SDS Annual Reports always included a list of groups targeted during the year. Apart from one officer spying on the far right (and only because the left-wing group he was infiltrating asked him to do so), all the groups are on what can broadly be seen as the left: communist, socialist, anti-nuclear, Irish liberation, women’s rights.

As with the opening day of the November hearings, some previously unmentioned groups were named as having been spied upon. And as before, this information comes too late to be of use to people who were legitimate members of those groups.

The Counsel to the Inquiry questions witnesses (unlike a trial with different lawyers pressurising witnesses from different directions). It is immediately apparent that, of the many witnesses who should be called, only a fraction has actually been invited.

This is directly owing to the police, who have delayed the Inquiry for so long that many of those who should be giving evidence are now either too frail, or actually deceased. The latter includes two Home Secretaries and three Met Commissioners who have died since the Inquiry was announced in 2014, as well as numerous senior officers who rose through the ranks from the SDS, plus four of the 22 officers whose cover names have been made public.

JUSTICE DELAYED

Delays and loss of witnesses have also been caused by the Inquiry itself, who have failed to contact or even try to find those who were spied upon, despite having their names, and have refused to provide cover names or photos of those who did the spying, which means their victims don’t get the chance to identify them and come forward. They even refused offers from spied-upon Core Participants to provide photos of undercover officers, and never thought to ask the officers themselves.

The delays continue to mount up. ‘Tranche 1 Phase 3’ hearings – dealing with the unit’s early managers from the SDS’s foundation in 1968 until 1982 – were scheduled to take place in October 2021, but have now been put back to the first half of 2022.

The Inquiry no longer expects to look at ‘Tranche 2’ (covering the years 1983-1992) next year – now to be dealt with in 2023 at the earliest the soonest.

This means a potential wait until 2024 for Tranche 3 (covering the SDS in 1993-2007), and even longer for Tranche 4, covering the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (1999-2011), which deployed the likes of Mark Kennedy.

The main cause of delay in this Inquiry has been the excessive demands for redactions made by the police and State bodies. Kirsten Heaven, representing some of the Non-Police, Non-State Core Participants (ie, those who were victims of SDS tactics)spoke of their anger and frustration at these new delays. She reminded the Chair, Sir John Mitting, that his predecessor Lord Pitchford, original Chair of the Inquiry, had intended to conclude in 2018.

Mitting responded that delays are inevitable and the most recent ones have been caused by providing documents to a new core participant, a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), who is to give a witness statement. Mitting says there is so much vintage police material on the SWP that this cannot be done by October.

Ironically, existing Core Participants were meant to get police documents for the current hearings in mid-March 2021, but another 2000+ pages were added in April, only a couple of weeks before these hearings began, and people were expected to be able to read and respond to it.

The Inquiry needs the help of those who were spied on and, on a more personal level, those people have already waited too long for answers. They must be given full disclosure of documents relevant to them with plenty of time to analyse and reply so they can expose the lies. People should be given the files that mention them immediately The Met have said they’re happy to do this, if the Inquiry decrees it. Mitting has stated that that ‘perhaps the request cannot be fulfilled’. He gave no reason at all as to why this might be.

As for the new SWP Core Participant, the Inquiry made no attempt to contact her until recently, and this is not the only time this has happened.

A pattern is emerging of the Inquiry failing to contact Non-Police, Non-State Core Participants about evidence that involves them, and failing to ask state and police core participants for evidence in a timely manner.

Last week we learned that spycop ‘Alan Bond‘ (HN67, 1981-86) may well have fathered a child while undercover, but is now said to be too ill to give evidence. The Inquiry has known of his condition for three years yet has not taken a statement from him.

Heaven recommended that the Inquiry prioritise collecting statements from all former officers and managers, and provide a full list of all Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) managers from 1968-82 who are due to give evidence in Phase 3, along with regular updates on their state of health.

EXCLUDING THE VICTIMS

Two of the many women who were targeted and spied on gave evidence this week. Diane Langford was a founding member of the Women’s Liberation Front during the time this phase of the hearings covers, and has been an activist for over 50 years. ‘Madeleine’ was an active member of the Socialist Workers Party from her teens onwards, and was spied upon and deceived into a sexual relationship with a spycop.

Diane Langford has only recently become a Core Participant at the Inquiry, thanks to the work of the Undercover Research Group. Her name appeared unredacted in many SDS reports disclosed at the previous round of hearings in November 2020, but the Inquiry only reached out to her just beforehand.

By the time she knew that ‘Sandra Davies’ – who had spied on her and voted to oust her as the leader of the group she had founded – was giving evidence to the Inquiry it was too late to book a place at the limited screening venue.

The Inquiry failed to ask Langford to give evidence, or tell her that she could seek legal representation. It’s not just about her own inclusion but, as she said:

‘how many others who were spied on are completely unaware that their names appear in these files?’

The Inquiry only contacted ‘Madeleine’ in February 2020, yet she was known about in 2017, when the Inquiry first dealt with the spycop who abused her, ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79). They reneged on promises to send a female officer to bring her the news and put her touch with Police Spies Out of Lives, a group which represents and supports women deceived into relationships by spycops.

Rajiv Menon QC, representing Piers Corbyn, made some excellent points about the Inquiry’s insistence on secrecy:

• Out of an estimated 18 surviving SDS officers deployed during 1973-82 whose cover names have been disclosed, only eight are being called to give evidence. This was a critical period in the history of the SDS. We should be hearing from as many spycops as possible.
• Evidence from seven SDS officers whose real and cover names have been restricted is not being disclosed. Instead, it is redacted, edited and amalgamated into an eight page ‘gist’. We need to know what they did individually, if their information is to be of any use at all.
• Most frustrating is the redaction of the names of 130 groups spied on and infiltrated by the SDS between 1969 and 1984. Why, 35-50 years later, must these remain secret, at the insistence of those who did the spying? It’s a betrayal of the purpose of the Inquiry.

After the public hearings are finished in mid-May, the following three weeks will be taken up with spycops giving evidence in secret. At least one of them appeared in the BBC’s True Spies documentary talking about his career, so it is unclear why he cannot give public evidence to the Inquiry.

WHO WAS SPIED UPON, AND WHY?

The newly disclosed documents show that the decision of who was targeted by the spycops came either straight from the top (MI5 and the Home Office) or straight from the bottom (the spycops deciding for themselves). In both cases, it was left-wing, equality, and social justice campaigns which were infiltrated and undermined. There is only one exception to this.

‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77), infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party. Not knowing he was a spy, they asked him, in turn, to infiltrate a breakaway group of the far-right National Front. This is bragged about in the 1974 SDS report, showing a total lack of awareness that their only foray into the far-right was instigated by a left-wing group and done to maintain cover.

SEEING THINGS IN CONTEXT

Police lawyers insisted that the actions of the SDS be seen in the historical context of the period and judged by those standards.

Very well then: the 1970s saw the rise of many campaigns, which attempted to improve the lives of all those in society and are now seen as mainstream, such as women’s rights and anti-racism groups.

Simultaneously, the far-right and fascist groups such as the National Front and Column 88 were on the rise.
According to the police’s lawyers, the spycops were politically neutral and did not target one kind of group over another. This is a ridiculous claim given that hundreds of groups and individuals perceived to be on ‘the left’ were targeted, while the far-right, who created fear through their use of violence, were not policed in the same way.

In fact, the SDS Annual Reports consistently downplayed the threat posed by the far-right. The police’s lawyers suggested there was no need to infiltrate groups like the National Front, because they ‘tended to cooperate’ with Special Branch.

At this time, Column 88 were threatening to burn down the homes of SWP members. The National Front were attacking Bengalis in Brick Lane, smashing up reggae record shops and vandalising mosques. There was firebombing and murder.

Instead of investigating the racist firebombing that killed 13 young black people in New Cross, the SDS were reporting on school children and providing MI5 with copies of Socialist Workers Party babysitting rotas.

As Diane Langford said:

‘To read these reports is to see some of the greatest ideas of our time crushed into the narrow confines of a mentality absolutely lacking in the capacity to comprehend them’

WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Many of the reports on the SWP have photographs of children attached. These were either the children of Socialist Workers Party members, or children who were engaged enough with their society to be part of the School Kids Against the Nazis. Reporting on children was a new development for the SDS, but then happened frequently.
One report, signed off by very senior officers and copied to MI5, included details about someone’s brother and his wife, and contained a line about the couple having a ‘mongol child’, a derogatory term for someone with Down’s Syndrome.

Another, attributed to ‘Barry Tompkins‘ (HN106, 1979-83), includes details of a woman activist who had an abortion, and speculation about ‘the putative father’. This kind of invasion of privacy cannot be justified.

The Women’s Liberation Front was targeted, with reports detailing such subversive events as jumble sales and a children’s Christmas party.

The youth wing of the Liberal Party was targeted by ‘Michael Scott‘ (HN298, 1971-76) in order to gather intelligence about anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain. The spycops cynically targeted all sorts of non-radical groups, displaying an utter contempt for civil society. Despite this, the 1975 SDS Annual Report claims that officers ‘concentrated on gathering intelligence about the activities of those extremists whose political views are to the left of the Communist Party of Great Britain’.

‘Madeleine’ wonders whether her father, a double war hero who fought fascism all his life, would also have been considered a ‘subversive’ and a ‘dangerous extremist’.

Dave Morris, one of the two defendants in the McLibel trial and spied upon by multiple officers, described his activism:

‘The essence of my personal motivation and political beliefs has remained constant throughout the last 50 years or so – the desire to tackle injustice, to seek improvements in society in the public interest, and to encourage and empower people to have as much control over their lives as possible.’

He confirms that judging by the standards of the time, as requested, a proper risk assessment of threats to society would have set its sights on other dangers – not just the far-right but fossil fuel companies, tobacco companies and car manufacturers.

ANTI-APARTHEID CAMPAIGNS & RACISM

One of those dangers would have been the South African State’s security service that was active in London in the 1970s, targeting the African National Congress and Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Bombings and murders were committed against anti-apartheid campaigners in Britain. Military materials were used. Few charges were ever brought. In 1972, Peter Hain received a letter bomb, opened by his 14-year-old sister. The incident remains uninvestigated. The spycops seem to have been wholly uninterested in pro-apartheid violence. Instead, they obsessively collected information on a wide range of left-wing groups that opposed it.

Racism was a huge issue in this era. There were violent confrontations. SDS officers were involved in the fascist rally and anti-fascist counter-protest, known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham’, in August 1977.

THE BATTLE OF LEWISHAM

The Inquiry were shown a BBC film and an Associated Press report on the ‘Battle of Lewisham’. The SDS Annual Report for that year suggested that this was a triumph of SDS intelligence, minimising the clashes and violence.

Even just these film clips, and the fact that the demo is now known as the Battle of Lewisham, makes this claim of negligible disorder laughable, and casts doubt about the accuracy of the other information in these Annual Reports.

It was mentioned that one SDS officer complained that the intelligence supplied in the run-up was ignored by police planning for the demo.

‘Madeleine’ emphatically refutes a claim made by spycop Vince Miller – and repeated in the SDS Annual Report that year – that bricks were stockpiled at various locations by the SWP along the planned NF route and that members of the SWP carried weapons to the march in bags. The police were, in reality, undermining efforts to fight fascism and combat racism.

‘Madeleine’ continued:

‘The Battle of Lewisham is now rightly considered a watershed moment like Cable Street in the fight against fascism in this country. Unable to control the streets, the National Front went into decline and the event is now proudly remembered as the moment when the far right was again defeated. It is now commemorated by the local council and seen as a symbol of a community coming together to say yes to black and white unity and no to the forces of hate.’

In the early 1980s, East London Workers Against Racism – a subgroup of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which supported victims of racist attacks – was infiltrated by SDS officer ‘Barry Tompkins’. This meant that Tompkins reported on the victims of racist violence.

Spying on victims of racist violence and the groups supporting them is a pattern that endured, something we will see when we look at the 1990s and the spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence, Ricky Reel, and many others.

WOMEN’S LIBERATION GROUPS

Diane Langford knew of two that undercover officers spied on her. The Inquiry have now told her it had been six.

Her full statement is compelling, articulate, and moving. Here we summarise some of her main points.

As with many others, Langford’s commitment to the women’s liberation movement was fuelled by personal experience. She gave the example of how, when she was in her early twenties, her 19-year-old flatmate died from an illegal back street abortion:

‘The memory of her death remains vivid for me still, at the age of 79.’

She listed three dramatic events that spring to mind when recalling the period under scrutiny:

• Dave Robertson threatened my friend with violence when she outed him as an undercover.
• Robertson ignored an allegation of attempted rape at a meeting, instead focusing on my domestic arrangements and ridiculing my partner
• Banner Books was burned down by fascists while undercover officers had surveilled and had access to the building, and a man was reported to have died. This needs investigating.

When told that ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348, 1971-73) spied on 77 meetings, of which 55 were related to the women’s liberation movement, Langford responded:

‘Sounds like more than I did! Why is the women’s movement not a focus of the Inquiry? The Inquiry is colluding with the state to limit the search for evidence’.

Indeed, the list of groups that were spied on contains numerous women’s rights organisations, despite ‘Sandra Davies’ being the only female spycop deployed in this period – and only active from 1971-73.

The surveillance of the women in these groups by men, seemingly because women’s equality was viewed as a form of subversion, starkly illustrates the degree to which the SDS was institutionally sexist and abusive.

WOMEN DECEIVED INTO INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

The Inquiry has found no documents from this era (1973-82) that instruct spycops officers either to have or to abstain from sexual relationships. But managers indeed know about it. ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1976-79) mentioned in his statement that he even heard comments and jokes about relationships from spycops at meetings with their managers.

During this time, all of the spycops (and their managers) were male. The SDS went these ten years without any women officers, which may well have had an influence of the unit’s culture. The vast majority of these men were married, which was noted at the time of recruitment. It was perhaps thought that this might deter the undercovers from getting too close to their targets, but clearly it didn’t prevent them initiating sexual relationships.

It is now clear that in the era being examined, numerous spycops had sexual relationships with women while using their undercover identities. Some of these women were the targets of their spying operations, others came into contact with the spycops socially.

To quote Langford again:

‘We see the callous use of women’s bodies by misogynous male officers who see such abuse as a perk of the job, and a confluence of the sexist behaviour and patriarchal attitudes of so-called left wing men in socialist groups and that of those spying on them.’

The practices and culture established in this period were the foundations of the long running sexism which infected the SDS. officers’ reports rate women’s attractiveness and comment on the size of their breasts. No account was taken of the impact of the officers’ behaviour on their wives and families.

NO NECESSITY FOR THESE RELATIONSHIPS

Spycops gave no thought to the dignity of women, to their right to choose who they had sex with, the risk of harm if they found out the truth, or what would happen if they got pregnant. Most officers involved readily admit there was no necessity for these relationships. It was gratuitous and a grossly intrusive invasion of private citizens’ lives. Any spycop who deceives someone into sex should forfeit their right to anonymity.

We were told in the past that these deceitful relationships only rarely occurred, but the evidence now being published provides a different picture. We now know that in the era examined by the current hearings, 1973-82, at least a third of the officers in the unit engaged in sexual relationships while undercover. Of these, ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76), and perhaps ‘Alan Bond‘ (HN67, 1981-86), had children with women they’d spied on.

Despite all these officer being known to have deceived women into relationships in this era, the Inquiry is only calling one, ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79), to give evidence.

BLAIR PEACH

An important issue in these hearings will be the killing of Blair Peach by the police in 1979, the subsequent police cover-up, and the campaign for justice by his then-partner Celia Stubbs. She has campaigned all her life, always to strengthen civil society, and was targeted by the undercovers as a result, even before Peach’s death. She recently spoke movingly about it, and spycops, to Channel 4 News.

The killing of Blair Peach and its cover-up remains one of the most notorious events in British police history, a national disgrace, and a permanent stain on the Met.

Peach and Stubbs were both members of the SWP as well as active anti-racist campaigners. Both Stubbs and Peach had spycops files kept on them, opened in 1974 and 1978, long before Peach was killed. The Inquiry has not released any of the documents involved that pre-date Peach’s death.

On 23 April 1979, there was a plan to march and sit down at Southall Town Hall protesting at a National Front meeting. Special Patrol Group (SPG) officers piled out of a van and one struck Peach, killing him. All six SPG officers refused to cooperate with the investigation that followed. And no officer was ever brought to justice for due to a major police cover-up.

The 1979 SDS Annual Report describes the Peach campaign as a main focus, yet the Inquiry has disclosed suspiciously few documents relating to this. The Home Office’s response in 1979 was to renew the SDS’s funding.
The SDS reported on the campaign for promoting actions like writing to MPs and local newspapers, and phoning in to radio shows. A number of spycops even attended Peach’s funeral, while police evidence gatherers photographed the attendees for later identification by the SDS.

Combined with the cover-up, it is clear that the infiltration of the Blair Peach campaign was about preventing guilty police officers from being held to account.

THE SPYING HASN’T STOPPED

The spycops units have continued to take an active interest in the Blair Peach campaign ever since. A commemorative event was organised for the twentieth anniversary of his death in 1999, and this too was targeted by spycops, with the excuse that such campaigns were ‘anti-police’.

Police lawyers told the Inquiry last November that the SDS and NPIOU never directly targeted justice campaigns. But the documents we see in these hearings prove that is untrue. Officers were tasked to spy on the Peach campaign.

Celia Stubbs was also involved in the Hackney Community Defence Campaign and Colin Roach Centre, both of which were targeted by spycops. She is extremely disturbed about the fact that her lawyers were put under police surveillance, and Special Branch files were opened on them.

For Stubbs, this conspicuous lack of evidence is just one more obstruction to truth and accountability.

EMPLOYMENT BLACKLISTING

Many eyebrows were raised by the police lawyers’ insistence in their November Opening Statement that the SDS did not infiltrate trade unions and were not involved in blacklisting. The unit 1972 Annual Report contains references to trade union activity and strikes (the miners, the dockers and building workers), as well as the union-initiated Shrewsbury Two campaign.

The police lawyers tried to fend off the fact that SDS officers illegally supplied personal details of activists to employment blacklists. They claimed that police received material from sources beyond that as well, so we can’t be sure that what they called ‘so-called blacklisting’ definitely involved information from SDS officers.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) seized a blacklist of more than 3,200 people at the offices of construction industry blacklisters The Consulting Association in 2009. In 2012 the ICO’s investigations manager confirmed that there was information in the files that ‘could only be supplied by the police or the security services’.

In 2013, SDS whistleblower officer Peter Francis said that he believed information he’d reported when undercover in the 1990s had ended up in blacklist files.

Kirsten Heaven reminded the Inquiry that it was Operation Reuben, the Met’s own investigation, that found:

‘police, including Special Branches and the security services, supplied information to the blacklist funded by the country’s major construction firms, the Consulting Association and other agencies.’

According to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, all Special Branches routinely gave details of politically active people to the construction industry blacklist.

The Blacklisting Support Group are outraged by this reference to ‘so-called blacklisting’ organisations. There is no doubt that blacklisting occurred. It is plain, indisputable historic fact. Any attempt to belittle it is deeply offensive to its many victims and their families.

STEALING IDENTITIES OF DEAD CHILDREN

At the start of the SDS, undercover officers simply invented names to use for their cover identity (apart from ‘Michael Scott‘ (HN298, 1971-76) who stole the identity of a living person), undercover officers used fictional identities to build their cover story in the early days.

But from around 1974, after a change of management, undercovers started to use the identities of dead children and were instructed and/or expected to do so. Officers who queried this were told it was the usual process.

They searched for people who had been born around the same time as themselves, preferably with the same first name. The practice continued into the late 1990s – the most recent known being ‘Rod Richardson’ (EN32/HN596, 1999-2003).

Police have told the Inquiry that it was important that an officer have a real birth certificate in case the group they were infiltrating became suspicious and looked for one. But those same people could also find the matching death certificate.

While there are no reasons why a living person would have a death certificate, there are plenty of reasons why a birth certificate might not be found (eg, if someone was born abroad, or adopted), there is no reason why a living person would have a death certificate, and the cover would be blown. And this is exactly what happened.

Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) was one of the first infiltrators to steal a dead child’s identity, and it blew his cover. He became active and influential in the Troops Out Movement (TOM), and then infiltrated to Big Flame.

They, however, became suspicious when Clark applied for full membership, started an investigation into his background, and confronted him with the death certificate, at which point his deployment ended.

Fictitious identities had actually offered better cover to spycops than stealing dead people’s identities.

LIFE IMITATING ART?

In last year’s hearings, police lawyers spoke of the ‘essential operational imperative’ to steal real identities But other police units doing undercover work, such as Regional Crime Squads, did not do this. So why did the SDS?

Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal was published in 1971 and the film released in 1973, showing the practice of stealing dead children’s identities in just this way. So, rather than official police policy, was it instead a work of fiction that inspired this ghoulish practice? Whistleblower SDS officer Peter Francis (1993-97) said that the process was known as ‘the jackal run’ among SDS officers.

There was no justification to start the practice, and certainly none to continue after Clark was exposed. And yet, the practice continued for over 20 years. Stealing identities simply became an embedded practice in a unit that lacked accountability and effective supervision.

Very few former SDS officers seemed to have had any qualms of conscience about stealing dead children’s identities, let alone acting immorally in the dead person’s name, deceiving women into relationships, getting arrested and convicted.

In 2013, shortly after the spycops scandal became public knowledge, a Home Affairs Select Committee report insisted on the truth being told about SDS infiltrators stealing dead children’s identities and demanded all affected families be told and given an apology by the end of 2013. The Met simply ignored it. It has fallen to the Inquiry to belated start informing families.

ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP

‘Madeleine’, deceived into a relationship by ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79) when she was an SWP activist, stated:

‘I have also discovered, to my horror, that MI5 has had files on me since 1970 when I was aged 16, more than 6 years before HN354’s deployment. We know the SDS was formed in 1968 and that extensive spying was happening at that time. I therefore wonder if I was spied on as early as 13, when I was a schoolgirl?

‘Miller has even reported on the pregnancy of a woman in our branch and the name her baby was to be given. This went straight to MI5.’

The SDS officers recorded extraordinary and gross levels of detail. The birth of anti-apartheid activist Ernest Rodker’s son, and a note saying that Ernest himself had been admitted to hospital, were reported and copied to MI5, as were reports about who was at Peter Hain’s family home, including his younger siblings.

Were these details requested by, or relevant to, MI5? The SDS, acting as their foot soldiers, neither knew nor cared, even when they had been instructed by MI5 or the Home Office to target particular individuals or groups.
According to police lawyers, every spycop simply hoovered up all the information they could and reported it unfiltered. It was not up to them to discern, nor is it their fault they reported irrelevant things.

Why did MI5 retain the seemingly trivial stuff for so long that it is still in their files and now being shared with the Inquiry?

FOOT SOLDIERS OF MI5

MI5 did indeed retain thousands and thousands of documents, luckily for the Inquiry, as the Met seem to have lost or destroyed almost all of the SDS intelligence reports. Witness Z, a senior officer in MI5, has made a statement on behalf of the Security Service, that confirms that the SDS has always been subordinate to MI5.

However, we won’t be getting any further explanation, as Witness Z is no longer going to give evidence to the Inquiry. No reason has been given as to why they were withdrawn.

Frankly, this is incomprehensible. Witness Z’s statement, only just released, shows they have extensive, vital knowledge about the roles of the SDS and MI5, and the cooperation between the organisations. It contains the admission that supposedly subversive organisations were not actually considered a high threat at this time, but that pressure to spy on them often came from the Prime Minister and Whitehall.

At the time, MI5 defined subversion as ‘activities threatening the safety or well-being of the State and intended to undermine or overthrow Parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means’. Most, if not all, of those spied on by the SDS could not possibly be described as ‘subversive’ according to this definition.

SECRET LUNCHES

The SDS was well known to the most senior members of the Met, as well as MI5 and senior civil servants and politicians.

‘Michael James’ (HN96, 1978-83) reported that the Commissioner himself visited the SDS safe house. This practice has been confirmed for other periods by ‘Doug Edwards’ (HN326, 1968-71) and Peter Francis (1993-97) who both added that their Commissioners presented them with bottles of whisky.

From 1983, there is a programme and briefing pack prepared for Sir Kenneth Newman, the then Met Commissioner. It includes a brief profile of each member of the SDS at the time, ahead of an extended buffet lunch with the SDS officers at what is described as an ‘in-field location’.

It would be nice if the Inquiry could question Sir Kenneth about his knowledge of the SDS, unfortunately he is one of three ex Commissioners who have died since the Inquiry was announced.

But there can be no doubt that this phase of the Inquiry will put the nails in the coffin of senior officers’ claims that the SDS was a rogue unit, somehow totally secret and unknown even to the rest of the Met.

The 1975 SDS Annual Report emphasises the paramount importance of secrecy about the unit’s existence to avoid ‘an embarrassment for the Commissioner’ as well as maintaining officer security. This is a tacit admission that they knew the SDS was illegitimate. Why would there be any embarrassment if the unit were using reasonable methods to protect the public from genuine threats to their safety?

INFILTRATING, TAKING CHARGE & SABOTAGING

Police lawyers said the Inquiry should look at contemporaneous publications by the groups that spycops targeted to see how extreme the ideas were. It sounds fair enough at first, however throughout the existence of spycops, officers have written material for the campaigns they infiltrated.

From John Graham writing about the anti-Vietnam War protest in a 1969 edition of Red Camden to Mark Kennedy’s Indymedia posts, via Roger Pearce writing for Freedom, Bob Lambert cowriting the McLibel leaflet and John Dines’ anti-police section of the Poll Tax Riot booklet, it’s been common practice.

Spycops writing for campaigns pales in comparison to them being instrumental in running the organisations. A basic initial principle of the SDS, laid down by the unit’s founder Conrad Dixon, was:

‘members of the squad should be told, in no uncertain terms, that they must not take office in a group, chair meetings, draft leaflets, speak in public or initiate activity’

Despite this, the vast majority of spycops in the era begin examined, 1973-28, held positions of office in the organisations they infiltrated.

Most tend to ‘have forgotten’ the roles they had, or claimed they don’t know how they landed there. Alternatively, others say that the role was not really a position of trust at all. The institutionalised dishonesty creeps into every aspect of their evidence.

RICHARD CLARK: RISING THROUGH THE RANKS

One indisputable example of the exploitation and manipulation of both the people and the groups targeted, is the career of undercover officer Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76), who rose through Troops Out Movement (TOM) in order to get access to Big Flame.

Drawing together SDS reports and the statements of two people Clark spied on, Inquiry Core Participants Richard Chessum and ‘Mary’, James Scobie QC showed the Inquiry that Clark abused his friendship with Chessum and his sexual relationship with ‘Mary’ (and three other women) to reach his goal.

TOM was advocating self-determination for the people of Ireland and withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. Their methods were lobbying MPs, drafting alternative legislation, and raising awareness with the occasional low-key demonstration, doing talks and film screenings.

TOM had already been infiltrated, as recently as 1974, by ‘Michael Scott‘ (HN298, 1971-76) who concluded that:

‘It had no subversive objectives and as far as I am aware did not employ or approve the use of violence to achieve its objectives.’

Despite this, in a carefully prepared strategy, Clark wrote to TOM head office in December 1974 asking for a local branch to join, knowing there wasn’t one.

By February 1975, Clark had succeeded in creating an entirely new branch of the TOM. There were five founder members; Mary, Richard Chessum, his partner, another student, and Clark. Rather than infiltrating a branch, he had actively established his own one. He generated something to spy on.

Neither Mary, Chessum, nor his partner had Special Branch files on them until their involvement with Clark. Their lives were then reported upon to an extent that was both sinister and ridiculous. Their physical appearances, commentary on their body size, health issues, addresses, theatres visited, holiday destinations, right down to the brand of cigarettes they smoked. This information was passed to MI5.

WORKING HIS WAY IN

Clark had no back story. He needed to develop a place in the social network of political activists. To do that, he developed a close friendship with Richard Chessum and initiated a sexual relationship with Mary.

He also had relationships with at least three other female activists to gain position and tactical advantage. The other women were Mary’s flatmate, and two activists from the group Big Flame, Clark’s ultimate target. (His story also confirms that forming targeted sexual relationships started early in the SDS.)

As one of the founder members of the South East London branch of TOM, Clark gained access to the national movement, with an astonishing level of ruthlessness. By March 1975, he was the Secretary – the top position in the branch. He and Richard Chessum were then elected as voting delegates to the TOM Liaison Committee conference.

That move gave Clark access to the national leadership, knowing he’d be accompanied by Richard Chessum, a man with a proven track record of genuine commitment. His cultivated friendship with Richard Chessum gave him credibility.

In April 1975, Clark got himself elected as a delegate to the London Co-ordinating Committee of the Movement and the All London meeting. Clark attended a private meeting of senior members of TOM, with leader Gerry Lawless. There were only ten people at the meeting.

Clark saw his post under threat. Workers Fight was trying to take over TOM. One of them was voted to go to a London conference that would elect national posts. Clark then competed against his supposed friend Chessum for the second post and won by two votes. It’s believed one of them would have been from Mary’s flatmate, whom he had deceived into a relationship.

NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

It worked – Clark was elected to the Organising Committee for London, a national position. This spycop had deceived a second woman into a sexual relationship in order to oust Chessum, a decent man who supported the movement, and take his place.

Lawless then nominated Clark for a position on the National Secretariat and he got it – he was now one of seven people in charge of the whole of TOM.

He continued to attend meetings at Richard Chessum’s home and reported on him. Mary and her flat-mate largely disappeared from Clark’s reporting, now that they had served their purpose.

Due to Lawless’s paternity leave, Clark became acting head of TOM for several months and did great damage. He cancelled delegations to Ireland. He criticised certain members. At least one prominent organisation withdrew its affiliation. And by the time Gerry Lawless returned, two members of the Secretariat had resigned.

Clark then turned against Lawless. He held a meeting with Big Flame in his flat to organise opposition to Lawless’ leadership, decapitating TOMof its long-time head.They planned a coup in the next conference. The new leadership proposed was five people, including Clark himself. Was this about TOM, or getting in Big Flame’s good books?

Clark also embarked on sexual relationships with two female members of the Big Flame. For him, sexual relationships were a tried and tested tactic of getting exactly where he wanted to go.

CAUGHT IN THE ACT

However, Big Flame rumbled him. We don’t know quite how. Telling different stories to different women and them comparing? Was he seen as Machiavellian? Or was it simply a lack of political authenticity?

It was not unusual for Big Flame to investigate new people who wanted to join if they did not trust them entirely. Members of Big Flame looked into background information ‘Rick Gibson’ had provided, and could not confirm any of it. Then, as mentioned above, they went to the government’s birth and death records archive to discover Rick Gibson’s birth certificate. And they also found his death certificate.

They confronted Clark with both. His ambitious plot to unseat Gerry Lawless was over.

Clark took flight and disappeared from the political scene altogether. Richard Chessum later saw a dossier that Big Flame had prepared, that included a letter from Clark written to one of the female activists, saying that he ‘had to go away’.

There was no retribution against Clark after his exposure. It stands out that none of the groups infiltrated were interested in violence unless in self-defence. This shows the Met’s applications to the inquiry for anonymity for spycops for fear of reprisals are highly questionable.

In this era, from Clark onwards, every single spycop took a role in the organisation they infiltrated (except for ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1976-79) who was infiltrating anarchists without hierarchy or official roles). In some case officers took national leading roles. What resulted from this was not just information, but also the opportunity to have a say in the direction of the organisation, and ultimately the ability to derail that organisation.

CONCLUSION

In her statements, Diane Langford connected the spying in the past to the new Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill rushed through Parliament just before the November hearings in 2020, which allows police to self-authorise to commit any crime. This undermines much of the point of the Undercover Policing Inquiry which is tasked to make recommendations for undercover policing in future.

In January 2020, the current counter-terrorism spycops unit listed peace protesters as extremists. One of them was the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign seeking to uphold international law and to promote peace, yet it is targeted as a problem to be undermined. Not much seems to have changed since the SDS was officially disbanded in 2008.

The Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings continue for another three weeks, after which it will be a year before there are any more.

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As Kate Wilson’s epic case makes its way through the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, we delve in the legal arguments being made and their significance for everyone affected by the spycops scandal.

For the last ten years, Kate Wilson has been on a dogged fight for justice. Deceived into to a relationship by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy, she wanted answers.

Part of a group of eight women also deceived into relationships by spycops, she was granted an apology by the Metropolitan Police who sought to brush them off. However, where others were forced to settle, a single door was left open for Kate – the notoriously secretive Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). It was a small chance, but she went for it anyway.

This week, her unique battle finally made it to court, coinciding with the second set of hearings in the Undercover Policing Inquiry, to which it provides a fascinating counterpoint. There has been some excellent media coverage of the case, highlighting evidence that has coming out, which we will not repeat here (The Guardian, Standard, Morning Star, The Canary) This article will explore Kate’s actual legal claim – and some of the surrounding context – in more depth.

TEN YEAR STRUGGLE

Kate has taking on the Metropolitan Police and exposing its institutional sexism. As anyone who has dealt with the police knows only too well, she was met with all the usual obstruction tactics. A full account of these is a tale in itself, and would take a book to recount properly. The short account is that this backfired on them, as it only made Kate more determined.

It is already common ground between all the parties that the relationships were unlawful and should never have happened. However it is the impact of the relationship that the Tribunal is, in part, being asked to address.

At first, the police claimed that because they had admitted that these relationships happened, the Tribunal did not need to consider any evidence about them; they could keep secret just who knew, and how they knew, about the various spycops’ sexual relationships. Kate successfully argued against that – the Tribunal could not possibly determine the extent to which her human rights were breached without looking at the evidence.

When that didn’t work, the police switched tactics – using outright denial, twisting and changing their story, ignoring court orders and abusing legal processes (for example, serving things late or chaotically). They admitted things but then withdrew their admissions, showing utter contempt for the court. As one observer put it, it was a ‘defence by malicious incompetence’.

That lengthy process took more than two years and priced Kate out of legal representation. Undeterred, she took on the case herself and continued fighting, later gaining a team of pro bono lawyers from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. It has culminated in this week’s hearing.

This case is about wider issues than just the relationships of one disgraced undercover. It is about challenging the culture that led to the undercovers abusing women in this way, while their bosses turned a blind eye – the institutional sexism at the heart of their system.

It is also emblematic of a wider disdain for the rights of people who engage in protest. These units viewed everyone politically active as extremists and this viewpoint allowed them to casually strip them of their privacy. The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU, 1999-2011) and the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS, 1968-2008) defined extremism so broadly that the notion of ‘collateral intrusion’ on innocent people adjacent to true targets became meaningless – almost everyone was considered fair game in their world.

TAKING SPIES TO THE SECRET COURT

However, just as this is not a standard court case, this is not your standard court either. The case is being held in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) – a body created under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which since 2000 has been the framework for undercover policing including the authorisation regime.

The IPT does not try cases as such, rather it looks at human rights claims arising under RIPA with a view to improving the regime. Importantly, however, it can make findings of fact.

The IPT is a secretive court, that makes its own rules, though it is clearly a judicial proceeding. The IPT is so secret that it won’t even say how many cases it hears, but it has numbered in the thousands and is only known to have ruled against the state once.

Although the IPT tries to follow established practice, if it wants, it can hold hearings entirely in secret, and a barrister is appointed to kind-of-represent the interests of the person bringing the claim. The person making the claim often never sees any of the evidence, and it is left entirely to the IPT’s discretion whether it even takes up a case.

The strength of Kate’s case – and her perseverance – allowed her to turn much of that on its head. The disclosure she has received is genuinely unique. The police have been forced by the IPT to turn over a great deal of evidence to her, including Kennedy’s own pocket notebooks and contact logs, and previously confidential NPOIU documents.

Days 1 and 2

The hearings opened with Charlotte Kilroy QC speaking on behalf of Kate Wilson. For two and half days she spoke solidly, taking the Tribunal through the evidence and multiple legal arguments.

Held at the Royal Courts of Justice and broadcast live online, the scene was striking, with boxes of evidence and arguments piled so high most could not see the faces of the three judges – Baron Boyd of Duncansby, Professor Graham Zellick and Lady Justice Natalie Lieven.

SO WHAT IS KATE ARGUING?

Under the terms of RIPA, the IPT looks at human rights violations by the likes of the police and Secret Service (MI5). Any claim must be framed in that context.

Her case has many angles. The most prominent one is that she was deceived into a relationship by Mark Kennedy and this was a gross breach of her rights. Even the police have accepted this – that the relationship was breach of her Article 3 human rights, her right not to be subject to inhumane and degrading treatment or torture. This is an absolute right that no circumstances can justify breaching.

With that also came a breach of her private life and that of her family and friends (Article 8). Kennedymade himself an integral part of her life for several years, furthering the abuse of her trust. Central to this is not the degree to which she and Kennedy had a relationship, but the degree to which this was encouraged and condoned by the unit that ran him – the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) – and their reasons for doing this.

However, Kate’s case is not just about Kennedy. Multiple undercovers intruded and reported on her over a decade of political activism. They too interfered in her private life, and also her right to protest.

She and her friends, and the other women deceived into relationships, were being targeted because they were exercising their rights to free speech and assembly (Articles 10 & 11). Once you look at the bigger picture, it becomes impossible to separate the relationship from the reason why Kennedy and the other undercovers were in her life in the first place.

This is where we get into the much wider aspects of the case, that the entire targeting of her was part and parcel of that abuse, and Kennedy’s spying has to be seen in the context of all those other undercovers. When you look at things this way, questions emerge not just about Kennedy’s operation but about all of the NPOIU’s activities.

STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, most of these rights are ‘qualified rights’. There are no possible exceptions when it comes to Article 3 rights (freedom from torture etc) but there are some for Articles 8, 10 and 11. This means governments are allowed to interfere with those rights, but must provide some justification for doing so.

For that justification to be lawful, it must be shown to be both necessary and proportionate. Kate has challenged the police to provide evidence that these undercover operations were necessary and proportionate. She argues that if they cannot provide such evidence, these operations may not have been lawful at all. Thus Kate’s case includes the assertion that the authorisations of Kennedy’s deployment, and thus the entire operation, not just aspects of it, were unlawful.

And further, when you factor in the interference with so many rights, there emerges a case that the legislation under which those authorisations were made failed as a reliable legal framework protecting individual’s rights.

Finally, Kate has pointed out the institutional sexism that lies at the heart of the police. This is not the sole cause of her human rights being breached, but has certainly exacerbated them, for her and all the other women wrongfully targeted for relationships. She is arguing that the way abuses discriminated against women should be taken into account when considering the other breaches, and a finding made on it as well. (Article 14: protection from discrimination).

As part of this legal argument there is an important concept of ‘positive obligation’. A substantive part of the legal discussion at the hearings is the degree to which they police were required to be proactive in protecting Kate from these violations of her rights. How this plays out varies from right to right, but comes down to who knew and what was the regime in place to protect her – and that means looking at the evidence around training and guidance, and structures of oversight and supervision, including the degree to which there was an embedded culture of sexism within the units which turned accepted the acts of Kennedy and his colleagues.

WRINGING THE EVIDENCE OUT OF THE POLICE

There have already been some notable successes in this case. One of these was an acknowledgement that to understand the severity of the human rights breaches the facts needed to be known.

At first the police tried to control this narrative and keep hold of the material, rather than releasing it to Kate. They produced a statement (signed off by Assistant Commissioner Sir Stephen House) giving their interpretation, based on a limited review of material they had gathered.

The statement was readily debunked as ineffective and flawed. Kate kept up the pressure, saying it was not good enough, and the IPT agreed. Bit by bit she forced the the police to surrender material to her. First came contact and decision logs for Kennedy’s case and internal reviews of his operation. Then authorisations for the undercovers and NPOIU intelligence reports.

Even these small samples were damning and opened the door for further requests. Unsurprisingly, the police did their best to prevent this disclosure. They ignored Tribunal orders, or deliberately misinterpreted them.

Another tactic was to make concessions on the case, claiming that meant there was no need for evidence. When that did not work, they withdrew the concessions, trying to blame their previous lawyers for having made admissions. It was disruptive and frustrating, but they underestimated Kate’s tenacity.

She was able to show that it was not just Kennedy she needed answers about, as there was a pattern of intrusion and spying on her life. For instance, there was the question about how Kennedy’s undercover predecessor ‘Rod Richardson’ had spied on her. Or how much did Kennedy’s contemporaries ‘Marco Jacobs‘ and ‘Lynn Watson‘ know about his many relationships?

