Two weeks ago the Crown Prosecution Service announced no charges would be brought against undercover police who had sexual relationships with women they targeted.
The fact that the women consented at the time is irrelevant. Consent can be negated if it is later discovered that there was serious deception involved.
The CPS cited three bits of case law it considered before making its decision. A court decided that Julian Assange’s failure to use a condom after he’d said he would could be rape and should be brought to trial. Another case where a man promised to withdraw before ejaculation, but failed to, was also decided as being capable of amounting to rape. This gives us an indication of the threshold of criminal sexual deceit.
If Julian Assange deserves a trial it is risible to say that these police officers do not. Is anyone seriously suggesting that their profound, prolonged sexual deception lasting years – even having a planned child – is not worthy of a court case, but they would prosecute Mark Kennedy if he had once failed to use a condom as promised?
Conversely, if Assange had been sent into the civil service by Wikileaks and spent many years in a life-partner relationship with a civil servant, solely as part of a spying operation, he would surely be prosecuted for the personal damage he inflicted.
The CPS also mentioned the Justine McNally case. She pretended to be a man in order to have sex with another woman and was jailed for three years in 2013. The Court of Appeal reduced it to a nine month suspended sentence and she was released after 82 days. The conviction stands.
McNally was not an isolated case. Gemma Barker developed three online male personas that she used to deceive young women into having sexual contact with her. In 2012 she was sentenced to 30 months in prison for two counts of sexual assault and three months for one count of fraud.
Trans man Chris Wilson did not tell two female partners of his previous gender before initiating sexual relationships. One relationship involved kissing, a second involved having sex. In April 2013 a Scottish court (whose Sexual Offences Act Scotland 2009 is slightly different to England’s Sexual Offences Act 2003) convicted him of “obtaining sexual intimacy by fraud” and put him on the Sex Offenders Register. He was sentenced to three years probation and 240 hours community service.
There can be no disputing that the secret police’s deceit was on a comparable scale – arguably a far greater one – than McNally’s, Barker’s or Wilson’s. They were not merely lying about their job or the fact that they were already married. They were not just concealing a fundamental truth about themselves that their partners believed they were the opposite of. They were only ever in these womens’ lives as paid agents to undermine and betray those women and what they held most dear. They were living a relationship that was controlled and monitored, perhaps even directed, by a committee of unseen superior officers. This cannot be informed consent. It is abuse.
Whether what the police officers did legally constitutes rape is unclear. Ben Fitzpatrick, Head of Law at the University of Derby, examined the idea from a legal perspective last year over a series of four articles. He concludes that there are several areas in which it is possible that there is a claim.
It is not clear that English law would cover the sexual activities in these cases as sexual offences, and the undercover officers have not been prosecuted.
I do think they should have been charged and prosecuted for these activities. The women would clearly not have consented to sex had they known the men were undercover police officers. I think there is a level of deception in these cases which raises them above the ‘I love you’ sort of deception [where someone pretends to in love to convince someone else to have sex with them].
But, put simply, it is untested. The discussions around the definition are reminiscent of those that happened before rape within marriage was finally legally recognised in England in 1991. The CPS also considered charges of indecent assault against the police officers but, as that has the same consent test as rape, they decided not to prosecute.
What happened to the women deceived by police is rare – and its exposure rarer still – so it doesn’t squarely fit any common definitions based on previous, commonplace crimes. But there is no doubting the seriousness of the psychological and sexual abuse. The legal definition of consent and cases cited above mean there is surely a case to answer.
The inescapable conclusion is that if these men were anything other than police officers they would be prosecuted. The decision not to go ahead is a further part of the cover up of the gargantuan injustice of the political secret police.
With the current Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings’ opening statements concluding yesterday, today saw the first day of evidential hearings. Testimony came from Dr Lindsey German, a witness who knew several undercover officers from the period covered in Tranche 1 of the Inquiry (1968-82) from her time in the Socialist Workers’ Party.
Dr Lindsey German
Dr Lindsey German was active for 30 years in the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers’ Party or SWP). She was made a full-time student organiser in 1975, became the District Organiser for Central London in 1977 and was appointed to the Central Committee in 1979. She later helped found and lead the Stop The War Coalition.
However, today’s evidence focused only on the Inquiry’s Tranche 1 period (1968-1982). A detailed account of German’s political background can be found in her written statement to the Inquiry.
At least 24 undercover officers have spied on the SWP, recording such personal details as physical appearances, holiday plans, weddings, sexuality, and childcare arrangements.