This brought more disclosure, about other undercovers, such as Jim Boyling and Rod Richardson, who had spied on her as early as 1999 – years before Kennedy was deployed.

From all the material, it was obvious the right to privacy meant nothing to them; Kennedy filtered nothing out and his bosses appear to have said nothing. It was also painfully clear from the logs that anyone reading them would have been well aware that Kennedy and Kate were in a relationship.

As Kate puts it:

Disclosed #spycops cover logs contain more than 30 references to Kennedy staying with me in my parents’ home, moving in together, and time alone, not protest, or campaigning or crime, just ordinary activities. Kennedy’s handler records that Kennedy gives my name as his “next of kin”.

The evidence, particularly the contact logs that document Kennedy’s continual reports to his ‘handler’ officer, are a goldmine of information about these operations. Although limited, and hampered by the fact that much material (particularly from the key period when Kennedy began the relationship) has apparently been lost or deliberately destroyed, they nonetheless give useful insight into the units.

WHO ELSE KNEW?

It has been possible to build up a bigger picture using Kate’s own memories and those of her fellow campaigners, and other women targeted by the spycops.

Kennedy had one cover officer, known by the cipher EN31, for the entirety of his deployment. The police have admitted that this cover officer must have known about Kennedy’s many relationships. However, EN31 denies this and has refused to cooperate with the police in this case.

It has become abundantly clear that there were multiple officers in close proximity to Kennedy, who were aware of his activities. Though there is no explicit mention of relationships in any of the documents disclosed, anyone reading them would have been immediately aware that something was going on.

As the picture built up, other players came into view: the heads of the NPOIU undercover units and their deputies; cover officers for other undercovers such as Lynn Watson; Nottinghamshire Special Branch.

According to Sir Stephen House, none of these people knew anything. But the contact logs and other material demonstrate otherwise. For instance, it was policy for these logs to be sent to the unit’s managers every week. They were written to be read by others – including messages left in the logs for the Senior Investigating Officer to read. This puts the lie to the police’s position that Kennedy was a ‘rogue’ operator – it is clear, as Kennedy himself told Parliament, that they knew what he was doing at all times.

Kate said:

The cover logs are damning. The Police try to claim senior officers didn’t read the logs. That is not borne out by the evidence – throughout the logs there are personal notes to the Senior Investigating Officer, including the problem of me wanting to meet MK’s mum.

Likewise, part of the police case has been that the undercover unit was a silo, kept discrete from even the rest of the NPOIU. But, again, this is demonstrably untrue.

And what of all the other material? The logs and intelligence reports show that campaigners’ relationships were regularly reported as a matter of course by the undercover and it was deemed important enough to be circulated onward? Yet not one of Kennedy or the other undercovers’ relationships appear in the material. The more one looks at that side of things, the more it is obvious something was amiss. It’s hard to be definitive, but it appears that any such material was being suppressed – ‘sanitised’, as they put it.

As Kate’s barrister, Charlotte Kilroy QC, argues there was a cultural practice of ignoring relationships deeply embedded in the unit, treating them as a given though not to be mentioned.

The police have relied heavily on there being a supposed prohibition on sexual relationships, but are unable to point to any concrete proof of this, other than general regulations against criminality and a duty to respect human rights. They claim that because they now accept sexual relationships are an abuse of Article 3, that means that must have always been the case. Plus, they argue, there are a some bits of circumstantial evidence in their favour, such as the denials of an undercover trainer, and a supposed role-playing exercise in the training given to undercovers.

Kilroy has ably unwound their dubious logic. For example, while there was an explicit prohibition on using drugs for the period in question, no equivalent guidance existed for sexual relationships (since the undercover policing scandal broke ten years ago, a more explicit prohibition on sexual relationships has been made police policy). And it didn’t appear to apply to the NPOIU’s sister unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, which spoke of ‘fleeting, disastrous relationships’ forming part of an undercover’s ‘tradecraft’.

Kate said:

The Tradecraft Manual shows that although it may have been suggested that #spycops sexual relationships should be “avoided” it was not said that they should never happen. Viewed alongside what happened in practice, relationships were not fleeting, although they were disastrous.

The importance of this was it showed there was no real prohibition on sexual relationships worth its salt within the undercover policing units.

CULTURAL PRACTICE

Kilroy also set out the cultural context around Kate’s case in two ways.

The first of these entailed exploring the obvious parallels with other undercovers’ deceitful relationships. Clearly both Lynn Watson and Marco Jacobs knew of Kennedy’s relationships, and Jacobs had his own. There seems to have been a culture of accepting these relationships, viewing them as unremarkable. Plus, there was a certain amount of cultural crossover between the Special Demonstration Squad and the NPOIU, the former unit clearly having a culture where relationships was permitted.

Kate said:

Police deny widespread indifference or encouragement for MK’s sexual relationships. But they also acknowledge that, by its very nature, a culture of sexism may not get written down. They have not investigated or presented any #spycops bosses as to be witnesses.

The second of Kilroy’s examinations of the culture concerned the ways in which the structures of these undercover policing units made them institutionally sexist. There were no proper monitoring systems. Training was inadequate, and supposedly relied on oral prohibitions, for which evidence is limited, to put it politely.

There was no acknowledgement that prolonged deployments increased the risk of such dishonest relationships occurring, as well as the likely impact on the women deceived in this way (for example, pregnancy, or lies about intentions). The spycops were content to manipulate these women, disregarding their dignity. The fact that these relationships were known about for many years in the SDS itself reveals a discriminatory attitude towards women and their rights.

AUTHORISATIONS DISMANTLED

Kilroy also criticised the regime under which undercover police operations were authorised. According to RIPA and related regulations, senior officers had to sign off the deployments. Deployments had to be justified, necessary and proportionate. Her line of attack was to ably demonstrate that the arguments for necessity in the authorisations simply were not met and inadequate.

The first authorisations made out for Mark Kennedy did not name specific individuals or organisations to target, as they should have. Instead, he was sent into Nottingham’s Sumac Centre, a community centre used by a wide variety of groups – it was a fishing trip to gather ‘pre-emptive intelligence’. A list of groups which used the centre is provided in in support, but is clearly spurious. It includes what is described as the ‘extreme left wing’ Stop the War Coalition.

Kilroy was able to demonstrate the excessive breadth of the authorisations, which essentially deemed everyone a potential target for spying.

Kate said:

Stop the War is listed, described as a “traditionally extreme left wing” movement. It then talks about the massive demonstrations in London attended by millions of people and peaceful demonstrations that took place in Nottingham. This is what #spycops target as “extreme”.

Once in place, the authorisations were self-perpetuating justifications – Mark collected intelligence and once that started that was deemed sufficient in itself. There were no objectives by which it could be measured, something the police’s own internal reports acknowledge. Mission-creep became a feature, his deployment extending to cover campaigns across Europe that had no bearing on the UK. Criminality was no longer the main reason given but replaced by purely policing resource arguments. Justifications move on to merely protecting his ‘legend’.

Within the authorisations, when it came to ‘collateral intrusion’ of spying on those around activists, anyone involved, however peripherally, in protest or campaigning was considered a legitimate target, and the focus is on privacy in the strictest, data protection sense. What it did not do was consider the kinds of friendships Kennedy was forming, and just how intrusive the operation would be for those whose lives he invaded and reported back on.

WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION, SPYING IS UNLAWFUL

As such, the important consideration of collateral intrusion (an Article 8 ‘right to private and family life’ consideration in itself) was brushed aside, because almost everyone Kennedy came into contact with could be regarded as a target. The authorisations were based on calling everyone an extremist rather than particularising. There was no proper assessment, as required for it to be a justified deployment. As one of the judges put it, in the standard authorisations form the section for considering on collateral intrusion became an Article 8 box-ticking exercise.

Many of the authorisations were misleading and some contained lies. For example, in one of them, Kate is described as being a main organiser of a housing cooperative which was named as a target. This was utterly false, and the NPOIU officers signing off on it would have known this. She is only included as a named target when she was living in Spain and Kennedy wanted to maintain contact with her.

The authorisations show no pressing social need, being about pre-emptive intelligence gathering without clear targets or goal. It was an operation for its own sake, and became increasingly so as time went on. No proper assessment was made about the levels of interference that were actually required or justifiable. This is something that an internal report from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (into Kennedy and the NPOIU) was critical of.

This leads to an important legal point: once it becomes an undercover deployment for its own sake, with no specific outcomes, how can it be capable of meeting the criteria of being ‘necessary’? The ‘necessity’ condition must be met for such operations to be lawful. Kate’s argument is that it can be shown these operations were not necessary and therefore none of the Mark Kennedy authorisations, and possibly other undercover deployments, were lawful.

Day 3

THE RIGHT TO PROTEST

We began by returning to look at Articles 10 and 11 (free speech, and assembly), at the request of the judges. This pair of rights are often combined in this context as a general ‘right to protest’.

Kate is arguing that the extensive targeting of her over a decade amounted to not just an engagement of those rights but, more seriously, an actual interference with them.

This part of the case is not just about Kennedy, although he played a significant role in what can be termed ‘interference’, but the degree to which she was under surveillance and the impact it had on her. The basic argument is the State had no business monitoring her because of her political views and activities. It does not matter whether or not she was aware of the exact details of this surveillance, it still had an impact on her.

Kate’s barrister, Charlotte Kilroy QC, pointed to European case law that supported this position, recognising that extensive police surveillance in itself has a ‘chilling effect’ on protest.

As one of the judges, Professor Zellick, put it:

‘You might say the state has no business spying on the legitimate political activities of its opponents.’

The evidence allowed Kate to go further. By comparing her own memories with the contact logs, she could identify moments were she was being deliberately manipulated to meet Kennedy’s agenda (and that of his bosses) . He persuaded her to go to events that she was not interested in, or talked her out of others. In this he was leaning heavily on the closeness of their relationship and the trust she had placed in him.

She is still left wondering now just how much his influence affected her:

It is unchallenged in my witness statement that MK did influence and change my political views. #spycops were deeply manipulative and we were very close and he may have influenced me in ways I don’t even know. How many of the decisions and beliefs I held back then were my own?

Then there is the impact that the discovery has had on Kate and her comrades. She has gone from being deeply committed to political organising, to struggling to engage with people and large gatherings. She has become cut off from some groups as a result of her anxieties, which Kennedy and his cover officer knew affected her, which have now grown. Other groups were destroyed under the weight of the Kennedy revelations.

Kate explained:

I now find it very hard to engage with politics that reminds me of MK. The impact of betrayal by MK and other #spycops was devastating for the political groups and communities. Even if I wanted to continue, many of those wonderful projects, groups and movements no longer exist.

At this point one of the judges asked about the fact that some of the movements Kate was involved in were aware of the dangers of state surveillance. Kilroy responded that a concern was one thing, but what Kennedy exposed was the sheer extent the police were willing to go to gather information on political views.

Things were far worse than what the campaigners feared – in effect, their paranoia was nothing compared to the actual reality. And because it only came to light accidentally, it means the police cannot be trusted to be honest, to root out misbehaviour in their units.

So having argued that their Articles 10 and 11 were engaged, and breached, the next step is again to consider whether the State could make the case that this was justified. The police have already conceded that the sexual relationship with Kennedy did in itself interfere with Kate’s Article 10 rights. However, she wants to make the point that this goes much wider than Kennedy, that all the spying on her amounted to an ‘interference’, and that the actions of all the other undercovers need to be taken into account.

As with Articles 3 and 8 (freedom from torture etc, right to private and family life), the interferences arose out of the same police desire to monitor and control protest. It was the reason Kennedy and the other undercovers were deployed, and even the police’s own internal reports acknowledge that when it came to peaceful protest, they overstepped the line. The scope and depth of the reporting that the NPOIU set out to do was not justified under the legal regime, as shown in the analysis of the authorisations.

A PROBLEM WITH RIPA

Since 2000, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) has governed how bodies use covert monitoring tactics, including undercovers and informers, and issues such as collateral intrusion, should be handled.

There is also an important bit of case law, Malone v UK (1985), which requires that the law must be sufficiently clear to give citizens adequate indication of the circumstances and conditions on which authorities are empowered to use to this secret and potentially dangerous interference with the right to respect for private life.

Kilroy took the Tribunal through a careful analysis of RIPA, showing that Malone v UK was not satisfied. She pointed out that the level of authorisation required for undercover police was actually quite low in comparison to, say, planting a listening device or bugging a phone. Likewise, the conditions are much more stringent.

Kate said:

Who’d have thought that UK law, where uniformed officers need a warrant from a judge to search your garden shed, that all it would need would be the OK from another police officer for them to send #spycops to live in your home and sleep in your bed for years?

Kilroy argued this means that while some intrusion could be foreseeable, on the face of RIPA the public could not reasonably deduce that undercover policing would be used in such an intrusive way.

The judges questioned her, saying that while the relationships are agreed to be unlawful due to their violation of fundamental human rights, RIPA was not at fault, it’s just that the police hadn’t adhered to it.

To this, Kilroy responded that a related case, that of AKJ v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, had since ruled that the definition of relationships in RIPA as pertaining to undercovers did in fact encompass sexual/ intimate relationships. The law itself was not as clear as it should have been, given the extent of intrusion it permitted.

Without a clear prohibition on sexual relationships, the appropriate legal safeguards supposedly in place to properly reflect the severity of the intrusion were not actually there. So part of the problem lies with RIPA itself, something even HM Inspectorate of Constabulary had flagged up in previous reports.

THE POLICE REPLY

The Metropolitan Police and National Police Chiefs Council, the Defendants in the case, were represented by David Perry QC. He began by claiming that the police were approaching the case with the least adversarial approach possible and seeking to disclose everything that could be, thereby raising not a few eyebrows.

He acknowledged that the operations were ‘tainted by illegality’ and their authorisations could be stigmatised as unlawful on the basis of the concessions already made by the police. These concessions were on the basis of Articles 3 and 8 (freedom from torture etc, right to private life), not on the grounds of the interference with the right to protest, other than where Kennedy’s sexual relationship with Kate Wilson had an impact on these.

This breach was further exacerbated by the fact that Kennedy’s cover officer, EN31, ought to have known of the relationship, a failure of the police’s ‘positive obligation’ under Articles 3 and 8. However, Perry takes EN31’s denial of any knowledge of sexual relationship at face value.

Perry didn’t want to detract from the admitted breaches, but did want to address their severity by interpreting the material as disclosed. This is a problem with much of this case – the lack of any real witness from the police side to adequately testify on their behalf. As a result, there is an awful lot of freestyle interpretation going on, with Perry putting it out there what he reckons the officers involved might have been thinking.

From the start it is clear that they are hanging Kennedy out to dry. Considerable time was spent on going through the regime, codes and training that officers received. We were told that they were instructed on the ethical and moral standards expected from them at all times. They say that Kennedy completely violated these. According to Perry, this was the starting point by which his fellow officers would treat and judge him, and he betrayed all of them, including EN31.

The police say they couldn’t possibly have foreseen what Kennedy would do. After all, before joining the NPOIU, Kennedy had been an experienced police officer (of ten years) which included low level undercover work as a Test Purchasing Officer buying illegal drugs. He’d gone through the training which, according to them, included prohibition of sexual relationships. His fellow officers could surely expect him to comply with the standards set out for all police officers, as well as for undercovers.

Kate highlighted:

Lieven J: Is there any evidence, and I mean evidence in the broadest possible sense, of any officer every being subjected to disciplinary action for having engaged in a sexual relationship whilst undercover?

Perry: No, there is not.

Perry pointed out that in having sexual relationships, Kennedy destroyed his own credibility as an undercover. Kennedy would have known had he witnessed any serious criminality, he could have been required to give evidence in court – but any such evidence would be hopelessly compromised by his personal relationships.

It is unclear if the barrister is aware of the significance of his words – the police have for a long time argued that the undercovers were guaranteed secrecy for life, and indeed we have seen the extent to which they will protect their identities. However, Perry was effectively conceding that the policing regime itself meant this could not be the case, that undercovers could not have such an unqualified expectation.

He then went on to argue that Kennedy was passing himself off as an honourable officer to his colleagues in the NPOIU while lying to them. Events such as him reporting a sexual advance by an activist demonstrated that he could be relied on to report such things honestly.

However, other evidence from the logs show that he was lying to them about his actions and reasons for doing things. For instance, on one occasion that he spent alone with ‘Lisa‘ (another woman he deceived into a relationship), his log entry claims to have included other people with whom he discussed political activity. Elsewhere he exaggerated to suit his own ends, and probably to justify his continued deployment.

Kate observed:

It seems the police point is MK did report a sexual advance by someone else. So #spycops Cover Officer could assume anything untoward that happened with anyone else (such as me) he would know. (Note: my relationship had been going on for 10 months by then)

EN31, was Kennedy’s Principal Cover Officer, someone he was in daily contact with and who had responsibility for his welfare and other issues. We know from the evidence that he would be physically close to Kennedy, and knew where he was at all times. He was in that position for the entire seven years of the deployment and clearly had a close bond with Kennedy.

It is accepted by the police that EN31, as Kennedy’s cover officer, should have been more intrusive and asked more questions. According to Perry, though, EN31 simply accepted Kennedy’s word in good faith and had no reason to believe otherwise. After all, Kennedy never reported that he was having sexual relationships. There were failings here, but the blame remains entirely with the undercover who deceived everyone, not just the women he targeted for relationships. Furthermore, the relationships were not for tactical purposes, they were for his own personal reasons and needs.

Significant to Perry’s case is that the contact logs did not record relationships per se. This was because Kennedy knew he’d be removed from the field if he did admit them.

Kate said:

The police go on to read a #spycops intelligence report 18/11/2003 “Katja” (that’s me) spent the night of the 17th November 2003 at Mark Stone’s flat in Marshall Street. Somehow this is supposed to support their case, because it doesn’t say we had sex. (We did)

It is also the police position that Kennedy’s own evidence about this, such as that given before the Home Affairs Select Committee, shows him to be an unreliable witness, angry with his seniors and seeking to blame them (when he said they must have known about his relationships). Even the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which reviewed all Kennedy’s material in 2011, did not see a trace in the material of sexual relationships.

Kate noted the exchange:

Perry: “MK did not report any romantic or sexual advance by the claimant towards him whilst he was deployed.”

Judge: Mr Perry, is that really how you want that point to be recorded?

Apparently, yes, it is!

Overall, Perry is protective of EN31, presenting him as a trusting fella misled by Kennedy. He speculates on behalf of the cover officer as to what he was thinking and how he interpreted the the material, taking his statement very much at face value and focusing on the contact logs as if they gave the full picture. He did not explore the relationship between Kennedy and EN31, which appears from the logs to have been very close and matey.

Likewise, Perry has a very particular interpretation of the material in the logs on the grounds of viewing them through EN31’s eyes – as if they are the arbitrators of the facts themselves. Without going into detail, the Tribunal was presented with a weird interpretation of life among the campaigners targeted by Kennedy through this incomplete reporting. For instance, he spent some time on the fact that as they travelled around to events, campaigners would spend time at each others addresses. So mentions of this in the logs should not be taken as untoward or indicative of sexual relationships. Likewise, by the nature of the groups targeted, Kennedy would have to associate with people of both genders.

It was frankly weak stuff. It is a misleading reading of detailed contact logs which clearly infer Kennedy was conducting a relationship with Kate Wilson. At best, it is saying that in seven years, EN31 was so profoundly  incompetent that he suspected nothing and did nothing. Likewise, the various senior officers in the NPOIU who also read the logs. It also calls into to question the thoroughness of the SOCA report if they missed the obvious.

A TERRORIST AT THE HOME OFFICE?

Not long before the end of the day, there was an important exchange regarding an NPOIU intelligence report from the time Kate Wilson is recorded as having first stayed over at Kennedy’s house in Nottingham. Justice Lieven noted that it contained a reference to a family friend of Kate’s, describing him as a ‘South African terrorist working at the Home Office’ when he was in fact a Minister of State.

Perry was quick to distance the police from the outrageous comment, claiming it was an example of Kennedy’s inaccurate reporting, but Justice Lieven pointed out that Kennedy’s contact logs for that period are among the documents that have been ‘lost’, and that this report is authored by someone else in the NPOIU, not Kennedy, and that they clearly thought the information was of sufficient interest to send up the chain. Perry accepted that the information was derived from Kennedy, but that the report was written by someone else.

Lieven demanded that the police lawyers address the issue by producing something that would allow her to understand who authored, saw and commented on the reports. The police barrister said he would have to take instruction, and promised her something by Monday.

THE HEARINGS CONTINUE…

On Friday 23 April, the Tribunal sat in ‘closed session’. This is where evidence that was not shown to Kate was to be discussed. She was not allowed to be there, although the police will be. Instead her interests will be represented by the Counsel to The Tribunal, Sarah Hannett QC.

Monday 26 April will see the open hearings resume, with a continuation of the police case. This will be followed by a response from Kate’s lawyer, Charlotte Kilroy QC, to any new points. At which point the hearing finally ends. It is unknown when judgement will be handed down, but it may take several months.

Here’s the report of the rest of Kate Wilson’s hearing (Monday 26 & Tuesday 27 April 2021)

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 2

22 April 2021

Opening Statements from:

Diane Langford
‘Madeleine’
Phillippa Kaufmann QC, representing Core Participants who had relationships with undercover officers
Matthew Ryder QC, representing three anti apartheid activists (Ernest Rodker, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead & Lord Peter Hain) & Celia Stubbs

The second day of Tranche 1 Phase 2 of the Undercover Policing Inquiry, being the 28th anniversary of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, began with the Chair, Sir John Mitting, reading out a statement from Neville & Doreen Lawrence about their son.

He spoke of the police failings, of the suspects not being charged, and that the Macpherson report from the public inquiry was a landmark in showing the police’s racist faults. But Stephen’s legacy is ultimately one of hope, reminding us change is much needed, but also possible.

There was a minute’s silence for Stephen.

Diane Langford

The first speaker today was Diane Langford, an activist in groups who were infiltrated by undercover officers in the era that the current hearings are examining (1973-82). She will also give evidence on the afternoon of Monday 26 April.

The contrast between the opening statements of yesterday’s legal representatives of the police, spycops and the establishment compared to the emotional, direct and articulate submission of Diane Langford could not be more marked.

Her statement cut to the heart of everything that is wrong with the Undercover Policing Inquiry. This summary hardly does justice to her powerful speech, which is worth reading in full, or watch on YouTube.

POOR TREATMENT BY THE INQUIRY

Diane Langford has only recently become a Core Participant at the Inquiry. In 2018, the Undercover Research Group (URG) found her story of the exposure of spycop ‘Dave Robertson’ (HN45). Later, URG discovered that the group she had set up, the Women’s Liberation Front, was infiltrated by ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348), and had let her know.

Her name appeared unredacted in many reports of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) disclosed at the previous Inquiry hearings last November, but it turned out the Inquiry had only reached out to her just beforehand.

‘When I was given copies they ironically came with a legal warning not to show them to anyone else.’

The Inquiry failed to ask her to give evidence, or tell her that she could seek legal representation.

By the time she knew Sandra Davies was giving evidence to the Inquiry it was too late to book a place at the limited screening venue.

Despite the poor treatment she has received from the Inquiry, Diane Langford is grateful to the Chair for, belatedly, granting her Core Participant status. She was perplexed however that, despite her 50 year history of activism, in his ruling, the Inquiry chair, Sir John Mitting, introduced her as ‘the widow of the late Abhimanyu Manchanda’ as if she was merely an appendage. Yet another example of the institutionalised sexism being present in the Inquiry as it was in the spycops.

Langford identified six undercover officers who spied on her:

• ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348)
• ‘Dave Robertson‘ (HN45)
• ‘Dick Epps‘ (HN336)
• Mike Ferguson (HN135)
• ‘Peter Fredericks‘ (HN345)
• Jill Mosdell (HN346)

Langford expressed solidarity with others targeted by spycops, especially those no longer here to tell their story and push for justice, asking:

‘how many others who were spied on are completely unaware that their names appear in these files?’

‘I’ll never know what career opportunities were denied to me, or what other barriers have been placed in front of me during my life, as a result of the machinations of the Special Demonstration Squad. I’ll never know whether unpleasant incidents – for example, being denied credit or visas, or break-ins at my home – were connected to the surveillance I was being subjected to.’

WITNESS OF INJUSTICE

As a young person Langford saw injustice in Aotearoa/New Zealand where she grew up, including racism, sexism and class discrimination. Her brothers got an education, but she left school at the age of 15. Coming to London at 22, ironically to support her brother who had won a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, opened her eyes. Going to movies, and reading De Beauvoir and Sartre, Barthes, Kristeva, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X after he was killed, opened the way into political activism. She was very much influenced by the events of 1968.

Talking about being part of the women’s liberation movement, Diane Langford said that, as with many others, her commitment was based on personal experience, recognised as political. She gave the example of how, when she was in her early twenties, her flatmate died of an illegal back street abortion, aged nineteen.

‘The memory of her death remains vivid for me still, at the age of 79.’

That the basic goals of the movement remain unachieved and resisted confirms their profound nature.

Langford began her involvement in the Women’s Liberation Front, which believed that patriarchal, racialised capitalism cannot, and will not, meet those goals.

She listed three dramatic events that spring to mind when recalling the period under scrutiny:

– Dave Robertson threatened my friend with violence when she outed him as an undercover.
– Banner Books was burned down by fascists while undercover officers had surveilled and had access, and I believe a man died. This needs investigating.
– Robertson ignored an allegation of attempted rape at a meeting, instead focusing on my domestic arrangements and ridiculing my partner.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE INQUIRY NOW?

Langford then connected the spying in the past to the new Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill rushed through Parliament just before the November hearings in 2020, which allows police to self-authorise to commit all crime, which undermines much of the point of the spycops Inquiry.

In January 2020 the current counter-terrorism spycops unit listed peace protesters as extremists. One of them was the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign seeking to uphold international law and to promote peace, yet it is targeted as a problem to be undermined.

In Langford’s activist life, women’s liberation has always been entwined with the Palestinian struggle – there is no liberation for women under the apartheid regime in Palestine. She asked:

‘If I was under surveillance in 1970 as a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, am I still under surveillance now? I became a busier activist in the 2000s, more than in the 1970s that police have admitted. Where are the files?’

INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING

‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348) spied on 77 meetings, of which 55 were related to the women’s liberation movement.

‘Sounds like more than I did! Why is the women’s movement not a focus of the Inquiry? The Inquiry is colluding with the state to limit the search for evidence…

‘To read these reports is to see some of the greatest ideas of our time crushed into the narrow confines of a mentality absolutely lacking in the capacity to comprehend them…

‘We see the callous use of women’s bodies by misogynous male officers who see such abuse as a perk of the job, and, a confluence of the sexist behaviour and patriarchal attitudes of so-called left wing men in socialist groups and that of those spying on them.’

THE REFUGE OF POOR MEMORY

‘This Inquiry reiterates the intrusive processes of surveillance, requiring the victims of spying to explain and justify themselves, when it is the perpetrators of surveillance who should be interrogated and held accountable.

‘Remarkably we witnesses are again being subjected to intrusion into our personal and political lives, as if some retroactive justification could be thereby found for utterly dishonourable and indefensible police actions, whereas the perpetrators of abuse are granted impunity, anonymity or the refuge of poor memory.’

The SDS reports of the 1970s show sexist and racist ideas were endemic.

This was illustrated time and again by HN45 and HN348. For example, a report from August 1, 1972:

‘so-and-so is a member of the Revolutionary Women’s Union. She lives in a council flat at ADDRESS GIVEN with her two children aged 6-and-a-half years and three years and her mother so-and-so. She is a divorced woman and is in receipt of £8.50 per week Social Security. She attends Revolutionary Women’s Union meetings regularly and is particularly interested in agitating for 24-hour nurseries. This woman is on very friendly terms with so-and-so. Her description is: Aged about 23 years, very thin build, medium length fair hair, blue eyes, very pale complexion, poorly clothed but neat and tidy, wears black rimmed glasses, cockney accent.’

The internationally celebrated artist David Medalla, who passed away in January, is described by HN348 like this:

‘Asian features and colouring, dirty appearance, very poorly clad. He is very opposed to the current Government in the Philippines.’

That government was the notorious Marcos dictatorship – just to provide historical context.

Browsing the disclosure provided by the Inquiry, Langford found other disgusting examples of racism and sexism: On 1 June 1978, a report about the Federation of London Anarchist Groups informs the Special Branch that a subject had cut his beard off ‘to reveal that he has a long face, large Jewish nose and full lips.’

A report signed off by Angus McIntosh, about the Women’s Organiser of the International Socialists, dated 22 October 1976, states she has :

‘typically Jewish lilt to her … and rather prominent nose, always scruffily dressed in blue jeans and T-shirt (without a bra).’

‘A negress was in the audience’ according to a July 1976 report of a meeting of Hackney International Socialists that discussed self-defence strategies for victims of physical attacks by the National Front.

What did 1970s undercover officers do to stop the National Front attacking people of colour? They were spying on anti-fascists.

‘These patronising violations of people’s personal space, of suppressing a child’s right to demonstrate against state-sanctioned physical abuse, the racist, anti-Semitic, sexist and judgemental descriptions of people’s personal appearance that filled the notebooks of the secret police may not amount to much in the eyes of the Inquiry. It’s the accretion of them that are the stuff of authoritarian regimes, hence the expression “petty apartheid”.’

ABHIMANYU MANCHANDA

Diane Langford was also very critical of the portrayal of her late former partner, Abhimanyu Manchanda (‘Manu’):

‘HN45 displays a vindictive hatred of Manu and a peculiar obsession with our personal relationship and child-care arrangements. He sent detailed reports to the Special Branch about what he apparently saw as transgressive behaviour – a man looking after his own child – and expressing horror that I was “sent out to work.” He informs his superiors of Manu’s “insufferable anecdotes” about our baby.’

In her Witness Statement, she dealt with the Inquiry’s inappropriate Rule 9 written questions about my personal relationship with Manu – in fact repeating this behaviour.

There is nothing in the reports about them overthrowing the state. Nevertheless, HN45 portrayed Manu as a danger, saying he only went on demos to cause violence. Which is rubbish, he knew you can’t tackle the state head on.

Why is Manu referred to in reports by his surname while others get their full names? That too smacks of imperialism.

FROM NAPALM TO BUNNY GIRLS

‘What did the Inquiry have in mind when they asked me about Dow Chemicals? Is the implication that Dow Chemicals, whose inhuman war crimes have never been accounted for, was under the protection of the British State? It may help the Inquiry to know that Dow Chemicals was the manufacturer of Napalm, a firebomb fuel/gel mixture used by the American military against Vietnamese civilians…

‘The continuum I spoke of earlier, can be perceived in UK state protection being accorded to Israeli arms manufacturers, in particular Elbit, who boast that their equipment is “battle tested” on Palestinians, despite widespread public disgust at the brutal treatment meted out to Palestinian civilians.’

What was behind the Inquiry’s question about picketing the Playboy Club? Does the Inquiry regard The Playboy Club, whose employees are referred to as ‘Bunny Girls,’ as an institution worthy of special protection by the secret police?

HN348 referred to the 1970 Miss World protest as an event that was organised by the Women’s Liberation Front, prior to her deployment. They actually didn’t organise it, but Langford did attended the demonstration.

‘It was a magnificent disruption of an exploitative commercial event degrading to women. It was not a threat to public order or security.’

THERE’S NEVER JUST ONE COCKROACH

Inquiries since the Macpherson Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence have been devalued by the manner in which they’ve determinedly obstructed genuine ‘inquiry.’

For example, Priti Patel set up an inquiry into the atrocious police violence against women at Clapham Common, an incident that she herself set in train.

‘While the Inquiry is heavily weighted in favour of the State, how are we going to find out when the abuse started? I hope the Inquiry will not be deflected by the myth of “a few rotten apples.”

‘The cynical attitudes of the UCOs as evidenced by their misogynist reporting in the past and current lack of remorse makes it inevitable that any opportunity to take advantage of women would have been taken. There’s never just one cockroach.’

‘Where are these files kept? Who has access to them? Dozens of people, whose names recur in the files I’ve had sight of, have absolutely no idea that the secret police came into their homes under false pretences and spied on them. At the bare minimum anyone whose private space was violated, resulting in them being named in these files, should be informed and invited to be part of the inquiry.’

We need to see the faces of undercover officers, if only to stop suspecting our innocent old comrades of being cops. Why are the officers not compelled to supply contemporaneous photos themselves?

A request for a contemporaneous photograph of HN348 was declined by the Inquiry as they were not holding one in their files. Why not ask HN348 to supply one, as Langford’s legal representative suggested?

‘it bears out the idea that, as Audre Lorde put it, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. It is clear that women, People of Colour and others working for a better world will need to continue with our grassroots campaigning on behalf of ourselves and one another.

‘However, my hope is that this Inquiry will, in fact, prove useful to us in such struggles for justice, human rights and freedom.’

For more, see Diana Langford’s blog and her political memoirs

Full opening statement from Diane Langford

‘Madeleine’

‘Madeleine’ was deceived into a relationship by ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354) towards the end of his infiltration of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) while undercover from 1976 to 1979.

She had known him for three years by the time the relationship began. The relationship lasted for a short period of time over the summer and early autumn of 1979 until he suddenly disappeared.

Miller has admitted to a total of four sexual relationships during his deployment but insists they were all one-night stands. Despite him admitting that, the Inquiry had previously referred to his deployment as ‘unremarkable’ and granted him anonymity.

Madeleine not only describes a relationship lasting several months, as verified by her diaries, she also emphatically condemns Miller’s account of how they initiated their relationship.

‘the implications of some of the disclosures made by Vince Miller are also deeply offensive and revelatory. Describing the night we first got together he has stated that I “unexpectedly invited him to my bedroom” after we had both been drinking.

‘What exactly is he trying to say? That I was drunk and looking for a random man to have sex with? This is a deliberately untrue misrepresentation of the events of that evening.’

Since Madeleine has come forward to challenge such claims, Mitting has now agreed to release Miller’s real name to Madeleine. But she asserted:

‘HN354 shouldn’t have had his identity protected in the first place. HN354 lost the right to privacy due to his abusive acts and no legitimate reasons have been given for withholding his real name’.

POLITICAL ORIGINS

Madeleine described how her politics stemmed from her family background. She grew up in a large poor working-class family. Her father was a lifelong socialist and an active trade unionist, and both her parents were anti-racists.

Her father was part of the anti-fascist protests at Olympia in 1934 and at Cable Street in 1936 where he joined thousands of East Enders who fought to stop Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists marching into a largely Jewish area to intimidate and attack the community.

Madeleine’s dad went on to join the International Brigades fighting fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He was at Guernica when the Nazis destroyed the city. He came back to the UK and volunteered to join the British Army at the start of the Second World War to continue his fight against fascism.

Madeleine wonders whether her father, a double war hero, would also have been considered a ‘subversive’ and a ‘dangerous extremist’.

The spycops reports just released by the UCPI and branding political activists as ‘subversives’, ‘dangerous extremists’, and ‘troublemakers’ paint a picture of people unrecognisable to Madeleine’s experience as an activist. To find out that the words were written by Miller, someone she trusted and cared about, is doubly painful.

She described the bigger picture, with the stilll-unfolding spycops scandal needing ‘to be understood and framed as the logical expression of the actions of a state and security apparatus wedded to the interests of the ruling class.’

TEENAGE ACTIVISM

Madeleine moved on to her youthful activism with the Socialist Workers Party. She recalled organising branch and public meetings, and endless discussion and debate. The SWP was open and welcoming, and had nothing to hide. It was public, selling the weekly Socialist Worker newspaper and leafleting on the High Street, on housing estates, pickets and demonstrations.

Madeleine said that Miller embedded himself deeply into the life of the SWP branch for three years. He described the branch as a ‘social and inclusive bunch’ – a fact that which he took full advantage of. He became treasurer (which seems to have been a common role for spycops taking office in groups), and was also on the social committee and in the industrial group.

She has found out that:

‘17 spycops were embedded in our party and yet in truth, the biggest threat to democracy in the UK at this time was not from the left but from the reinvigoration of fascism which once more began to emerge from the shadows and reveal its ugly face.’

THE GROWING THREAT OF FASCISM IN THE 1970S

Madeleine spoke about the political and economic backdrop in the UK during this period, which would prove a fertile breeding ground for fascism. Fascists attacked the left with increasing violence, attacking paper sellers, and committing arson against bookshops. In May 1978 a young Asian man, Altab Ali, was stabbed to death in Whitechapel. So where was the monitoring of the far-right by our security services?

The area around The Bladebone pub at the top of Brick Lane in London’s East End was a well-known haunt of the National Front (NF). After repeated attacks on the diverse community, protection was organised and the SWP were part of it. Miller describes the area as ‘heavily policed’ but Madeleine says she only saw that happen when there was active left wing presence. The protection that the community received was from activists like herself, not the police. Miller depicted the confrontations as a mere territorial dispute between the Swp and NF.

Miller’s analysis in his witness statement, describing the SWP and the NF as similar is very telling. Madeleine mentioned that a police report on a speech given by fascist John Tyndall at the NF ‘Battle of Lewisham’ march, describing him speaking in his ‘usual forceful manner’, but his exhortations to violence went unrecorded by spycops.

Madeleine gave another more personal example of police bias towards the far right:

‘I recall one Saturday selling papers at Barking Station in the week following a violent sledgehammer attack on a young female SWP member by a fascist who broke her pelvis. Jeering NF members watched as a tall man who had previously approached us in a friendly manner to buy a paper came up behind me and snatched my papers calling me a ‘red bitch’ and telling me to go away. He then walked over to the police who had witnessed his act and proceeded to laugh and joke with them. When I asked the police if they had seen what he’d done they smirked and told me to go home’

THE BATTLE OF LEWISHAM

On 13 August 1977, 500 NF supporters planned to march from New Cross to Lewisham. There was a huge mobilisation against it. At an anti-racist rally beforehand, a crowd of thousands was addressed by those notorious subversives the Mayor of Lewisham and the Bishop of Southwark.

Police tired to guide the NF marchers but thousands of people blocked them, and there were extended disturbances on the streets. It quickly became known as the Battle of Lewisham.

Madeleine emphatically refutes a claim made by Miller – and repeated in the SDS Annual Report that year – that bricks were stockpiled at various locations by the SWP along the planned NF route and that members of the SWP carried weapons to the march in bags.

‘I was at the demo on the day and can state categorically that no one that I knew had weapons or would have done such a thing. It is an easy assertion for HN354 to make – where is his evidence? Where are the names? Or should this be seen as an attempt to blacken the name of the SWP?’

The police were in reality undermining the efforts to fight fascism and combat racism by the only forces mobilising to protect communities and defeat those evils.

Madeleine continued:

‘The Battle of Lewisham is now rightly considered a watershed moment like Cable Street in the fight against fascism in this country. Unable to control the streets, the NF went into decline and the event is now proudly remembered as the moment when the far right was again defeated. It is now commemorated by the local council and seen as a symbol of a community coming together to say yes to black and white unity and no to the forces of hate.’

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

All that was over 40 years ago.

Early one Saturday morning at the end of February 2020 Madeleine received an unexpected visit. Like anyone door-stepped early on a Saturday morning by someone with a hand-delivered an official-looking letter, she felt a wave of anxiety and stress.

‘What was I about to be told? Was I about to be given some terrible and tragic news?’

It was a solicitor from the Undercover Policing Inquiry. Madeleine received the news that ‘Vince Miller’ was not a boyfriend and comrade.

She couldn’t think of the man she’d known as a devious abuser. She remembered him as someone who seemed emotionally vulnerable – as she was herself at the time, having just left an abusive partner. This targeting and use of trauma as a means of getting close to surveillance targets is emerging as one of the most common themes within SDS deployments.

‘I now know that the Vince Miller I thought I knew doesn’t actually exist. He is a wholly constructed fiction, a fake identity used as a tool for the purposes of political surveillance sanctioned by the state which infiltrated the most intimate parts of my body and my life…

‘The initial revelation of the true identity of a man with whom I had enjoyed an intimate sexual relationship and shared thoughts and feelings of a deeply private nature left me feeling nauseous and revolted. I felt degraded and abused and continue to feel a real sense of violation. I feel that both my trust and my values have been betrayed by an agent of the state.’

THE TRUTH IS SECRET

Madeleine was told that there were a substantial number of intelligence reports on her and her friends which she could only see if she signed a secrecy agreement not to even discuss the contents with anyone else apart from her lawyer.

‘The knowledge that the state holds secret files on me filled me with anxiety and a sense of paranoia. I wanted to know. What is in those files? What information is held? What details of a personal nature do they contain? And how personal and intrusive are those details?’

For Madeleine, not being able to share this with her husband was especially hard. It cuts off a source of support for both of them as they deal with the impact of the truth.

All the Inquiry’s core participants have been in this position, not being able to share it or discuss it with anyone – even others who’ve been given the same documents.

She condemned the cruelty of the police and Inquiry refusing to hand over documents until just before the Inquiry hearings will discuss them. There are women who have known their partner was a spycop for many years, and who are not due to receive the reports on them for many more years.

Later, at the end of Madeleine’s testimony, Mitting said that he would ask the Inquiry lawyers to see that her husband could see the documents. This is too little too late.

When another core participant had earlier asked whether she could share her disclosure with one other trusted person it was refused. Not being able to discuss these matters with anyone else other than your legal representative adds another layer of trauma and stress for those affected by the actions of the state.

‘The files that I have seen contain information of a very intrusive and personal nature. They reveal detailed physical descriptions of myself and my flatmates and information about my employment, my wages, my address, and the precise time, date, and registry office location of my first marriage which happened before Miller’s deployment but appears in a report written by him.’

CRADLE TO GRAVE SURVEILLANCE?

‘I have also discovered, to my horror, that MI5 has had files on me since 1970 when I was aged 16 more than 6 years before HN354s deployment. This is shameful. Most people would consider a 16-year-old little more than a child and the Inquiry now knows that other children have been spied on too. I was incredibly young when I first became politically active in left-wing groups. We know the SDS was formed in 1968 and that extensive spying was happening at that time. I therefore wonder if I was spied on as early as 13 when I was a schoolgirl?

‘Miller has even reported on the pregnancy of a woman in our branch and the name her baby was to be given. This went straight to MI5. Was this unborn baby given a security service’s file? Was my child given a registry file too? I find it outrageous and deeply offensive to realise that we have been treated as “targets” regarded as “subversive and dangerous extremists” and that relationships have been used as a tool for state surveillance via the invasion of our lives and bodies.’

WHAT’S CHANGED?

Madeleine questions how much has changed in police culture. Did Miller contribute to the prevailing culture within the Metropolitan Police at that time and since, as he later became a senior officer?

She asked for all reports on her to be removed from the archives and destroyed. The SDS has shown us that secret policing, by its unscrutinised nature, is liable to abuse citizens. There is no telling how the information on file may be used against its subjects in future.

We’ve already seen Miller downplay the harm he did to others, and he is far from alone among the spycops in this regard. Madeleine said spycops should be given no leeway for their behaviour because any allowances made to them because of their position or role in society will be exploited by them in order to cover themselves.

As well as today’s opening statement, Madeleine will giving evidence to the Inquiry on Monday 10th May.

Full opening statement from ‘Madeleine’.

 

Phillippa Kaufmann QC
representing Core Participants who had relationships with undercover officers

Kaufmann began by saying it is now clear that in the era being examined by the current UCPI hearings, 1973-82, numerous spycops had sexual relationships with women while using their undercover identities.

Some of these women were the targets of their spying operations, others came into contact with the spycops socially.

We were told in the past that these deceitful relationships only rarely occurred, but the evidence now being published provides a different picture.

It has now been confirmed that at least eight officers entered into such relationships over a five year period. Of these, ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) and perhaps ‘Alan Bond‘ (HN67, 1981-86) had children with women they’d spied on.

The practices and culture established in this period led to what came later. It shows the long running sexism which infected the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

WHY WEREN’T WE TOLD?

It’s not just the SDS that’s at fault. The Inquiry only contacted Madeleine in February 2020, and got a lawyer late in the year, yet she was known about when the Inquiry first dealt with the spycop who abused her, ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79), in 2017.

Why wasn’t she contacted earlier? Why were we assured a woman would be sent to tell her the awful truth, but instead a man went to her home?

Why wasn’t Madeleine put in touch with Police Spies Out of Lives – which represents and supports women deceived into relationships by spycops – as the Inquiry had promised?

In 2017, Miller gave the Inquiry the name of the other Socialist Workers Party member he had sex with. Why did the Inquiry also wait three years before starting to try to to find her?

The Inquiry accepted his version at face value, called his deployment ‘unremarkable’, and ruled that his real name would not be published because he deserved privacy.

The order to protect his name will now be revoked. Why has this changed, apart from the fact that Madeleine is now actively involved in the Inquiry? Why should that make the difference, given his acts remain unchanged? Why was he ever seen as deserving of anonymity?

NOT JUST ACTIVISTS

Miller also admitted to having sex with two other women (who he says he wasn’t sent to spy on) during his deployment. Why didn’t the Inquiry tell us about that straight away?

Those other two women were also deceived by a paid State character who was the opposite of what he claimed to be. This isn’t a private matter for the officer, it’s as relevant to the Inquiry and the public as a relationship with an activist. We have no idea how many other spycops the Inquiry knows about who have also already admitted they had sex with non-activist women while undercover.

The Inquiry must already be well aware that spycops are liable to lie about this subject. Jim Boyling told the Met that Rosa, with whom he ended up having two children, had nothing to do with his target group. It was a bare-faced complete lie. Any instance of a spycop using their identity to deceive women into sex is an abuse of power and a violation of the women. It always needs investigating.

The Counsel to the Inquiry told us yesterday they won’t investigate every relationship, which is one thing. But why isn’t it telling us about ones they know about, and whether it is trying to find the women involved?

Trust is a major issue for these deceived women. The lack of transparency from the inquiry generates gratuitous anxiety, distrust and fear.

Any spycop who deceives someone into sex forfeits their right to anonymity. It was not necessary to their deployment. This practice was gratuitous and a grossly intrusive invasion of private citizens’ lives.

HN21 also admitted, in 2019, that he had sex with 2 women while undercover, yet still has anonymity for both his real and cover names. Why?

SPYCOPS SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS 1973-82

In the era 1973-82, which the Inquiry is currently examining, eight officers are known to have deceived women into sexual relationships.

HN302 (cover name restricted, 1970s), whose deployment began in 1973,admits one sexual encounter with a woman from another group rather than the one he spied on. He said ‘circumstances presented themselves’. He says it wasn’t necessary to his deployment and he didn’t think it important.

Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) had relationships with ‘Mary‘ and her flatmate in 1975, and two women in Big Flame. He told his cover officer that this had caused his cover to be compromised, which implies that he told these women different stories and they realised.

Big Flame found the birth and death certificates of the child whose identity he’d stolen. Mary and Richard Chessum’s statement to the Inquiry on Friday will give more detail.

‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) fell in love and wanted to tell the woman the truth about himself. Another officer helped him tell the SDS managers. His wife found out and their marriage ended. He married the new woman and had a child with her, though that marriage didn’t last and she can’t be found today.

HN21 (cover name restricted, late 1970s-early 1980s) admits to occasional sexual encounters with women he knew from ‘an evening class’ (we don’t know what kind of class that was).

‘Barry Tompkins‘ (HN106, 1979-83) is mentioned in a security liaison note as having a relationship, though he denies it. The Inquiry hasn’t called him to give evidence, so we may never find out more about this.

‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79) deceived Madeleine and three other women into relationships. He’s blamed it on having been drunk every time. He lied to the Inquiry about it. He is adamant that his sexual relationship with Madeleine was a one-off event, but she is very clear that they had an ongoing relationship, for months. She still has a diary showing the dates they spent together, but it is notable that he never stayed overnight.

‘Phil Cooper‘ (HN155, 1979-83) told the Inquiry’s risk assessors he had several relationships, but now denies having said it. The officials he spoke to will be giving evidence.

‘Alan Bond‘ (HN67, 1981-86) lived with Vince Miller before Miller was deployed. He may have had a child while undercover. Despite this, he was promoted, and went on to be second in command of the SDS in the 1990s. This means that he oversaw many of the officers who we know also deceived women into relationships, including John Dines, Matt Rayner, Bobby Lewis and Andy Coles. His attitude to this issue must be explored.

‘Paul Gray’ (HN126, 1977-82) was alleged to have had an affair with a fellow officer, in a letter received by his managers that is thought to be from his wife. His managers found allegations ‘were not totally accurate’. Does that mean the affair was with someone he was spying on, rather than a colleague? None of this is actually mentioned in HN126’s witness statement.

We now know that during those five years, a third of the officers in the unit engaged in sexual relationships while undercover. There may be more. But the Inquiry is only calling one, Vince Miller, for evidence.

The issue of sexual relationships is one of the main reasons for the inquiry’s existence and must be prioritised. At the November hearings, we were provided with extracts from each individual officer’s witness statement (with their cipher number attached).

However, it appears that this time, the Inquiry intends to only supply a short ‘gist’, blending the officers’ accounts together, rather than directly quoting any extracts, or identifying which officers are addressing which points. This makes it impossible to ask any meaningful questions of these officers, and makes the gist almost worthless. There’s no good reason why the inquiry cannot provide individually identifiable extracts like last time.

When these spycops give evidence in secret ‘closed hearings’ we will be demanding that as much of this evidence as possible is published afterwards and only the minimum details necessary are kept confidential..

NOT JUST ACTIVISTS

Sexism was endemic in the SDS – reports rate women’s attractiveness and comment on the size of breasts. No account was taken of the impact of the officers’ behaviour on their wives and families. When Paul Gray’s wife alleged an affair the managers’ only concern was protecting the unit’s secrecy; there was no concern for her welfare.

‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348, 1971-73) the first female SDS officer, had her welfare totally disregarded. She was just a tool, used to spy on women’s groups that were closed to men.

Spycops gave no thought to the dignity of women, to their right to choose who they had sex with, the risk of harm if they found out the truth, or what would happen if they got pregnant. Most officers involved readily admit there was no necessity for these relationships.

Numerous women’s organisations were spied on, despite posing no threat at all to public order. It was just a deep hostility to women’s equality.

With at least a third of officers having sex with women while undercover, management cannot claim ignorance. By 1971 they knew deployments were going to be long, about four years. It was clear spycops were becoming important activists and socialising. Deploying married officers clearly didn’t prevent them deceiving women into sexual relationships.

‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1976-79) reports officers making joke references to sexual relationships in front of managers, who were ‘deliberately blind’. Jim Pickford and Rick Gibson had reputations for chasing women.

Why would Coates be lying? We’ve confirmed the officers Coates names did in fact have such relationships. His account is clearly credible. If he is telling the truth, the other ‘amnesiac’ officers must be lying.

QUESTIONS FOR BOSSES

It appears Rick Gibson may have deliberately targeted women in order to reach an influential position in the group he was infiltrating. This is hugely significant for the management.

The SDS’ 1974 annual report say security is top priority, and the frequent meetings of all spycops keep close tabs on what officers are doing and feeling. Later reports reiterate that there is constant contact with supervisors and very close monitoring of every spycop.

There’s no question that supervisors would have listened carefully to what spycops reported. Officers must be hiding the truth from the Inquiry. We can’t take their word at face value.

We know Pickford and Gibson’s relationships were disclosed to managers, and that they suspected Tompkins of having one. They absolutely knew that this went on, and they did nothing. The message to the spycops was therefore that there’s nothing wrong with the practice Doing nothing to safeguard the women is the result of the police’s institutional sexism.

From the early days, the SDS had a culture of spycops using the bodies of women as a perk of their jobs. A state institution that exists to serve the public they’re abusive. It is deeply misogynistic. And it appears to have become part of the armoury of tactics.

If Alan Bond fathered a child while undercover, this has major implications. But he won’t give evidence to the Inquiry due to ill health. The Inquiry has known of his condition for three years yet has not taken a statement from him.

After all this misogyny in the 1970s, a 1981 Special Branch memo refers to an early spycop named Miss Pelling, who infiltrated the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1921. She remembers colleagues as gentlemen who never took liberties.

The memo says:

‘This, naturally, is as true of the present Branch’s treatment of the fairer sex as it was in Miss Pelling’s day’

WE NEED EACH OTHER’S KNOWLEDGE

The Inquiry needs the help of those who were spied on. They must not just be contacted but given full disclosure of documents relevant to them with plenty of time to read and respond so they can expose the lies.

‘Alison‘, deceived into a relationship by spycop Mark Jenner in the 1990s, has highlighted lies in the reports about her. Jenner’s reports don’t identify her even when she was at events. He appears to have deliberately written both himself and her out of reports. But Alison can shed light and show the lies, and the real impact Jenner had.

There are so many Alisons who could do the same for this phase of the Inquiry but who won’t get a chance to, because the Inquiry is keeping the facts secret.

Spycop Mark Kennedy told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the ‘two’ women he had sex with (real number: at least 11) ‘provided no intelligence at all’.

Yet at this moment, one of those women, Kate Wilson, is at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal abundantly proving she was a main target of Kennedy’s deployment.

Spycops lie, the women they abused can prove this and help to uncover the truth.

The new extra delays to the Inquiry are simply cruel to the people waiting for answers. Women deceived into relationships by spycops should be given their files, and any documents that mention them immediately. The Met have said they’re happy to do this, if the Inquiry decrees it.

The Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, responded that delays are inevitable, and that ‘perhaps the request cannot be fulfilled’. He gave no reason at all as to why this might be.

Full opening statement from Category H Core Participants (Individuals in Relationships with Undercover Officers)

Matthew Ryder QC
representing three anti-apartheid activists (Ernest Rodker, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead & Lord Peter Hain), & Celia Stubbs

Finally today, an opening statement from Matthew Ryder QC. He represents anti-apartheid activists Ernest Rodker, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead and Lord Peter Hain, as well as Blair Peach’s partner Celia Stubbs.

From the 1960s there was a large, global, anti-apartheid movement. They were right, and their opponents were wrong. The British government appeased and supported a regime it should have opposed.

Ryder stated that It should be a matter of deep regret that spycops targeted anti-apartheid campaigners. The real threat to democracy was the apartheid regime itself.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) was formed in 1959 and was not affiliated with any political party. Peter Hain was part of the ‘Stop The Seventy Tour’ (STST) which campaigned against tours by South African sporting teams.

The Dambusters Mobilising Committee opposed the sanctions-busting Cahora Bassa Dam project in Mozambique, which would directly benefit South Africa’s apartheid system. DMC was also targeted by spycops.

The spycops were partisan; they spied on anti-apartheid groups well into the 1970s, long after the Stop The Seventy Tour, while ignoring the growth of far-right groups. The right-wing intimidation and violence suffered by anti-apartheid groups were seen as regrettable but understandable by the spycops. Those promoting racial equality were seen as the problem, rather than the racists.

The bias was so pronounced that the first spycops infiltration of the far-right National Front came about by accident when an officer infiltrating the Workers Revolutionary Party was asked by his unwitting targets to spy on the NF!

Spycops suffered from ‘mission creep’, spying on not just the ‘ultra-left’ but anyone on the broad left, irrespective of whether they had anything to do with disorder. Spying on any group could be excused as a stepping-stone to a group that was more of interest to the police. This was apparent in the deployment of Doug Edwards (HN326, 1968-70)who infiltrated the (law-abiding) Independent Labour Party.

MURDER IN LONDON

The South African State’s security service was active in London in the 1970s, targeting the African National Congress and Anti-Apartheid Movement. Peter Hain had a letter bomb delivered in 1972, opened by his 14-year-old sister. The incident remains uninvestigated.

Bombings and murders were committed against anti-apartheid campaigners. Military materials were used. Few charges were ever brought. Some of these attacks were later admitted to by South African agents.

The spycops seem to have been wholly uninterested in pro-apartheid violence. Instead, they obsessively collected information on a wide range of left-wing groups who opposed it.

The police lawyers told us yesterday that we needed historical context to understand the spycops. Well, here it is.

Yesterday the police told the Inquiry said they would have behaved identically if a racist campaign had opposed a black sports team touring England. But supporting racism is different from opposing it. Equivocation between the motivations and actions of the left and far-right was apparent in the witness testimony of Madeleine earlier.

This sounds a lot like the police 23 years ago, telling the Macpherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence that it had a colour-blind approach. It is as if they have learned nothing.

It is also a lie, given that there were active violent racist campaigners at the time and the undercovers left them alone. That now, today, they cannot see why this is wrong is highly regrettable.

The SDS officers recorded extraordinary and gross levels of detail. The birth of Ernest Rodker’s son and a note saying that Ernest himself had been admitted to hospital were reported and copied to MI5, as were reports about who was at Peter Hain’s family home including his younger siblings.

This is what a totalitarian regime would do with dissidents. Parents are now having the chilling experience of reading secret police reports on their children.

A 1975 report on Ernest Rodker names elected councillors and their choice of reading material. It was also copied to MI5. The Labour Party conference was reported on by spycops. Peter Hain asks if the Liberal and Conservative conferences were ever spied upon?

If, as is plausible, this information was passed by MI5 to their South African counterparts, it is the very opposite of protecting the public.

The Stop The Seventy Tour was not ‘subversive’. SDS officer Mike Ferguson (HN135) had a key organisational role in the group. He then went on to hold senior positions in the spycops unit, recruiting and advising new officers. It seems his work was perversely viewed as a good example.

WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

The excuses for targeting anti-apartheid groups need debunking. Contrary to the police version, violence was never an aim or method. Contemporaneous documentation proves it. It was not secret or revolutionary, it simply opposed the cruel and racist South African regime. Mike Ferguson’s reports do not suggest any violence at any time. Officer Dick Epps says at one demo people were told to attack police. This was emphatically denied as a lie by all of the activists involved.

The arrest and prosecution of spycops officer ‘Michael Scott‘ (HN298, 1971-76) at the ‘Star and Garter demonstration’ is a powerful example of how spycops deliberately abused their power and eroded the judicial process.

On 12 May 1972, in the car park of the Star and Garter Pub in Richmond, activists blockaded a coach of rugby players on their way to the airport, about to embark on a tour of South Africa. One of those arrested and convicted was undercover officer ‘Mike Scott’.

As mentioned in yesterday’s hearing, Scott was using the stolen identity of a man who was still alive. Scott spied on privileged legal conversations between lawyers and defendants. He did not correct the police ‘s claim in court that the protesters were on the road, when in fact they were on private land: the car park. Senior officers endorsed his going to court to lie about this.

This is an early example of spycops creating miscarriages of justice.

Home Office guidance in 1969 is unequivocal – undercover agents should avoid misleading courts at all costs. The spycops unit simply ignored this .The SDS tradecraft manual of the 1990s specifically told spycops that they could disregard the usual rules about not lying to courts.

If we conservatively estimate that there was one wrongful conviction per officer per year of service, it means the spycops caused about 600 wrongful convictions. It is a huge scandal that is going relatively unremarked upon.

Another example was the prosecution of ‘Desmond/Barry Loader‘ (HN13, 1975-78) in 1977. He and others were tried for public order offences. Barry’s charges were dismissed while the others were convicted of public order offences. He was arrested again shortly after this, leading to a conviction. However he was only given a small fine and ‘bound over’. Neither the defence nor prosecution was told that he was an undercover officer. It appears that the only disclosure was to ‘a court official’ (name redacted so we have no idea who this was) who fixed the results.

The 2015 Ellison Review of Potential Miscarriages of Justice said that spycops must have withheld evidence from court, including evidence that would have exonerated the defendants.

In 1974, infiltrating the Troops Out Movement, spycop Mike Scott was accused of being a spycop officer by Gerry Lawless. Some spycops chose to accuse genuine activists of being spies to distract attention from themselves. Scott, however,chose a different tactic – of punching Lawless in the face, so hard that he broke a finger. These officers considered themselves to be above the law in many ways.

Mike Ferguson, who infiltrated the Anti-Apartheid Movement, is – uniquely – known by his real name, but his cover name is restricted. This means those he spied on cannot know he was a spy and cannot come forward. This has led to another Mike, a real campaigner called Mike Craft, being accused of being the spycop. Craft’s comrades here emphasise that he was wholly innocent. This is also a reminder to all activists to never accuse comrades of being a police spy without any hard evidence.

Even by the standards of the day, the SDS’ targeting anti-apartheid campaigners was an unjustified, disproportionate, and erroneous political choice. The Inquiry should confirm that as a matter of historical record.

CELIA STUBBS

Ryder then moved on to talk about Celia Stubbs. She is a Core Participant because of her relationship with Blair Peach and led the campaign about his murder by police in 1979. Stubbs recently spoke movingly about it, and spycops, to Channel 4 News.

Peach and Stubbs were both members of the SWP as well as active anti-racist campaigners. Stubbs has campaigned all her life, always to strengthen civil society, and was targeted by the undercovers as a result. Both Stubbs and Peach had spycops files kept on them, opened in 1974 and 1978, long before Peach was killed. We have not seen any of the documents involved that pre-date Peach’s death.

On 23 April 1979, there was a plan to march and sit down at Southall Town Hall protesting at a National Front meeting. Special Patrol Group (SPG) officers piled out of a van and one struck Blair killing him.

All six SPG officers refused to cooperate with the investigation that followed.

Commander Cass’ report at the time confirmed a police officer had killed Peach and identified Inspector Alan Murray as the person most likely to be responsible. Illegal weapons and Nazi regalia were found in the lockers and homes of the SPG officers. Cass’ report was not published until more than 30 years later.

No officer was ever brought to justice for due to a major police cover-up. Officers refused to cooperate with investigations.

The Met told their lawyers to give a knowingly false version of events at Blair Peach’s inquest. They will have seen the Cass report that contained the truth, but still, they lied. The corruption extended beyond the police.

The killing of Blair Peach remains one of the most notorious events in British police history, a national disgrace, and a permanent stain on the Met.

An SDS annual report to the Home Office cites the death of Peach and the ensuing campaign for justice as a key focus for the unit. This is not about subversion or disorder. The Home Office’s response was to renew the SDS’s funding.

The SDS reported on the campaign for promoting actions like writing to MPs and local newspapers, and phoning in to radio shows. Again, this is not public disorder or subversive activity. A number of spycops even attended Blair’s funeral, while police evidence gatherers photographed the attendees for later identification by the SDS.

Combined with the cover-up, it is clear that the infiltration of the Blair Peach campaign was about preventing guilty police officers from being held to account.

THE SPYING HASN’T STOPPED

The spycops units have continued to take an active interest in the Blair Peach campaign ever since. A commemorative event was organised for the twentieth anniversary of his death in 1999, and this was targeted by spycops, with the excuse that such campaigns were ‘anti-police’. Justice campaigns were routinely portrayed as some sort of risk to public order even when they plainly weren’t.

Campaigners for police accountability in cases where the police played a part were a major target for the SDS, and this continued for decades. Police admit undercover officers spied on at least 18 family and justice campaigns, and the true total is likely to be much higher. On our website we name thirteen examples that we are sure of and summarise these cases of police incompetence, arrogance and murder.

Police lawyers told the Inquiry last November that the SDS and NPIOU never directly targeted justice campaigns. But the documents we see in these hearings prove that is untrue. Officers were tasked to spy on the Peach campaign.

Why would the SDS highlight the Peach campaign to the Home Office if it were not a direct focus? Why are some reports only about the Peach campaign? Why were so many other campaigns targeted later? The denials of the police lawyers are simply not plausible. Their statement should be publicly corrected and withdrawn.

The 1979 SDS annual report describes the Peach campaign as a main focus, yet the Inquiry has disclosed suspiciously few documents relating to this.

It is striking that there is so little evidence relating to either the 1979 Southall demonstration where Peach was killed, not the 1974 Red Lion Square anti-racist protest at which Kevin Gately was killed. There is a real concern that reports may have been destroyed by the police in order to cover up the facts around both fatalities.

Earlier in this Inquiry, there were references made to a report about the Southall demonstration at which Peach was killed, This report – key evidence about an extremely important and relevant historical event – has still not been disclosed to us, and we are left wondering if it has been deliberately withheld from the Inquiry, or just not shared with us?

For Stubbs, this conspicuous lack of evidence is just one more obstruction to truth and accountability.

TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH

Celia Stubbs was also involved in the Hackney Community Defence Campaign and Colin Roach Centre, both of which were targeted by spycops. She is extremely disturbed about the fact that her lawyers were put under police surveillance, and Special Branch files were opened on them.

This Inquiry has had police material for years, yet only passes it to witnesses shortly before the hearings, giving us little time to properly analyse and respond. The extremely limited opportunity for victims to question witnesses limits the Inquiry’s ability to get the truth.

Celia Stubbs and Blair Peach sought to bring people together and make a fairer world. They were spied upon. She wants answers and accountability. She does not have to prove her innocence; the state must show why it spied on her.

There is nothing in the police documents disclosed by the UCPI that justifies spying on Celia Stubbs.

Bringing the hearing to an end, Mitting reminded us that tomorrow is the 42nd anniversary of Blair Peach’s death. The Inquiry will resume at 10 am with Mitting speaking briefly about Blair Peach and then there will be a minute’s silence.

Full opening statement from Ernest Rodker, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead and Lord Peter Hain
Full opening statement from Celia Stubbs

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 1

21 April 2021

Opening Statements from:

David Barr QC, Counsel to the Inquiry
Peter Skelton QC, representing the Metropolitan Police Commissioner
Oliver Sanders QC, representing 114 spycops

On 21 April 2021, Tranche 1, Phase 2 of the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) got underway. It will examine the ac tions of the Special Demonstration Squad, 1973-82.

David Barr QC

Counsel to the Inquiry

The first session was taken up by an opening statement by David Barr QC, Counsel to the Inquiry.

The Counsel to the Inquiry questions witnesses (this stops it being like a trial with different lawyers pressurising witnesses from different directions).

In the previous set of hearings last November, Barr’s questioning of undercover officers became notorious for its lack of intent.

As with the opening day of the November hearings, some previously unmentioned groups were named as having been spied upon.

Clear knowledge of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS)’s operations – not only within the Metropolitan Police but at the highest level of the Home Office – was also discussed and confirmed.

A RECAP OF THE EARLY YEARS

However, Barr began with a brief review of what had been presented in terms of the SDS’ first three years (1968-1971), as covered in November’s ‘Phase 1’ hearings.

The SDS was set up in 1968, initially to counter anti-Vietnam War protests.

Barr said that experienced Special Branch officers were recruited for the new unit, and many of the first deployments only lasted a few weeks or months. . Officers began to inveigle themselves into the social lives of activists and, from 1971 onward, deployments tended to last around four years.

Despite the next anti-Vietnam War demo passing without clashes, the police and Home Office jointly decided to keep the new unit, even though the Home Office was anxious to ensure that the public didn’t find out about this deceitful and anti-democratic form of policing.

It was confirmed in November’s inquiry hearings that the SDS enjoyed a close relationship with MI5 – early spycops’ seemingly inconsequential reports were routinely copied to MI5. It seems clear that the Met and Home Office agreed that SDS officers would assist MI5 with ‘counter-subversion’. Officers were increasingly deployed for longer, and into more diverse groups. They targeted some campaigns now considered mainstream, such as anti-racism, and women’s rights.

SDS officers infiltrated groups, not based on any imminent threat, but in case there were any ongoing matters of interest to MI5, with extraordinarily little criminality reported. Despite this, ex-spycops think their intelligence was important and useful, and prevented public disorder.

Highly personal details were recorded of group members. Officers were given a significant degree of latitude, sometimes including the choice of which groups to infiltrate. They reported on events and people on the rather vague premise that they might be of use at some point in the future.

WHAT THE NEW HEARINGS WILL EXAMINE

Phase 2 of the Undercover Policing Inquiry is examining evidence from 29 SDS officers spanning the 10 years between 1973 and 1982. Of these, seven officers have both their real and cover names withheld, and so the Inquiry is limited as to what evidence about them can be made public. ‘Gists’ of their evidence – which, if the last hearings are anything to go by, will consist of extremely brief and non-illuminating summaries – will be published.

Barr said that all but one of the other 22 SDS officers from the era in question have their real names withheld. Officer Richard Clark (HN297), is the only one whose name will be given.

Of the 22 ‘open officers’ whose cover names are public, four are dead, seven provided witness statements and three did not provide any statements. The other eight will give oral evidence in these hearings and documents relating to their deployments will also be published.

During this period, deployments usually lasted for 3-5 years, unless the officer asked to leave, or his identity was compromised. (Unlike the first few years, there were no women spycops throughout this time).

Barr said that the hearings for this period will feature the earliest confirmed cases of spycops deceiving women they spied on into sexual relationships, and the theft of dead children’s identities, and potential miscarriages of justice.

SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Undercover officers’ sexual relationships had life-altering impacts on the women they targeted. Barr acknowledges that the Met have apologised for this. This has not stopped them contesting the legal cases brought by such women, many of which have dragged on for years.

The era we will be looking at – 1973-82 – includes the first definite cases of officers deceiving women into relationships. At least five officers this during this period, with at least 12 women, though this is likely to be a dramatic underestimate of the true number.

Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) is now deceased. He infiltrated Big Flame and the Troops Out Movement, becoming active and influential in both groups. He was sexually intimate with ‘Mary’ and her flatmate, and at least two other women.

Big Flame’s members became suspicious of Clark and discovered that he was using a fake identity, at which point his deployment was ended. It is mentioned in the 1976 SDS report, and Big Flame is labelled ‘sinister’ even though there is no suggestion of criminality.

‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) infiltrated anarchists. His second wife, to whom he was married at the time, says he met a woman while undercover and went on to marry her. They had a child, but the relationship did not last long.

‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79) infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He said he had four one-night stands, and did not tell his managers about them. However, one of the women he had a relationship with, ‘Madeleine’, says it lasted for a couple of months. She also says that she had split up with her husband the year before, and was devastated by that, and describes herself as:

‘very shy and reserved. I was also quite vulnerable as a result of my marriage ending…. I now think Vince probably saw me as easy pickings’

‘Vince Miller’ disappeared soon after, leaving Madeleine distraught. He has now seen her witness statement but is sticking to his story. Madeleine will be make an opening statement on Thursday 22nd April and give evidence on Monday 10th May.

‘Barry Tompkins‘ (HN106, 1979-83) denies any sexual relationships, but an MI5 document says his managers thought differently, with activists being heard to refer to ‘Barry’s girlfriend’. He will not give evidence due to ill health.

‘Phil Cooper‘ (HN155, 1979-83) also denies sexual interactions, but the risk assessors said he told them he had a few. The issue will be examined by the Inquiry.

Two of the fully anonymous officers, HN302 (who served in the 1970s) and HN21 (who served in the late 1970s and early 1980s), have stated that they had sexual contact with women whilst in their cover identities. HN302 described a ‘brief encounter with one woman’ when, he says, ‘circumstances presented themselves’. He said it was not important to deployment. HN21 describes sexual encounters with two women from an evening class he attended, who were not part of the group he infiltrated. Both officers will give oral evidence in secret hearings of the Inquiry.

The Inquiry will not differentiate between brief and long relationships in a way that dismisses the former, they are all significant. That said, the Inquiry says it does not need to document every instance of sexual contact between spycops and civilians. Some women may not want to participate, and Barr says that on some occasions the need to ‘protect’ a former officer outweighs the need to contact any women he deceived.

The Inquiry has found no documents from this era (1973-82) that instruct spycops officers either to have nor to abstain from sexual relationships. But there was a mention from ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1976-79) that he overheard comments and jokes about relationships from officers, in the presence of spycops managers.

During this time, all of the spycops (and their managers) were male. The SDS went 10 years without any women officers , which may well have had an influence of the unit’s culture. The vast majority of these men were married, and marital status was noted at the time of recruitment, It was perhaps thought that this would help to deter the undercovers from getting too close to their targets, but clearly it didn’t prevent them going so far as to initiate sexual relationships.

STOLEN IDENTITIES

Identity theft (the theft of dead children’s identities in particular) as practiced by many of the spycops in creating their ‘legends’ or cover stories was one of the reasons why this Inquiry was instigated.

Barr seems to suggest that officers started doing this in 1971 and by 1974 all officers were using the technique. No documents exist about this though, except for the Tradecraft Manual which was written in the 1990s.

The 2015 Operation Herne investigation reported that it was:

‘clear that the use of this tactic was sanctioned at the highest level, was deemed as operationally necessary and was one that newly appointed undercover officers were trained in.‘

To add insult to injury, a few spycops visited the place where the dead child whose identity they stole had lived. ‘Michael James’ says he was instructed to do so and was assisted by the local Special Branch to ensure the child’s family had moved away.

A new revelation was that one officer used the identity of a living person, Michael Scott, and committed a criminal offence in his name.

MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE

One of the main themes in these hearings is the question of miscarriages of justice. Did undercover officers function as agents provocateurs, withhold evidence, mislead or deceive courts?

In a criminal trial, the defence has a right to see all evidence that may be helpful to them. The police have a duty to ensure that any involvement of undercover officers in events which lead to criminal prosecutions is properly disclosed. There is a real risk of a miscarriage of justice occurring otherwise.

We will be hearing evidence from four people convicted after their involvement in an anti-apartheid demo in the early 1970s.

The Inquiry has anticipated that there will be evidence of miscarriages of justice. A panel has now been set up to examine any suspected miscarriages, with the possibility of then referring these cases on to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The problem is that this panel is comprised solely of senior members of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service – the kind of people who have a history of deliberately creating these kinds of wrongful convictions in the first place.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The events of 1973-82 are the context for the hearings. Barr took us through a whirlwind tour of the major political events of the period.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975, with no more demonstrations against it involving significant violence after 1968. But the Cold War left a lot of the same tensions. The British Government feared the Soviet bloc sought to foment unrest in the UK, so Special Branch assisted MI5 in ‘counter subversion’. One officer, Barry Tompkins, reported an approach from the KGB Soviet secret police, but this was unique.

Two SDS officers specifically infiltrated Maoist groups. Diane Langford, who was in some of these groups, will make an opening statement on the morning of Thursday 22nd April , and give evidence on the afternoon of Monday 26th.

Special Branch’s interest in groups campaigning about Irish nationalist and civil rights issues is a consistent theme of this era. SDS officer ‘Alex Sloan‘ (HN347, 1971) targeted the Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front, and we will hear evidence from two members.

FASCISTS VS ANTI-FASCISTS

Racism was also a huge issue in the era, and reporting on anti-racist groups was very common indeed. The far-right was on the rise in England, opposed by the left. There were violent confrontations. SDS officers were involved in the fascist protest and anti-fascist counter-protest, known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham’, in August 1977.

Both a BBC film and an Associated Press report were shown from the ‘Battle of Lewisham’. It should be noted that the SDS’ annual report for that year suggested that this was a triumph of SDS intelligence, minimising the clashes and violence.

Even just this film clip, and the fact that the demo is now known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham’, makes this claim in the annual report laughable and casts doubt about the accuracy of the information in these annual reports. It was mentioned that one SDS officer complained that the intelligence supplied in the run-up was ignored by police planning for the demo.

On 23 April 1979, the National Front held a meeting in Southall Town Hall, West London. In the counter-demo Blair Peach – anti-fascist and Socialist Workers Party (SWP) member – was killed by a Metropolitan Police officer belonging to the notoriously violent Special Patrol Group.

The ensuing campaign for justice for Peach was infiltrated by SDS officers. Celia Stubbs, Peach’s partner, will be giving evidence to the Inquiry next week.

In the early 1980s, East London Workers Against Racism – a subgroup of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which supported victims of racist attacks and patrolled areas with racial violence – was infiltrated by SDS officer ‘Barry Tompkins’ (previously, we had been told by the Inquiry that Barry Tompkins infiltrated just one group – the Spartacist League of Britain). This meant that Tompkins reported on the victims of racist violence, apparently explaining this away as accidental or incidental.

Spying on victims of racist violence and the groups supporting them is a pattern that endured and is something we will see when we look at the 1990s and the spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence, Ricky Reel, and many others.

INDUSTRIAL UNREST

Barr said that the late 1970s saw high inflation, mass unemployment and industrial unrest. The Workers Revolutionary Party, International Socialists and Shrewsbury pickets campaign were all spied on.

Trade unions, and references to union membership, are common among SDS officers reporting. ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76) and ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83) both reported being members of the Transport & General Workers Union
This is interpreted as being ‘incidental’, rather than a deliberate targeting of unions, which seems a rather dubious distinction.

The two-year Grunwick Strike of the 1970s was a cause celebre which was extensively reported on by spycops. The Inquiry also showed a news report of a picket and the bussing in of scab labour.

RECRUITMENT

All SDS officers in the era 1973-82 were recruited from Special Branch and all but one was of Detective Constable rank. Two said they had done more than usual ‘plain clothes in meetings’ infiltrations before joining the SDS. There was no formal recruitment process, and no formal training for the job.

By the mid-1970s, it seems to have become established practice that new recruits would spend some time – up to 6 months – in the SDS back office before being deployed themselves. Few record receiving any advice about getting involved in criminal activity (or legal cases) or sexual relationships.

WHO WAS TARGETED

Barr quoted the 1975 SDS annual report, and the claim that officers:

‘concentrated on gathering intelligence about the activities of those extremists whose political views are to the left of the Communist Party of Great Britain’

It is unclear how you could be to the left of the Communist Party of Great Britain – we can only surmise that the police perhaps meant groups who were likely to cause them more trouble than the CPGB? However, given that they also targeted members of groups such as the Liberal Party’s youth wing, this claim is undermined no matter how you interpret it.

The SDS specifically said that schisms among the left were something the police could take advantage of; they did not want these groups to sink their differences and unite, and potentially cause trouble for the State. Having a large number of small separate groups to surveill and spy on meant more work for undercover officers. The SDS annual report of 1975 says though the political disorder is on the wane, they should keep spying on people just in case anything changes.

SDS annual reports always included a list of groups targeted during the year. Apart from one officer spying on the far right (and only because the left-wing group he had been sent to infiltrate then sent him to do this), all the groups are on what can broadly be seen as the left: communist, socialist, anti-nuclear, Irish liberation, women’s rights.

The 1976 SDS annual report said anarchists are a continuing nuisance on demonstrations, and the surveillance is justified by rumours of an Angry Brigade type group emerging.

In 1982, the annual report said SDS information had led to the anarchist Freedom Collective being raided. They say their uniformed colleagues found ‘pamphlets dealing with the manufacture of explosive devices, home-made guns, assassination techniques and booby-traps,’ yet mysteriously there were no arrests.

The 1982 SDS report also mentions the SWP organising a picket of the Tory party conference. Sussex police praised the SDS’s intelligence, although it is unclear what extra preparation the police would need to manage a picket – surely something that they would be able to comfortably manage?

USING THE DEATH OF BLAIR PEACH

A particularly offensive SDS interpretation of political activist’s motivations is made regarding the Blair Peach justice campaign which states:

‘The focal point of much of the extremist activity in 1979 was the General Election held in May with the extreme Left contriving to take advantage of the National Front’s election campaign to provoke hostile confrontation whenever possible. The culmination of the virulent anti-fascist demonstrations was the death of the Anti-Nazi League supporter Blair Peach and the subsequent campaign against the Police.’

This biased interpretation – as unable to conceive of integrity and genuinely held left-wing and anti-fascist beliefs as it is incapable of admitting the police can be in the wrong – is repeated later in the same report:

‘The SWP contrived to make use of all public meetings arranged by the NF to arouse anti-fascist feeling; the death of Blair Peach, an active supporter of the Anti-Nazi League, which was a consequence of a violent anti-fascist demonstration in Southall, provided the extreme left wing with an opportunity to mount a sustained campaign to discredit and criticise the Police.’

Barr at least noted that the reports are defensive about the Blair Peach campaign, seeing it as anti-police.

Notably, the now-published Metropolitan Police report from 1979, though it concedes Peach was killed by a police officer, places the blame for the situation on the protesters.

ONLY INFILTRATING THE RIGHT BECAUSE THE LEFT SAID TO

The officers deployed 1973-82 only infiltrated left-wing organisations. The main group targeted in this era was the International Socialists/ Socialist Workers Party.

One officer, ‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77), infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party. Not knowing he was a spy, they asked him, in turn, to infiltrate the National Front.

This infiltration of the National Front is bragged about in the 1974 SDS report, showing a total lack of awareness that the fact that their only foray into infiltrating the far-right was instigated by a left-wing group and done to maintain cover.

It mentions that other areas of Special Branch were spying on right-wing groups.

WHO ELSE APART FROM THE POLICE?

Barr stated that although MI5 is not a subject of investigation for this Inquiry, its relationship with the spycops is. Barr also praised MI5 for helping provide a great quantity of documents and providing a witness statement.

Just nine activists targeted by spycops during this decade will give oral evidence, and three more have given statements. This means that we’ll hear from fewer than one activist per year of these operations.

Barr added that we will see statements from the families of two former undercover officers.