INQUIRY OR TRIAL?
Before German’s questioning began, the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, responded to her witness statement, in which she addressed various common misconceptions and preconceptions about the SWP’s aims and tactics.
Mitting was keen to assure her that he and his team do not have any preconceived views. However, their approach to questioning, and their loaded use of the word ‘revolutionary’, showed they clearly do.
At times it seemed like German was on trial, to the extent she observed that:
“A lot of the questions this morning have been about my politics, rather than the role of the undercover police, which is the aim of the Inquiry.”
She was not put off by this, using it as an opportunity to correct the Inquiry and share her views of how a more just and democratic society could come about.
Nevertheless, the Inquiry’s hostile approach to questioning members of the public who were spied upon could put off future witnesses. This concern has been raised by a number of victims of spycops’ abuses, who do not want, and should not have to, defend themselves against the Inquiry’s preconceived views and thinly-veiled attacks.
IMPROVING DEMOCRACY
Under questioning from David Barr QC, Counsel to the Inquiry, German talked about the aim of the SWP to replace Parliament with things like Workers Councils: “a higher version of democracy than we have now”. However, in her opinion, these revolutionary aims were never close to fruition in her time with the SWP.
Barr asked a series of questions about whether the SWP sought to “escalate” industrial disputes and “confront” fascism. He questioned German’s “critical view of the police” and the security measures taken by the SWP at their National Delegate conference [UCPI0000013228] in 1978.
German responded that a more assertive attitude by workers was the best strategy, something that had also been trade union policy, as well as the SWP. She gave context about the growth of fascism and how her relatives had fought fascism in World War Two.
She explained that the SWP’s security stemmed partly from fears of state surveillance and blacklisting – fears, that it turned out, were entirely justified – and added the threat from the far-right.
POLICE BIAS
German explained her views of police bias, in terms of crimes prosecuted and the fact that they are used as a force of repression. These views are backed up by the evidence currently before the Inquiry, which shows the police planning to attack demonstrators and treating the far-right much more favourably than the left. In her view, she confirmed, the institution of the police does not benefit the working class.
Right to Work march at the Conservative Party conference, Brighton, October 1980
Barr made a large jump from that statement to ask if that meant she thought the police were “fair game” for physical violence in the streets. He asked whether if the police outside outside Conservative Party conferences – for example those who policed the Right to Work demonstration outside the one in Brighton in 1980 – [UCPI0000015888], were fair game for protecting the elite? Was it therefore legitimate to push through their cordons?
He pressed this point several times. German calmly argued that the question implied a misconception about whether people planned violence at demonstrations. They didn’t.
We’ve already heard how the spycops of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) targeted youth organisations like SKAN at the Security Service’s direction.
German agreed the SWP was involved in SKAN, however she said that it was a broad front and ‘larger groups’ joined the fight against fascism. The SWP were a minority in that organisation.
Women’s Voice was different, it was not a broad front type organisation, it was an organisation of socialist women. While Rock Against Racism was different yet again, formed by a small group of people in reaction to racist comments made by Eric Clapton.
Barr asked if the SWP had a “surreptitious” approach to “controlling” the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). She dismissed the claim, saying the SWP was open about and localised in its approach to CND.
She did agree that the SWP wanted CND to be “more militant” – not by doing more direct action (something that CND already did, and continue to do, a lot of), but by making more links with trade unions and the working class, and being more collective.
ARMED STRUGGLE
Barr then pressed German on the SWP’s support for “the armed struggle” [UCPI0000015994], particularly in Ireland. She replied that the SWP supported the Provisional IRA’s aims but not their bombing campaigns; she could support attacks on military infrastructure but not the bombings of pubs or other targets.
We were shown another Special Branch report [UCPI0000019543] about a party held at the home of SWP organiser Chris Harman. Somebody who attended the party, a former IMG member who had lived in Belfast, allegedly ‘while somewhat the worse for drink’, spoke of being ‘trusted by’ the Provisional IRA and ‘fully sympathetic to their cause’.
Barr asked how common such views were within the SWP.
German didn’t think this report was true. This person was involved in the H blocks campaign, seeking political status for IRA prisoners, and in supporting the hunger strikers – something that enjoyed wide support at the time.
Ironically, we know that if the SWP really were directly involved with the Provisional IRA, they probably wouldn’t have been spied upon; the SDS’s 1976 Annual Report stated it was policy not to infiltrate groups directly connected with the Provisionals as this would be too dangerous for the spycops.