Further, written evidence will be heard from two risk assessors who interviewed ex spycops ahead of the Inquiry, as there’s a dispute of fact about the testimony of officer ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155) and whether he admitted sexual activity with women he spied on.

OVERSIGHT AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SDS WENT TO THE TOP

The 1975 SDS annual report emphasises the paramount importance of secrecy about the unit’s existence to avoid ‘an embarrassment for the Commissioner’ as well as maintaining officer security.

Documents were frequently seen, discussed and approved by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner. We have yet another officer – ‘Michael James’ (HN96, 1978-83) – reporting that the Commissioner himself visited the SDS safe house. We’ve previously had this activity confirmed by ‘Doug Edwards’ (HN326, 1968-71) and Peter Francis (1993-97) who both added that their Commissioners presented them with bottles of whisky.

From 1983, there is a programme and briefing pack prepared for a visit to the SDS by Sir Kenneth Newman, the then Met Commissioner. The briefing pack includes a brief profile of each member of the SDS at the time, and was prepared for him ahead of an extended buffet lunch with the SDS officers at what is described as an ‘in-field location’.

It would be nice if the inquiry would question Sir Kenneth about his knowledge of the SDS but he is one of three old ex Commissioners who have died since the Inquiry was announced seven years ago.

But there can be no doubt that this phase of the Inquiry will put the nails in the coffin of senior officers’ claims that the SDS was a rogue unit, totally secret and unknown even to the rest of the Met.

SELF-APPROVAL TO CONTINUE

A 1976 document shows that the SDS set up a group to make the case for continued Home Office funding.

This group looked at whether the spycops unit was still needed or not, and if the intelligence it provided was still useful to MI5/ and uniformed police. It is no surprise that this set of SDS officers unanimously felt that they were still needed, extremely useful to MI5, and these operations must be allowed to continue.

They admitted that political disorder and violence had declined, but apparently subversive issues like ‘abortion, trespass, unemployment, and civil liberties’ had not. This meant there were more groups organising demonstrations, all potentially needing surveillance. Also, the manifold splinter groups would not, for some reason, cooperate with the police.

The annual reports were passed up the chain of command within the Met. They record praise and support coming in from senior officers.

REALLY THOUGH, SHOULD THEY CONTINUE?

The issue of the spycops’ relevance was re-examined in the mid-1980s, when a Home Office civil servant wondered if the unit was still needed for dealing with modern problems as opposed to being a hangover from the situations which arose many years earlier.
The Home Office authorisation for the unit’s 1985funds shows that these discussions had taken place.

Despite these discussions, and the fact that the Home Office directly funded the spycops renewing this funding annually for 20 years, a search of all Home Office archives failed to find a single document. Luckily the police & MI5 haven’t been quite so careless. Barr flagged up that there are more Home Office documents being published by the Inquiry today.

MI5 AND SUBVERSION

Another documents being published is a letter from MI5 to Chief Constables to remind them of Special Branch guidance on the distinction between subversion and mere militancy.

A witness from MI5, known as Witness Z, explained that subversion threatens the safety or well-being of the state whereas militancy is just the use of direct action with aim of, for example, achieving better working conditions. It’s militant to oppose the government, but only subversive if you seek to overthrow representative democracy itself.

A variety of government agencies and ministers did not seem to share this distinction, as demonstrated by the blacklisting scandal. According to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, all Special Branches routinely gave details of politically active people to the construction industry blacklist.

MI5 was extremely interested in subversive groups trying to infiltrate non-subversive groups such as trade unions.
As an illustration of a non-criminal group with subversive elements, Barr cited a 1974 SDS report from ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342) on a Marxist discussion group. An attendee said that come the English revolution, the two million people who presented a permanent threat to its success would have to be killed (including senior police officers, all big businessmen and members of the Conservative Party). Even the report notes that most people present did not share this person’s opinion.

MI5 occasionally asked the SDS to obtain specific information, and occasionally helped protect the spycops’ security, but they had no significant control over the SDS’s choice of targets.

Some MI5 documents suggest a feeling that the SDS’s tactics enjoyed some advantages over MI5’s usual informants – as the spycops were frequently met and briefed and ‘all options are open’.

AFTER THIS

Barr ended by saying that immediately after these three weeks of hearings, the Inquiry will be conducting secret, ‘closed’ hearings for officers from this era whose identities are protected.

After that will come ‘Tranche 1 Phase 3’, dealing with the unit’s early managers (up till1982). These were scheduled to take place in October but have now been put back to some time in the first half of 2022.

We have also now been told that the Inquiry no longer expects to look at ‘Tranche 2’ (covering the years 1983-1992) next year – this means it is likely to be dealt with in 2023 instead.

Does mean we’ll have to wait until 2024 for Tranche 3 (covering the SDS in 1993-2007), and then even longer for Tranche 4 evidence to come out? (Tranche 4 looks at the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, aka the NPOIU, which deployed the likes of Mark Kennedy).

Peter Skelton QC

representing the Metropolitan Police Commissioner

Skelton began by saying his speech would be short. The first Met opening statement at the Inquiry last year looked at what went wrong in general, and what the value there is in undercover policing. This one is just about the topic in hand, SDS officers 1973-82.

He warned the inquiry to be wary of how it assesses the work of the SDS. We must judge by the standards of the time, not those of today. We don’t have all the reports from the time, nor fresh memories, so cannot have a full picture. Also, remember some the intelligence gathered was intended for MI5, who have secret uses that mere mortals can only imagine but must presume to be wholesome and necessary (I paraphrase slightly).

In the era under examination, 1973-82, the SDS’ work was in response to what government and public thought important – the need to preserve public order & state security, he said.

Skelton then mentioned events of the time with a very broad range of connection to the SDS. Angry Brigade firebombings, Bloody Sunday, IRA bombings in England, the 1972 miners and dockers strikes resulting in a state of emergency. He continued a summing up of strikes, a one-day near-general strike in 1973, the two-year Grunwick strike, and in 1978, the Ford industrial action leading to the ‘Winter of Discontent’ of multiple strikes and other industrial action. Then there were clashes between the National Front & antifascists, including the deaths of Kevin Gately & Blair Peach.

Skelton’s citing of these two killings is quite upsetting. The Met should not refer to the deaths of people killed by them as if they were events that they had no influence on, let alone use it to justify any and all forms of policing.

Skelton said the Inquiry must properly understand all the social context and explain it, otherwise it risks making unfair judgments. Evidence from people involved may be selective and biased, so the Inquiry should rely on expert historical evidence. Such evidence would need to be scrupulously neutral and factual with no contentious assertions. He claimed was done in the Litvinenko inquiry & Birmingham bombings inquests. The Met think it would be of even more use here.

In the era considered, the SDS had 9-12 undercover officer to infiltrate Trotskyists, Maoists/Marxist-Leninists, anarchists, anti-fascists, anti-nuclear and Irish nationalist support groups.

As well as the SDS annual reports glorifying the work of the unit, the Inquiry found documents that show that the unit’s management appraised the continued value of the unit. They concluded that it should continue (as if they might have voted to end their own jobs, because they in fact considered the work of no value at all). These documents also emphasise the importance of ‘negative intelligence’, that knowing an event won’t take place or a group isn’t dangerous is valuable, and that MI5 agreed. This sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which a world without intelligence gathering is unimaginable.

SDS contact with MI5 was frequent and productive, Skelton said. The unit saw the Secret Service as a customer which exercised some influence over the placement of spycops.

STEALING FROM THE DEAD

The SDS stole the identities of dead children to build cover stories for the undercover officers (and ‘Michael Scott’ HN298 stole the identity of a living person in 1971). Skelton kept referring to ‘using’ identities, but by any definition this is identity theft.

Earlier deployments, he explained, had been shorter, perhaps just a few months. But it was soon extended as it seems the quality of information gathered improved with longer deployments. As such, fake identities needed to be able to withstand more scrutiny. It became standard practice for officers to have a flat rented and have specially bought cars.

The police couldn’t insert a fake birth register entry, so they stole real ones. The Met apologises to families of people whose dead relatives’ identity was ‘relied upon in this way’.

SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS, WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS & BLACKLISTING

Spycops should never have had sexual relationships while in undercover persona, no matter how brief. It was not justified in the era being examined and the Met apologises unreservedly. We need to find what managers knew.

Officers had interactions with the criminal justice system. ‘Michael Scott‘ (HN298, 1971-76) was arrested and convicted – using the identity of someone who was still alive – on an anti-apartheid protest. But what the managers knew can’t be decided until we hear from them in the Tranche 1 Phase 3 hearings – which have just been delayed until next year.

Skelton tried to fend off the fact that SDS officers illegally supplied personal details of activists to employment blacklists. He claimed that police got material from far beyond the spycops, so we can’t be sure that what he called ‘so-called blacklisting’ involved information from SDS officers.

Stating this, Skelton seems to ignore that the Information Commissioners Office seized a blacklist of more than 3,200 people at the offices of The Consulting Association, maintained for the construction industry, in 2009.

In 2012 the Information Commissioners Office’s investigations manager David Clancy confirmed that there was information in the files that ‘could only be supplied by the police or the security services’.

In 2013, SDS whistleblower officer Peter Francis said that he believed information he’d reported when undercover in the 1990s had ended up in blacklist files.

Turning to the 1979 killing of Blair Peach by police, and the SDS’ spying on the campaign for justice, including attending the funeral, Skelton reminded the Inquiry that the Crown Prosecution Service said no further investigation is possible, and it is not the Inquiry’s job to investigate the killing.

Skelton conceded that SDS reporting has a lot of personal info on people spied on, some of which might not have been justified to record (eg social events & family members). He tried to wiggle out of taking responsibility for this saying such information was often asked for by Special Branch and MI5, as if that makes it alright.

The Met acknowledges that it might be ‘more detail than necessary’, but then again, you just never know. Some seemingly innocuous information can be connected to useful things later. In the era under examination, the concept of ‘collateral intrusion’ on family members wouldn’t have been considered.

The Met notes that outdated language shouldn’t be judged if it was uncontroversial at the time, unless it was discriminatory, or gratuitously insulting, or with no purpose.

The Met, Skelton concluded, engages with the Inquiry with ‘a willingness to learn and to improve’.

Those of us who fought for ten years to get the Inquiry and drag the Met into it despite all their obstructions, smears, shredding of paperwork and delays will take some persuading on this point.

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, then asked Skelton about miscarriages of justice. Mitting said that we may see such things described in these hearings. If there are grounds to believe it, Mitting said he will refer these cases to the review panel set up for it, instead of waiting for the witness hearings of managers which have just been delayed to next year.

The conviction Mitting has in mind was 49 years ago, the people involved are now old and deserve their answer as soon as possible, rather than waiting until after the end of the Inquiry. The clearing of their names should start as soon as possible. Something we can agree on.

Oliver Sanders QC,

Representing 114 spycops

Oliver Sanders QC spoke last, representing 114 spycops.

His opening statement at the first Inquiry hearings in November 2020 was shocking, rowing back on matters of fact and responsibility the Met have long admitted and accepted.

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE

Sanders reiterated Skelton’s point that without complete evidence there cannot be fully informed findings. Some officers remember reports and events that have no surviving documents. Instead, the Inquiry is heavily reliant on what MI5 retained and have supplied.

Of the fraction of material that survives, a fraction of that, in turn, is to be released to the public, and even then it is redacted (thanks, in part, to the Met lobbying for the greatest possible secrecy), so people will inevitably form the wrong idea about what went on.

The secrecy means the public especially misses some especially important dangerous activities the public can’t be told about, and therefore receive an even more distorted picture.

DANGER LURKS BELOW

Spied-on groups had a spectrum of members, so just because one member testifies to the Inquiry that they were no threat it does not mean that others were not dangerous, or that the group couldn’t be hijacked by dangerous people.

The SWP had a lot of teachers, social workers, etc at the branch level who were moderate and law-abiding, but others were interested in violence and disorder, spoke to the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and wanted to take over other campaigns.

Some people targeted by spycops have extreme anti-police views. Police are seen as the embodiment of the establishment, so it is in some groups’ interests to promote an anti-police narrative.

There are ‘contentious incidents’ such as the deaths of Blair Peach and Kevin Gately (who were both killed by police). We need to be sure we deal with facts, not hearsay.

Police will talk of a threat to public order, but civilian witnesses will dispute it. The spycops say the Inquiry needs to get more contextual evidence rather than simply choose one side to believe.

For example, officer ‘Dick Epps’ (HN336, 1969-70) remembers anti-apartheid activists damaging cricket grounds. No media coverage was found to support that, so the Inquiry suggested that he was confusing it with something else, but in fact, there was a documented event with details as described by Epps (the Chair, Sir John Mitting, really took this point to task at the end).

There are the SDS annual reports prepared for the Commissioner, and there are reports for Special Branch that have now been found and are currently being redacted. Beyond that, we can look at contemporaneous Hansard and media (as if the media are not briefed by police with stories of ‘rentamob’)

Sanders had not only agreed a line of argument with Skelton but drifted into paraphrasing him. Skelton treated the Inquiry to a reiteration of the need for historians to testify to the Inquiry.

WRITE YOUR OWN ANSWERS

Skelton also said the Inquiry should look at contemporaneous publications by the groups that spycops targeted. This sounds fair, but bear in mind that throughout the existence of spycops, officers had written material for the campaigns they infiltrated.

From John Graham writing about the anti-Vietnam War protest in a 1969 edition of Red Camden to Mark Kennedy’s Indymedia posts, via Roger Pearce writing for Freedom, Bob Lambert cowriting the McLibel leaflet and John Dines’ anti-police section of the Poll Tax Riot booklet, it’s been very common practice. To judge the validity of their infiltration on their writings for the groups would be the police marking their own homework.

Skelton refuted the idea that spycops were a waste of police resources. He pointed out that the SDS was only a handful of officers among thousands of Met staff, so it is not like it’d have made much odds to redeploy them into something more useful to the public (such as catching the killers of people whose justice campaigns they spied on and undermined).

Some evidence puts emphasis on the cause being just, such as anti-racist and anti-apartheid campaigns. This is irrelevant to public order policing – order must be maintained no matter the politics of those who threaten it. It does not matter if the police agree or not.

DON’T KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG

Police cannot be expected to decide which causes were just or will be thought just in the fullness of time. So, them spying on anti-apartheid campaigners Stop The Seventy Tour would have been the same if it were a far-right group (Skelton ignores the fact that spycops barely touched the far right).

Public order is not just an absence of violence – intimidation and obstruction are disorder and liable to escalate. With large events, there’s crowd psychology that can be hijacked by dangerous people. So, a protest being harmless may only be due to the police’s successful handling of it.

It is obvious that if the South African cricket tour had gone ahead, the Stop The Seventy Tour campaign would have had a big impact, so it’s right that they were targeted by spycops. The activists themselves describe how rugby fans hated them for disrupting games. With drinking involved, it is a powder keg waiting for just such a spark.

UNKNOWN RELEVANCE

As for the personal details and irrelevance of much of the information gathered, Skelton explained that every spycop hoovered up all info they could and reported it unfiltered, it was not up to them to discern. Besides, the kind of stuff they reported appears in other Special Branch reports, whether it is from the SDS or others (as if the rest of Special Branch is a beacon of integrity). Plus, MI5 used it and we do not know what was useful to them.

Any reporting on members of groups would inevitably include personal information. It identifies them, and it might be useful to either Special Branch or MI5. Yes, it included details about children, but it does not hurt them really, he explained.

In fact, some activists had children and used that to influence other children. There is a National Union of School Students pamphlet encouraging strikes and disruption. Gotta clamp down hard on that, right?

It is not the spycops’ fault they reported irrelevant things. Why did MI5 retain the seemingly trivial stuff for so long? MI5’s Witness Z should explain.

With that final deflection, Sanders ended his statement. But Mitting was not done with him.

ADMIT WHEN YOU’RE WRONG

Mitting now returns to the claim about the Stop The Seventy Tour ‘attacking cricket grounds’. The spycop concerned, Dick Epps, refers to digging up Lord’s pitch and pouring oil. But Mitting has checked and this never happened.

Mitting suggests Epps confused it with the Third Test at Headingley in 1975, a ‘George Davis is Innocent’ protest. Mitting spoke to Epps a while ago about it, and Epps accepted he may be misremembering.

Mitting sternly told Sanders that if he thinks the Inquiry has something wrong, then re-examine it, but otherwise, do not make such assertions without checking.

Sanders says there was another cricket pitch attack, but still a different place, a different time and with weedkiller rather than oil. So why didn’t Mitting suggest that to the officer instead of the Headingley event? Mitting, like the rest of us, appeared unable to see why saying Epps was wrong made any sort of defence for saying he was right.

And with that, the hearing concluded for the day.

---

The Undercover Policing Inquiry resumes at 10am on Thursday 22 April.

It will hear opening statements from:
Diane Langford (activist)
“Madeleine”(deceived into a relationship)
Phillippa Kaufmann QC, representing people in relationships with spycops
Matthew Ryder QC, representing Stop the Seventy Tour anti-apartheid activists, and Blair Peach’s partner Celia Stubbs.

The UCPI will also pause at 11am for a minute’s silence on Thursday and Friday, the anniversaries of the deaths of Stephen Lawrence and Blair Peach, whose loved ones’ campaigns for justice were targeted by SDS and NPIOU officers.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (19 Nov 2020)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (22 Apr 2021)>>

Kate Wilson was deceived into a long term intimate relationship by Mark Stone, who she now knows was undercover police officer Mark Kennedy.

A decade after Kate’s legal case against the police began, it concludes with a hearing at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal from 20th-28th April.

Among other issues, this case will examine sexist discrimination within the Metropolitan Police Service, and the systemic disregard for women’s fundamental human rights between 1998 and 2010.

Her case refers to the actions of at least 6 different undercover officers serving in the secret political spycops units, the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, during that time.

Kate has already received startling admissions that the police breached her human rights. Specifically, they are;

Article 3: Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment
Article 8: Respect for your private and family life, home and correspondence
Article 10: Freedom of expression

She is, through these proceedings, the only person to have received significant disclosure of police ‘intelligence’ files held about her.

Join us to stand in solidarity with Kate on Tuesday 20th April at 9.00am. We will be outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. If you can’t be there, show your solidarity online using the hashtag #WeStandWithKate

We will be outside of the RCJ from 9.00am, for roughly an hour, before the proceedings begin. Please bring banners and placards if you have them. We will observe social distancing guidelines by keeping a two metre distance between us. Please wear a mask if you’re able to.

Messages of support are a great way to show solidarity with Kate.
Please email messages to contact@policespiesoutoflives.org.uk

For more about Kate Wilson’s spycops case, see her page at Police Spies Out of Lives.

 

 

A group of climate activists are calling on Labour leader Keir Starmer to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, alleging he may have been involved in a cover-up of police and prosecutors orchestrating wrongful convictions.

The 18 activists were part of a group of 114 arrested while planning a protest against Nottinghamshire’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station in April 2009.

Some of them were prosecuted and convicted of conspiracy.

A further six were in a group prosecuted separately, whose trial dramatically collapsed after they discovered one of the protesters was undercover police officer Mark Kennedy.

When they asked to see Kennedy’s secret evidence, rather than disclose it the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the charges. When the defendants were given transcripts of Kennedy’s secret recordings of the protest planning meetings, they did indeed exonerate the six. The 20 activists convicted at the earlier trial have now had their convictions quashed.

Two reports were commissioned into the withholding of evidence from the court, one by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, another commissioned by the then-head of the CPS, Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, who appointed Sir Christopher Rose to inquire.

The Rose report concluded that ‘the failures were individual, not systemic’. But when making a timeline of the facts as given in the two reports, it is clear that police and prosecutors knew full well about the involvement of undercover police, and went to great lengths to keep it secret.

The pivotal CPS figure was prosecutor Nick Paul, the CPS National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism (an extraordinary role, given that the term ‘domestic extremism’ has no meaning in law). Paul – who, due to Kennedy’s information, was aware of the Ratcliffe protest before it happened, indeed before many of the activists involved – and was already coordinating with police.

The Guardian published extracts of an email exchange between him and more junior CPS official, Nick Cunningham, discussing the risk of the truth coming out. The Rose report attributed the failings to Cunningham rather than Paul.

Nick Paul had previously been the CPS’ prosecutor in another case setting up climate activists with wrongful convictions, the Drax 29. This surely makes it a systemic issue. The Rose report includes a list of people interviewed; despite his central role in the case, Nick Paul is not mentioned.

By the time the Rose report was published in December 2011, we had learned that Jim Boyling another – wholly unrelated – undercover officer had similarly been involved in a court case in 1997 without the defence being given relevant evidence.

As DPP, Starmer handled the media on the Rose report personally, insisting that we must accept its finding that there’s no systemic problem, despite journalists pointing out to him that this was untrue.

Nick Paul left the CPS immediately after the Ratcliffe case collapsed, returning to be a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, where he Starmer had previously been colleagues before they worked for the CPS. Starmer rejoined him after his tenure as DPP ended 18 months later.

The Undercover Research Group‘s report into the Ratcliffe case, Operation Aeroscope – A Re-examination, makes clear that there are still many serious questions unanswered.

The group of activists arrested at Ratcliffe-on Soar in 2009 are now asking for the relevant CPS officials to be called to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

The Inquiry’s terms of reference specify that it will examine such miscarriages of justice. It is already clear that, over decades, undercover officers from Britain’s political secret police were often arrested and went through the judicial system in their fake persona, lying to courts and withholding evidence. The problem was clearly systemic, and the public deserve answers.

Full text of the statement from the group of people arrested with Mark Kennedy at Ratcliffe-on-Soar:

Call Keir Starmer to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry

A decade ago this month the world learnt that Mark Kennedy was a Metropolitan Police officer spying on environmentalists. This information led to the collapse of a trial where six environmental campaigners were accused of conspiring to occupy a coal-fired power station. In the court building on the morning of January 10th 2010 as the trial collapsed was the then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Keir Starmer.

Subsequently, the convictions of 20 campaigners for conspiring to occupy the same coal-fired power station were quashed by the Court of Appeal, because the prosecution failed to disclose information about Mark Kennedy’s involvement that would have helped their defence.

Further appeals relating to convictions involving Mark Kennedy and the CPS under the then leadership of Keir Starmer followed. In one ruling, in January 2014, Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said:

‘There was a complete and total failure, for reasons which remain unclear, to make a disclosure fundamental to the defence.’

The Lord Chief Justice added, that is was ‘either the fault of the police or someone at the CPS or possible counsel involved,’ and said each of those interviewed had ‘given a different account’.

That the police and CPS gave different accounts to the Lord Chief Justice, four years after the initial problems had been identified, leaves many questions unanswered.

A 2015 report by Mark Ellison QC into undercover officers and miscarriages of justice, commissioned by the government, showed there is evidence that undercover police units were, for many years, systematically concealing evidence from trials of protesters over the years and therefore cause them to be unjustly convicted.

This evidence contradicts the finding in a report into the failure to disclose evidence at the Ratcliffe trial, commissioned by Keir Starmer, and conducted by Sir Christopher Rose, which claimed there was no systemic problem at the CPS with failing to disclose evidence relating to trials involving undercover officers. The evidence known now is counter to the statements of Keir Starmer, for example in an interview with Channel 4 News, when he was DPP.

We demand that the public inquiry into undercover policing call the CPS, and former CPS staff, to get to the truth about non-disclosure, prosecutions and miscarriages of justice that involved undercover police officers. Specifically, the inquiry needs to call Keir Starmer as DPP at the time of the Ratcliffe trials, Nick Paul, his lead CPS prosecutor and CPS coordinator of ‘Domestic Extremism’ who liaised with the policing units being investigated by the public inquiry, and the prosecution counsel for the Ratcliffe trial, Felicity Gerry.

This is particularly important as the investigation into miscarriages of justice as part of the Undercover Policing Inquiry appears to be dormant. To our knowledge the CPS has only assessed potential miscarriages of justice that have been brought to them by the media and campaigners. Only the undercover policing public inquiry can get to the truth now.

This matter now takes an even greater urgency, following the provisions for spying on the public in a new bill before parliament, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill 2019-21.

Specific questions include:

On 10 January 2010, why did the CPS release a press statement claiming that the Ratcliffe trial collapsed because “Previously unavailable information that significantly undermined the prosecution’s case came to light,” when the evidence in a number of subsequent official reports suggests that this statement is untrue. Did Keir Starmer approve the press statement?

Why was Keir Starmer in Nottingham Crown Court on the morning of 10 January 2010?

Why did the Sir Christopher Rose report come to the wrong conclusion that the problems of non-disclosure in the Ratcliffe trials did not apply elsewhere? Did Keir Starmer define the terms of reference for the Rose report to be so narrow that the wrong conclusion, of only individual failings of a single regional prosecutor, was always likely to be found?

Why did the commissioned report by Sir Christopher Rose not interview the most important CPS member of staff involved in the Ratcliffe trials, Nick Paul, the CPS liaison for so-called ‘domestic extremism’ under which Mark Kennedy’s deployment was based. Nick Paul, for example, was informed by police that the Ratcliffe protesters would be arrested before the arrests even happened.
In light of new evidence on the systematic failings at the CPS relating to undercover officers, was the regional prosecutor, Ian Cunningham unfairly blamed for the failure to disclose in the Ratcliffe trial?

Why did Keir Starmer ask for three reviews into CPS failings relating to undercover policing that were kept from public view, before commissioning the Rose report?

What action was taken by Keir Starmer after the Rose report was shown to be wrong, to uncover other miscarriages of justice?
Did the CPS investigate all trials involving the CPS National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism (Nick Paul and his predecessors), for possible problems with non-disclosure?

How did a report Commissioned by Teresa May, the then Home Secretary, by Mark Ellison QC into possible miscarriages of justice identify 83 activists who were convicted in trials involving an undercover officer, over three decades, while the CPS inquiry, has to date discovered nobody who the media and campaigners had not already identified?

Signed by Non-State Non-Police Core Participants in the public inquiry into undercover policing, arrested with Mark Kennedy in 2009, or arrested and charged with conspiracy, or arrested, charged and wrongfully convicted of conspiracy, by the CPS:

1. Olaf Bayer
2. Danny Chivers
3. Shane Collins
4. Spencer Cooke
5. Merrick Cork
6. Leila Deen
7. Nāgakuśala Hiromi Dharmacharin
8. Roger Geffen
9. Patrick Gillet
10. Dan Glass
11. Alice Jelinek
12. Oliver Knowles
13. Ben Leamy
14. Simon Lewis
15. Tomas Remiarz
16. Sarah Shoraka
17. Ben Stewart
18. Kirsty Wright

31 January 2021

Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 14

19 November 2020

Evidence from:

Officer HN 333 (summary of evidence)
Officer HN 339 aka ‘Stewart Goodman’ (summary of evidence)
Officer HN 349 (summary of evidence)
Officer HN 343 aka ‘John Clinton’ (summary of evidence)
Officer HN 345 aka ‘Peter Fredericks’

This was the final day of hearings in the first phase of the Inquiry, looking at the earliest years of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) from its formation in 1968 to around 1972.

We heard evidence from five former undercover officers of the SDS. The Inquiry gave brief summaries of four of their careers, before the fifth, ‘Peter Fredericks’ gave evidence in person for several hours.

Once again the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, locked horns with Rajiv Menon QC, barrister for those who were spied upon. The bias of the Inquiry was set out in even starker terms when we discovered that, in the summary of officer HN339 ‘Stewart Goodman’, it actively hid the officer’s admissions of criminality. It’s as if the Inquiry is more on the police’s side than the police themselves. 

Officer HN 333
(summary of evidence)

Temporary Mystery Man

Very little is known about this officer. Their real and cover names are being restricted, along with details of the groups he targeted.

The reason for restricting real and cover names and target group was previously set out by Mitting as:

“There is, however, a small – in my judgement, very small – risk that if his cover name were to be associated with the valuable duties which he performed subsequent to his deployment, he would be of interest to those who might pose such a threat.”

He was on duty as a plain-clothes Special Branch officer at the large anti-Vietnam War demonstration on 27 October 1968, then joined the SDS shortly afterwards.

According to his witness statement, there was tight secrecy around the SDS. There was also no formal training, though once in the field the undercovers would share their experience and knowledge. He did not use the name of a deceased child, and there was only limited guidance about choosing a cover name.

He was deployed for 9 months, into a now-defunct left wing group. He attended meetings and demonstrations, but said it was a ‘loose association’ rather than a formal organisation, so he did not have any roles of responsibility.

He gave verbal updates to SDS managers at the safe house – he said he was not responsible for writing intelligence reports.

Having become ill, he was withdrawn (via a planned process) in 1969, giving his excuses to the group. He then returned to normal Special Branch duties.

The full witness statement of HN333.

A summary of information about HN333’s deployment can be found on p122 of the Counsel to the Inquiry’s Opening Statement.

Officer HN 339 aka ‘Stewart Goodman’
(summary of evidence)

‘Stewart Goodman’, the Drunk Driver

This officer joined Special Branch in the 1960s, during which time he attended meetings of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination.

He said “everyone in Special Branch knew about the existence of the SDS”, which contrasts with other officers saying it was a well-kept secret, or something about which there were only vague rumours.

He was married at the time the joined the SDS, but there was no welfare check to discuss the impact of his new job on his family.

He was deployed undercover from 1970 to 1971, initially against the Anti-Apartheid Movement, from which he also reported on the Dambusters Mobilisation Committee. Most of his early reporting relates to this latter organisation, which was a coalition of anti-apartheid groups who opposed the construction of the huge Cabora Bassa dam in Mozambique to supply electricity to South Africa.

He subsequently infiltrated the Lambeth branch of the International Socialists (now the Socialist Workers Party), where he became treasurer (a position more than one of his contemporaries occupied in groups they infiltrated). This put him very close to the branch secretary – ‘effectively his right hand man’. He attended both public and private meetings.

While spying on the IS, much of what Goodman reported on was internal party discussions and political disputes. As well as at Lambeth branch, he also reported on the group’s affairs at a national level – including reporting on a major rift. He went to their national convention at Skegness. It appears IS were targeted because the security services believe they fell within their definition of ‘subversion’.

Goodman also said:

“MPs giving their support to protest movements was potentially of interest to Special Branch”.

The Inquiry also notes that his “intelligence evidences a particular interest on the part of IS in trade union activity”.

He did not use the name of a deceased child and says he did not have any sexual relationships.

INQUIRY COVER-UP

Non-state core participants have been worried about the Inquiry having a lawyer read a summary of an officer’s activity, with no opportunity to question the officer. What we hadn’t anticipated was the Inquiry being even more inclined to cover-up an officer’s wrongdoing than the officer themselves.

Speaking for the Inquiry, Elizabeth Campbell said:

“HN339 recalls being involved in some fly-posting while in his cover identity, but no other criminal activity. Near the end of his deployment, HN339 was involved in a road traffic accident while driving an unmarked police car, which necessitated the involvement of his supervisors on the SDS. HN339 states that he does not remember much about his withdrawal from the field, but suspects that this event may have been a catalyst for the end of his deployment.”

 

Goodman was not merely ‘involved in a road traffic accident’.

For those willing to wade through the statements, on page 18 of Goodman’s witness statement he said:

“I crashed my unmarked police car. I had been at a pub with activists and I would have parked the car away from the pub so as not to arouse suspicion. I drove home while under the influence of alcohol and crashed the car into a tree”.

 

The car was a write-off. When uniformed officers arrived, Goodman breached SDS protocol and broke cover, telling them he was an undercover colleague. Rather than arresting and charging him, they drove him home.

He was eventually charged and went to court, accompanied by his manager Phil Saunders. He believes he was prosecuted under his false identity, and that Saunders briefed the magistrates. He was convicted and fined.

Having been bailed out by his managers, he was withdrawn from his undercover role, but faced no formal disciplinary action.

INQUIRY UNDERMINING ITSELF

It is utterly outrageous that the Inquiry told the public that the only crime Goodman committed undercover was fly-posting and then, literally in the next sentence, referred to a much more serious criminal offence, for which he was convicted (with the complicity of uniformed police and the judiciary).

The Inquiry cannot claim ignorance, as they not only specifically mentioned the incident, but made a conscious choice to turn his statement from an admission of criminal culpability into a more neutral account, with no crime mentioned.

Investigating the often-corrupt relationships between the spycops and the courts is one of the stated purposes of this Inquiry, yet here they are deliberately burying examples of wrong-doing that the officers themselves admit to.

Because Goodman wasn’t called to give evidence to the Inquiry in person, there is no way to question him about the possibility of judicial corruption. Beyond that, we are left wondering what else has been covered up in this way, and lies there among the screeds pages that the Inquiry bulk-publishes after it has finished discussing a given officer’s deployment.

The full witness statement of HN339 ‘Stewart Goodman’.

A summary of information about HN339’s deployment can be found on p138 of the Counsel to the Inquiry’s Opening Statement.

Officer HN 349
(summary of evidence)

The Failed Anarchist

Both the real name and the cover name of this officer has been restricted by the Inquiry. The names of the groups he targeted have also been withheld, which has made it impossible for anyone he spied on to come forward to the Inquiry with their evidence.

He was recruited by another undercover to join the SDS after a short time in Special Branch. He was not given formal training; instead he read reports in the back office and met with other spycops before being deployed.

He grew his hair and beard and started wearing scruffy clothes, but did little else to develop his ‘legend’. His cover story was poorly developed compared to his colleagues (he had no cover job, for instance).

Deployed in the early 1970s, he was apparently not initially tasked to spy on any particular group, instead he went to demonstrations in central London and sought to get to know regulars.

He was eventually asked to target various loose-knit anarchist groups.

While at the safe house he would discuss anything and everything – including details of their deployments – with the other spycops, something other spycops have denied in their evidence to the Inquiry. In his witness statement he said:

“No topic of conversation would be off limits.”

If and when necessary, managers would take an undercover off for private chats, away from the group:

“This happened more frequently for officers who were involved in the more sensitive areas of work.”

The deployment was unsuccessful as the target group were mistrustful of strangers and did not let him build up relationships with them. Consequently, following a meeting with his managers, he was withdrawn after just nine months in the field.

He then spent time in the SDS back office, before returning to other Special Branch duties. He notes he did work with intelligence gathered by SDS undercovers though it was not marked as such. He also made requests for specific information from the SDS while at Special Branch.

HN349 noted that most Special Branch officers were “aware of the SDS and had an idea of the kind of groups they had infiltrated”. He also noted:

“It was also generally accepted by myself and fellow UCOs [undercover officers] that the Security Services provided some of the funding for the SDS.”

The full witness statement of HN349.

A summary of information about HN349’s deployment can be found on p141 of the Counsel to the Inquiry’s Opening Statement.

Officer HN 343 aka ‘John Clinton’
(summary of evidence)

‘John Clinton’ and the Subversive Pickets

This undercover served in the SDS from early 1971 until sometime in 1974. He was deployed into the International Socialists.

Prior to joining the SDS, he had been deployed as a plain-clothes Special Branch officer to report back on public meetings. Whilst in Special Branch, he had heard ‘vague whispers’ of the existence of a secret unit.

He had no formal training. He spent 3-4 months in the SDS back office, reading up on the political landscape. His cover story was basic and he gave his cover job as van driver, in case he was spotted elsewhere in London by his targets. He was give a vehicle as part of his cover.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

Clinton was tasked by his managers to infiltrate the International Socialists (IS). From October 1971 to March 1972, many of his reports are of the IS’s Croydon branch. However, he explained that the documents do not reflect the totality of his reporting during this period. Rather, he attended various IS meetings and demonstrations across London before focusing on the Hammersmith & Fulham branch.

This branch was chosen as there was “a lot of Irish activity discussed”, which he knew was of great interest to the Met.

He found it easy to join as they were keen for new members; he turned up at meetings and demonstrations, expressing his enthusiasm for the cause. Once in, he used a ‘flaky’ persona to avoid being given responsibility in the group.

He was aware that the SDS was interested in both public order and counter-subversion issues. He said that IS was a “Trotskyist subversive group with links into Irish Groups”. He witnessed public disorder during his time undercover, but noted that any violence was not caused by IS members.

Clinton did consider IS to be subversive, writing in his witness statement:

“I witnessed a lot of subversive activity whilst I was deployed undercover. IS were constantly trying to exploit whatever industrial or political situation that existed in the aim of getting the proletariat to rise up. During industrial disputes they would deploy to picket lines and stand there in solidarity.”

He attended a wide range of public and private events, providing significant reportage of IS’s internal affairs, including details of elections and appointments, and political rifts. He also reported on trade union membership and industrial action taken by IS members. He did not join a trade union, but did go on demonstrations in support of industrial action organised by trade unions.

Other matters covered included campaigns supported by the group, such as women’s liberation, tenants’ rights and the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Clinton noted that he had considerable discretion as to what he reported on, but was guided by what he knew Special Branch to be interested in generally. He received general tasking and updates at the SDS weekly meetings.

He wrote:

“My remit was to gather intelligence on IS. That was both with a view to public order, but also information that was relevant to counter subversion. What they were doing politically, how they were organised, and the identity of influential individuals was all important information.”

THE DEATH OF KEVIN GATELY

Clinton was infiltrating International Socialists in London in the summer of 1974, yet he made no mention of their involvement in the large anti-fascist demonstration on 15 June 1974 at which a protester, Kevin Gately, was killed.

At 6 feet 9 inches tall, Gately stood out, and his head is readily seen above the level of crowd in photos of the demonstration. This may well be why he was killed. Police charged into the crowd on horseback, lashing out with truncheons. Gately’s body was found afterwards.

The inquest found Gately died from a brain haemorrhage caused from a blow to the head from a blunt instrument. His exceptional height led several newspapers of the time to allege his death was the result of a blow from a mounted police truncheon.

It was the first time anyone had died on a demonstration in Britain for over 50 years. It was a huge cause célèbre for the left. Clinton didn’t mention this, nor any of the vigils for Gately and campaigning that followed among IS and the broader left.

It is a glaring omission that arouses suspicion. He would certainly have known of it and may well have been part of the demonstration and subsequent commemorations and events. Given the SDS’s avid focus on such justice campaigns later on, it would be very odd if their officer in IS didn’t remember it as being significant.

As with Stewart Goodman earlier, because this was an Inquiry lawyer reading out a hasty summary, lawyers for the ‘non-state core participants’ (those who were spied on) weren’t able to question Clinton about any of this.

END OF DEPLOYMENT

Clinton left his deployment in September 1974 as he had enough of being an undercover; this was supported by his managers. In one of the earliest known developed exit strategies, he used a ‘phased withdrawal’, telling the group he was going travelling.

Being undercover permanently changed him, in that it made him very private in his personal affairs.

In late 1980s, he was posted to Special Branch’s C Squad for a few months and would have received intelligence from the SDS in that role, but as it was ‘sanitised’ he would not be privy to full details of the spycops’ doings. He retired from the police after 30 years.

THE MAN WITH THE VAN

It’s interesting to note that he was a van driver, with a van supplied by the SDS. This became a common part of later spycops’ deployments.

As Clinton said, it gave them an excuse if they were spotted somewhere unexpected. It also made them the group’s unofficial taxi: they would drop everyone home after meetings, thereby learning people’s addresses. If a group was planning to go on any political action, they would ask the member with the reliable van first.

It became a standard part of spycops’ fake identities across decades and units. Andy Coles (SDS, 1991-95) was known as ‘Andy Van’.

Later on, Mark Kennedy (National Public Order Intelligence Unit, 2003-2010) was known as ‘Transport Mark’, in charge of logistics for all the Climate Camps.

The full witness statement of HN343.

A summary of information about HN343’s deployment can be found on p154 of the Counsel to the Inquiry’s Opening Statement.

Five More Spycops

As if these summaries truncated enough, the Inquiry also published without summary documents relating to five former members of the SDS who have not provided witness statements:

– HN346, real name Jill Mosdell, cover name unknown. Spied on Stop the Seventy Tour, the Anti-Apartheid Movement & related groups.

– HN338, real name restricted, cover name unknown. Spied on the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, the International Marxist Group (in particular the Notting Hill and West London branches), and the Anti-Internment League.

– HN1251, real name Phil Saunders, cover name, if any, unknown. Detective Inspector in the SDS, overseeing undercover officers.

– HN332, real name restricted. Cover name, if any, unknown. Detective Inspector and subsequently head of the SDS.

– HN394, real name restricted and cover name, if any, unknown. Detective Sergeant and then Detective Inspector in the SDS.

It wasn’t explained are SDS bosses are not even not giving statements? Are they somehow deemed irrelevant? Are they refusing to cooperate? Have they died?

It’s not clear why there appears to be no mention of HN 394 on the Inquiry website.

Officer HN 345 aka ‘Peter Fredericks’

Only one officer, ‘HN345’, gave ‘live’ evidence at the Undercover Policing Inquiry on Thursday. He was questioned by Counsel for the Inquiry, David Barr QC, and later by Rajiv Menon QC and Ruth Brander on behalf of non-state core participants. Questions were based on his written witness statement.

His mannerisms and tone obviously do not come across in the time-delayed transcript, so it is worth noting that he was usually grinning, poked his tongue in and out whilst speaking, and drew out certain words.

The opening questions are formalities, confirming that he knew the contents of the witness statement he provided, and that they are is true. Even at this, he was cocky. Asked if he was ‘familiar with the contents of the witness statement, he replied ‘slightly’.

He came across as incredibly creepy, and his evidence reiterated a number of now familiar themes: the lack of training or guidance these officers received; the bizarre claim that they all sat together in a flat for hours writing reports without exchanging information or ideas about their deployments; the ‘fishing expedition’ nature of the deployments – where everything and anything was passed on to the managers, who it was assumed would only include the information that they considered important in the final intelligence reports; the inexplicable infiltration of groups involved in political debate and even humanitarian aid; stark and shocking evidence of deep rooted sexism, racism and political prejudice; the fact that the Inquiry has only received a small fraction of the overall reporting; and the ever-present influence of “Box 500”, the code name for MI5.

GOING UNDERCOVER

Fredericks joined the police in the mid 1960s, and in the course of his ordinary policing, was offered the opportunity to do some undercover work. He “thought it sounded more interesting than road traffic duties” and agreed. Fredericks was deployed by the SDS for about six months, in 1971.

He was trained ‘on the job’ to do this ‘ordinary’ (i.e. non-spycop) undercover work. Whilst undercover he came across people involved with political groups – including the anti-apartheid Stop the Seventy Tour campaign, and the “Black Power movement”. He had not been tasked to report on either of these groups, he said it “just happened while I was doing other things”. He sent the information he gathered to his bosses.

Fredericks was asked by Ruth Brander – on behalf of Peter Hain – whether he knew that the information he had gathered about the Stop The Seventy Tour was being given to the Security Services. His lengthy response included the claim that “the system needed to know about it and I was pushing the information up”. And what about the South African security services? He didn’t have much of a response to this, managing only a weak “no”.

He explained that as a result of this intelligence-gathering, he was noticed by both Special Branch and MI5. He was interviewed and invited to join Special Branch, as a member of “C-squad” dealing with ‘domestic extremism’. He was in the section that dealt with Trotskyists and anarchists (as opposed to the one that dealt with the Communist Party of Great Britain and similar groups). He said he could not remember being briefed about any specific groups.

He said he had not heard of what was called the Special Operations Squad (SOS, later the Special Demonstration Squad) at the time. The Inquiry was shown one of Fredericks’ reports [UCPI0000005817] from his time at C-squad, before he became a member of the SOS, about a meeting on the Vietnam war where another non-state CP, Tariq Ali, was speaking.

ANOTHER AMNESIAC SPYCOP

As with most of the other officers who have so far given evidence, he said he remembered what documents proved and little more. Asked about his reporting on Tariq Ali, whose activism was so prominent at the time that his name would be used in headlines, Fredericks said he could only “remember the name very clearly but no more. It’s one of those strange things”.

While part of C-squad, he was also instructed to attend demonstrations.. At one of these demos, about the conflict in East Pakistan/ Bangladesh, he met a woman who was connected to the ‘Operation Omega’ campaign.

He gave an account of an incident he witnessed during another Bangladesh demo. He stated that he and other plain-clothes Special Branch officers had been summoned by radio back to Scotland Yard, and he was near Parliament when he spotted a police communications vehicle on fire and the female officer inside “in distress”. He said he didn’t notice any other serious trouble or violence that day:

“I didn’t notice anything to be worried about. Having said that, of course we did have the fire”.

As a result of his accidentally making connections with various political groups, he seems to have been flagged as a potential recruit for the SOS. He was approached by Ken Pendered, told that the Security Services (MI5) had written a letter commending him and that he would be transferred to this secret squad and given an undercover identity.

He was also questioned about HN326 and HN68 visiting him at his home – he can’t remember exactly when or why this took place, although he and HN326 were already acquainted. However, his pride at having been noticed by “Box” (i.e. MI5) was still evident in his demeanour, fifty years on.

NO FORMAL TASKING OR TRAINING

He confirmed that he was not given any training on the definition of ‘extremism’ or ‘subversion’, giving the somewhat vague answer that:

“what is subversive to one group could be helpful to another, or positive to another”.

He added that he had his own private views on those terms, and he cannot remember any received understanding within Special Branch on this point.

He felt the training he was given when he joined Special Branch was not particularly useful. In contrast, there was no training or guidance when he was transferred to the SOS. “We were left to our own devices”.

He had “no memory” of being instructed on what information was and wasn’t of interest. In his previous undercover work, he had been very selective in what he reported, but in the SOS he tried casting a wide net and gathering as much info as possible, from all sorts of people.

He compared himself to the provenance of antiques – “if I can be seen to be someone who knows a lot of people, different organisations, perhaps I would gain more trust”. He would hand over all the info he gathered. If he made mistakes in his report, someone would correct them. He didn’t type his own reports – there was a typing team for that – and others in the SOS decided what was relevant enough to be included.

As undercover officers, they were quite isolated, although they would have conversations at the ‘safe house’, the SDS flat. “We were on a bit of a learning curve” he explained.

In common with his contemporaries that the Inquiry had already heard from, Fredericks described being given a free rein on how he worked, negligible feedback on his reports, and no indication of what was good or bad in his work.

NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD

Were his bosses ever pleased with the intelligence he provided? “Not pleased, not dis-pleased” he answered. Indeed, the only time he can remember anyone being ‘pleased’ with his work was when that complimentary letter from ‘Box’ turned up right at the start.

Was this SOS work just an extension of the work he’d been doing in Special Branch, then? It appears not. Fredericks explained one of the main differences: “You didn’t go anywhere near the office” at Scotland Yard once you were in the SOS.

However, it should also be noted that Fredericks doesn’t think the Inquiry have seen all of his reports – there are only three reports of political meetings attended by ‘Fredericks’ in the bundle– yet he said he was “fully occupied” during his months with the squad, sometimes attending several meetings in the same day and filing several reports every week.

OPERATION OMEGA – HUMANITARIAN AID

Fredericks did not remember who had tasked him to infiltrate Operation Omega (also known as Action Bangla Desh), although it may have been Ken Pendered again. He doesn’t remember any discussions with his managers about the motivations of these groups, or being directed to infiltrate any groups in particular. He claims not to remember the names of other groups that he reported on, just Operation Omega’.

Asked about the aims and objectives of the police in infiltrating this organisation, he said they were trying “to reduce or eliminate unhelpful behaviour on the part of certain individuals within these various groups”. However, he also admitted that much of the work done by the Operation Omega group was humanitarian. Operation Omega was in fact a very small, London-based group involved in taking humanitarian aid to victims of the war in the Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) as it seceded from the Dominion of Pakistan in 1971.

Fredericks described the group as having plans to build housing for people, who had lost their homes during the war. They met up to stuff envelopes together and talk, and said that decisions were not made in his presence. “It was more admin than anything else” he said and noted that he didn’t have access to the group’s mailing list, but if he had, he would have passed it on to his superiors. He didn’t know the members very well, and he wasn’t “involved in the hierarchy”.

One of the members of the group told him that her family had donated £6,500 to the cause. “That was a great deal of money in those days” Barr suggested [it equates to approx £75,000 today] and some members of the group travelled to East Pakistan to deliver aid; he heard that one of them gave birth while in custody there. He wasn’t invited to go to East Pakistan with them.

Fredericks did attend demonstrations with the group, but can’t remember “anything special about those”. One was in Slough and involved several thousand people but was un-policed and peaceful.

“Would this have been unusual?” asked Barr, who said he was getting the impression that there were no public order concerns that day. Fredericks described them as sort of “a walk in the park on a Sunday”.

Barr said that there don’t appear to be any surviving reports by Fredericks about Operation Omega. Fredericks confirmed that he will have made two or three a week for about six months. We can only speculate as to why this might be.

FLY-POSTING WAS THE ONLY CRIME

Fredericks was also asked about an instance where he apparently went fly-posting with the group. He got no special permission from his managers to do this, he said, but on the other hand, no one was upset that he did it.

He went on to say that fly-posting wasn’t serious – “the authorities have more important things to do”. Barr agreed that it was “at the very very bottom end of the scale of criminal offending”. He was asked if Operation Omega were involved in any other criminal activity. “None at all,” he replied.

We were shown the Special Demonstration Squad’s Annual Report, written at the end of 1971 [MPS-0728971] in which Action Bangla Desh is indeed listed as having been ‘penetrated’ by the spycops, however Operation Omega is not.

When asked if there were any other officers reporting on Action Bangla Desh, or whether this would have been a reference to his work, Fredericks expressed a belief that he was the only officer deployed against Operation Omega. Nevertheless, we were also shown another report on Action Bangla Desh signed by officer HN332.

YOUNG HAGANAH – ‘WIDENING THE GEOGRAPHY’

At Operation Omega events, Fredericks met two women from the ‘Young Haganah’. He said he didn’t ‘join’ or participate in this group, or socialise with them and had no plans to infiltrate them, and no memory of being instructed to do so (by Phil Saunders or any other manager).

When asked about the connection to Israel he said “it just widens the geography”. He then admitted that he doesn’t know anything about the Young Haganah, but knew, from doing some research, that the original Haganah were involved in setting up the state of Israel decades before. The ‘Young Haganah’ were a completely separate group, who “just wanted to help people” he said. “I felt they were OK”.

Despite taking care to be someone who knew people here and there, to make himself less likely to raise suspicions, there came a time when he “knew something was wrong”. He recalled being diplomatically ‘steered away’ from meeting Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and two Labour MPs at a function, by the woman whose family had funded the Operation Omega group’s activities.

BLACK POWER

Rajiv Menon QC, on behalf of the Inquiry’s non-state core participants, pointed out that Fredericks referred to himself as being of ‘mixed heritage’ in his witness statement and asked if, in 1971, his mixed heritage was perhaps more visibly apparent than it is now.

Fredericks batted the question away:

“It’s not for me to judge. I don’t know. I don’t spend that much time looking at myself in the mirror.”

 

Menon asked Fredericks if he thought he was asked to target Operation Omega or the Black Power Movement because of his race.

“No. I never came across anything vaguely associated with that statement,” he replied, as if the police might have sent a white officer to infiltrate Black Power groups.

Fredericks said said he was not directed towards infiltrating the Black Power movement by anyone in the SOS. He had just met a guy at Speakers Corner and “hit it off”. He was then invited to Black Power events & meetings, which led to him meeting activists from the United States.

He knew that any such group would be considered to be of interest to Special Branch, and although he was “on the periphery, by no means at the heart of it”, he “did meet some interesting people” at this time.

Fredericks said he got on “pretty well” with some of the Black Power members, but later that he didn’t get to know them “hugely well”. A lot of his time with them was spent socialising, and playing pool, rather than discussing politics, but he thought this was a good tactic to gain their trust.

THE MANGROVE 9

Fredericks was asked if he remembered the case of the Mangrove 9. ‘Not clearly, no,’ he replied.

The Counsel’s scepticism was clear even on the transcript:

‘It doesn’t ring any bells at all? Let me see if I can help you.’

The Inquiry was then told how, on 9 August 1970 – a few months before Fredericks joined the SDS – there was a demonstration in Notting Hill about the police harassment of the Mangrove restaurant. As a result of that demonstration, nine black activists were arrested and prosecuted for riot.

There was a defence campaign set up, and their trial started at the Old Bailey in October 1971, while Fredericks was in the SDS, undercover in Black power groups.

Fredericks said:

“I was not involved closely with them. I would have read about it in the papers. I would have known something, perhaps.”

As with John Clinton’s failure to mention the death of Kevin Gately, this absence of memory is simply not credible. Even the Counsel knew it:

“And you don’t remember any conversations with any of your SOS colleagues, or anybody else in Special Branch, about this seminal event in the history of the Black Power Movement?”

Fredericks determinedly kept the lid on the can of worms:

“Definitely not. Definitely not.”

REPORTING ON RACIAL JUSTICE GROUPS

The Inquiry was shown one of his reports [UCPI0000026455] of a Black Defence Committee meeting in a pub in September 1971. The speaker was a student from South Africa, described in the report as “coloured”, and talking on the subject of apartheid. There were a dozen people (including Fredericks) in the audience.

There was a second Black Defence Committee meeting [UCPI0000026456] later that month. Solicitor Michael Siefert was the speaker, who was part of the Angela Davies Defence Committee (they were all members of the Communist Party of GB). Fredericks said he couldn’t remember much about that campaign, and he was not given any guidance on the appropriateness of spying on a justice campaign.

THREATENED BY A JOKE

Finally, he was asked about an incident he recounted in his written statement – at a meeting of around 80-90 people on the subject of violent protest, with a speaker from the USA. His witness statement included a description of worrying that he was “going to be kicked to death” after someone suggested that there was an MI5 spy in the room and he thought he was about to be accused.

He recalled the feeling “when you know you’re outnumbered and you’re in deep difficulties” – before he realised that the activists were joking, not serious – and said that he was aware “that I was involved with people who had access to and were prepared to use violence as and when necessary”.

However, when he was asked more generally about the Black Power activists, he stated that he never witnessed any violence, or public disorder, nor had he any memory of the group committing criminal offences. When asked whether they encouraged disorder, he seemed unable to give a coherent reply and said this was “difficult to answer”.

In fact, Fredericks’s recollections of Black Power seemed to amount to very little at all.

When asked if he thought his infiltration of Black Power was the best use of a police resource he replied, “there were times when I thought I was wasting my time, but… there were…people up there, senior people, who knew a lot more about the landscape”, who considered his deployment a good use of resources.

Back in the day, he thought it was worth keeping “an eye on what was going on, to prevent the sort of excessive behaviour that sometimes accompanies these projects”, and his view remains the same now, although he clarified “it’s not something I think about a lot”.

SEXISM

When asked about intimate relationships between undercover officers and the people they spied on, his jaw-dropping response led to gasps of horror from around the room. It is so glaringly sexist that it warrants being repeated verbatim here:

“I have, if you like, a phrase in my head which helps guide me here. If you ask me to infiltrate some drug dealers, you can’t point the finger at me if I sample the product. If these people are in a certain environment where it is necessary to engage a little more deeply, then shall we say, I find this acceptable, but I do worry about the consequences for the female and any children that may result from the relationship”.

It appears that the police lawyers (who hover in the background posing as “technical IT support” for the witnesses) may have had words with him about this during the break, because when pressed on this point later by Ruth Brander, representing non-state CPs, he appeared to recant his earlier statement a little, saying that the situation with these relationships was “hugely confusing”.

Although he admitted “you could call it deception, you could call it anything you like, it can’t be nice”, he also implied that the relationships may not even have happened, saying it is like you are “gazing into a darkened room, looking for a black cat you can’t see that may not be there…”. Speaking of the spycops who committed these abuses, he said “Perhaps – my view is perhaps they had no choice”.

Neil Woods, who was an actual undercover drugs officer, had no time at all for this as he responded on social media:

‘To compare sampling some drugs undercover to having a sexual relationship in a deployment is very twisted indeed. The casual nature of this comparison is revealing. One could argue that it’s as a result of canteen culture, the grim sexism that male dominated culture can produce. But this is beyond mere sexism, it’s disregard to the point of malice. A machine of misogyny.’

POLICE RACISM

Menon asked Frederick about racism, and Fredericks claimed that he did not encounter any hurtful racism in the police, although he talked about how disparaging things were said “with humour. I think it’s called irony”.

Menon then drew his attention to a report [MPS-0739148] (nothing to do with Fredericks) that relates to a conviction at the Central Criminal Court in February 1969.

At this point, as at numerous previous hearings, Menon clashed with the Chair, Sir John Mitting, who said:

“You are about, I think, to ask a witness about a document that is nothing at all to do with him… I’m not conducting an inquiry into racism in the Metropolitan Police for the last 50 years, I’m looking at the SOS.”

Menon pointed out that it was, in fact, an SOS document that he wanted to show.

Mitting relented without changing his position:

“I will let you do it. But this is not to be taken as a precedent for what may happen in the future. I’m really not willing to allow people to question other witnesses about documents that are nothing to do with them.”

This is a further example of Mitting’s refusal to admit the fact of institutional racism and bigotry in the Met, something which, though the Met admitted it more than 20 years ago, Mitting has called a ‘controversial’ view.

Institutional racism and sexism are at the core of the spycops scandal. For Mitting to reduce it to individual actions is a denial of the systemic nature of the abuses committed by spycops.

Allowed to show the document about the court case, Menon drew the Inquiry’s attention to details of the convicted man’s involvement in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and Black Power groups, then states “he has the usual attitude of coloured people towards police and authority”.

Is this the kind of ‘casual banter’ you were referring to, or something more sinister?, asked Menon.

“What I’m reading could be described as an overly wide brush-stroke”, Fredericks responded, adding:

‘we are all human beings, and no group occupies one sort of social or moral space, there is a divergence, and it’s up to us to learn to live together.’

Fredericks recognised that racism has been common in humanity, but was unwilling to agree that it has ever been a particular problem in British society, or in the police.

A FETISH FOR FOREIGN SPIES?

In addition to his obvious pride in recalling his commendation letter from MI5, Fredericks spoke about one woman from the Operation Omega group who appears to have fascinated him, because he believed she was a foreign spy.

He described her as having a “hidden agenda” – he found it hard to explain what he meant by this – he said she seemed different to the others. “She didn’t fit”, he said, but he couldn’t work out why. He was not sure if he could mention which country she was from, and after receiving permission said that she was from the United States, appearing to suggest there was a link with the CIA.

“I could be totally wrong, but it attracted my attention”, and he clearly still remembers the strength of his hunch now. “I don’t know what it was, but this woman knew what she was doing”.

Freericks was in his 20s at the time and remembered that she was older than him, and most of the others in the group. He said he was very careful – listening, and doing as little talking as possible.  “We enjoyed each other’s company,” but there was mutual suspicion.

When asked if they had a romantic relationship, he said, “I’d rather not comment, but no is the answer”.

He said he would certainly have mentioned her in his reports, but didn’t gather any meaningful info (although earlier he said that he discovered her work address). This, like many of Fredericks’s answers hints at a hidden grimness to his operation. But without proper testing of the testimony, that’s all we can say.

His international spying fantasies seem to have come full circle at the end of his deployment, when – after being suddenly removed from the field – it transpired that part of the reason for this was that one of his referees (from the ‘positive vetting’ process carried out when he first joined the police) turned out to have been a Russian spy.

A SUDDEN END

Fredericks’s deployment was ended abruptly – he just stopped attending the meetings – but he said there was no consideration of possible ‘safety concerns’. He said that when he joined the unit he was told that he would be looked after, but when he left there was precious little after-care. His time undercover just ended, and there was no debriefing.

He received no guidance from his bosses about mixing with the activists he had spied on after his deployment had ended.

This led to the recounting of a curious incident in which, long after his deployment ended, Fredericks called round on someone he’d befriended while undercover – “there was no romantic involvement, I just found her interesting as a human being” -only to find out she had committed suicide not long before.

Even if we accept this at face value, it is disturbing, exposing his absence of care about the power wielded by spycops, and the lack of awareness that it is even an issue. There appears to be no part of him that felt this deception was in any way wrong. He thought – and clearly still feels – it was OK to just put his spycop persona back on for his own edification. What other activities do spycops do this for?

BITTER AFTERTASTE

Fredericks summed up his leaving the SDS:

“The way I felt was if I was no longer part of the system, then my existence doesn’t matter, my opinion doesn’t matter, get on with the rest of your life”.

He still seemed bitter about this. He did see a psychiatrist after his deployment ended, however he said he doesn’t know why his managers sent him to see someone who had no understanding of undercover policing: “The whole thing was a waste of time”. He said he did not attend any of the SDS social events or reunions.

Despite expressing the belief that the spycops’ techniques were more effective than normal Special Branch operations, and that being more deeply embedded with the activists meant he was able to gather more info from them. “I have my views,” he said, “but I’m ready to admit that I’m wrong”.

However, his creepy answers, and his unrepentant tone and demeanour throughout the questioning suggest that is not really the case.

 

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COPS has produced a report like this for every day of the Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings. They are indexed on our UCPI Public Inquiry page.

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Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 10

13 November 2020

Evidence from:

Officer HN330 aka ‘Don de Freitas’ (summary of evidence)
Officer HN321 aka ‘William Paul “Bill” Lewis’ (summary of evidence)
Officer HN322 (real name withheld) (summary of evidence)
Officer HN328 Joan Hillier
Officer HN326 ‘Doug Edwards’

The Undercover Policing Inquiry had a full day of police witnesses, and it was a startling day of discovery.

This phase is only covering 1968-72, and today we learned that many of the spycops activities we’d been led to believe came later on were actually there from the start.

An officer having a sexual relationship with someone they spied on in 1968. An officer spying on a political group in Scotland in 1969. Officers pretending to be a couple to seem credible to the groups they infiltrated in 1968. An officer attending the wedding of someone he spied on around 1970. Officers going beyond the UK in their undercover persona before 1972. It seems that what the spycops units ever did, they always did.

If this is what we’re learning from what we’re told, just imagine what is being concealed by the anonymity orders that the Inquiry has granted to most spycops.

SUMMARY DISMISSAL

As with yesterday, one of the most significant exchange didn’t involve a witness, but the Chair’s irate interruptions of the victim’s barrister in order to prevent him from asking questions.

The day started with two short summaries of ‘Don de Freitas’, (referred to by the Inquiry as HN330), ‘William Paul “Bill” Lewis’ (HN321), and officer HN322, whose cover name is unknown.

Doing summaries of the careers of officers who are dead is one thing, but to have a lawyer simply read summaries of statements from living spycops without any apparent opportunity to challenge the evidence or question them is quite another.

Yet again, the Inquiry acts as if the police – whose decades of deceit and abuse are the subject – can be taken at their word, and those of us who were targeted can have no insight that hasn’t already occurred to the Chair, Sir John Mitting, and he can dismiss our objections out of hand.

‘Don de Freitas’
SDS officer HN330

‘Don de Freitas’ served briefly in SDS for a month over September / October 1968, infiltrating the Havering branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC).

As a Special Branch officer he used various cover names and occupation at different times, but his SDS deployment differed in that he used a fixed false identity.

Prior to his time with SDS, he had reported on Tariq Ali, and also Notting Hill VSC – particularly the Powis Square incident where members of the group were arrested.

He knew the SDS founder Conrad Dixon socially and was invited to join the unit following a chance meeting in a corridor. He described the SDS as informal in nature.

Other than standard Special Branch training, he received no training or guidance. Operating out of Scotland Yard, he did not change his appearance other than to dress casually.

He initially went to a meeting of Havering International Socialists on 26 September 1968, which had been advertised in a leaflet distributed in Romford Market. He ingratiated himself with speakers and attendees which led to him being invited to join the private committee meetings.

COUPLED

Conrad Dixon suggested he and officer HN334, ‘Margaret White‘, attend the meetings together as a couple to make them less suspicious.

The remit was to find out as much as possible of the group’s plans for the big anti-Vietnam War demonstration of 27 October 1968. He stopped undercover work shortly after this demonstration, on 29 October. While with the group, he reported on their preparations including leaflet distribution and fly-posting, which he took part in.

His evidence gave a picture of a peaceful group, whose aims were not subversive and most members ‘unwilling to support civil disobedience or terrorism’.

ON THE MARCH

At the October demonstration, he marched with the group, chanting pro-Vietnam slogans. His final report is to note the general opinion of Havering VSC that the protest was a ‘complete and utter disaster’.

Among his reports was information on a Labour Party official, who was a member of Havering VSC. The officer notes this was included because MI5 were interested in whether extremists were penetrating what he describes as ‘legitimate left-wing political organisations’.

At one point, he was tasked to investigate information that an individual was seeking ingredients to make a smoke bomb. Another report in his name notes the plans of anarchists from University College Swansea for the October demonstration, but it is unclear how he came by this information.

Three documents, dated after his SDS time, show he was involved in the monitoring of the Anti-Apartheid Movement from July 1960 to June 1970. These were copied to MI5.

‘William Paul “Bill” Lewis’
HN321

‘Bill Lewis‘ now lives abroad and has provided a witness statement. He was deployed from 18 September 1968 to 30 September 1969. Soon after leaving the SDS he resigned from the police as he had ‘tired of the work’.

The majority of his reports focus on the International Marxist Group (IMG).

Prior to the SDS, he was with Special Branch’s B Squad where he would attend public meetings in casual clothes, noting attendees and their activities; he did not have a false identity for this. He was recruited to the SDS because a Special Branch manager had been impressed by the detail in his reports, and he was encouraged to attend a meeting regarding the formation of the squad.

INVITED TO SPY

He recalled going to a meeting of around 30 people in which Conrad Dixon said their work was going to be secret. HN321 accepted the invitation to join. There was no training or guidance; the objective was to gather intelligence on the 27 October demonstration against the Vietnam War.

His cover job was as an instrument and control technician, which he knew enough to talk about if necessary. He used two cover flats – one in Earl’s Court and another in Acton.

He would attend the SDS safe house several times a week, as advised by Dixon, to keep officers engaged during their downtime. The undercovers learned on the job and by sharing experience – for example how to avoid blowing their cover.

Not assigned to a particular group, he initially attended a demonstration and then a meeting, which he discovered was an IMG one. Dixon instructed him to attend further IMG meetings as they were a group of interest to the SDS.

Lewis’ first report covers a public meeting attended by Ernie Tate and the US socialist presidential candidate Fred Halstead. However, after that the IMG reports all cover private events. He also reported on Lambeth and other VSC branches.

On 26 October 1968, he telegrammed Special Branch to alert them to comments made at a South West VSC Ad Hoc Committee meeting in Brixton, that police coaches on Vauxhall Bridge would be sabotaged during the demonstration the following day. His witness statement however notes that he did not think the IMG would carry this out as they were ‘actually quite passive and intellectual’. He did not express this view to his managers, reporting only the facts of what took place at the meetings.

80 PEOPLE FILED

At one point, he was able to record the details of approximately 80 members of the IMG, which were passed on to MI5.

The subject of other reports related to discussions and planned demonstrations around Northern Ireland, the Middle East, the International Congress of the Fourth International, Scottish nationalism and women’s rights. There was also a debrief after the 27 October demonstration.

His last reports on the IMG were regarding the IMG’s 1969 education camp in Dunbartonshire, which he attended, giving a lift to three IMG members in his cover vehicle.

[This shows that SDS were travelling to Scotland from within the first year of the unit, much earlier than had been previously admitted.]

He states that his only criminal activity while undercover had been obstruction of the highway and perhaps fly-posting. Generally he recalls being advised not to resist arrest if it happened, and that it could be ‘sorted out’ further down the line with charges probably being dropped.

SDS officer HN322
Real name withheld

This individual served in SDS for a short time in its early months and was not deployed undercover. Their real name is being withheld by the Inquiry.

He was approached by Conrad Dixon who personally invited him to join the squad. He was not given much information initially. He had a young family at the time and, once he realised it would mean a lot of time away from them, he asked to be taken off the squad.  He went on to have a senior rank in the Metropolitan Police.

In his experience, his time in SDS was much the same as time doing generic Special Branch work – both involved going to meetings and gathering intelligence.

He may have been directed to look at South East London VSC. He recalls being told to attend and report on a few different meetings. Reports show these were Earl’s Court VSC and the South East London Ad Hoc Committee of the VSC.

He wrote reports on behalf of officer HN335, Mike Tyrell, which covered private meetings and planned activities of the British Vietnam Solidarity Front and the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation.

He notes the lack of direction and supervision within the SDS as compared to the rest of Special Branch. He was advised to go to meetings, but given no direction or guidance about what to do when in attendance, and had a lot of free time.

Joan Hillier
SDS officer HN328

Only known before today as officer HN328, Joan Hillier gave evidence under her real name.

In her oral evidence, there was a lot she said she couldn’t remember, and some contradiction of established facts.

Hillier joined the Met in 1958, and moved into Special Branch in March 1968, coincidentally the day after the disorder at a Vietnam War protest outside the American Embassy in London, which spurred the formation of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

Hillier said there was little in the way of mentoring compared to when she’d joined the uniformed police. She got the impression that the Home Secretary had ordered that there be no repeat of the anti-war demonstration’s uproar and, in July 1968, Special Branch formed the SDS in response.

She remembers no application process, rather officers were invited from various Special Branch squads.

There was no formal SDS decision making on which groups to infiltrate, they ended to be selected by casual discussion among SDS officers. They were given casual, informal briefings on the politics of people they were going to spy on, rather than any structured lectures. Tactics were planned in detail, rather than targets. She said she did not remember any discussions about the risk of becoming involved in criminality.

PUBLIC ORDER OR POLITICAL POLICING?

At the time, Hillier was under the clear impression that the SDS was concerned with public order issues only, centered on the forthcoming October 1968 protest against the Vietnam War, rather than any wider counter-subversion spying. This is at odds with the fact that most SDS files were copied to MI5, who were not involved in public order policing.

She was shown a paper authored by the SDS founder and boss, Chief Inspector Conrad Dixon, about ‘penetration of extremist groups’ [MPS-0724119, not yet published at the UCPI website]. This was something she said she had no memory of seeing before.

Invited to define extremists, she said it was people who use extreme means – violence, disorder – to get what they want, seemingly without awareness that the threat and use of violence is the basis of the power of uniformed police.

The SDS was just another Special Branch squad, Hillier said, but with the added advantage of being members of targeted groups and so able to go to non-public meetings. And yet, many of Hillier’s reports are of public meetings, both before and after she joined the SDS.

WOMEN UNDERCOVER

Hillier’s written statements said that there were no female undercover officers in the SDS at the start, yet we’ve seen that there was not only herself and Helen Crampton, but officer HN334 whose statement says she had a cover job and address, which is even more involved than Hillier’s activity.

Her statements also described how only male spycops went to private meetings, yet reports show Helen Crampton and female officer HN334 did it.

Hillier accepted the evidence as true and blamed fading memories of things that happened over 50 years ago.

Conrad Dixon wrote a document stating that it was important that targets were unaware of spycops, so if there was the desire to get evidence and arrest someone in an infiltrated group, it is better to send female officers in as he believed they were less likely to be suspected. He followed this with a list of female officers including Hillier.

She said she had no memory of ever doing this, nor of Helen Crampton, with whom she worked as a pair, doing it either.

It was pointed out that in 1969, Crampton gave evidence in a prosecution arising from a meeting she’d attended with Hillier (more about this later). Hillier said she has no memory of this at all.

UNGUIDED

The lack of training and guidance was a major theme. Hillier doesn’t remember any instruction on what to include and exclude in reports. Your reports would contain whatever you thought reports should contain, she explained.

She did confirm that personal details (dates of birth, home addresses, etc) would be routinely added to Special Branch files ‘in case it was needed in the future’.

Hillier said that the SDS was able to obtain information that normal Special Branch officers couldn’t get. She confirmed that superior officers wanted to know in advance who would be at demonstrations, and so there was a desire for the supply of details on anyone involved:

‘Information is never wasted, really’

Reporting everything ‘in case it was needed in future’ because ‘information is never wasted, really’ is properly Orwellian. Watch anyone long enough and you’ll find something.

NO NEED FOR TRAINING

Despite her earlier description of only joining Special Branch shortly before the SDS was formed, Hillier blithely asserted that SDS officers didn’t really need training as they were all experienced special Branch officers:

‘Instinct would tell you what you shouldn’t do and what you should do’

Officers would instinctively know not to get involved in people’s personal lives, form intimate relationships, commit crime of appear in court under a fake identity, she said.

And yet, not only were these things standard practice in the SDS shortly after, we know that her contemporaries were dating people they spied on.

Specifically asked about officer Mike Ferguson, who infiltrate the anti-apartheid movement, Hillier said she only knew he was in that political area. She didn’t know any details, nor what managers knew of his activity.

SECRET PUBLICITY OFFICER

A document was shown a page from the Conrad paper mentioned above, describing the structure of the SDS. It said there was a Chief Inspector at the top, with three Detective Inspectors below them, one of which is tasked with ‘press and liaison’, which seems most peculiar for a secret unit.

Hillier had no idea what it meant, and said she’d never seen the document and doesn’t recognise the command structure it describes.

The same document has a section on ‘scope of activities’ which warned against becoming an agent provocateur:

‘The incompetence of the British left is notorious, and officers must take care not to get into a position where they achieve prominence in an organisation through natural ability. A firm line must be drawn between activity as a follower and a leader, and members of the squad should be told in no uncertain terms that they must not take office in a group, chair meetings, draft leaflets, speak in public or initiate activity.’

Hillier said she had never been warned of this, but she wasn’t undercover after October 1968 anyway, as she moved into the unit’s administrative staff.

AUTHOR OR SCRIBE

Asked about the content of a number of reports she made on meetings elsewhere, Hillier said that although she was the credited reporter, she was in fact merely the typist for the officers who’d done the spying. This certainly makes a change from the traditional amnesiac answers from police.

Hillier explained that spycops would hand her a report in pencil with a list of names, and she would look up the people’s file numbers, type it up, sign it on their behalf and pass it to Chief Inspector Dixon.

Signing for others wasn’t standard Special Branch practice, but was easier for the SDS as being split across two sites and not seeing one another regularly could lead to delays.

In her later administrative role, she described herself as the go-between for information between the SDS’ secret base and Scotland Yard, where no undercover officer could afford to be spotted.

Asked what the SDS was like, she replied:

‘when I joined, it was a very nice unit. It was very happy. Everybody got on well together. They were all going for a common cause. And it was a very happy unit. That’s the only way I can describe it really.’

ENTER MENON

When the Inquiry Counsel finished their questioning of Hillier, Rajiv Menon QC, representing some of the people targeted by spycops, applied to ask questions.

As with yesterday’s hearing, the most significant and instructive part of the day came not from a witness, but from the way the Chair treated the voice of those who were spied on. We’re describing this section in some detail to give a strong flavour of what we’re facing.

Menon said he had a number of points that he wanted to ask about:

• Hillier giving evidence in her real name;
• An issue relating to the ‘Penetration of Extremist Groups’ paper authored by SDS boss Conrad Dixon;
• Hillier & Crampton’s involvement with the Notting Hill branch of the VSC;
• Spycops having intimate relationships (the most pertinent one in the list, according to Menon);
• An issue about about Highgate & Holloway branch of the VSC;
• Inter-relations of the SDS with Special Branch and MI5.

Mitting said that disputes of fact can get questioned, but Menon would not be allowed to put ‘general questions’ of the kind he was suggesting.

Menon replied that all his questions were relevant to matters squarely within the Inquiry’s terms of reference, and will assist the Inquiry in its fundamental aim to get to the truth of undercover policing. He wanted to ask open questions to establish the ground from which he foresaw questions of specific fact emerging.

Menon pointed out that the hearing was ahead of schedule, so there was no pressure of time. He asked for a little latitude in favour of a barrister with 26 years experience, and the precise relevance of his questions would soon become visible. He added that his questions that were submitted to Counsel for the Inquiry in advance hadn’t all been asked, and he would only take ten or fifteen minutes.

NOTTING HILL VSC

Mitting homed in on the dispute of fact about Crampton in Notting Hill VSC. Menon wanted to be circumspect and ask open ended questions to see if it would settle a query as he has information from another source.

Mitting vaporised any chance of that approach by asking what the specific issue was. Menon said it was whether Crampton had a relationship with a leading Notting Hill VSC member.

Mitting asked which member, and Menon replied that it was a George Cochrane, who is named in the reports as Chairman of the branch. This is an important issue as, if true, it shows spycops were deceiving people they spied on into relationships from the very start, contradicting what has been claimed by the officers of that era.

The Inquiry Chair followed up, asking if Cochrane was still alive (and would therefore have privacy issues). Menon did not know, but as Cochrane’s name isn’t redacted in the numerous documents the Inquiry is releasing, it indicates that the latter believes he’s deceased.

Mitting, though continuing to think Menon was impudent for wanting to ask questions at all, relented on this point. However, he imposed very tight parameters, saying ‘this is exceptional and I do not propose to invite you to ask questions on any other topic’.

QUESTIONING THE WITNESS

Menon then got the chance to question Hillier.

He refreshed what had already been said; that Hillier was with Crampton at all the Notting Hill VSC meetings she went to except one. He asked if she knew this particular branch had been disowned by national council of the VSC because of its politics (one of the three that VSC organiser Ernest Tate described yesterday as expelled Maoists).

Hillier said she only went to about four meetings and wasn’t on first name terms with anyone. Menon said that, as she marched with the branch at the October 1968 demonstration, she must surely have exchanged names, which she conceded, adding that it would have been a cover name.

Menon asked if, when Hillier had said she didn’t know of any spycops having relationships with people they spied on, if it included going on dates. Hillier said she couldn’t say absolutely that it wouldn’t have happened, but she didn’t know of any instances.

Menon then asked his central question – did Helen Crampton have an intimate relationship with a Notting Hill VSC member? Hillier said she didn’t know for sure, but very much doubted it.

Menon led Hillier through some of the vintage SDS reports. A report of a Notting Hill VSC meeting on 2 October 1968 [MPS-0739188] shows George Cochrane was chairman, and Hillier was there with Crampton, as well as officers HN68 and HN331. Hillier signed the report. She replied that she didn’t remember Cochrane’s name at all.

ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE

Helen Crampton had given evidence in the trial of a man arrested after handing out a leaflet at the Notting Hill VSC meeting on 9 October 1968. Documents [MPS-0739187] show Hillier was at the meeting, along with Crampton, HN68 and HN331. Crampton’s report written the day after the meeting included mention of the leaflet.

Menon pulled up a file which showed the individual being convicted in 1969, on Crampton’s evidence, and given a two year sentence for incitement to riot. This was the only conviction the SDS directly secured in its early phase.

Menon pressed Hillier one whether she really couldn’t remember Crampton being involved, or whether Crampton getting the leaflet and showing it as something worth reporting for further action. Menon asked if Hillier had herself been a witness at the trial to corroborate Crampton’s account, but again she claimed she was drawing a total blank.

Despite her good memories of other events, Hillier had nothing at all to offer on the topic, and Menon could ask no further questions.

Oliver Sanders, one of the police barristers, then asked Hillier about her role in Highgate & Holloway. She’s already said she had no involvement with the branch, and yet there’s a report [MPS-0722098] on the branch that she signed. It has a list of names and addresses, and matches them with their Special Branch file numbers, or else says ‘no trace SB records’.

Hillier said, once more, that she didn’t author the report but merely typed it.

‘Doug Edwards’
SDS officer HN326

The afternoon was devoted to evidence from former spycop HN326, who used the cover name ‘Doug’ or ‘Douglas Edwards‘. (Despite it not being his real name, we’ll call him Edwards in this report for ease of understanding.)

Edwards was undercover in the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) from late 1968 to May 1971. He infiltrated various groups including anarchist groups, as well as the Independent Labour Party, Tri-Continental and Dambusters Mobilising Committee. He provided a witness statement to the Inquiry in 2018, and a further one relating to photographs in 2019.

UNSPECIFIED REMIT

Edwards said he was not given any training about the groups that Special Branch was interested in, or about the meaning of the word ‘subversion’. He was only in Special Branch for a few months, before his Detective Inspector (Saunders) invited him to join the new Squad. It was so secretive that he had no idea what he was being asked to join.

While he was part of the SDS, he understood that his job was to look at the different ‘left-wing groups that were fomenting trouble on the streets’. Inquiry Counsel Warner said ‘that sounds more like public order policing’.

Warner asked if he was collecting information to work out if the groups were ‘subversive’ or not. Edwards said that you needed to identify individuals and try and understand what their political beliefs were. He said there were all sorts of rivalries in political groups (Trotskyists and anarchists were ‘bent on causing violence’, apparently).

He was on probation within Special Branch for that first year, and recalled that ‘you had to do what you were told in those days’. The existence of the SDS was kept very secret.

Edwards said that SDS officers were told not to break the law, probably by DI Saunders and Chief Inspector Dixon. ‘You couldn’t go into a squat for instance’.