CONFRONTING FASCISM
After a break, Barr’s questions moved to the relationship between the SWP and the far-right. He started with events in Red Lion Square in June 1974. The fascist National Front had booked Conway Hall for a rally, and a broad range of organisations organised a counter-demonstration to stop them.
At the time German was a student at the nearby London School of Economics, a short walk away. She recalls that journey, and the huge number of police vans she saw on the way:
“I’m not surprised that somebody died on that day. It was very very heavily policed and in a very violent way”.
The police pursued demonstrators, attacking them with truncheons and even throwing some over the railings into the underpass on Theobalds Road. During charges into the crowd by mounted police, Kevin Gately, a young student from Warwick, was killed.
German said:
“We didn’t go looking for trouble, we weren’t the people who created the trouble.”
Rather, the police had put a huge operation in place because they were determined to ensure the fascist event would go ahead.
Barr mentioned Lord Scarman’s inquiry after the event, saying that he “fairly and squarely put the blame on the IMG [International Marxist Group]” who “assaulted the police in an unexpected, unprovoked and viciously violent attack”.
German disagreed: “that’s not an accurate description”, pointing out that Gately was an IMG member, and:
“they were demonstrating perfectly acceptably.”
THE BATTLE OF LEWISHAM
Anti-racist protesters, Lewisham, 13 August 1977 [Pic: Syd Shelton]
Barr next cited a report from a 1976 meeting about racism in Hackney which described how a “negress in the audience” had said that Black people in Brixton were arming themselves with “knives and coshes”.
German pointed out that the “bizarre” report should be taken with a big pinch of salt, especially as there is no other evidence of this. It was down to her (not Barr) to comment on the language used by the author, saying “even in the 70s people didn’t talk like that”.
She also reminded Barr that this was a dangerous time for socialists, as well as Black and Asian people – fascists would attack people on the tube for wearing anti-racist badges. The SWP believed that combatting racists should be done collectively, involving the trade unions and wider groups.
“We were very careful, we didn’t want this to become a kind of individual gang fight between left and right”.
Barr had brought this up because he wanted to ask German about the August 1977 events that became known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham‘, and the SWP Central Committee’s attitude towards the anti-fascist counter-demonstrations that had been planned for that day.
German was at a by-election in Birmingham at the time of the Lewisham demonstration, and was not a member of the SWP’s Central Committee until 1979. Nevertheless, she patiently explained why it was so important to oppose a fascist demonstration that had deliberately chosen to walk through a multicultural community. It was a consciously provocative and intimidating act.
Indeed, not seeking to prevent the fascists marching would have been a mistake, as the consequence of not coming out on the streets (in Lewisham or anywhere else) would be more attacks on Black people – much, much worse.
Pressed, German provided more detail on the SWP’s approach to demonstrations, explaining that the SWP had an extensive stewarding operation:
“We wanted to make sure people could get to marches safely, that they would take place in a collective, disciplined way and not descend to individual fighting. We put a lot of effort into that.”
When asked about their use of obstruction as a tactic, she explained that they would occupy the road in order to prevent fascists from marching into areas where they might cause trouble. There were more than 50 racist murders of Black and Asian people in those years and the SWP felt strongly about this issue. There should have been official recognition that the National Front marches were unacceptable.
Nobody wanted the National Front in Southall – pretty much the entire community there were very clear about not wanting the fascists in their area, yet the police went out of their way to let that rally happen in 1979. There was a huge counter-demonstration, which SWP members attended, and this is when the police killed Blair Peach, who was a member of the Party.
Eventually, the Met banned all National Front marches in 1981.
German also gave examples of successful community resistance to the National Front such as occupying the space at the top of Brick Lane to stop them selling fascist papers there, painting over racist slogans, dealing with racism in ‘low-level ‘ways in workplaces, etc.
SPYCOPS IN THE PARTY
Finally, towards the end of the morning, Barr’s questioning moved to the activities of some of the spycops themselves. German was involved in the Right To Work campaign. In 1981 she spent three weeks on a Right To Work march – as did an undercover officer using the name ‘Colin Clark’ (officer HN80, 1977-1980).
She says that Clark put himself very much at the centre of the operation – “presumably to find out as much information as he could”. He took part in most of the day to day decisions, about money for food, etc, but also important discussions such as how to avoid dangerous situations or prevent young people who joined the protest march from being arrested.
Looking back, German said:
“It’s very disturbing that he was in this position… I feel uncomfortable, it’s disquieting…I find no justification for it whatever.”
After a brief detour to ask his characteristic questions about “trouble” during that Right to Work march (spoiler: there wasn’t any), Barr cited a 1982 report [UCPI0000015888] containing details of donations (including small ones) made to the campaign. This information was meant to be confidential, but it was hoovered up by the SDS.
The Inquiry sought a better understanding of the way the campaign (and the SWP) was organised and how these donations were dealt with. There were a number of questions about the office and headquarters, about the different positions within the SWP structure, and what these levels meant in terms of access to information and involvement in decision-making.
German explained that although some people in leadership roles worked from home, they would also come in to the office. Those who worked in the office would come along to meetings and social events, trips to the pub, etc.
She remembered some of the spycops – she says they attended social events and generally kept a fairly low profile. Some, like ‘Phil Cooper’ (officer HN155, 1979-1984), although not on the SWP’s Central Committee would have had some influence over what was going on. Of most concern, though, is the level of access to information of all kinds – people’s names and personal data, Party finances, etc – that he would have had. [UCPI0000011563]
TRIPE
Barr then moved on to a series of reports from October 1977, 1979 [UCPI0000013669], 1980 [UCPI0000013961], and 1983 [UCPI0000015986], all of which mention German by name.
Blair Peach protest
TThe spycops had reported back about her appointment as a new District Organiser, and then her promotion to the SWP Central Committee and role of as ‘Women’s Organiser’. They reported on her attending a Blair Peach demo on the first anniversary of his death.
One exhibit said that the photo they had of her on file was no longer a good likeness, and requested a new one. The last detailed her new address and living arrangements.
Barr wanted German’s reaction to all of these. She described the last report as “tripe”, dismissing it as inaccurate and pointless. She said these reports represented a completely unjustified level of intrusion, and pointed out that much of the information they contained was in the public domain. Events such as the SWP National Conference at Skegness were advertised publicly.
Blair Peach was her neighbour, someone she regularly saw and spoke to. The demo where he was killed was described by someone she knew as “the most violent demonstration he’s ever been on”.
“We know that Peach was murdered by the police”.
That the spycops reported the SWP used his death “for their own ends” was a “complete disgrace”, saying more about the mindset of the undercover police and their attitudes towards those who demonstrated.
German said this Inquiry must address the “appalling way” the police treated “people who were going about perfectly legitimate political activity”.
SPYCOPS AT THE PARTY
After lunch, Barr pulled up more reports, from the Easter rallies the SWP held in Skegness in 1980 [UCPI0000014551] and 1982 [UCPI0000018180].
According to German, these weekend-long events in Skegness were part holiday/ social, part political. Many of those who attended were not party members or politically involved – some “just went there because the wanted a good time” – others accompanied their partners – many people brought their children.
These two reports contain long lists of attendees’ names (running to 50 pages). Barr pointed out the words “no trace” after many of the names – suggesting that Special Branch ran searches on all the names and this was the first time that many of these people had come to their attention. Some of them were only there as paid entertainers, comedians and the like.
German confirmed that these lists of names, as well as other documents displayed by Barr, containing internal Party statistics [UPCI0000016148], and the phone numbers of the SWP secretariat [UCPI0000016582] would have been confidential, as would the level of detail in thereport of the SWP’s 1980 National Delegate conference [UCPI0000016619].
German stated that there was no justification for this level of intrusion from the police. She concluded the police “simply wanted to put the Left in a very bad light.”
Notably, there was no such infiltration of the National Front, an obviously political decision.
Asked for her reflections on the spycops operation, she said it represented a big effort and a lot of public money for very little results.
Mitting had a few questions for her at the end of the day. He noted that electoral candidates – even the National Front – were legally permitted to hold election rallies in public buildings , to make some kind of point:
“I accept that you objected to it, but you knew that the law of the land actually provided that they were entitled to make use of these places?”
The Inquiry’s Chair then thanked her for her time, inviting her back for Tranche 2 – covering 1983-92, expected to occur in 2024 – “health and intellect permitting of course – that goes for both of us”, he laughed.
With that slightly disturbing ‘joke’, suggesting that ongoing delays to the process will continue to result in many witnesses, and perhaps even Mitting himself, being too dead, infirm or mentally incapacitated to take part, Day Four of this round of hearings came to an end.