FIRST TARGETS

There wasn’t much else in the way of training, how to begin approaching their targets, nor exactly which groups to target, or other ‘fieldcraft’. ‘You had to play it by ear,’ he explained.

Edwards confirmed that he knew SDS officer Roy Creamer, ‘an intellectual and knowledgeable man about left-wing affairs’. He doesn’t recall a specific political briefing.

If the SDS was there to infiltrate groups intending to ‘undermine parliamentary democracy’, one wonders why the Independent Labour Party (ILP), who stood candidates for election, fit the brief. Edwards said he remembers being told to join the ILP, as this would give him a ‘handle to swing’:

‘The man in charge [HN325], he wanted me to look at an anarchist group; and I was told that the way to do this was to go to Piccadilly Circus and sit about there and I would be recruited; and I’d be able to be joining the anarchists. But of course it was a load of rubbish. You know, when I’d done that for a few nights, I thought, “Well, what am I wasting my time for?”‘

His statement describes visiting the place ‘somewhere in the East End’ where long-running anarchist newspaper Freedom was published. The Inquiry was shown a report that refers to a leaflet being printed by Freedom, about the ‘East London libertarians’ who wanted to occupy council houses for homeless families:

‘You couldn’t go into a squat, for instance. You couldn’t get involved with that.’

He agreed that whistle-blower SDS officer Peter Francis’ description of the early undercovers as ‘shallow paddlers’, who didn’t fully immerse themselves with their targets their successors did, is ‘an apt description’.

It’s a relative term, though. As was standard practice, Edwards integrated himself into the personal lives and social communities of the people he was spying on.

Asked about his attendance at the wedding of two activists, he explained, ‘I couldn’t not do it, that was the thing’.

He said he joined in the celebration at the pub afterwards, but didn’t go to the registry office. This meant that he avoided appearing in any of the photos. He even took a gift along for the happy couple (this was a ‘fancy tin opener’, according to an earlier statement!)

He knew in advance that he’d been invited to the wedding, but does not remember what his managers thought about this.

He recalled the difficulty of doing the job, of being matey with his targets while being ‘on edge’ all the time:

‘it wasn’t always easy to maintain your cover. But I did my best and I was successful with it.’

And what exactly was that success in?

WEST HAM ANARCHISTS aka TEENAGE GRAFFITI WRITERS

Edwards was sent to spy on West Ham anarchists, the oldest of whom was 21.

He reported on a meeting of eight of them, intending to produce leaflets for a forthcoming by-election with the slogan ‘don’t vote, all parties lie’. He reported the personal details of at least one member to be put on file.

He was asked about the rowdy day at the South African Embassy that he described in a statment was with the West Ham Anarchists:

‘That’s a good question. Do you know, I can’t remember that. I was on a demonstration outside in Trafalgar Square at the South African Embassy, and it got a bit tasty. They started smashing windows and it was violent, and there we are. The mounted police came in then, to try and stop things… I know they were anarchist groups because they were all chanting this “Anarchista!” was the order of the day.’

He said the group definitely committed some minor criminal damage and graffiti – ‘just making a nuisance of themselves locally’ – and this was covered in the local press.

ILP – ANTI-DEMOCRATIC SPYING

Edwards didn’t just use the ILP as a gateway into politics, he attended meetings and demonstrations with them, describing them as ‘quite left-wing, pleasant, sociable, wrapped up in a world of intellectual Marxism’.

Edwards was asked how a demonstration might ‘undermine parliamentary democracy’, and struggled to answer. He talked of the fear the police had of the ‘sheer volume’ of people involved in the demonstrations, and their revolutionary ideals. He remains confused about whether these revolutionaries were going for ‘total anarchy’ or a ‘socialist society’ though!

He was in the Tower Hamlets branch of the ILP, and reported them talking about organising an anti-fascist rally and a local rent struggle. There are some reports about the preparations for a debate between the National Front and the ILP. The meetings were very small, literally four or five people.

The closest they appeared to come to political violence was a conflagration in a pub between his ILP comrades and some other left-wing faction (he thinks it might have been the International Socialists, but wasn’t clear).

He chortled dismissively about the size of many of the left-wing groups, saying:

‘They got an exaggerated idea of their own importance. They sort of had daft ideas. And of course, it resulted in this punch up in the pub.’

Edwards seemed unaware that the more feeble and insignificant the group targeted, the more unjustifiable the infiltration.

His fellow undercover officers Phil Saunders and Riby Wilson watched the scrapping from a car on the other side of the street. They later told him they’d have come to his aid if he needed it, but he’s not sure they really would have done.

The Inquiry was shown a larger report containing more about the workings of the ILP, with information from ‘very reliable sources’ (the plural was noted). Edwards said that his intelligence would have been included in this report:

‘It’s a big justification really of them sending me to the ILP.’

Edwards denied influencing the ‘direction of travel’ of the Tower Hamlets ILP branch, saying he just kept quiet and made mental notes of what was going on. This isn’t easy to reconcile with the fact that he became branch treasurer.

Edwards explained that this was a small group, a ‘tin pot organisation’. He remembers setting up a Barclays bank account, and the branch didn’t have much money. Funds were spent on banners, or sent to ‘the Chilean earthquake disaster fund or something like that’.

He said he didn’t remember speaking to his managers about accepting the position of treasurer, or any reaction from them to this development:

‘I can’t truthfully say one way or the other. You know, I’m not going to make answers up.’

‘Of course not,’ the Inquiry counsel said smoothly.

IRISH CIVIL RIGHTS SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

The Inquiry was shown a report [MPS-0732317] about the Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign’s Islington branch, made by Edwards and counter-signed by CI Saunders.

Edwards said that he never went to the group’s meetings, but he knows another spycop did, and he was ‘on observation’ duty for him at least one time.

He said he only went to one demo outside the Ulster Office in Berkeley Street, but apart from that, he didn’t cover any Irish groups – this was done by someone else.

In his witness statement, he said he’s seen two SDS reports ICRSC meetings, from September and October 1970, and he is their credited author. His statement says that he did not in fact write them. In the same statement he described the ICRSC as ‘a front for the IRA’.

He admitted today, that he would have reported finding out that someone was a member or a supporter of such a group.

TRI-CONTINENTAL

The next document [UCPI0000008209] was a November 1969 report about the ‘Action Committee Against NATO’. There had been a meeting of the committee on 5 November – only three people were present.

According to the report, Tri-continental provided money for the deposit, so they could book meeting space at Conway Hall.

Edwards thought that Special Branch files were automatically destroyed after 30 years and seems perturbed that these have been ‘dragged out from somewhere’. He suggested from the ‘hairy cupboard’ (he likes his ‘jokes’).

He suggested that his managers would have been interested in this anti-NATO group, because they were worried about these ‘demonstration people’ targeting something that was ‘vital for the security of the country’.

He said that he can’t remember anything about Tri-continental. Let alone whether they ever did anything unlawful or got involved in public disorder.

DAMBUSTERS MOBILISING COMMITTEE

The Dambusters Mobilising Committee (DMC) was a coalition of groups opposing the proposed construction of the colossal Cahora Bassa dam project in Mozambique. The project was intended to supply electricity to apartheid South Africa.

Edwards was asked if he could remember the Dambusters group buying Barclay’s bank shares so they could attend the AGM. Did the Dambusters commit any serious crimes? Were they violent? Were they involved in any public disorder?

Edwards was even less forthcoming than he had been about Tri-Continental, saying ‘you’re asking me things I can’t answer. I can’t speak for the managers and what they thought’.

His witness statement from February 2019 was somewhat more expansive but no more specific:

‘DMC was concerned with a dam in Mozambique or South Africa and it had something to do with South African politics too. I do not remember what the group stood for or what they did. I do not remember how I infiltrated the group or why I infiltrated them. It may have been something to do with the group being on the fringes of all of the trouble with the movement against apartheid.’

The fact that the officer can’t even remember the politics of a group he was part of, suggests it made very little impression on him. This is not what we would expect to see from membership of a group committed to serious disorder, which is what the SDS claims it existed to spy on. The fact that he thinks it may be allied to undermining the struggle against apartheid compounds the sense of anti-democratic action emanating from his words.

SOCIALIST ALLIANCE AGAINST RACIALISM

An April 1970 report by Edwards on a new socialist anti-racist group, Socialist Alliance Against Racialism (SAAR), was shown to the Inquiry. Once again, Edwards said he didn’t remember them at all.

He was asked if it being a ‘campaign against racialism’ would have made it of interest? Or because of the groups involved in founding it? And what his managers’ attitude towards the group was?

He did did not recall much.

There were some questions about the VSC, and a report about their planning meetings before a peaceful demo which took place in the autumn of 1970. He, personally, considered the VSC a front to cause trouble.

He confirmed that he himself was assaulted on a demonstration in Grosvenor Square, by uniformed police armed with truncheons. Asked why the police had gone for him, he said:

‘it’s just the fact you’ve got long hair and a beard and they wallop you, you know, you’re you’re one of them sort of thing. It’s 50 years ago, this was what they were doing. It’s a different attitude to things.’

His faith in the restraint of more modern uniformed officers is quaint. Any number of undercover officers have stories of the brutality of their uniformed colleagues.

At the 2006 Climate Camp at Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkkshire, spycop Mark Kennedy was so badly beaten by a group of uniformed officers that he reportedly needed surgery on his lower back.

WORKING ABROAD

In complaining about the difficulties of his role, Edwards casually and seemingly unwittingly dropped a bombshell. It had long been thought that SDS officer didn’t go abroad until later on. Peter Francis believed his trip to Germany in the 1990s was the first.

Yet Edwards, who left the job in May 1971, said:

‘I went to Brussels with this other officer whose name I can’t even mention, I suppose, but, you know, the amateurish way that it was done then, it was a strain.’

Whatever the spycops ever did, it seems they always did.

END OF DEPLOYMENT

Edwards was undercover in the SDS for about two years. He finished because:

‘I’d had enough. I’d had enough of going round with a long beard and long hair and being scruffy. It’s quite a strain on the system doing the job, it really is… until you’ve done the job you don’t know what is involved’

Edwards mused about how it had got more difficult later on, for the spycops who came later and got more deeply embedded, for longer periods.

His deployment’s peculiar mix of pointless triviality and undermining of fundamental rights is captured in his 2019 witness statement in which he said:

‘I did not have any idea of how I was helping, one way or the other: nobody ever told me or gave me feedback and there was no other way of me knowing’

After his time with the SDS, Edwards returned to work in other areas of Special Branch. He took on a more clerical role in undermining democratic organisations, and began working on the ‘industrial desk’, which spied on trade unions and is thought to have illegally supplied details on union activists to private blacklisting companies. He said he didn’t know what was done with this kind of information –  ‘obviously it would go to the security service in the first instance’.

Later in his career he worked in the ‘vetting office’. This was primarily security vetting of new recruits to the police, including members of Special Branch itself, done in conjunction with MI5. They sent the completed from off to MI5, who would respond if they considered somebody a security risk.

THE SECRET WASN’T SECRET

Edwards said he was sure the existence of the SDS wasn’t a secret among the top brass. He noted the way ‘all the management all ended up as top commanders and all the rest of it’, and he reminisced about the time that a senior officer brought a bottle of whisky along to the SDS to say thank you for their work.

In his witness statement, he said it was presented at the SDS safe house by the Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner. Whistle-blower officer Peter Francis said exactly the same thing happened to him after the anti-fascist demonstration in October 1993, when the bottle was presented by the Commissioner himself, Sir Paul Condon.

Edwards repeated and expanded on a line from his witness statement:

‘I was just a small cog in a great big machine and I did my little bit as best I could to help the police and the uniformed police and be a good branch officer. That’s what it’s all about, you know. Loyalty to the Branch’

He then veered into a bitter rant about those who’ve exposed decades of the unit’s counter-democratic action and violation of citizens by the thousand. With no trace of irony, he lamented the pain he feels because those he was close to have betrayed his trust.

‘And of course we’ve not seen now any loyalty from some of these people, and that I find very upsetting. You know, when you can’t trust people. I’ve not been to reunions and things like that, because you don’t know who you can trust any more. People are all talking to the press and everybody else, and can’t keep their traps shut. So I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed. You have a long career and that’s what happens.’

 

That concluded the second week of the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s evidence hearings. They will continue next week (Monday, Wednesday and Thursday are definite, other days undecided as yet), then there will be a break until around April.

 

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COPS will be live-tweeting all the Inquiry hearings, and producing daily reports like this one for the blog. They will be indexed on our UCPI Public Inquiry page.

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Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 7

10 November 2020

Evidence from:

Imran Khan QC (Baroness Doreen Lawrence)

Heather Williams QC (Neville Lawrence OBE)

Imran Khan QC (Michael Mansfield QC)

Andrew Trollope QC (Azhar Khan, Miscarriages of justice)

Dave Morris (Social & environmental activists, [appearing in person])

Imran Khan QC (The Monitoring Group, Justice campaigns)

Pete Weatherby QC (Newham Monitoring Project [Justice campaigns], & Core Participants who are Political, Social & environmental activists)

The final scheduled day of opening statements at the Undercover Policing Inquiry was centred around the moving stories of people who were spied on as part of justice campaigns. These are mostly families whose loved ones have died at the hands of the police, or whose deaths had investigations that were scandalously inadequate.

Several themes recurred from the spied-upon:

• the need for the Inquiry to centre their experience and knowledge;
• not taking police statements at face value;
• the need for a diverse panel to advise a rich, white, male Chair who cannot properly understand systemic discrimination;
• the need for live-streaming the hearings to stop it being a private inquiry, which is being done by other inquiries.

All of it seemed to bounce right off Sir John.

Neither Helen Steel (delayed from yesterday), nor Dave Smith’s statements (delayed from Friday) have been allotted new dates as yet.

Imran Khan QC
(Baroness Doreen Lawrence)

Imran Khan opened proceedings, representing Baroness Lawrence, campaigner and mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Khan stated that Baroness Lawrence has lost confidence in the ability of the Inquiry to get to the truth of why her family was spied upon. She is also disappointed with the Metropolitan Police’s statement that they have undergone a substantial change in their. She thinks the Met remains institutionally racist.

Ethnic minority people are over policed and under protected. This is illustrated by disproportionate use of stop and search against young Black people today.

The 1998 Macpherson inquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s death should have been the end of it. The Met claimed to have already given all evidence to Macpherson. This was a bare-faced lie.

CORRUPTION AND LIES

In 2012, it was reported that there was detailed evidence of one of the investigating detective’s criminality that was held back from the public, the Lawrence family’s legal team, and the Macpherson inquiry. These revelations led to the Ellison Review, which also found spycops had targeted the Lawrences.

Khan then outlined the well-known background of the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the incompetent and corrupt police investigation that followed. Stephen Lawrence was murdered at just 18 years old in 1993 in South London whist waiting for a bus. Justice was slow and by no means reached. Baroness Lawrence still mourns the death of her son.

Khan said that the same racism that led to the murder of Stephen and let his killers walk free, still exists. All the police involved with the botched initial investigation were promoted or have since retired, not one of them has been disciplined, let alone sacked.

Baroness Lawrence said:

‘To lose a child is unthinkable. To be fighting for justice for him 27 years later is inexcusable’.

Five years later, in 1998, Macpherson made his findings, which included the fact that police attending to the scene of Stephen’s murder did nothing to try to save him. Khan says it seems ‘the police did not want to get their hands dirty with a Black man’s blood’.

SPYCOPS DIGGING FOR DIRT

In 2013, they learned that police spied on the family’s campaign and ‘sought dirt’ to discredit them and their supporters. Undercover officer Peter Francis said he was just one of four officers tasked with doing so. However, the Lawrence family were law abiding, so there was no dirt for the undercovers to find.

Francis was then tasked to find dirt on people more peripheral to the campaign, using names passed on by the family liaison officers purportedly supporting the family. The police officer referred to as HN78 (‘Bobby Lewis’), interviewed in the Ellison Review, and picked up information on the Lawrence campaign.

The Lawrence family’s campaign was one of many such family justice campaigns targeted by undercover police. Police resources that should have been spent catching killers were instead used to obstruct justice in this way.

The Lawrences then wrote to the Home Secretary saying the Met hadn’t given a satisfactory explanation about the allegations of spying. They asked for a public, transparent inquiry. Home Secretary said no, unless the Ellison report recommended it. The report, when it came, did indeed recommend a public inquiry.

Baroness Lawrence said that a public inquiry was the only way to conduct a satisfactory investigation as internal police investigations cannot be trusted. Khan went on to outline the various investigations conducted – and the broken promises made by the police.

The Home Secretary finally ordered the undercover policing public inquiry in 2014, remarking that ‘it is deplorable the family have had to wait so long’. The irony isn’t lost on core participants, finding themselves nearly seven years later at the very start of an Inquiry that has swathed itself in secrecy.

HOLLOW PROMISES

In 2014, the Met Commissioner said all material about the spying on the family would be released. The Lawrence family have received absolutely nothing since then. They still don’t know why they were spied on. Should the police have given these files to the Inquiry in the meantime, Baroness Lawrence wants them to be handed over to her now.

Baroness Lawrence is exhausted by decades of hollow, hypocritical promises that are never delivered on. She wants to know the extent to which the Met’s Commissioner at the time, Paul Condon, knew about, or authorised the spying on the her family. On the one hand, she has been told there was no direct spying, yet on the other the Met have already apologised for it – what is the truth?

The culture of the police has played a part in creating miscarriages of justice and covering up racism. Public apologies aren’t matched by real reform. For instance, the one whistle-blower, Peter Francis, still faces the threat of prosecution for coming forward. While Francis’ spying was reprehensible, the Met’s intransigence and denials are much worse. He must be be given the assurances he seeks about immunity from prosecution.

JUSTICE DELAYED, JUSTICE DENIED

It is 27 years since Stephen’s murder, yet the senior police officers involved in the investigation were only referred for the possibility of misconduct charges last week.

Baroness Lawrence trusted Mark Ellison’s investigation as he’d secured the convictions of two of Stephen’s killers. His recommendations were clear. In contrast, she said, although the Undercover Policing Inquiry was supposed to be a ‘proper, transparent inquiry, rigorous in pursuit of the truth’ it has turned out to be secretive and ‘we should be able to see every officer who chose to spy on us’.

Khan contrasted the open way that Baroness Lawrence campaigned, despite hostility from the police with the anonymity granted to the police. She didn’t have the luxury of hiding, so neither should the undercover police. The Met, unless forced to do otherwise, will seek to avoid accountability and hide evidence. They can’t be trusted to simply offer it up to the Inquiry.

DIVERSITY OR FAILURE

The Macpherson Inquiry only succeeded with the help of a diverse panel advising. Khan also explained the vital context of the racism surrounding the spying. If the Chair doesn’t understand this, then surely point Baroness Lawrence makes is proven: a diverse panel is therefore needed.

The idea that the Special Demonstration Squad operated lawfully and in the public interest is nonsense. Clearly, there is no good reason to spy on any of Baroness Lawrence’s campaigning.

Khan concluded: ‘We must have the truth’, and then quoted Baroness Lawrence:

‘I was a happy married woman with three gorgeous children. Now I have lost a son and I am divorced, but that’s only a tiny part of what has changed. Unless you’ve lost a child you can’t understand the depth of heartache I’ve felt… and would give up all I have to go back to the seconds before Stephen died. I simply ask for justice’.

The accompanying written opening statement from Imran Khan QC on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence

Heather Williams QC
(Neville Lawrence OBE)

Heather Williams opened by saying why she was here and, in a sense, why we were all here.

On 22nd April 1993 Stephen Lawrence was murdered by racists in Eltham while waiting for a bus. He was stabbed by a gang of white youths who used racist language. The initial murder investigation was completely inadequate; during it Dr Lawrence felt as if he was in a constant battle with police.

The Macpherson Inquiry decided that institutional racism was apparent in the police investigation into Stephen’s death and in his family’s treatment by officers. These failings meant that Stephen’s killers largely escaped justice.

This has impacted on all of Dr Neville Lawrence’s life. As the Macpherson Inquiry demonstrated, the police were not on their side. Despite that Inquiry’s historic recognition of institutional racism in the police, Dr Lawrence believes too little progress has been made. He feels the state has failed him.

Against this background, the allegation of police interference with his family has only further undermined his confidence in the police. Intelligence on Dr Lawrence was passed up the chain of command by police, and an undercover officer attended the Macpherson inquiry pretending to be a supporter of the family. The existence of this was also kept secret from Lord Macpherson.

How then can the public have confidence in policing of Black communities if resources are used like this against them? It appears to many that Black lives don’t matter to the police.

LONG TERM SPYING

Williams made it clear that Dr Lawrence doesn’t have confidence in the Inquiry. He wanted to participate in an inquiry capable of finding the truth and stopping these abuses from being repeated in the future. However, he, like so many victims of spycops, has had almost no disclosure of documents.

The Met didn’t just spy on the Lawrence family’s campaign in the immediate aftermath of the murder. Five years later, as the Macpherson Inquiry was heading towards its conclusion, the Met had a spy in the Lawrence family camp – a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer using the name Dave Hagan.

The undercover officer met with Richard Walton who was part of the team who were providing the Commissioner’s response to the Inquiry, feeding them information on the family’s thinking. That meeting was brokered by SDS boss Bob Lambert.

In 2013, we learned from whistle-blower SDS officer Peter Francis that undercover police had targeted Black justice campaigns, including the Lawrences. Alongside that, the family liaison officers were gathering intelligence rather than concerning themselves with the welfare of the family.

However, it was not until 2016 that the truth about undercover police undermining the Macpherson Inquiry was revealed. Walton, by then, was running spycops operations as the head of Counter Terrorism Command. Like many guilty police officers who find themselves under investigation, he resigned to avoid disciplinary charges.

A SPY IN THE FAMILY CAMP

A document from the foundation of the SDS in 1968 says the unit was created to provide information on public order, and related intelligence. Twenty years later it said it was concerned with terrorism and politically motivated crime. Whichever, the grieving, devastated Lawrence family fell under none of these categories. Therefore there was no excuse for snooping around the Lawrences, whether directly or otherwise.

And yet, undercover police were circling the Lawrence family, looking to smear them instead of catching their son’s killers. Macpherson found the Lawrences were treated unfavourably because of their race. The 2014 Stephen Lawrence Review by Mark Ellison QC discovered undercover officer ‘Dave Hagan’ spied on the family campaign at a time when the family was taking legal action against the police. Hagan reported back personal details as well as the Lawrence family’s campaign strategy.

The police’s self-investigation into undercover policing, Operation Herne, started in 2012. Its 2014 report centred on allegations of spying on Lawrences. Like Ellison, they did not find ‘smoking gun’ documentation proving that there was an instruction to spy on the Lawrence family. But, in a unit where creating written evidence was often avoided, we cannot rely on documents. The Inquiry must rely on oral evidence.

SDS officers routinely ‘hoovered up’ all knowledge and retained it, ignoring issues of privacy, the third Operation Herne report was published in 2014. Numerous undercovers have confirmed they received no training on collateral intrusion and that they took no account of the issue.

A 2016 Independent Police Complaints Commission report said Lambert and Walton would face disciplinary charges if they were still serving. It was at this point that Lambert finally resigned from his academic posts. Walton is now working for an opaquely funded right-wing think tank that calls Extinction Rebellion extremists.

WHEN WILL WE GET THE TRUTH?

It’s plain there was no legal authority or justification for the intrusion on the Lawrence family. And, nearly seven years in, we’ve had almost no information from the Inquiry. It appears to have done nothing significant towards its purpose. Dr Lawrence has received no substantive disclosure.

The delays to the UCPI have increased the distress of victims. We are promised disclosure will happen, at an unspecified time, but we cannot properly contribute until that is done.

Dr Lawrence wants to know the full extent to which undercovers spied on him at the time of Stephen’s death and afterward. He has many questions that he wants the Inquiry to answer. He does not think a white family in the same position would have been treated this way.

Williams went on to say that the Ellison Report only focuses on 1993 and 1998, which missed out the period in between, including the time of Stephen’s inquest. This also leaves questions to be answered. For instance, why was Dave Hagan allowed to befriend the family and attend the Macpherson inquiry?

Further, what did Hagan tell Walton at the 1998 meeting? Was this information used at the Macpherson inquiry? Who else saw it? Who knew about the meeting? Lambert was Hagan’s handler, speaking to him several times a day. Dr Lawrence also wants to hear what he has to say, as well as Hagan’s other managers.

DON’T TRUST THE PREPETRATORS

Due to the police’s tendency to destroy records, the Inquiry should take control of all documents rather than trusting the police not to pre-sort the files to avoid incriminating themselves. Williams then went on to speak of Neville’s concern about particular officers being granted anonymity. These are HN109 who was Peter Francis’ manager, HN101 who was also involved in his tasking, HN86 the SDS boss 1993-1996 who gave the order to find dirt on Lawrences, and HN58, the boss 1997-2001 so who will have known about the 1998 meeting with Walton.

Heather Williams made the point that almost all non-state core participants have been making since the Inquiry began: if you give a spied-upon person a cover name, they are more likely to be able to give evidence about that person, but with just a number that is impossible and we only get the officer’s own account.

Williams then quoted Lord Bingham, a senior member of the judiciary: ‘Publicity is a powerful disinfectant’.

Beyond the secrecy, Dr Lawrence is, like Baroness Lawrence, particularly concerned by the lack of a diverse panel in the ‘fact-finding’ part of the Inquiry as well as the anonymity given to the undercover officers.

Where there’s evidence of racism, police must be held to account through the legal system if there’s to be any confidence in that system. Dr Lawrence has been failed badly by institutions over the years, and hopes that he will not be failed again at the Inquiry.

The accompanying written opening statement from Heather Williams QC on behalf of Neville Lawrence OBE

Imran Khan QC
(Michael Mansfield QC)

The Inquiry continued with the return of Imran Khan QC, this time speaking for Michael Mansfield QC, who a a core particpant due to his role as a lawyer representing the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Khan started with reference to the situation today, saying the State acts with increasing hostility towards the legal profession, with sneering from the Prime Minister about ‘lefty human rights lawyers’ who are ‘hamstringing’ the criminal justice system.

The Home Secretary dismissed lawyers objectións to her similar comments, saying they should ‘get back to work’, even though she was actually objecting to their work.

When the State appears to be having a wholesale attack on lawyers, there are grave consequences.

Khan said:

‘It is chilling to consider that lawyers might have failed to take on cases or acted otherwise in accordance with their duty, in the knowledge that they might attract the unwanted attention of the State and its institutions.’

Mansfield wonders if we’re in an era where the legal profession is imperilled. The State has always tried to silence critics, but the scale of it varies and this moment is especially precarious.

MICHAEL MANSFIELD’S CAREER

Michael Mansfield has long been targeted by undercover police, as he has represented people perceived as a threat since the early 1970s, such as the Angry Brigade.

He continued to represent people who suffered at the hands of the police, e.g. (with Gareth Peirce) the Birmingham 6, families at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, and the families of Jean Charles de Menezes, Pat Finucane and Stephen Lawrence. Among his clients are Ricky Reel’s family, who were targeted by spycops while Ricky’s killers walk free.

If you don’t have lawyers who are willing and able to challenge the State, you remove the right to challenge at all. Yet lawyers that bring such challenges are subjected to attacks and undercover operations.

The United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers say that states must ensure equal access to lawyers of people’s choosing, who must be able to work without intimidation or hindrance.

Undercover surveillance of Mansfield had no justifiable reason. There was no ‘public order’ or ‘public interest’ justification, and no criminality. However, if state sanctioned tactics of unlawful surveillance were designed to intimidate lawyers such as Mansfield, they failed.

LOW EXPECTATIONS OF THE UCPI

He does not have high hopes of this Inquiry, as it is held under the Inquiries Act 2005. Mansfield scathingly descibes the Act as ‘legislation that serves to undermine the rule of law, erode protection of human rights, shake public confidence, and lessen further the independence of the judicial and legal system.’

Furthermore, it was not properly debated, it repealed earlier, more effective laws, and it does not allow parliamentary scrutiny of Inquiry decisions. Also, arbitrary appointments mean such inquiries are never truly independent.

Similarly hasty and equally egregious is the CHIS Bill currently being rushed through Parliament will allow any state agent to be authorised to commit any crime, it’s an open invitation to damage and destroy lives.

RECOMMENDATIONS NOT ACTIONS

In conclusion, Michael Mansfield takes on cases that are uncomfortable to the state, but this should have no bearing on how he is treated. A lawyer is a lawyer. Mansfield is just one of many who have been spied on. This Inquiry must find out the full extent, why it was done, and who authorised it. Mansfield wants a sincere apology to him and to the other core participants.

There is a huge risk that the police will just ignore what they see as yet another set of recommendations. So many hard-won inquiries are just left to gather dust in the Home Office. If the Inquiry fails in this, fear and intimidation could replace fearlessness among lawyers, and we would lose the capacity for challenging state wrongdoing.

Mansfield will not go away quietly. He is clear that for an Inquiry to have real purpose it not only needs powerful and far-reaching guidelines and recommendations, but also their effective implementation. We must criminalise unjustified surveillance of lawyers.

The accompanying written opening statement from Imran Khan QC on behalf of Michael Mansfield QC

Andrew Trollope QC
(Azhar Khan, Miscarriages of justice)

Before lunch, the Inquiry heard from Andrew Trollope QC on behalf of Azhar Khan, a solicitor who was targeted by undercover officers and wrongly prosecuted.

In 2007, the Metropolitan police conceived a covert ‘sting’ operation, culminating in the arrest of Azhar Khan for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. This new and unique operation went beyond covert surveillance, and was a plan for undercover officers to pose as potential criminal clients in order to set him up.

SPYCOPS ENTRAP A SOLICITOR

Azhar Khan began his own solicitor’s practice in 2005, one of the few BAME lawyers to do so.
Settled in a deprived area’of London, he served important local needs, doing mostly legal aid defence work and working for local charities as well. He also worked to encourage BAME men and particularly women to get ahead in the profession.

For some reason police took exception to his work and launched Operation Castration or Castrol. This involved undercover officers posing as criminals to become his clients over a sustained period in order to try to induce him to commit crime. They would have themselves arrested as drug dealers or money launderers then request Khan as their lawyer. The ‘suspects’ were then released on bail.

This sting operation lasted 18 months and involved four spycops and the complicity of six other officers who made the staged arrests, as well as senior officers who reviewed the operation.

Khan’s ‘clients’ offered him the opportunity to launder £50,000, which he refused. They also showed him big bags of tablets, supposedly drugs, offering them to him. Posing as someone from organised crime, one of them kept ringing Khan, seeking meetings and repeatedly tried to lure him into criminal deals.

NO EVIDENCE

By September 2009, there was no evidence of wrongdoing at all. The officer in charge wanted to end the operations. But the spycops trying to dupe Khan said they’d had a meeting where he’d agreed to a crime – this was a complete lie – which led to a renewal of the authorisation.

The spycops were persistently trying to trap Khan into committing crime for a very long period of time, in the face of his impeccable integrity. There were no real grounds, nothing even alleged, that could justify it. It was plainly illegal.

At no stage did Khan agree to any of the various crimes they offered. Nonetheless, police raided his home and office in December 2009, charging him with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The police later conceded that the staged arrests and procedures at the police stations were designed to deceive Azhar Khan in the course of his professional practice, in order to try and find evidence of criminal conduct by him.

ABUSE OF PROCESS

The objective of the operation was not to investigate any crime of which Azhur Khan was suspected. Rather, it was to ‘integrity test’ his conduct as a criminal defence solicitor by using undercover officers to suggest the commission of crimes to see how he would react’. Over and over again.

Trollope explained that ‘no evidence of any offence on the part of Azhur Khan was gleaned. The clear aim was to put him and his practice City Law Solicitors out of business.’

He continued, ‘one of the most legally and morally objectionable features of the operation was that these attempts were so persistent in the face of Azhur Khan’s repeated failure agree to the suggestions of crime.’

Eventually, the case was thrown out of court, the judge ruling it was abuse of process with no case to answer.

A RACIST OPERATION

The very basis of the operation was racist. As an Asian lawyer, it seems he was singled out in a way that would never have been done if he were white. All the undercover officers in the operation were BAME. Did they think Khan would be more liable to commit crime with them?

Where did they get the idea from? Who else has been treated this way? Which other officers might have given them tactics and advice?

This was spycops acting as agents provocateur, for a long period, against someone for whom there was no evidence of corruption. Khan was a victim of a miscarriage of justice. The Inquiry must find the full extent and justifications of this operation.

The accompanying written opening statement from Andrew Trollope QC on behalf of Azhar Khan

Dave Morris
(Social & environmental activists, [appearing in person])

Dave Morris has been a community and political activist for nearly 50 years. He’s best known for being one of the defendants in the ‘McLibel’ Trial along with Helen Steel, but his work encompasses many more issues beyond that.

Just as at the McLibel trial 30 years ago, he has no lawyer covering that period at the Undercover Policing Inquiry and is instead speaking for himself.

Morris opened by outlining his anarchist, workplace, environmental, community, and other activism.

In the 1980s, he was involved in London Greenpeace (a small collective founded in 1971, independent from the later-formed Greenpeace International) which was infiltrated by undercover officers from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

The group began a publicity campaign focused on McDonald’s as an example of what all transnational corporations are doing – opposing their environmental destruction, promotion of junk food, treatment of workers, abuse of animals, exploitation of children, and more. They produced a leaflet called What’s Wrong With McDonald’s. The burger giant sued for libel, presumably expecting them to back down. It was a drastic misjudgement.

McLIBEL

What happened next was the stuff of fiction. Steel and Morris couldn’t afford lawyers and represented themselves in court (assisted behind the scenes by a young barrister prepared to work for free called Keir Starmer) against a large McDonald’s legal team led by a QC charging £2,000 a day. McDonald’s had objected to the whole leaflet, so Steel and Morris had to defend every word. It became the longest trial in English history. In the end there were a number of damning judgements against the fast food giant, and versions of the leaflet were being handed out in millions all over the world.

You can see more about the case in the McLibel documentary and at the campaign website from back in the day McSpotlight.org (which was one of the first of its kind in 1996).

The McLibel Support Campaign around the trial was also infiltrated by spycops. They didn’t know this at the time, so it never came up in court. The spycops weren’t just attending meetings, they played an active part. In 2011, Morris and Steel discovered that ‘Bob Robinson’, who had significantly contributed to the leaflet, was actually undercover police officer Bob Lambert.

PRIVATE SPIES

As well as undercover police infiltrating London Greenpeace, McDonald’s sent at least seven spies into the group, one of whom deceived a genuine member into a six-month relationship.

Sid Nicholson, McDonald’s Vice President and Head of Security, oversaw that spying operation. He’d come to the firm from being the former Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendant in Brixton, following a career in the police in apartheid South Africa. He had stated from the witness box that McDonald’s security department was wholly comprised of ex-police officers. Nicholson had admitted asking friends on the force for information on activists and having a two-way exchange, including home addresses, which was illegal.

Morris referred to footage, obtained from McDonald’s during the McLibel trial and shown in the McLibel documentary, of a London Greenpeace protest at McDonald’s HQ (East Finchley) in 1989. McDonald’s spy Michelle Hooker can be seen handing out anti-McDonald’s leaflets next to spycop John Dines, who scandalously developed a long, intimate relationship with Helen Steel. Sid Nicholson had testified that a Special Branch officer was given ‘a perch’ next to himself at the HQ to jointly observe that very protest in the film. It was later discovered that during the case, yet another spycop Matt Rayner also had an abusive sexual relationship with a woman living next door to Morris in Tottenham.

John Dines and Helen Steel lived together as a couple whilst she, Morris and Keir Starmer made pre-trial preparations. Dines then disappeared. How much privileged legal advice was Dines illegally privy to whilst living with Ms Steel, and what was passed on to McDonald’s?

Steel and Morris sued the Met for sharing their personal information with McDonald’s. The police choose to settle the case out of court, including apologising, paying compensation and committing to inform all London police officers not to do share confidential information to third parties.

The McLibel judgment found that McDonald’s had been responsible for industrial-scale breaches of employment laws and the welfare rights of animals. yet the people who were exposing this were the ones targeted by spycops.

In 2005, the European Court of Human rights found the McLibel case had violated their right to a fair trial and freedom of expression, and they were compensated by the British Government. The Court ruled:

‘The Government had contended that, as the applicants were not journalists, they should not attract the high level of protection afforded to the press under Article 10. However, in a democratic society even small and informal campaign groups, such as London Greenpeace, had to be able to carry on their activities effectively.’

Neither McDonald’s nor the police were ever held to account for any of this.

TARGETED FOR BEING PROGRESSIVE

Morris based most of the rest of his speech to the Inquiry on a statement on undercover policing signed by 90 of the Inquiry’s core participants, nearly half of all those in the non-police/state groups.

Since 1968, more than 1,000 groups campaigning in the UK for a better society and world have been spied upon and infiltrated, by secret unaccountable political spycops. They targeted a huge range of groups – environmentalists, trade unions, women’s rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, as well as campaigning against war, corporate power, repression, and police brutality.

The groups represented in this Inquiry were not terrorists, but were pushing for positive social change in an overwhelmingly public and open way.

Many of the groups spycops targeted have been vindicated by history, their ideas have become mainstream orthodoxy, and some have resulted in legal and other formal recognition by society. Yet any group that challenged the established order seemed to have been deemed a legitimate target of the secret political policing units.

SPYCOPS’  CRIMES

Spycops weren’t merely observing, they infiltrated personal lives. Fake friendships were developed and exploited. Many people, especially women, were deceived into intimate and abusive relationships.

Children have been fathered and then abandoned, identities of dead children stolen to provide ‘cover’ names. Spycops actively influenced groups. Many arrests were made that resulted in miscarriages of justice. Family campaigns, people seeking justice for loved ones killed by police, were deliberately undermined by spycops.

Bugging a phone is recognised as a breach of human rights and police have to apply for a warrant. Spycops hacking people’s lives is infinitely worse and should be totally unacceptable to everyone.

Spycops weren’t aberrations or ‘rogue officers’. This spying was established and conducted with the full sanction of the state and supported by its apparatus and taxpayer funding.

By targeting such groups, spycops show institutional discrimination, racism, sexism and anti-democratic action, including industrial-scale breaches of laws and charters that protect basic human rights and the right to protest.

THE ‘THREAT’ OF SOCIAL JUSTICE, OR RETROSPECTIVE ‘JUSTIFICATIONS’ FOR SPYING?

If spycops are worried about political violence, why were fascists largely left to their own devices while we were spied on? The police plainly have political bias.

Why did the state see social justice as a threat to society? Why didn’t they put spycops into financial corporations, hedge funds, military elites, and power-mad establishment political parties? Such institutions employ and promote daily, mass institutional violence – war, poverty, exploitation of workers, colonialism and environmental destruction – reinforced by PR and manipulation of society for their own selfish ends. There’s your actual threat to public order and well being.

What should we count as ‘extremism’? The Climate Emergency, said Morris, is the most extreme threat we face. In 1968, the American Petroleum Institute commissioned scientists to investigate burning fossil fuels, they discovered ‘there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe.’ That was the same time spycops were set up. The oil industry has obstructed efforts to tackle it. Has the oil industry ever been targeted by spycops? If not, why not?

Morris however noted the public outrage at the beginning of 2020 over campaign groups being lumped in with fascist and other terrorist groups in police counter-terrorism documents. This included the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement which had a few months earlier been blockading roads in central London for over a week calling for action to prevent climate catastrophe. In response to the controversy, the Minister for Security was forced to admit to Parliament that XR was not and should not be categorised as ‘extremist’. So just who are the real extremists?

Morris also tackled MI5’s seemingly dominant role over the secret police spying operations from the very beginning. He stated that MI5 was seeking information about, and the undermining of, groups and movements which are deemed to support ‘subversion of the State’. But Morris said they should look elsewhere – for the last 30 years mass subversion of the State, supported by successive Governments, has been systematically and continuously carried out by unaccountable multinational corporations seeking deregulation of laws protecting society from unrestrained profiteering, and taking over formerly nationalised industries and sectors so that a tiny few can profit from what were once State-run public services.

Adding insult to injury is the deliberate widespread use of ‘tax havens’ and other so-called ‘loopholes’ to annually avoid billions of pounds of taxes due to the State which could have been used for our struggling public services. Millions of people have suffered as a result. But have there been any undercover officers targeting of this serious, industrial-scale daily subversion of the State? He guessed never.

PROTECTING THE PERPETRATORS

It took five years of spycops revelations – largely from victims’ own research – to get the promise of the public inquiry, and five more for it to begin. Police and the Inquiry have consistently refused to release lists of officers, or groups targeted, or relevant documents.