The late Barbara Shaw, holding the death certificate of her son Rod Richardson whose identity was stolen by a spycop
The second day of the 2022 Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings concerning the management of the Special Demonstration Squad 1968-82 included opening statements from:
Catherine Brown (representing the Home Secretary) James Scobie QC (representing Lindsey German, ‘Mary’, & Richard Chessum) Fiona Murphy QC (representing ‘Category F’ core participants – families who discovered that the identities of their loved ones had been appropriated by the spycops to construct cover names) Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing ‘Category H’ core participants – women deceived into sexual relationships, as well as a child born as a result of one of those relationships, and one man deceived into a long term close friendship) Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing Diane Langford and ‘Madeleine’) Owen Greenhall (representing Lord Peter Hain, Ernest Rodker and Jonathan Rosenhead) Sam Jacobs (representing Celia Stubbs)
Catherine Brown (representing the Home Secretary)
A very brief appearance, just confirming that the current Home Secretary remains supportive of the Inquiry’s work.
James Scobie QC (representing Lindsey German, ‘Mary’, & Richard Chessum)
‘Mary’ – one of the women who was deceived into a relationship Richard Chessum – associated with Big Flame, Troops Out Movement and other campaigns Lindsey German – Socialist Workers Party / Stop the War campaigner.
Scobie argued that the material disclosed by the Inquiry demonstrates that:
• There was no justification for the spycops’ infiltrations on the grounds of preventing public disorder. The true purpose was political and economic. There was no legal justification and the Government knew this.
• The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was really part of a large data-harvesting scheme, run on behalf of MI5, targeting anyone with left-wing politics.
• ‘Public order’ was used as an excuse, to justify the unit’s ongoing existence.
• The Government was aware that these operations were targeting lawful, democratic activities.
• The intelligence gathered by the SDS was used to blacklist law-abiding members of the public and prevent them from being employed in a wide range of jobs.
He pointed out that the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has been mischaracterised in order to justify its being infiltrated (by over 24 SDS officers over the years). In fact, the ‘revolutionary change’ they advocated was democratic in nature, with the aim of creating equality for all. As he put it:
“The aims of revolutionary socialism are to transform society from within, re-addressing the balance of power away from the minority that holds it, to the majority that should. That process has to be democratic by definition.
“They campaigned on issues such as sexual discrimination, racism, low-pay, unsafe working conditions, unemployment and poverty. All of which needed transforming.
“They focused on building a mass movement and broad-based campaigns with the aim of helping to create a better society.”
According to ‘Colin Clark’ (officer HN80), who spent five years embedded within the SWP’s headquarters, the Party:
“were strongly opposed to government policy but were not seeking to subvert the institutions of the state.”
Scobie showed that although the unit had a purely public order remit when it was founded, by the mid-1970s this justification became increasingly contrived, as public disorder was on the decline. Instead, the unit moved towards serving ‘customers’ such as MI5, who “told them what to get and where to get it”. SDS management had regular meetings with the security services.
Between 1968 and 1971, there was an “exponential” increase in the number of SDS reports being produced, from a few hundred to tens of thousands. The vast majority contained personal details of left-wing sympathisers, rather than anything relating to public order. This is an accurate reflection of the true priorities of the spycops, not the ‘skewed’ picture the police now claim it to be. The content of the unit’s Annual Reports back up his assertion.
Right to Work march at the Conservative Party conference, Brighton, October 1980
Even the public order successes claimed by the SDS are misleading. Scobie was able to demonstrate how they did this, in Lindsay German’s experience of the Right to Work campaign.
The SDS exaggerated the potential threat of disorder and then claimed the credit for it not occurring, when in fact it was the campaigners themselves who ensured events were well-stewarded and passed off peacefully.
Scobie highlighted the Metropolitan Police’s refusal to acknowledge the racist nature of many acts of extreme violence, such as the murder in 1978 of Altab Ali. Racially motivated attacks were relatively common, yet those responsible were ignored by the SDS.
The real threats of public disorder and violence came from the far-right, yet Scobie noted that according to Detective Inspector Angus McIntosh (officer HN244), there was a deliberate policy decision, made at a high level, for the SDS not to infiltrate them.
“From the SWP side, it was mostly shouting. From the far right thing, it was mostly physical violence.”
Instead, two Special Branch officers were reportedly (in 1968) sent by their Chief Superintendent to take tea on the lawn of one well-known fascist (later imprisoned for inciting racial hatred), Lady Jane Birdwood, and “thank her” for the information she shared with them.
Next, we heard about the guidelines applied to Special Branch’s work, and therefore to the SDS, and the way ‘subversion’ was interpreted by them. Definitions were left deliberately vague, so that legitimate political and industrial activity could be treated as ‘subversive’ and therefore fair game for the spycops.
This may explain why senior managers (and the Home Office, according to material that’s now been released) were keen to ensure that the existence of the unit remained secret, and the public never found out that these officers had been given unchecked powers to “pry into political opinions and private conduct of law abiding citizens”, and to interfere with freedom of assembly and expression.
At least nine spycops are known to have assumed positions of responsibility within the SWP. These include ‘Colin Clark’ (officer HN80) and ‘Phil Cooper’ (officer HN155), who provided incredibly detailed reports and received commendations for their work. Their reports included a lot of information about trade union activity, an area neither MI5 or Special Branch was officially permitted to investigate. The SDS bent the rules to suit themselves.
The real reason for the systematic ‘hoovering up’ of hundreds of SWP members’ data was political and economic policing. SWP activists were at real risk of being refused work and blacklisted, and this is something Richard Chessum experienced himself. This document from 1975 refers to a ‘close and mutually profitable relationship’ between the police and employers.
Members of Parliament were concerned enough about this issue back in the 1970s to ask questions about trade unionists being targeted, but the police lied to them.
Fiona Murphy QC (representing ‘Category F’ core participants – families who discovered that the identities of their loved ones had been appropriated by the spycops to construct cover names)
NPOIU officer EN32/HN596, who stole Rod Richardson’s identity
Their earlier Opening Statements (in November 2020 and April 2021) described the devastation of losing their loved ones, and the horror they suffered upon learning that their identities had been used in this morally abhorrent way.
This stage of the Inquiry is of particular importance to them as they seek to learn how the practice of using the identities of dead children began and how it came to be normalised by the spycops.
Murphy took a moment to remember Barbara Shaw, who sadly passed away last year. She had been instrumental in pursuing justice for the families affected in this way for the past decade, since learning that her son’s name, Rod Richardson, has been stolen by one of the spycops.
In 2021, the Crown Prosecution Service concluded there was sufficient evidence to bring a criminal prosecution against officer EN32/HN596, but they nonethelss decided not to press charges. They feel it is ‘not in the public interest’ as the officer was only following his unlawful training. The fact that a conviction would be likely is surely enough to prosecute him, and his unlawful mentor – who we now know to be Andy Coles (officer HN2).
The CPS told Rod Richardson’s family of their decision last year, eight years after the truth was revealed, and two weeks after Barbara Shaw had died.
The delays of this Inquiry continue to cause significant distress to the remaining families, who ask that officers now “volunteer the full truth without any ambiguity and without any economy as to that truth”.
There is one family listed whose name has been redacted from the Statement. This is due to a Restriction Order granted by Mitting, awarding both real- and cover-name anonymity to the undercover who used the name of their deceased child. This means that they too are silenced, and cannot speak up in public, cannot seek support, and:
“Against a backdrop of unspeakable trauma, the family feel degraded, humiliated, debased and silenced both in the public domain and in their personal relations. The family have been shut out from the opportunity to scrutinise whether even the process that resulted in the imposition of the restriction took proper account of the ongoing gross interference with their rights.”
The families say that the evidence they heard last year ‘crystallised’ their views, that there was no need for this ghoulish practice to have been adopted in the first place, or maintained for so many years, and they question the need for the spycops operation’s very existence.
As Murphy put it:
“the Special Demonstration Squad (“SDS”) was a secret operation, operating in isolation from and far beyond the moral and legal norms of policing; and they had every confidence that its secrets, including the immorality and illegality at the core of its practices, would remain secret.”
Murphy then provided an overview of the practice, the many contradictions and how mangers sought to justify it.
In the early years of the SDS, only one officer (‘Mike Scott‘, officer HN298) stole the identity of a deceased child. He says he did so on his own initiative. Other undercovers in those years (1968-74) simply created fictitious identities, and this worked fine. They were able to obtain driving licences, library cards, etc, in their invented names, and no deployments were compromised as a result. Regional and National Crime Squad officers continued in this way until at least 1998, again without any problems.
However, we now know that many SDS officers (approximately half of those represented by the Designated Lawyers) chose this method of constructing an identity based on the real name of a deceased child, from 1974 onwards.
It’s been suggested that this became standard procedure due to deployments based on purely fictitious identities being compromised. However there is no evidence of this being the case.