Victims of spycops are dismayed by the Inquiry’s prioritising of the protection of the perpetrators’ privacy above the right of victims and the public to know the truth.
As the people who brought this scandal to public awareness, we’ve worked hard to get the justice we and the public are entitled to.

We remain determined to bring the whole murky political policing operation into the public spotlight where it belongs.

DAMAGE LIMITATION

This is supposed to be a public inquiry, but it’s more like a police damage-limitation exercise. The hearings are not yet publicly accessible and nor will they be live-streamed, which is the only way to ensure the public and victims can follow it.

Morris endorsed the 13 recommendations from the People’s Public Inquiry into Secret Political Policing, Conway Hall, London in July 2018 which, among other things, call for the release of all officers’ names & political files, an admission of institutional discrimination, and the permanent disbanding of the political secret police.

Having covered so much nefarious activity, Morris ended on an optimistic note. Despite being undermined by spycops, movements for positive change are still here and have had many successes. Such movements are needed now more than ever. A better world is possible and it’s up to all of us to support – rather than pay spycops to undermine – efforts for real change.

The accompanying written opening statement from Dave Morris

Imran Khan QC
(The Monitoring Group, Justice campaigns)

Imran Khan QC then spoke for the Monitoring Group.

 

The Monitoring Group (TMG) was founded by Suresh Grover, who is still a co-director. It is one of the oldest anti-racist organisations in the UK, carrying out advocacy work and supporting struggles for civil rights among ethnic minority groups and migrants. It occupies a unique place within the UK’s social justice network.

The organisation was founded in Southall, London, in the mid-1970s, and originally called the Southall Monitoring Group (SMG). It was inspired by national and global struggles against apartheid. It has made many achievements over 40 years, and has offered trauma support to more than 1,500 victims of racism over the last decade.

Its earliest campaigns were around the murder of Gurdip Singh Chaggar in June 1976 and Blair Peach, killed during an anti-racist demo in Southall in 1979. Peach’s partner, Celia Stubbs, and her campaign were supported by TMG. It was not until 2010 that the Met released the 1979 report that effectively admitted a police officer had killed Peach.

TMG supported Stephen Lawrence’s family campaign for many years. It also supported the family of Ricky Reel, who was murdered by racists in 1997, and whose family was then targeted by undercover police. Other families supported included that of Michael Menson, also killed in a 1997 attack which, as with Ricky Reel, police wrongly denied was racist in nature. As mentioned earlier in the day, at least 18 such justice campaigns were targeted by undercovers.

Given their involvement with so many spied-on campaigns, the TMG was surely spied upon too. The National Civil Rights Movement (NCRM) was founded by TMG’s Suresh Grover in 1999 to support such campaigns and to push for full implementation of the recommendations from the Macpherson inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. Undercover police were at the NCRM founding conference. However, Suresh and TMG have had no formal admission they were ever spied on. After five years, they are losing hope that this Inquiry can be transparent and reveal the truth.

POLICE TARGETING OF THE MONITORING GROUP

The first revelation of police surveillance of the Group was made in a 1989 Guardian article. It said, that in 1987 the Southall Monitoring Group was the subject of a report written by Ealing police intelligence officer, PC J.E. Black describing them as a ‘political cell’ set up by the Greater London Council (GLC) to follow an agenda while purporting to be a community organisation.

Police saw anti-racism as being somehow anti-police, and seemed distressed about SMG’s ability to marshal support for causes and cases.

Thereafter, Grover noticed a reluctance from politicians to engage because they did not want to be spied on. There were unexplained burglaries of the office. Grover himself was targeted for arrest. This was not, as the police claimed last week, merely ‘collateral intrusion’ in family justice campaigns. It is a worry then, that Mitting takes the police’s word on that at face value. Operation Herne, the police self-investigation into spycops, effectively treated a lack of surviving files as an implication of innocence – absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

DISLIKE OF RACIAL JUSTICE GROUPS

It’s well established that numerous racial justice groups in the 60s were non-violent yet spied on by the British State fearing civil unrest. That unrest came in 1981, and for the reason the State had feared – ‘racial disadvantage’ was the phrase used by Lord Scarman in his report into the 1981 Brixton disturbances.

Scarman stated:

‘Urgent action is needed if it is not to become an endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society… racial disadvantage and its nasty associate racial discrimination, have not yet been eliminated. They poison minds and attitudes; they are, as long as they remain, and will continue to be a potent factor of unrest’.

The State took none of this on board, instead bringing in Sir Kenneth Newman as Met Commissioner to apply his Northern Ireland experience to Black, Asian and migrant communities in London. There was surely coordination with the Met’s sub-unit of undercover police, the Special Demonstration Squad.

Some people are core participants in the Undercover Policing Inquiry directly because of Newman’s legacy. They were not ‘collateral intrusion’, but deliberately spied upon.

After the 2005 London bombings, TMG worked in Beeston in Leeds, where more than one of the bombers had come from. Grover was twice contacted in the first week by MI5 to discourage him from interacting with the ‘suspect community’.

INQUIRY UNABLE TO INVESTIGATE

As other core participants have mentioned today, Mitting is simply incapable of investigating racism in the police and undercover police if he rejects the Macpherson report’s definition of institutional racism. There must be a diverse panel appointed to help the Chair before the Inquiry starts taking evidence. Otherwise, it cannot fulfil its remit, examining 40 years of undercover police who were guided by bias and discrimination.

Khan recounted psychological studies that show implicit biases even in those who consciously oppose discrimination. An object is more likely to be perceived as a weapon in a Black hand than if it’s in a white one. These studied have proven right those who report subtle discrimination, and people in Mitting’s kind of position would do well to take notice.

Racism does not stand still, it changes size, shape and function. When it becomes institutionalised we are not dealing with prejudice, but power and institutional practices.

By the time this Inquiry reports, it will be nearly 20 years since the Special Demonstration Squad was disbanded. Police will say it is now a historical issue, and that they’ve already learned their lessons. Such assurances cannot be accepted on their own terms, every such claim must be tested by the Inquiry.

To date, TMG has participated in three public inquiries. They initially encouraged people to get involved with this one. They even had the Inquiry’s legal team participate in a public conference they organised. However, the continuing secrecy has been disappointing and damaging to the Inquiry’s credibility.

CREATING ITS OWN PROBLEMS

The Inquiry’s difficulties are of its own makings. It agreed to give spycops anonymity without good reason, and it allowed police and other State bodies to delay it excessively. It has shown remarkable reluctance to address critical areas of racism and sexism because, in reality, it sees them as marginal, issues that are not worthy of its time.

Because of all this, the Inquiry has rejected the chorus of calls for specialist advisers to assist it. In doing all this, the Inquiry has created an uneven playing field tilted in favour of the perpetrators and against their victims.

Like Dave Morris, TMG endorses the 13 recommendations from the People’s Public Inquiry into Secret Political Policing of July 2018.

The Inquiry only exists because of the bravery and tenacity of core participants. It has substance because of the whistle-blower who exposed the skeletons in the first place and journalists who reported the horrors to the public. Its conviction derives from the unshakeable spirit of protestors – Black and white, women and men – who dared to dream for a better world. That dream will live on regardless of the conclusions of this Inquiry.

The accompanying written opening statement from Imran Khan QC on behalf of The Monitoring Group

Pete Weatherby QC
(Newham Monitoring Project [Justice campaigns], & Core Participants who are Political, Social & environmental activists)

Finally, we heard a tremendously powerful and incisive statement from Pete Weatherby QC, speaking for eighteen different core participants.

He began the show with a video clip, of spycop ‘Lynn Watson‘ (EN34) playing the clown.

No, seriously, footage of her being trained up by the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) Leeds, and then taking part in a range of actions with the Clown Army. These included visits to a military recruitment centre, to the US spy-base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. It begins in the car park of Hilary Benn MP’s constituency office.

 

Weatherby asked ‘How on earth was that considered legitimate policing?’

He then showed a picture of spycop ‘Simon Wellings‘ (HN118) wearing a bright orange cardboard ‘tank’ he’d made while infiltrating Globalise Resistance – an anti-war, anti-capitalist network – at an anti-arms trade protest. ‘How was that legitimate policing?’

The absurdity of investing massive resources into groups of this kind illustrated what the debacle of the last fifty years of undercover political policing looks like; farcical yet deeply damaging.

Millions of pounds (which could have been spent on other public budgets) were mis-spent over the decades of State-sanctioned, clandestine activities by the police, monitoring justice campaigns, anti-racism and anti-police violence groups, environmental campaigns, community and solidarity networks, animal rights groups, and the political activism of rebel clowns, musicians, artists, campaigners, and others – the vast majority of them on the political left.

These images do not represent a light-hearted point. There is actually nothing funny to see here. These operations were profoundly sinister, and an affront to democracy itself.

More than five years in to the Inquiry, and none of the groups and individuals he represents have received any meaningful disclosure. It looks likely that they will have to wait until at least 2022 for the Inquiry to deal with their cases.

While ‘Lynn Watson’ and ‘Simon Wellings’ have their rights protected by the Inquiry’s restriction orders, the rights of his clients are treated as secondary. They are all being made to wait.

FACTS WITHOUT DETAILS

For example, the Newham Monitoring Project may have been spied on throughout their thirty year history (from 1980 onwards) but they have yet to be told who spied on them, or when.

His clients include an array of anti-war, anti-arms trade, environmental, anti-hunt, social justice and Palestinian rights activists – some of them know some details of their surveillance and infiltrations, but only because they exposed these undercover activities themselves.

They remain in the dark. The lack of transparency, and the enormous delay, has sapped the trust of non-state core participants, and risks undermining the credibility of the entire Inquiry. This Inquiry, Weartherby declared, needs to do better.

He noted that the live-streaming is due to be switched off tonight for the rest of the five years or so of the Inquiry. Mitting has ruled that ‘in-person access’ will be limited to those core participants who are able to attend in the current circumstances. Everyone else will be left with just a delayed transcript. Other Inquiries have securely broadcast their public hearings, and the refusal to do so here has left people feeling excluded and alienated.

The core participants’ ability to make opening statements has been substantially diminished, by the failure to provide them with even basic facts or disclosure. Did Parliament, when they made the Inquiries Act, ever envisage that an Inquiry would make its core participants blind to what was going on? Of course not.

SECRECY ABOUT SECRETS

Weatherby spoke of the palpable imbalance between State and non-state core participants. The former have all the information and the material, the latter have next to none. This is the very reverse of how a healthy public inquiry should be. The State should be compelled to show their hand, but have largely chosen not to.

That an Inquiry established to shed light on the secretive, undercover activities of the police against ordinary citizens, should itself perpetuate secrecy and obfuscation is beyond irony. This undermines trust, and also promotes failure.

Instead of seeking to side-line non state core participants, or to keep them uninformed, this Inquiry should embrace their knowledge and actively seek out their assistance.

Without their scrutiny, their full and effective participation, the Inquiry may assume that the evidence produced by the spycops and their managers is truthful, correct and reliable, and it will fail to get to the truth.

A public inquiry should be independent and rigorous, not deference to a State narrative, especially not one hell-bent on secrecy, on distortion, and on covering up its wrongdoing.

NOT ASKING FOR THE TRUTH

We have asked the Chair – back in 2019, and ever since – to require the State core participants to provide position statements, that ‘set out their stall’, by this stage of the Inquiry, to hold their hands up to what went wrong, and perhaps even apologise.

Sir John Mitting has the power to make such requests, but has refused to do so, despite his legal duty to maximise openness and disclosure (section 18 of the Inquiries Act), to act in the public interest and with candour.

The Chairs of other current Inquiries – including Grenfell and Manchester Arena – have insisted on position statements and specified the issues to be addressed in them.

The Met claimed just last week that “the Met would assist the Inquiry in every way it can”. Yet they do not intend to comment on the evidence until the very end of the process, many more years down the line. This is not assisting, or acting in the public interest; it only serves to defend the Met.

The police have had plenty of time to examine their own behaviour and, by now, really should be able to admit to their wrong-doings.

The Chair could compel the Met to provide a chronology, and more details of the deployments, who was involved and whether the Met now believes they were justified or not – this would save time and resources – but instead he seems to take the police at their word when they say they no longer use spycops for ‘counter-subversion’, and not insist on answers even to his own questions.

SWAGGERING ARROGANCE

How can all this be described as ‘helping the Inquiry’? This is the swaggering arrogance of an institution which cannot see beyond its own interests, a public body that is hopelessly institutionally defensive, that puts its own reputation above the public interest.

Candour is the oxygen of justice. This Inquiry has two choices: it can either back off, and let the police see what they can get away with, or it can step up, be more robust, and demand position statements.

It’s not just Mitting who wants answers; the core participants and the wider public need them, and are entitled to them.

The delays have already caused huge distress to those involved. Why not save time and money by compelling the State bodies to tell us all: Which undercover operations will they defend? Which will they admit were wrong? Taking this common-sense approach could help the Inquiry gain a valuable commodity – the confidence of non state core participants.

WON’T ADMIT WHAT THEY KNOW

During the last five years, the Met must surely have looked into the deceitful relationships that the spycops formed. Why is it so difficult for them to come clean about the extent of this? Why won’t they shine a light on these practices? And why will the Inquiry not require them to do so?

The Met have already conceded that this Inquiry is likely to find that some deployments were ‘not justifiable’. They must have reached this conclusion for themselves, and in that case they should be able to tell us more details.

Let the police provide their justifications. Let them explain to the public why the mass infiltration of campaign groups for over 50 years was justified. Let them tell us why they infiltrated a clown movement, or a samba band. Surely this is the correct starting point for any investigation into these abuses?

The State should be made to tell us what lessons they have learnt, and what they have undertaken never to do again.

Any pretence that ‘political policing’ only began with the Special Demonstration Squad in 1968 is wrong. The pretence that the police are ‘neutral’ is wrong. Political policing doesn’t just happen elsewhere.

The substantial violations of civil and political rights, and the individual human rights of those involved, are the same as we see in authoritarian regimes around the world.

The Inquiry should remind itself of the rhetoric used by repressive regimes around the world, which seek to silence political voices, which challenge the official narrative, while pretending to respect international human rights norms, including freedom of expression and assembly, and respect for personal autonomy.

HISTORIC WRONGS

Last week we learnt that the likes of the Croydon Libertarians and the Women’s Liberation Movement were spied on in the early 1970s, but this does not ‘beggar belief’.

It is well-documented that the women’s suffrage movement was targeted by spycops. Would the police now seek to justify the State’s infiltration of women campaigning for the right to vote, of anti-slavery campaigns in the 19th century, or other suffrage campaigns, from Peterloo to the Chartists?

Why are these more recent protestors – for nuclear disarmament, against fracking, against road-building and against hospital closures – fair game?

Dissenters are often the drivers of social change. Slavery was abolished as a result of mass campaigns, building on and amplifying slave revolts. Protest and radical dissent has always involved friction with the State, and the State uses this form of policing to undermine that dissent.

The suffragettes and the slavery abolitionists were on the right side of history, and so are those who oppose racism, fox-hunting, and illegal or immoral wars today. The institutional racism of the police, identified and campaigned against by the Newham Monitoring Project (NMP), is now broadly recognised. Though, as this Inquiry illustrates, it remains as entrenched as ever.

DISSENT ISN’T MEANT TO BE CONVENIENT

Civil rights don’t exist to protect those who are comfortable complying with the status quo. They’re not needed for that; they’re a bulwark against authoritarianism.

Demonstrations and protests are often perceived to be a nuisance, or inconvenient, or tiresome, by those who are unsympathetic to their aims. However, freedom of expression is a human right. Citizens don’t need the permission of the police to protest.

In response to the claim made at the Inquiry last week by Oliver Sanders QC, representing the majority of former spycops, it is not ‘totalitarian’ to do what the NMP have done: to call out institutional police racism, or to protect their community from racist attacks. The police claim neutrality, but it was mainly progressive, social justice and left-wing groups that were targeted by the spycops units.

It is not for any limb of the State to insert itself into, curtail or spy on political and social justice activists, nor insert itself into the minutiae of peoples’ lives because they disagree with government policy or campaign to change the law or for a better society.

Lord Hoffman stated that ‘civil disobedience on conscientious grounds has a long and honourable history in this country,’ and went on to recognise that history sometimes vindicated such activism. He talked of ‘conventions’ on both sides: ‘protesters behave with a sense of proportion, and police and prosecutors, on the other hand, behave with restraint’. But what restraint have the spycops shown?

Weatherby then explained more about the core participants he represents.

NEWHAM MONITORING PROJECT

Newham Monitoring Project was established in 1980, by Black activists & white anti-racists, to fight racism in East London. This included racism perpetrated by the police, and the police’s failure to properly investigate racist murders, like that of Akhtar Ali Baig.

In NMP’s own words:

“For NMP the term ‘Black’ was a colour of resistance; it included African, Caribbean, Asian and all other ‘people of colour’ in a political sense. Our enemy was a political enemy which oppressed across Black communities. We recognised the nature of that enemy and the need for unity in combatting it. Whilst we did not ignore the cultural differences which these days increasingly appear to divide the community, we rejected the way ethnicity was used to marginalise our communities”.

In its very earliest incarnation NMP was to be purely a resource for the community through which to collate and disseminate information about the nature and scale of racist violence in Newham. This limited role was very quickly overtaken by the political reality of racist violence. Racism and racist violence are politicising phenomena. Those who experience them are not passive recipients of the violence and the hatred. The experience radicalises and politicises.

NMP developed its political analysis, its understanding of how race and class were linked, and grew over the years. They were well-known and respected for their work, which included combatting racist violence around the home, and defending members of the community from criminalisation. Was this what made the spycops take an interest? NMP have no idea, as they have not been provided with any information as yet.

NMP also countered fascist attacks; less organised, ‘casual’, racist violence from white football gangs; and police racism and violence, including stop and search and the replacement of the ‘sus’ laws with low level Public Order Act prosecutions. Was this the reason they were infiltrated? Because they challenged the police’s wrong-doing?

They articulated and exposed the institutional racism of the police (and other public bodies) long before the Macpherson Inquiry. They highlighted police corruption, they called out police racism. Were they infiltrated because their work threatened to damage the police’s reputation? Were they targeted because they were a Black-led organisation?

Every annual report produced by NMP was sent to the local Newham Commander. These should have already been supplied to this Inquiry, if the Met have upheld their disclosure duties.

Like other non state core participants, NMP are deeply frustrated about the lack of disclosure. What might it show? Did the spycops infiltrate NMP in order to gather information about other justice campaigns? They were connected to many campaigns, some of which are also core participants, like the Lawrence family.

The local police disliked, even hated, NMP. They exposed ‘community policing’ as a lie, at odds with the truth how racialised communities were policed. In the 1980s and 1990s there was an “extraordinary” lack of police accountability, and police violence was routine. The Black Lives Matter movement of this century shows that the structural issues highlighted by NMP haven’t gone away. To what extent is that due to spycops undermining the work of groups like NMP?

HUNT SABOTEURS ASSOCIATION

The Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) has campaigned against bloodsports since 1963, mainly by disrupting hunts.

Seemingly vindicated by the Hunting Act 2004, which banned the hunting of wild mammals with dogs, the HSA’s work has been forced to continue due to widespread flouting of the ban, and the badger cull.

The reasons why the HSA was targeted by spycops remain unclear. Was this due to political pressure, given the quintessentially ‘Establishment’ activity of fox hunting, and the status of those who support it? Or was it because the police sought to conflate the disruption of hunts – civil disobedience – with ‘violent extremism’?

There is a long history of violence, including serious violence, and harassment from hunt supporters against HSA activists. Even the SDS Tradecraft Manual contains a complaint from one undercover officer about the way in which his uniformed colleagues treated animal rights activists.

No fewer than nine spycops are now confirmed to have infiltrated the HSA, in the 19 years between 1983 and 2002. “The HSA doubt that they have been spared the attentions of the police before and after this time.

The targeting of a group like the HSA, who tended to use lawful tactics, cannot be justified. There is widespread public support for their main aim, which is why the law was eventually changed.

Why were they infiltrated by spycops? Was this done to disrupt and derail their efforts to change the law? Or to provide “n easy gateway for spycops to spy on other groups and individuals? Is this justifiable?

Another issue raised was miscarriages of justice. It appears that information supplied by spycops led to the arrests of hunt saboteurs. They failed to prevent (or prosecute) violence on the part of hunt supporters.

Were undercover officers told to look the other way? Was their involvement covered up? Did they encourage illegal activity as agents provocateurs? Did they supply hunt sabs’ personal details for illegal blacklisting?

Some of the officers who infiltrated hunt sab groups also deceived women into intimate relationships, and other activists into close personal ‘friendships’, even holidaying abroad with them (presumably under their false aliases, using false passports).

EMILY APPLE

Emily Apple has been an activist all of her adult life, involved in numerous campaigns. She was a founding member of the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) and of FITwatch (set up to counter the police’s ‘Forward Intelligence Teams’).

She has been arrested countless times, typically without basis. She was involved in campaigning against the arms trade (including the biannual DSEI arms fair), against war, and for environmental causes (including the Earth First! network).

She has encountered at least seven spycops while active in these groups. There are serious issues related to Apple’s arrests and legal privilege.

Apple was not just spied on by these police officers. During her time working with the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, she was also reported on by Martin Hogbin, a corporate spy, employed by BAe Systems.

RHYTHMS OF RESISTANCE/ NICOLA BENGE

Nicola Benge is a core participant in her own right, as well as being part of Rhythms of Resistance (RoR), a samba band that played at numerous protests in the 2000s. RoR still have no idea who spied on them, nor when, but suspect that they too might have been considered an easy gateway for spycops who wished to target other groups.

Benge was involved in other groups that are known to have been spied on in some way, for example the Advisory Service for Squatters’. But, like RoR, they have not yet been given any disclosure or details by this Inquiry either. She remains completely in the dark, as do the other musicians.

GLOBALISE RESISTANCE/ GUY TAYLOR

Guy Taylor worked as an organiser for Globalise Resistance between 2001-07. Founded with the aim of bridging the gap between the trade union movement and other activists, this network was infiltrated by HN118, known to them as ‘Simon Wellings‘.

Wellings deceived Taylor into what he believed to be a close personal friendship. As well as making the orange tank, Wellings got himself elected onto the group’s steering committee, and acted as the group’s photographer (presumably an ideal opportunity for his handlers to collect photos of many activists)

He travelled to other countries to attend protests with the group – including the United States, Spain and France – making a mockery of this Inquiry’s remit being limited to events in England and Wales.

He had access to, and influence over, Globalise Resistance itself but also other connected campaigns and groups. What did he feed back about trade unions – including the Communications Workers Union and Unison – and the Green Party? What was the justification for this? Why was he allowed to assume such a prominent role in the organisation? To what extent did he influence and derail the group? Why was he permitted to travel overseas?

Ultimately, Wellings was exposed by his own error – he mistakenly left a message on an activist’s phone, with a recording of a conversation between him and his spycops handlers.

Despite making several ‘Subject Access Requests’ to the Met, Taylor still has no disclosure relating to Wellings, which casts significant doubt on the police’s disclosure integrity.

‘NRO’

‘NRO’ is a medical professional and an academic. He is a deeply committed and life-long campaigner on matters related to social justice and freedom of expression. He wants to know why he was targeted.

In the 2000s, he was part of a broadly anti-capitalist group known as the WOMBLES (a distinctive presence at protests, they wore white overalls, padding & helmets to protect them from police violence). He knows that he was spied on by EN32 (‘Rod Richardson‘) and HN77 (‘Jackie Anderson‘) during his time with the WOMBLES.

‘NRO’ was also involved with Aktivix, who provide web services for activists, and Indymedia, an open, independent reporting/ publishing network used by activists.

Indymedia was set up as an alternative to the corporate media. At its peak, the network consisted of around 150 local collectives, spread across the globe. UK Indymedia had its servers repeatedly seized by the police.

‘NRO’ has questions – about spycops’ involvement in these server seizures, about the online surveillance of activists, about the spycops’ use of platforms such as Indymedia. Spycops used to post news and comments on Indymedia, and it is believed that spycops used Indymedia to post fake news stories (prsumably to undermine campaigns, or perhaps justify their deployments) , as well as to gather information.

INDRA DONFRANCESCO, MEGAN & MORGANA DONFRANCESCO

Indra Donfranceso has been active in environmental groups, including Earth First!, for most of her adult life. Morgana and Megan are her daughters; they attended numerous protests, campaigns, meetings, and related social events, throughout their childhood.

Mark Kennedy befriended the family in 2003, and was close to all three of them. He volunteered to be the photographer at her wedding in 2007, and they shared a 40th birthday party with others two years later. What happened to the photos?

Megan and Morgana both thought of ‘Mark Stone’ as an uncle figure. Learning that he was in fact an undercover officer has affected them badly. One of the women Kennedy deceived into a relationship, ‘Lisa‘, was a close friend of Indra’s.

How was befriending a family, including young children, justifiable? Are these the actions of a responsible, accountable police force?

Such corrupt and depraved behaviour shames not just the officer but those who organised and those who facilitated the system, as well as those who still seek to make excuses for the spycops now.

CLANDESTINE INSURGENT REBEL CLOWN ARMY (CIRCA)/ JENNIFER VERSON

This network was formed in 2003, by writers, educators, performing artists and other activists, in response to a State visit by George W Bush, and the war in Iraq. They obtained Arts Council funding to tour the UK and put on performances and workshops. They used humour and performance to make their points and sometimes mock the police.

For three years, Jennifer Verson was involved in training up new clowns, including at least one spycop, EN34, known as ‘Lynn Watson‘. CIRCA had close links with other groups, including RoR and the Dissent Network (opposing the G8 Summit in 2005).

How on earth could anyone believe that infiltrating a performing arts group was justified? It may seem obvious to us that this was a huge waste of public funds, but the fact that this was not obvious to those running the spycops unit must not be overlooked.

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT (ISM)

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led group, with branches around the world. ISM sends volunteers with the privilege of a foreign passport to Palestine, to bear witness and document, and where possible protest Palestinians from human rights violations, harassment and persecution.

The group’s activities in England and Wales just involved leafleting and stalls. What was the justification for surveillance? There is a suspicion that information gathered by the spycops may well have been passed to foreign agencies.

Asa Winstanley, an investigative journalist who writes about Palestine, got involved in ISM in 2004. Atif Choudhury and ‘MCD’ were also associated with the London ISM group. All three were devastated and deeply traumatised to learn about the infiltration of the group by spycop HN118 ‘Rob Harrison‘.

Choudhury considered ‘Harrison’ a close friend – he even DJed at the wedding of Choudhury’s sister. Harrison’s depravity did not stop there. He used his connection to Choudhury to deceive a young neighbour, ‘Maya’, into a sexual relationship, as we heard yesterday.

MCD’s activism has been motivated by her Quaker faith and commitment to active pacifism. All three of these core participants struggle to understand how this intrusion into their lives could possibly be justified.

‘VSP’

‘VSP’ has been involved in many campaigns and groups, including the Cardiff Anarchist Network (CAN). She has been arrested many times, and has been targeted by both overt and covert policing. She has been strip-searched, and mocked and jeered by officers whilst naked, and as a result has received several settlements from the police.

She was spied on by ‘EN1’ (Marco Jacobs) and Mark Kennedy. ‘Jacobs’ became close to VSP and her family, and initiated two sexual relationships with female friends of hers. He sowed so much disruption and division within CAN that the group stopped functioning.

He often put himself forward to travel abroad (sometimes alongside Kennedy) and represent CAN at activist meetings. Did they sabotage these meetings?

WHEN DO WE GET ANSWERS?

The victims have given up significant details of their lives and activities, in their core participancy applications, and in the written Opening Statement. However, none of them are mentioned in the Opening Statements of the police or the Counsel to the Inquiry, and they have yet to be provided with any further details of the spying on them. How much longer must they wait?

There was, and is, no justification for the undercover operations which intruded into their lives, their families and careers, nor is there any justification for the Inquiry to delay them being provided with information.

The Newham Monitoring Project pull no punches in their written Annex:

“It is essential that it be appreciated that we have no faith in this Inquiry. Characterised as it is by extraordinary secrecy, a total lack of accountability and transparency, all aggravated by the absence of adequate representation and constant delay, we are confident this is not a forum through which the actions of the police can be properly explored and scrutinised.

“Those quaintly described as ‘core participants’ are engaged, tantalised, and seduced by the promise of disclosure. This interest will, we believe, remain wholly unrequited. Any meaningful disclosure is unlikely to materialise in any real sense because the overriding priority appears to be the protection of those officers deployed. In any event, we have no faith that the relevant records have not already been destroyed. Yet the illusion must be maintained because the continued involvement of the ‘core participants’ adds infinitely to the credibility of a process that is already bankrupt.”

 

The accompanying written opening statement from Pete Weatherby QC on behalf of Newham Monitoring Project & Core Participants who are Political, Social & environmental activists

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Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 6

9 November 2020

Evidence from:

Phillippa Kaufmann QC (Women deceived into relationships by spycops, represented by Birnberg Peirce, Hickman & Rose and Hodge Jones & Allen)

Heather Williams QC (People in relationships with spycops, represented by Bindmans)

Heather Williams QC (Relatives of deceased people whose identity was stolen by spycops)

Phillippa Kaufmann QC (Women deceived into relationships by spycops, and justice campaigns, instructed by Harriet Wistrich [excluding Newham Monitoring Project])

Helen Steel, who was in numerous spied-on groups and deceived into a relationship by an undercover officer, was also due to speak, but her opening statement is to be rescheduled.

The penultimate day of opening statements mainly heard the harrowing stories of women who were deceived into long-term intimate relationships by undercover police officers. There were also contributions of behalf of people whose children have died and whose identity was, or may have been, stolen by spycops.

Prior to the first speaker, Mitting had a meeting with Dave Smith and two of the lawyers representing women deceived by undercover police officer ‘Carlo Neri’ (real Name Carlo Soracchi). This was due to an objection made to the Inquiry regarding the use of Soracchi’s surname, which prevented Dave Smith giving his open statement on Friday afternoon.

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, decided that even though the name Carlo Soracchi has been in the public domain for a long time, he will ban anyone from saying it at the Inquiry until further notice.

Phillippa Kaufmann QC

(Women deceived into relationships by spycops, represented by Birnberg Peirce, Hickman & Rose and Hodge Jones & Allen)

Phillippa Kaufmann QC started proceedings, speaking on behalf of 21 different women who were deceived by spycops. Her written statement gives details of each woman’s story, but there are too many to include in detail in the oral statement.

This fact alone underlines the importance of what she says, and the fact that this abuse of women was absolutely systemic. Her oral statement focused mainly on the common issues and themes that the written statement addresses.

She began by saying that we now know of more than 30 women who were deceived in this way – some of them are represented by other lawyers in this Inquiry – with the earliest case that we know of dating back to 1975 (‘Mary’ and ‘Rick Gibson‘).

It is likely that there are still other women out there who have yet to discover that their personal lives were infiltrated in this way. The extensive anonymity given to former spycops by this Inquiry means that these women will continue to be denied the truth. In turn, this will also hamper the inquiry from reaching the truth.

Most of the women who were deceived were involved to some degree in political or campaigning activity – which is protected by law – challenging oppression and injustice, and seeking a better, more sustainable world. However, some of the women were not themselves political, they just happened to be useful to officers giving them ‘cover’ to gain entry to, or maintain ties with, political groups.

To the extent that there was any ‘legitimate policing interest’ at all in the groups with which the women were involved, it is out of all proportion to the devastation inflicted by the infiltration of their bodies, emotional lives, families and homes.

THE MOST COMPLETE INVASION OF PRIVACY

These relationships amounted to the most serious violations of the women’s human rights, including their rights to privacy, to freedom of expression and association, and most significantly, their right not to be subject to inhuman or degrading treatment. It is the most complete invasion of privacy that it is possible for the state to enact.

Kaufmann made it very clear: there was – and could be – no lawful excuse for such seriously abusive relationships. It is frankly insulting to suggest otherwise.

Talk then turned to the ‘institutional sexism’ that drove this practice – itself a reflection of deeply sexist attitudes that pervaded the police in general, and the spycops units in particular. The women were treated as objects, as props to shore up the officers’ fake identities, without any concern for the impact on their lives.

Kaufmann’s statement had profound power as it detailed so many women who have been so deeply, personally and cynically abused by undercover police officers. It is impossible for this report to summarise effectively, and we urge you to read the opening pages of the full written statement.

AN OVERVIEW OF SOME OF THE WOMEN’S STORIES

This began with ‘Lizzie‘ who met Mike Chitty and began a relationship in 1985 He disappeared suddenly, ‘to Florida’, then reappeared and tried to restart the relationship. It appears that he had finished his deployment and, without his managers’ knowledge, was returning to the people he’d spied on for social reasons.

Belinda Harvey had a two-year relationship with ‘Bob Robinson’ – spycop Bob Lambert – starting in May 1987. During this time, he confided in her and she tried to persuade him not to take part in the burning down of a Debenham’s shop in 1987. Lambert had her flat raided by Special Branch on the pretext of looking for ‘Robinson’.

Helen Steel was deceived into a relationship by undercover officer John Dines in 1990. She’s previously described it, saying:

“In a short space of time I fell absolutely madly in love with him in a way I had never fallen in love with anyone before or since. He said he wanted us to have kids”.

Helen spent years looking for John Dines after he vanished from her life.

‘Denise’ had a relationship with ‘Matt Rayner‘ between 1991-94. Although the officer has admitted it, the Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, has reneged on the promise to tell all the deceived women the real names of the officers who abused them.

‘Bea’ had a relationship with ‘Bobby Lewis’ in 1992-93. She did not find out until 2019 that he had been one of the spycops.

‘Jessica‘ was just 19 when she was groomed into a year-long relationship by Andy Coles. He was her first serious partner. She thought he was a 24 year old single activist, but he was a 32 year old married police oficer with children. Coles is now a Conservative Party councillor in Peterborough.

‘Alison‘ was involved in anti-fascist and trade union politics when she met Mark Cassidy. They lived together for five years and he completely integrated himself into her life and family.

‘Monica‘ and ‘Ruth‘ were both involved in Reclaim the Streets when they were deceived into relationships by ‘Jim Sutton’, aka Jim Boyling.

‘James Straven‘ deceived three women into relationships: Wendy, Sara and Ellie. He has lied to this Inquiry not once but twice about his contact with Ellie.

Kaufmann also represents five of the women who were deceived into relationships by ‘Mark Stone’ – who we now know to be Mark Kennedy. This includes Kate Wilson, ‘Lisa‘ (who had a committed six-year relationship with him and uncovered his true identity in 2010), ‘Naomi‘, ‘Jane‘, and ‘C’. By the time ‘C’ got involved with Kennedy, he had already started working for a private security firm, Global Open.

‘Maya’ met ‘Rob Harrison‘ and began a relationship in May 2006 in which he was manipulative and controlling. He disappeared from her life but then reappeared much later in 2015, long after the spycops scandal was common knowledge and the public inquiry had been called, seemingly just to have sex with her once more before disappearing forever.

Many of their stories are also available in more detail at Police Spies Out of Lives.

ROSA

To illustrate the lengths and depths the undercover officers went to deceive and use the women, and the profound life-changing affects it has had on those women, Kaufmann went into some detail about ‘Rosa’ and her relationship with SDS officer Jim Boyling, who used the name ‘Jim Sutton’, as well as Rosa’s extraordinary investigatory efforts to get to the truth the State was denying her.

Rosa was deceived into a relationship by Boyling, who she met as a fellow activist in the urban environmental group Reclaim the Streets and became deeply involved with him in 1999. He disappeared suddenly from her life in the summer of 2000, after behaving erratically and sometimes abusively. He had appeared to be in a fragile mental state and told her that he was going to go off travelling alone, to Turkey, to find himself.

Boyling phoned Rosa and sent her a postcard. She was so worried about his safety that she contacted the Foreign Office. Rosa turned detective and tracked down some phone numbers Jim had called, but the men who answered seemed alarmed by her seeking Jim. She searched for years, but could not find any trace of the history of ‘Jim Sutton’. He continued to manipulate her by asking that she continue writing to him – in retrospect, Rosa thinks so he and his handlers could track her.

ROSA’S INVESTIGATIONS

She used all her savings trying to identify him. She went to South Africa, searching where he said he’d gone. But the digital fingerprints of his emails suggested he was actually in London, so she returned. She worked out his real name, Jim Boyling, and found his school records. Her weight dropped and her health suffered. Just as Rosa was getting close to the truth, Jim was sent back into her life as suddenly as he had vanished. Her relief after all her searching was overwhelming. He now told Rosa that he was an undercover officer, but also told her that he now hated the police and needed her help to escape them. Within two weeks of their reunion, she was pregnant.

She was already suffering serious psychological trauma, which he exploited. He convinced her to change her name by deed poll, oversaw the destruction of her address book, and pressured her to sever ties with her activist friends. Despite his promises, he continued working for the police, alongside Bob Lambert at the Muslim Contact Unit.

THREATS FROM THE MET

Boyling told Rosa that her old activist community was riddled with spycops. He told her about Helen Steel’s being spied on by multiple officers, including Steel’s partner John Dines. Boyling said that any attempt to tell people about it would be spotted before she managed to do anything. He told her she couldn’t be sure which of her old friends were who they said they were.

Rosa wanted to work out a way of getting a message to Helen Steel. Boyling’s behaviour had become worse, more erratic, more abusive, but Rosa felt trapped – she now had two children and Women’s Aid said that, as she was fleeing a police officer, they could not guarantee that their ‘safe house’ would offer enough protection.

Things only got worse after Boyling arranged for them to marry at a registry office. The children were both diagnosed with degenerative health conditions. As she watched her children lose their ability to communicate, she was angry that their brightest years had been stolen by the paranoia, fear and abuse that Boyling had inflicted.

Suddenly Rosa received a ‘welfare visit’ from two of Boyling’s police colleagues. One of them was Boyling’s manager Bob Lambert, the other was an unpleasant character called ‘Noel’. He had previously told her to call him if she needed any support. Now he told her that any attempt to reveal the truth would fail because she was up against the full might of Special Branch. She realised his previous offer of help had actually been manipulating her into giving him early warning of any intention on her part to leave.

ESCAPE TO THE TRUTH

Rosa finally felt able to flee in 2007. She got a letter passed to Helen Steel in 2010 and was finally able to meet up with activists later that year. Boyling remained a police officer until 2018, when he was eventually sacked by a disciplinary tribunal because of his relationship with Rosa.

The tribunal itself highlighted some of the lies and inconsistencies told by Boyling, to his managers as well as Rosa. He claimed in his defence that she was ‘an apolitical waitress’ when they met, while in reports made while undercover he described her as a ‘political organiser’.

Rosa wonders to what extent will this Inquiry be able to understand the abuses committed by these spycops units?

THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTIVISTS TO THE INQUIRY

Kaufmann went on to highlight just how important activists, and in particular the women who had the relationships, were in bringing the spycops scandal into the public domain. She highlighted how both opening statements last week statements by Counsel for the Inquiry and Peter Francis had severely underplayed their role.

For instance, Mark Kennedy’s cover was blown by ‘Lisa‘. She thought she was in a relationship with ‘Mark Stone’, but then she found a passport in his real name, and emails from children calling him ‘dad’. Having heard from other protestors about the doubts and suspicions around their comrades ‘Jim Sutton’, ‘Lynn Watson‘ and ‘Rod Richardson‘, Lisa gathered a small team of friends to do more research to uncover who he really was.

Some research had already been done by Rosa and Helen Steel, both of whom had figured out the truth about their relationships with spycops.

Helen spent long years trying to find Dines, and even travelled to New Zealand as part of her search. She worked out that he must have been a police officer, but people told her she was paranoid, ‘that such a thing would never happen in this country’.

These women used their persistence and skill, and their own resources. They uncovered information that brought them to the truth. That included ‘Rosa’ and Helen and ‘Lisa’, but also Belinda and ‘Alison’. In 2011, they and three other women began legal proceedings.

PATTERN OF ABUSE

The women clearly see that the catalogue of similarities in their cases proves that this wasn’t the work of individual officers lacking adequate supervision. The women are the ones who did the investigations, who are the most familiar with the details, and so are best placed to spot the patterns. This is why this Inquiry must allow them to participate meaningfully in the process and get to the truth.

Kate Wilson has brought a case in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the court that deals with surveillance infringing on human rights. She has had to do this alone, as women abused before the Human Rights Act 1998 cannot bring a case, nor can the seven women to whom the Met apologised in 2015, as the settlement bans them from further legal action on the issue.