There were spycops who raised concerns about this practice, and about the moral implications, and at least one who is known to have refused to adopt this method of creating a ‘legend’. ‘Colin Clark’ chose to use a fictitious name during his time undercover (1977-82), with a passport issued and no known problems.
When deployments were compromised, this was often due to the officers themselves making mistakes – for example, ‘Graham Coates‘ (officer HN304) accidentally gave his real name when stopped for drink driving.
Richard Clark (officer HN297) was confronted by Big Flame activists with a copy of a death certificate for the person he was pretending to be (‘Rick Gibson’) and had to be pulled out of the field immediately as a result.
Whether or not this tactic originated with The Day of the Jackal book, or the film of the same name, or the KGB (!) remains unknown.
Murphy went on to say that the SDS was “an entirely misguided enterprise”, blaming the unit’s managers for perpetuating this unethical and illegal practice and a “toxic culture” of secrecy. She cited the current temporary MPS Commissioner, who recently spoke out about failures of leadership resulting in institutional toxicity that could not be explained away as just a few ‘bad apples’.
Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing ‘Category H’ core participants – women deceived into sexual relationships, as well as a child born as a result of one of those relationships, and one man deceived into a long term close friendship)
Charlotte Kilroy QC
Kilroy began her oral statement with some very old case law – about the ransacking and seizure of property by the Earl of Halifax, in the home of John Entick, in 1762. The relevance to the Inquiry soon became apparent.
Entick went on to sue for trespass, and the resulting, 260-year old judgement Entick v Carrington is one of the most important pieces of British constitutional case law. It establishes that the state cannot issue “general warrants”, or any kind of speculative or non-specific invasion of private homes in search of evidence of crimes. This, together with the Common Law principles of personal security, liberty and property, underpins much of modern policing.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Fast forward two centuries, to 1968. Following unrest on the March 1968 Grosvenor Square demo, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was set up by Special Branch and the Home Office, seemingly with any proper legal or political oversight. Very quickly, officers were creating false identities, being provided with accommodation and expenses and being deployed for years on end.
They routinely entered private homes, and were given very little direction about what to report or who to target. They gathered huge amounts of very private information and shared that with other agencies. This plainly conflicted with the bedrock of the law. However, they had a weapon the Earl of Halifax did not have: secrecy.
Charlotte then re-told the now familiar story of officer Mark Kennedy’s unmasking in 2010, which began the unravelling of the secrecy surrounding the SDS and Kennedy’s unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.
It was revealed that they had entered the private homes of thousands of people and that Kennedy was one of dozens of officers who had deceived women into sexual relationships. Some even had children. All this was discovered by accident and it is only because of that accident that this Inquiry exists at all.
THE PROBLEM WITH SECRECY
“Secret surveillance powers characterise the police state and are a menace.”
This was the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Klass & Others v Germany 1978. Secret surveillance poses a danger of undermining, even destroying democracy, while claiming to defend it. In all democracies governed by the rule of law, covert powers are confined to the most serious threats. Secrecy is always dangerous to democracy. It corrupts, and it encourages abuse.
Freedom of Expression is described as “the primary right” in a democracy, because “without it, an effective rule of law is not possible”. The right to hold and share opinions without interference and without being monitored and placed under surveillance is protected in both common and international law.
The sanctity of the home, the family, and possessions is zealously protected in common law and Article 8 of the Human Rights Act and is considered absolutely sacred, just as every person’s body is considered inviolate. Any interference is considered trespass, and the burden is on the police to justify their trespasses.
Mr Sanders, representing some of the former undercovers, yesterday suggested that everything a public authority does is considered lawful until ruled otherwise by a court. That is untrue. A statutory instrument is presumed lawful, but a trespass is not. Using deception and tricks to gain an invite to someone’s home is no justification, and even where a warrant exists, it is not lawful if it allows discretion as to who the target of the warrant is, or speculative searches for evidence of crime.
THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
The primary focus of Ms Kilroy’s submissions is UK Common Law, nevertheless, international law is also relevant. Yesterday the police suggested it was not applicable, and Mitting appeared to agree.
This is wrong for 3 reasons:
1. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was applicable law at the time, and the UK was committed to comply with it. Any failure to do that must be relevant to an assessment of the statutory regulation of undercover policing, which is part of the Inquiry’s task. How can the Inquiry conclude the statutory regulation of undercover policing was adequate, if it led to the UK breaking its international human rights commitments?