Wilson’s IPT case shows how important the activist perspective is to get to the truth.

She pointed out that:

‘I have no criminal convictions, even for minor offences, and the only reason that these officers entered my life at all was because I was expressing my political views and exercising my right to protest.’

She has only received a fraction of the 10,000 pages the Met admit having on her, and even then it’s been heavily redacted. Yet still, she says:

‘even that tiny and over-redacted sample has answered more of my burning questions than seven years of police defence statements and admissions… it was not simply a lack of supervision, there was active collusion by management in the relationship and direct manipulation of my political activity.’

These were social and environmental campaigners, not terrorists. However, even if these women had been terrorists there is no justification in law for the practice of forming relationships. It inherently sexist, degrading, and cannot be justified.

These women fell in love with men who were seemingly perfect. The exit strategies used by spycops officers were cruel, caused huge amounts of worry and fear, and all of these women have been left dealing with massive trauma.

‘Lisa’ said that Mark Kennedy was placed into my life to deceive me by an employer who would inevitably one day pull him out. Finding this out has broken my heart, devastated my life and shattered my trust in people.’

The women all describe the deep pain caused by these officers, many years later. They talk about losing their trust, their sense of self, their sadness and grief, their anger, the debilitating effects, how this news has affected them, and the impossibility of finding closure.

When the state has put an imposter in your life that is hugely destabilising. Almost all of the women no longer feel able to participate in the campaigns and movements that were once such an important part of their lives.

These abuses have had an impact on their ability to form and maintain relationships ever since, and an impact on their families and friends, and especially on their children.

REFLECTIONS OF MANIPULATION

The spycops used a range of techniques to deceive and manipulate these women, including ‘mirroring’, a form of emotional manipulation where the deceiver pretends to have the same interests and experiences to initiate a coercive and abusive relationship.

Andy Coles told some of ‘Jessica’s’ friends that he had been adopted (like her); Mark Kennedy claimed to have grown up in Battersea (like Kate) when seeking a relationship with her, yetwhen courting ‘C’ he told her that when he was growing up he had spent time at the same local park in Norwich thatshe had gone to as a child. There are also indications that spycops shared knowledge about individuals with one another in order to facilitate mirroring.

Almost universally, the undercover officers told life stories of loss and bereavement, playing on the women’s emotions.

METROPOLITAN POLICE – DODGING ACCOUNTABILITY

Kaufmann also revealed the utter hypocrisy of the Met’s repeated claims that they’re keen to cooperate with this Inquiry (and connected court cases). In reality, they have deployed every obstructive and delaying tactic at their disposal. This has, as they are surely aware, prolonged and compounded the damage to the women they have abused.

In 2011, Kate Wilson, ‘Lisa’ and ‘Naomi’ brought a claim and the Met agreed to give disclosure of documents. They said it was a problem of ‘rogue officers’, who had not been authorised to do what they did.

Then in June 2012, the Met rescinded their promise of documents and tried to have the claim struck out. They said that the officers were authorised after all, as a way of taking the case out of open courts and putting it into the jurisdiction of the secret courts of the IPT.

In the same month, the Met replied to five more women saying that they’d just remembered they have an absolute policy of ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ on anything to do with undercover work.

The Met then applied to strike out both cases on the grounds that ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ (NCND) was an inviolable principle. Helen Steel, one of the five, performed a forensic dissection of that assertion, showing it to be a blatant lie, made to protect abusers and avoid accountability.

WHEN IS A SPYCOP NOT A SPYCOP?

It was pointed out that many officers had given media interviews confirming themselves to be spycops, and the Met Commissioner himself had confirmed Jim Boyling was a Met officer. The Met backed itself into the absurd position of admitting Boyling was one of their officers, but refusing to confirm he was an undercover officer, as if he might be a uniformed bobby who did all that activism under a false identity as some kind of hobby.

In 2014, the Met put forward their defence, that the relationships were the result of ‘mutual attraction and genuine personal feelings’ with no deceit involved, They said such relationships were neither unlawful nor even an abuse of power. And they still refused to admit John Dines and Mark Jenner were spycops.

The Met didn’t formally admit Mark Kennedy was a spycop until May 2015, more than four years after his press agent got him a front page feature in the Mail on Sunday.

Even the Met’s extraordinary apology to seven women in 2015 seems aimed to deny the plain fact they were routinely using relationships. Specifically, the apology said the relationships were not authorised in advance, nor would they ever be used as a tactic of a deployment; yet four years later, in the IPT, they were forced to disclose evidence and that led to far wider admissions.

The lawyers for some of the former undercover officers, Slater & Gordon, have continued to claim that such relationships may be justifiable, especially if they are ‘casual’. A fact which says more about those officers than they would want us to know. The Met continues to try to avoid going to court with the women, and to prevent any disclosure.

INVESTIGATORY POWERS TRIBUNAL

However, they have now admitted – in the IPT – that Kennedy’s cover officer knew about his relationship with Kate Wilson and acquiesced to it. From Kate Wilson’s IPT case, we know that to get to the truth, we need to force the police’s hand regarding disclosure. The women must be given personal police files, so they are able to unpick the stories they contain .

Kate has now received around 2000 heavily-redacted pages for her case – estimated to be about 20% of the material the IPT has on her – and she has already spotted many inaccuracies, examples of mismanagement, and police prejudices in the material. Everyone who comes into contact with the groups being spied on is almost automatically considered fair game for this kind of intrusion – in a submission to the IPT earlier this year, Kate said:

[the police] ‘appear to have adopted a ‘thought crime’ approach to breaching people’s rights… repeatedly stating that anyone they considered to be a “like-minded individual” was a legitimate target’.

It has now been established that Kate’s Article 8 Rights (to a private and family life) were breached by the spycops – not just by her relationship with Kennedy but by the less intimate spying of at least six other officers who spied on and reported on her. The implication is that potentially thousands of other people’s human rights have been breached in the same way. Yet here she is, ten years into her legal battle, with no clear answers.

It all adds up to a picture of the police as an organisation that is desperate not to account, let alone to account publicly, for the terrible damage it has permitted its officers to do to the women. It cannot be right that this is the organisation that dictates what information gets released, how quickly, and to whom.

THE NEED FOR ANSWERS

The women’s need for answers is no less burning now than it was when they first suspected or learned the truth. They no longer believe the Inquiry is fit to do that, but they persevere here because they desperately need definitive answers (about what was done to them and why; who authorised, condoned, or acquiesced to it; who knew about it; what information was shared and recorded about them; and what will be done to stop it happening to others).

They need to know whether personal information about their most intimate lives is still on a file somewhere. They need to know that it will not happen again.

The lack of disclosure has served to compound the trauma suffered by the spycops victims. Kaufmann noted the self-pity of Boyling mentioned in last week’s submissions from the police, where he complained of the heavy burden of being investigated for sexual offences. She says he, and the others should consider themselves lucky that criminal law views rape through a patriarchal lens.

The women have waited for over five years for answers. The extent and scope of the anonymity orders granted to spycops means that the women are never likely to know the full extent of the intrusion into their lives, nor even how many spycops were involved in their lives.

At the heart of what happened to these women lies institutional sexism. This is a complex issue that requires an exploration not just of the mind-set of the men involved in the undercover units but also of the institutional culture that developed and operated, and how the two are inter-related.

IS MITTING FIT FOR PURPOSE?

The women of the campaign group Police Spies Out of Lives endorse the concerns expressed by others last week that the institutional racism and institutional sexism that led to these abuses must be explored by people with the expertise and skills to do so.

For this reason, the Chair should accept the assistance of a diverse panel. The point was forcefully made that the Chair’s limited and privileged life experience mean that he cannot possibly understand the evidence he is presented with and gain a thorough understanding of the truth.

The women have had to discuss deeply personal matters with lawyers over the years. They have had an incredibly stressful experience participating in these cases and in this Inquiry. Their concerns also stem from the Inquiry’s a lack of sensitivity in failing to recognise the urgency of the need for disclosure about the relationships; in the manner in which ‘Lizzie’ and ‘Sara’ were notified that men they had intimate relationships with were spycops; in the way it put pressure on the women who had relationships with Carlo Soracchi not to disclose his real name; and in the stark contrast between the care shown for the privacy and concerns of spycops compared with that afforded to their victims.

As stated, the women remain involved because they are impelled to know the truth and stop this happening again to other women. To make sure this never happens again, the women want the Inquiry to recommend that the law is changed to prohibit undercover officers from engaging in sexual relationships while in their undercover persona, and that the police be required to suspend an officer and inform anyone deceived into a relationship by an undercover officer as soon as they become aware of the relationship.

The accompanying written opening statement from Phillippa Kaufmann QC on behalf of women deceived into relationships by spycops, represented by Birnberg Peirce, Hickman & Rose and Hodge Jones & Allen

Heather Williams QC
(People in relationships with spycops, represented by Bindmans)

 

Heather Williams QC, speaking for individuals in relationships with undercover officers who are represented by Bindmans.

Williams began by plainly stating that the people she represents have had their lives turned upside down as a result of spycops engaging in sexual and other intimate relationships, on a thoroughly deceptive and completely illegitimate basis.

There was never any operational justification for this grossly irresponsible and manipulative conduct, and the damage which it caused is profound. The officers created an illusion of genuine intimacy – via the projection of their fake identities – tricking, betraying and abandoning those who they used.

WHO WILLIAMS SPEAKS FOR

Williams first spoke about ‘Lindsey’, who was deceived into entering into a long-term sexual relationship with an officer the Inquiry refers to as HN104; he used the name ‘Carlo Neri‘, but his real name is Carlo Soracchi.

Soracchi was deployed by the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), 2002-06. He infiltrated the Socialist Party/Militant and No Platform/ Antifa. He then developed a focus on trade union activity.

Secondly, Williams speaks for Sarah Hampton, who was deceived into entering into a long-term sexual relationship with ‘Mark Stone’ – actually Mark Kennedy of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit – in 2005/6.

Thirdly, three members of the Cardiff Anarchist Network (CAN) – Tom Fowler, and two women known as ‘AJA’ and ‘ARB’ – a group which was infiltrated between 2005-09 by officer EN12, using the name ‘Marco Jacobs‘. AJA and ARB were deceived into having sexual relationships with him. Tom Fowler was deceived into believing that he was his best friend.

Lastly, Williams speaks for a man known as ‘TBS’ whose position is, as yet, unique at the Inquiry. TBS’s mother, Jacqui, had a long-term sexual relationship with undercover SDS officer Bob Lambert, posing at the time as an animal rights activist under the cover name ‘Bob Robinson‘.

Born on 23 September 1985, TBS is Bob Lambert’s son, who he abandoned when he “disappeared” in late 1988.

ABUSIVE, DECEITFUL, MANIPULATIVE & WRONG

The unsuspecting activists would never have agreed to or countenanced these intimacies if they had know the true identities of these men. The spycops pretended to be committed and like-minded activists.

As the 2014 ‘Operation Herne’ police report concluded:

“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 position as a police officer and an individual and organisational failing.”

In 2013, the Home Affairs Select Committee’s Interim Report on undercover policing said:

“…there are some lines that police officers must not cross… We do not believe that officers should enter into intimate, physical sexual relationships while using their false identities undercover without clear, prior authorisation, which should only be given in the most exceptional circumstances.

“In particular, it is unacceptable that a child should be brought into the world as a result of such a relationship and this must never be allowed to happen again. We recommend that future guidance on undercover operations should make this clear beyond doubt.”

It took until 2015 for the Met to accept that these sexual relationships were “abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong”, and a breach of the women’s human rights.

Like the first group of women to whom the apology was addressed, Sarah received a formal apology in January 2017. TBS received an apology from the police in April of this year.

In the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s opening statements last week, lawyers speaking for the police mostly accepted that these relationships were wrong but, in contrast, the officers represented by Slater & Gordon have continued to downplay, deny and dismiss their wrongdoing, in contradiction to the long- established position of the Metropolitan Police.

Those who have been victims of such fundamental deceit feel compelled to try to participate in this Inquiry. They are driven by a strong sense of responsibility to those whose lives have been intruded upon without justification and to the new generation of activists – protesting against climate change racial injustice – to ensure that they are not subjected to similar abuse.

The Inquiry must respect their commitment, and not shirk from its responsibility to hold police officers properly to account for the improper discharge of their public functions. It must not allow its task to be overwhelmed by practices ingrained within undercover policing, of protecting their own from legitimate exposure and attendant accountability.

This doesn’t just concern the Met – the Home Office, the National Crime Agency and the College of Policing – should all be called to account, and to answer the questions we raise.

‘LINDSEY’

‘Lindsey’ met Carlo Soracchi through mutual friends in the Socialist Party. The relationship was fun and sociable at first; Carlo said he worked as a locksmith (and used this as pretext for changing activists’ locks, in order to ‘improve their security’!). Carlo was the first to use the word ‘love’ in their relationship, and he made her believe that he was committed to her in the long-term.

She was shown the evidence that Carlo had been an undercover officer in October 2015. Since then, she has suffered sleeplessness, and feelings of anger and vulnerability. She has questioned her own judgment and suffered intense embarrassment. She has dwelt on other friendships and relationships, and doubted the motives and genuineness of people she knows.

SARAH HAMPTON

Sarah Hampton had a relationship with Kennedy. He acted romantically and attentively, and gave her the impression that this was a serious emotional relationship.

When she found out Kennedy’s true identity in 2010 she was shocked. She suffered huge stress, insomnia, flashbacks and severe depression. She suffered intense paranoia, she felt destabilised, and she felt guilty for introducing Mark to fellow activists and friends.

‘MARCO JACOBS’

After an aborted deployment in Brighton, National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) officer ‘Marco Jacobs’ moved to Cardiff in 2006, and integrated himself into a group of activists involved in Cardiff Anarchist Network.

Years later, the group worked out that he’d been a spy after Mark Kennedy was outed, and they noticed striking similarities in the extraction and other strategies used by the spycops.

Marco initiated a relationship with a younger activist, ‘AJA’. The relationship was built on a close friendship that had developed over the previous few years. Marco suggested that they take their relationship further, just two months before they travelled together to protest at the G8 summit in Germany, in the summer of 2007.

When she discovered the truth about his identity, AJA felt extremely betrayed and violated. She was physically sick. She remains plagued by intrusive recollections and a loss of self-worth in having been deceived by him.

INVADING FAMILIES

‘ARB’ (who also uses the pseudonym ‘Deborah’) first met Marco at a CAN meeting in 2005, when she was 26. She got the impression that he was attracted to her and she found him to be warm, funny, and attentive. They became close friends and would often meet for a drink after her work.

ARB was in a long term relationship with Tom Fowler when her father became terminally ill with cancer. Having woven himself into Fowler’s life as a best friend and confidante, Marco took the opportunity of ARB’s father’s illness to put make himself a great support, belittle Fowler, and sow discord.

Marco met ARB’s parents on a number of occasions, including her father when he was visiting Cardiff for cancer treatment. On another occasion he comforted ARB’s mother when she confided in him regarding the extent of her husband’s illness. He attended ARB’s father’s funeral.

Around the same time, in late 2006, Marco’s NPOIU colleague Mark Kennedy attended the funeral of Lisa’s father. Did the two spycops compare notes, evaluate the value and create a strategy for this?

Like many spycops, Marco gained sympathy and trust by claiming to have had a disturbed upbringing. When ARB’s father died, Marco told a detailed story about his mother dying when he was young and his own father dying more recently. She was made to feel guilty for not supporting him.

Marco then propositioned ARB for a sexual relationship. She turned him down but he persisted. Believing she was about to begin a serious relationship with the ‘truck driver’, she broke up with Fowler, only for Marco to suddenly lose interest.

It seems it was Marco’s remit to sow discord among the group, inevitably causing long term damage to friendships and the people who were in them.

Marco was exposed as a spycop in January 2011. It took more than four years of legal action before the Met even admitted Marco was an undercover officer (at a hearing presided over by Sir John Mitting, coincidentally).

TBS: SON OF A SPYCOP

‘Bob Robinson’ – SDS officer Bob Lambert – attended the birth of TBS in 1985, and lived with him and his mother, Jacqui, for the first few years of TBS’s life.

Lambert disappeared in late 1988. Having being involved in a group of animal rights activists, and apparently burning down Debenham’s in Harrow himself – he pretended to be an animal rights activist on the run from the police.

When Jacqui’s next partner wanted to formally adopt TBS, inquiries were made by the authorities. They said they’d found a former flatmate of Lambert’s and that, as a suspected criminal who’d fled the country, he wasn’t expected back. But who was the flatmate? Was this the police and security still lying to cover Lambert’s tracks – and so obviously knowing all about TBS’s existence – years after his deployment ended?

It was only by chance that Jacqui saw a news report about Lambert in 2012 and told TBS the truth she had just learned. She said what happened to her and the other women was:

“like being raped by the state. We feel that we were sexually abused because none of us gave consent”.

TBS is preoccupied with the fact that the Met were apparently prepared to let him go his whole life without learning the truth and having the opportunity to get to know his father. Jacqui said that she believes Lambert would have taken the secret with him to his grave.

TBS brought a claim for damages against the Met. As with the women deceived into relationships, the police did not seek to heal the harm they caused but instead tried to have the claim struck out. In a pattern familiar to so many who have suffered injustice at the hands of the state, he has suffered a second injustice of delays, denials and obstacles from the guilty institutions.

THE DAMAGE DONE

Those who were deceived into sexual and other intimate relationships have suffered intense psychological impacts, from which many will never recover. As well a pervading sense of violation and loss of dignity, they all have a paranoia and insecurity that has permeated every aspect of their private and personal lives.

They have suffered the anguish of being the unwitting conduit for these officers’ credibility among their friends and comrades.

All of these victims remember the way in which the spycops manipulated their emotions – they presented themselves as kind, attentive, helpful and full of empathy, the friend with endless patience for shared problems and confidences. They cynically ‘mirrored’ their victims’ interests, tastes and backgrounds. They went as far as making up stories of personal loss and grief to ‘mirror’ genuine tragedy suffered by the activists. This was all done with a total disregard for the well-being of those they targeted. The victims have suffered intense psychological harm, from which many will never recover.

Having quoted from the flippant, offensive advice given in the SDS’ 1995 Tradecraft Manual to have ‘fleeting, disastrous’ relationships, Williams pointed out that these relationships were anything but fleeting. They were constructed over time, painstakingly creating deep emotional commitment on the part of the victim, and often endured for a substantial part of a spycop’s deployment.

Mark Kennedy told the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2013 that his managers always knew his whereabouts (he even carried a tracking device), and that other spycops and informants would have been reporting back on him. Senior managers must have known what was going on and, at the very least acquiesced to it.

The similarity of the experiences from people across such a spread of time, distance and police units indicates the existence of a shared pool of knowledge, understanding, training or guidance that officers were all party to.

SO MANY QUESTIONS

Why did the spycops create these relationships?

Were they prompted by a twisted logic that they were necessary for maintaining cover? Were they a means of accessing and gathering “intelligence”? Were they for sexual gratification? Or a combination of all three?

How common was it for spycops to behave in this way?

To what extent were those who monitored and supervised these deployments aware of these relationships? What safeguards were in place?

Were officers either encouraged or discouraged from forming such relationships? If they were encouraged to do so, why was this?

What consideration, if any, was given to the collateral impact on family members and friends of the women?

Insofar as the spycops didn’t have to comply with the rules governing other areas of undercover policing, who made these decisions and what was the rationale?

How many children were fathered as a result of spycops’ deceitful sexual relationships with those that they spied on?

What, if any, guidance, training or instruction were they given about this possibility?

Was any consideration given to the impact upon a child who, as their father knew all along, would be abandoned as a toddler when the deployment ended? Were the interests of the child even considered?

If fathering a child was not an approved tactic, then what steps were taken against officers who did it? It doesn’t seem to have led to disciplinary action. On the contrary, after TBS was born, Bob Lambert was promoted. He went on to manage the SDS in the 1990s, overseeing the deployments of a number of the other abusive officers we’ve heard about today, including Jim Boyling, Andy Coles, and Mark Jenner.

When he left the police, Lambert was awarded an MBE for services to policing. He then held several academic posts, which he had to resign from after the truth about his career was made public in 2011.

PUBLIC SECRETS

The Inquiry’s first Chair, Lord Pitchford, said that women deceived into relationships by undercover officers deserved the fullest answers. His successor, Sir John Mitting, has failed to keep the spirit of that in the case of Carlo Soracchi. He has told the women the name and appealed to their ‘judgment and humanity’ not to upset Soracchi’s family by publicising it.

Despite Soracchi’s name being in the public domain for quite some time, Mitting is insisting that nobody can say it at the Inquiry, to the frustration and disappointment of Lindsey and others.

In the case of ‘Marco Jacobs’, Mitting has not even stuck to the letter of Lord Pitchford’s assurance. The officer has been granted anonymity by the Inquiry, and the women remain in the dark, despite the Met having admitted that these relationships happened and paid compensation.

Like fellow spycop Andy Coles, Jacobs knows his behaviour is unjustifiable, so he is flatly refusing to admit it despite the great swathes of proof.

The people represented by Heather Williams want a reliable official record of the chronology of events, and acknowledgment of the gross violation of their human rights and the impact that it had. It is one of the most serious breaches of human rights ever seen in this country. They don’t just want the state to learn meaningful lessons, but the implementation of tangible protections against future abuse.

Williams then added her clients’ voices to the chorus of affronted dismay that the Inquiry is still refusing to give public access to this public inquiry. It other inquiries can create a secure live stream, so can this one.

The accompanying written opening statement from Heather Williams QC of behalf of people in relationships with spycops, represented by Bindmans)

Heather Williams QC
(Relatives of deceased people whose identity was stolen by spycops)

One of the most difficult events to bear is the death of a child. Heather Williams’ clients were horrified to hear – years later – that the identity of their loved one had been stolen to provide a false identity for an undercover police officer.

With this strong observation, Heather Williams QC started her opening statement. She represents several people who have found out that the identity of a close member of their family had been used, and two who suspect they have been:

Frank Bennett and Honor Robson, are the bereaved brother and sister of Michael Hartley. He died on 4 August 1968 at 18 years of age, when he went overboard a fishing trawler. They found out in April 2018 that Michael’s identity had been stolen by HN12. The officer appropriated Michael’s identity between 1982 and 1985 when he infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party and the Revolutionary Communist Group. He is known to have committed crimes, and to have engaged in a sexual relationship.

Faith Mason is the bereaved mother of Neil Robin Martin. He died on 15 October 1969 at the age of six. His mother was only 22 at the time and brought up her remaining three children alone. The officer known as HN122 appropriated aspects of Neil’s identity and infiltrated Class War and the Revolutionary Communist Party between 1989 and 1993 as Neil Robin Richardson. She was informed by the Inquiry in January 2019.

She found the information impossible to absorb and at a subsequent meeting with the Inquiry team she found what she heard incapable to believe.. It felt like losing Neil all over again. She has lost sleep and is pre-occupied with distressing thoughts.

The Chair has granted anonymity to HN122 so his real name is not known. So far we only know he was deployed to spy on two un-named groups. According to his application for privacy, HN122 claims that releasing his real name would risk ‘interference in his public life’. Faith observes that the possibility that he is now prominent figure points in favour of openness and transparency, rather than against it.

Mr, Mrs and Ms Lewis, who are the father, mother and sister of Anthony Lewis. He died on 31 July 1968 at seven years of age. The officer whose cypher is HN78, used Anthony Lewis’s identity between 1991 and 1995 to infiltrate the Anti-Nazi League and the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party. He was generally known as ‘Bobby’.

The Lewis family are appalled by what they have learnt so far. It has been revealed that HN78 had at least two sexual relationships and was involved in spying on the Lawrence family – as they were grieving and campaigning following the racist murder of their son.

The undercover officer who used Anthony’s identity was black, as are the Lewis family. The boy died of sickle cell anaemia; an illness that occurs predominantly in people of African and/or Caribbean descent; the family would later lose another child to it. The family wants to know how HN78 went about to find the identity of a black child: did he specifically for deaths attributable to sickle cell illness? Or did he rely on some other method to target black children?

Liisa Crossland and Mark Crossland are the stepmother and brother of Kevin John Crossland. He died on 1 September 1966 aged five in a plane crash. The officer known as HN16 used his name to infiltrate the Animal Liberation Front and the Brixton and Croydon Hunt Saboteurs between 1997 and 2002. The family only learnt details of this identity theft in June 2018.

The Crosslands now know of arrests for crimes committed during HN16’s undercover deployment, a misconduct investigation and a promotion (to Detective Sergeant). Also, of how he first refused to answer questions about sexual relationships, and subsequently lied to the Inquiry about having been involved with at least two women – “Ellie” and “Sara” – of whom we heard about this morning. Liisa and Mark are very upset by the Inquiry’s continued denial of their “moral right” to know the true identity of the officer who appropriated Kevin’s identity.

Not mentioned today, was the fact that HN16 had not one, but two covert identities. As an activist he was known as “James Straven” – a name that was invented for him by the SDS, while the one set up with the birth certificate seems not to have been used at all while he was undercover in animal rights groups.

Barbara Shaw is the bereaved mother of Rod Richardson. He died on 7 January 1973, when he was two days old.

The officer known as EN321 used Rod’s identity between 1999 and 2003, to infiltrate Class War and the Movement Against the Monarchy.

She was the first person to discover that her son’s identity had been used by the spycops units, after she was contacted by Rob Evans from The Guardian. In response to a police complaint, she received a heavily-redacted report that horrified her.

She was told by the police they would “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” as they needed to protect the tactic and the officer. Mrs Shaw complained to the Independent Police Complaint Commission but despite them upholding part of the complaint, she has yet to get any answers, let alone justice.

Gordon Peters is the father of Benjamin De Witt who died at a very young age of one week old, on 23 September 1979. He learnt about the undercover police practice of using dead children’s identities in 2014, and wrote to the Metropolitan Police to check if this had happened in his case. The police are yet to provide a meaningful answer.

“RDCA” is the mother of Jed Lacey Morris who died in April 1971, when he was one year old. She also wrote to the police, in 2013, asking for confirmation that her child’s identity hadn’t been used in this way. Her baby had been unlawfully killed by a driver in 1971. She was “surprised to learn that the MPS was unwilling to confirm the use of her son’s identity or alternatively to assuage her concerns” – it makes her feel “quite sick”.

There were differences between the children whose name was stolen – Michael Hartley was 18 years old when he died, Rod Richardson was just a few days old – but their relatives have very similar questions. They all want to better understand what was done by the officers using their identities

In 2013, the Commissioner issued an apology expressing regret for relying upon the identities of deceased children in general. No specific apologies to affected families families were forthcoming, again on the grounds that such communications would reveal the UCOs’ covert identities. (Though they have since been confirmed in multiple cases.)

Heather Williams QC stated that her clients feel the appropriate time for a formal apologies would be after the police have answered their questions. And they have many.

NOT USED AT FIRST, & NOT ALL THE TIME

The first question is: why would the police use this method? We do not believe there was any operational necessity for this disgusting practice. Williams explained that this practice was not used at first.

A memo from SDS supervisory officer, Detective Inspector HN294, dated 21 February 1973 stated:

‘one of the main… advantages…of a field officer assuming a fictitious name, using a cover address and employment and radically altering his appearance is that – unlike an informant – he can resume his proper identity and appearance at any time and immediately be “lost” to the extremists.’

In a July 2013 report, the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Herne identified 42 SDS officers who had relied upon the identity details of a deceased child, but also 45 spycops who had developed entirely fictitious covert identities.

Efforts to phase out the practice on grounds of operational ineffectiveness from 1995, but it was never the only thing available. Operation Herne identified an early instance where an officer had used an aunt’s surname instead.

Strikingly, the practice continued long after it had been discredited and obvious viable alternatives developed: HN16 and EN32 were deployed using the stolen identities of Kevin Crossland and Rod Richardson in as late as 1997 and 1999 respectively.

HOW SPYCOPS CREATED IDENTITIES

This practice concerned the collecting and storing of extensive personal details relating not only to the identity of the deceased children, their dates and places of birth, the dates and causes of their deaths, but also to the names, occupations and addresses of their parents and other family members.

The officers would have tried to gain familiarity with the child’s family, their home and sometimes even visited the area to get acquainted to it. Some of the bereaved detest the idea that they have been spied on themselves.

According to whistle-blower spycop Peter Francis, it was common practice to ‘weave one’s own memories with that of the child’. He acknowledged that in doing so, he ‘felt that he was stamping on their memory’. He also told Operation Herne that he had ‘no choice, either he used the identity or he would have had to leave the unit.’

The flippant and demeaning language used in the SDS’ Tradecraft Manual reveal a striking lack of insight and sensitivity.

– The officer’s task was characterised as one of “finding a suitable ex person, usually a deceased child…”
– Officers were advised to find a death that was “natural or otherwise unspectacular”.
– Checking whether the deceased child had living relatives was referred to as identifying their “respiratory status”.
– And the action of adopting a dead child’s identity was referred to as “assume squatters’ rights over the unfortunate’s identity”.

The text reveals an absence of any consideration for the relatives’ traumatic loss of a child or the potential consequences for them, senior officers have now admitted.

WILL WE LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO GET ANSWERS?

In July 2016, the families were told it would not take too long.

Four years later, in February this year, the Inquiry said that the investigations were still ongoing and that the Chair would provide an update as soon as he could. Asked for a clear timeline again on 15th September, the Chair responded that the review of cover names used by SDS officers was close to completion, but that they would then start on the ones used by the NPOIU.

Again, no clear timeline was provided.

This is completely unsatisfactory, Williams said. Our clients have been left waiting for a further unspecified period, with no certainty that they will ever receive a substantive answer from the Inquiry; and with the police playing a potentially decisive role in that determination.

Those of our clients who are elderly are concerned they may not live long enough to receive answers.

Heather Williams then set out a lengthy and detailed list of questions which they felt the police and Inquiry needed to answer first, if justice was to be done. Many of them focused on who knew about the tactic and how the practice was allowed to continue so long and across units. And what wrong doing was done in the name of their beloved ones.

THE FAMILIES WANT IT OUTLAWED

The secret use of identities of children who had died was done without any meaningful authorisation, without consideration of their rights or the possible consequences, without checks dan balances, and with an absolute absence of any (individual or institutional) accountability.

“We are incredulous that this was done without operational justification, and without any consideration for us.”

Heather Williams concluded: “Our clients seek a detailed public accounting for this abhorrent practice:

– including a formal record of how the practice was permitted to develop and continue;
– the full extent of the intrusion they suffered and the culture that surrounded it;
– together with a detailed historical record of the wrong that has been done to them and its impact.

They seek not only the learning of meaningful lessons, but also the implementation of tangible protections against future abuse, so that this can never again be permitted to become established policing practice.

The accompanying written opening statement from Phillippa Kaufmann QC on behalf of Women deceived into relationships by spycops, and justice campaigns, instructed by Harriet Wistrich [excluding Newham Monitoring Project]

 

Phillippa Kaufmann QC
(Women deceived into relationships by spycops, and justice campaigns, instructed by Harriet Wistrich [excluding Newham Monitoring Project])

Phillippa Kaufmann QC made her second opening statement of the day.

This time, she was appearing for John Burke-Monerville, Patricia Armani Da Silva and Marc Wadsworth, Core Participants who have been put into the Inquiry’s ‘Category J: Justice campaigns’.

Kaufmann opened by saying:

“All three were active in campaigns against police violence and racism and corruption. All three have reason to believe they or their campaigns were subject to undercover policing. But they have received no details of this. They are very concerned about the number of justice campaigns spied upon. They all want the Inquiry to confront the patterns that emerge from the repeated reporting on justice campaigns and the issues of institutional, structural and individual racism that underpin them. It is remarkable that the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] made no mention of racism in their opening statement.

“Given the clear benefit to the police of having information with which to undermine groups campaigning against police violence, racism and corruption, the Inquiry is asked to scrutinise very carefully, with a penetrating sceptical gaze, the purported explanations of the police.”

The Inquiry is urged to examine the use to which any information gathered was or might have been put; and to assess the role that racism, both individual and institutional, played in the undercover policing of justice campaigns. Kaufmann then went on to speak about her individual clients.

JOHN BURKE-MONERVILLE

After a long, hard-working life, John Burke-Monerville should now be enjoying his retirement with his wife, children, grandchildren and indeed great-grandchildren. Instead, he finds himself in a public inquiry fighting to discover why he and his family were spied on by the Metropolitan Police.

John’s son, Trevor, disappeared in suspicious circumstances at the very beginning of 1987 and was found unconscious in a car. After that he was arrested, roughly treated at the police station and then remanded. On 4 January 1987, he suffered fits and, on 6 January 1987, he was transferred to hospital for emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. On the same day, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped all charges against him.

His family and friends set up a campaign to find out what had happened to him. Trevor never regained his memory, before being stabbed and killed in 1994. Family members (including Mr Burke-Monerville’s then-79 year old father and 73 year old mother) were persecuted and harassed by the police. John’s wife was arrested and charged, then subsequently acquitted. She successfully sued the police for malicious prosecution. Another of their sons, Joseph, was shot and killed in 2013 – a tragic case of mistaken identity. A third son, David, was fatally stabbed outside his home in North London.

In 2014, Trevor was approached by Operation Herne, the police’s self-investigation into spycops, and told that they’d found evidence that his family justice campaign had been spied on.

He now says:

“I feel a responsibility to my sons, myself, my family and my community to ensure that this Inquiry comes through with some sort of answers about why we were spied on by the police. We have not been told the truth by anybody in authority about anything all along… I have no reason to be hopeful about the Inquiry. No one in authority has given me that.”

Movingly, he adds:

“I do remain hopeful. It is, though, my last hope and I am tired. I don’t want my surviving children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to go through what we are going through.”

PATRICIA ARMANI DA SILVA

Patricia Armani Da Silva is the first cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian man who was shot and killed by police at Stockwell underground station on 22 July 2005, when he was mistaken for a suicide bomber. Patricia has been campaigning for justice ever since his death. His family have had to continually correct the false narrative that Jean Charles contributed in some way to his own death.

The police have sought to deflect, distract and mislead the public. We know that they have leaked false stories to the media ever since they shot him. Later, Harriet Wistrich, the de Menezes family solicitor, received a call from a police officer saying that the police had leaked an allegation of rape against Jean-Paul – which was later to be proved false.

To this day, Patricia cannot prove that the police was the source of all of the false information (e.g. that Jean Charles was an illegal immigrant), but Peter Francis reported that undercover police were routinely tasked with finding info with which to discredit family campaigns like hers.

In 2014, her family was shown five intelligence reports by Operation Herne. These included information about individuals’ political beliefs. She was told that she could submit a request to the Metropolitan Police for details, but this was subsequently refused. Patricia has not, to date, been provided with any further information as to how or why the campaign for justice for Jean Charles de Menezes was the subject of undercover policing.

MARC WADSWORTH

Marc Wadsworth is a journalist, historian and campaigner. In 1991, he founded and led the Anti-Racist Alliance – Europe’s largest black-led anti-racism movement – that comprised faith groups, civil organisations, MPs from all the main parties, and trade unions. He had branches throughout the UK. It was seen by the police as a thorn in their side.

In 1993, Marc assisted the family of Stephen Lawrence to set up their campaign for justice and introduced them to the lawyer Imran Khan QC. He also facilitated a meeting between the Lawrence family and Nelson Mandela. He has made FOIA and SAR requests to the Metropolitan Police for the data held on him. So far, all he has received are one redacted document and one report.

Once again, the police have refused to either confirm or deny whether the ARA or its members were subjected to surveillance. All three of these Core Participants have an overwhelming need to know the truth: not just about how, why and by whom they were spied upon; but about the deeper systemic truths about the SDS.

They want to know the truth about Peter Francis’ allegations of the targeting of justice campaigns; and they want the racism inherent in the view of justice campaigns as trouble-makers to be recognised and addressed. The issue of racism as a motivation for some aspects of the SDS’ reporting and deployments must be at the heart of the Inquiry’s investigation, including in respect of the ‘direct penetration’ or ‘close monitoring’ of the Justice for Trevor Monerville Campaign.

WHY DID THEY DO IT?

Kaufmann questioned whether the spying was motivated by a desire to derail and discredit the campaigns, as they attempted to bring racist police brutality and harassment to light (as John Burke-Monerville fears)?

Or was it, as the police maintain, a case of so-called ‘collateral intrusion’, a by-product of the targeting of ‘extreme’ left-wing groups, who the SDS suspected of using the family justice campaigns (such as the Justice for Trevor Campaign) for their own ends?

She said:

“It will be impossible for the Inquiry to assess where the truth lies in respect of these competing motivations, without considering the underlying circumstances. The family have always suspected from the fragments they have been able to piece together, that Trevor was restrained and assaulted during his time in police custody- suggesting that the police has a motive for keeping tabs on the campaign’s search for the truth.”

The third Operation Herne report, from March 2014, identified 17 Black justice campaigns that were reported on. They are listed in SDS records covering the years between 1970 and 2005.

Peter Francis has described how the SDS infiltrated Black justice campaigns and effectively thwarted their activities:

“My presence in the groups made that justice harder to obtain… once the SDS gets into an organisation, it is effectively finished.”

According to Francis, his superiors wanted him to collect ‘dirt’ about the Stephen Lawrence’s family, to undermine public sympathy for them.

He said:

“Had I found out anything detrimental – and newsworthy – about the Lawrence family, the police, using the media then, would have used that information to smear the family. My superiors were after any intelligence of that order.”

The absence of written records makes it hard to get to the truth. Mark Ellison QC carried out a review, and in his report said: “In light of the limited records available, little weight can be attached to the absence of a record.” We know that many instructions were delivered to undercover police verbally, rather than put in writing.

Given the context, an absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. The Inquiry has largely excluded non-state core participants from meaningful participation: by restricting cover names; by compartmentalising non-state CPs into narrow categories of ‘direct interest’, determined by the Inquiry; and by holding, at least, the initial hearings in circumstances where only a tiny number of non-state CPs and members of the public will be able to see and hear the evidence.

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

Another huge issue for these clients has been the Inquiry’s ability to explore and assess the issue of institutional racism. There can be few people nowadays, including in the field of dispensing justice, who have not heard of the term ‘unconscious bias’. Many different types of biases have been identified, but some are of particular importance concerning the issues, of racial and sexual inequality and political policing, which arise in this Inquiry. ‘Ingroup bias’ (meaning that we tend to unfairly favour someone from our own group) is informed by the wider social and cultural forces at work.

At a meeting with Burke-Monerville in December 2018, the Chair’s response to these concerns of conscious or unconscious bias illustrated precisely his lack of awareness of how his background and life experiences shape the way he sees the world.

Mitting claims that he will take the “approach of a historian”. But Marc Wadsworth, himself a historian, has grave concerns about this view of historical analysis as an objective process, not shaped by the culture and society in which the historian was raised.

Kaufmann accused the Chair:

“You have displayed a lack of understanding of these issues and refused to recognise your own biases. Despite a lack of knowledge of Burke-Monerville’s case, you made a huge assumption by saying you broadly accepted the police’s own narrative of ‘collateral intrusion’.”

Burke Monerville commented:

“It is painful for me to read about my own children being killed. I read that you don’t need a panel to help you understand racism properly. You do not know much about racism…I’ve read some of the comments that you made about racism. I think you need additional people to look at the evidence with you and to help you make decisions especially relating to racism….I would like to know why you think you can do this without help when you have no experience of racism and no discrimination training.”

Mitting’s response at that meeting provided yet another illustration of his deep lack of understanding – he likened the family’s losses to deaths in wartime.

“Whilst well-meaning, the Chair’s analogy with wartime loss misses such a critical aspect of Mr Burke-Monerville’s loss – that it did not occur in conditions of war, but on the streets of London, where he and his family ought to be able to expect a reasonable level of protection and police investigations capable of identifying suspects and bringing them to trial; but he does not have that, because of the colour of his skin”

“For all of these reasons, Mr Burke-Monerville, Ms Armani Da Silva and Mr Wadsworth wish formally to record that they hold out little hope for this Inquiry’s ability to get to the truth.”

Mitting made yet another patronising and insensitive comment, saying that of all the CPs, Burke-Monerville has the “largest cross to bear”, and ended today’s hearing.

The accompanying written opening statement from Heather Williams QC on behalf of relatives of deceased people whose identity was stolen by spycops

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COPS will be live-tweeting all the Inquiry hearings, and producing daily reports like this one for the blog. They will be indexed on our UCPI Public Inquiry page.

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