2. One of the great iniquities of secrecy is that it obstructs accountability. The UK twice changed domestic law in response to ECHR rulings during the 1980s and 90s. If people had been able to raise the practices of the SDS in Strasbourg it would very likely have led to changes in law.
3. The Inquiry is tasked with examining the effects of undercover policing on individuals and the public in general. The large scale breach of people’s Human Rights and the denial of redress due to secrecy is clearly a serious effect.
INVESTIGATORY POWERS TRIBUNAL RULING IN WILSON
This case from 2021 addresses all the rights outlined above in the context of undercover policing. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled that the Met and National Police Chiefs Council had violated Wilson’s rights under Articles 3, 8, 10, 11 & 14. The ruling is summarised here.
The police lawyers yesterday sought to diminish the relevance of this case to the inquiry, by saying that it is based on the facts of that case. That is of course true, but the similarity between the facts and the impact on individuals spied on in that case, and those in Tranche 1 of this Inquiry, is impossible to ignore.
Specifically, the police’s argument – that allowing the police to make proportionate responses to demonstrations is a justification for undercover operations – was rejected by the IPT. Likewise, they cannot be considered to justify trespass.
The findings that the operations violated Wilson’s rights to freedoms of expression and association also have obvious implications for the actions of the SDS.
The IPT also ruled that two senior officers knew about the sexual relationship and others adopted a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. A finding the inquiry must bear in mind when questioning managers in this tranche. The police accepted the judgment, and did not appeal any of the findings.
POLICING BY CONSENT
The whole concept of Policing by Consent is likely to be viewed by most CP;s and as fantasy of the liberal state. Some activist groups have recently declared their withdrawal of any consent.
However, the concept did provide Kilroy with some extra ammunition. For instance, Principle 5 of the Peelian Principles (1829) states that officers are injuncted at all times to uphold the historic tradition that “the police are the public and the public are the police”.
The police are only members of the public paid to give full time attention to duties that are incumbent on every member of the public. Lying and deceiving the public and trespassing on their privacy, property and intimate lives fundamentally undermines this principle.
THE 2005 INQUIRIES ACT
The police submissions yesterday sought to suggest that the applicable legal framework is not relevant to the Inquiry’s task, because Section 2 of the Inquiries Act says the Chair cannot determine individual liability. However that does not mean that the law is not relevant to the Terms of Reference in other ways.
CONCLUSIONS
Managers ought to have been well aware of the risks posed by their operations, yet in the Inquiry’s Tranche 1 period alone (1968-82), at least 6 officers engaged in deceitful relationships with numerous women.
It is a striking feature of all the evidence so far that the common law and human rights of the individuals and the impact of long-term undercover operations on those rights were rarely if ever considered:
• There was no guidance or training on privacy or relationships
• Tasking was broad brush and officers were given free rein to decide who to spy on
• There was no restriction on entering homes
• No guidance was given about what to record, and undercover officers were expected to hoover up as much information as possible
• Very little crime, disorder, or intelligence suggesting a risk to democracy was ever recorded. Usually reports showed an absence of such risks
In conclusion, Kilroy stated that it is the Category H position that these operations were incompatible with all standards of law. Scrutiny, when it finally came, came only by accident. Responsibility for that lies with the senior police officers and Home Office officials who maintained this secrecy for so long. The Police were corrupted by these practices. Their betrayal of the values of truth, integrity and honesty is made particularly clear by their willingness to lie to the courts, attacking the very institutions it was their duty to support.
Why did managers decide to abandon all the tenets of common law and the principles of policing, simply to find out how many officers to send to a demonstration, or whether people’s ideas were “subversive”? Answering this will be an important area of investigation for the inquiry.
Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing Diane Langford and ‘Madeleine’)
The experiences of these two women provide more evidence of the police overreaching their legal powers with open ended, ‘broad brush’ investigations that relied on the spycops’ discretion. Any tests of justification for targeting and reporting on them fail, something particularly egregious given the deception of Madeleine into a relationship.
Diane Langford, New York City, 1996
Diane Langford, a long time political activist, has never taken part in or been arrested for criminal activity. Despite this, at least six undercover officers infiltrated her life, and reported on her, and on private meetings held in her home. These reports contained personal information about her, often accompanied by inappropriate personal comments on her views and domestic arrangements.
Both ‘Sandra Davies’ (officer HN348) and ‘Dave Robertson’ (officer HN45) have admitted that they never witnessed any public disorder or criminal behaviour being committed by Diane or her comrades. It is difficult to see what justified the level of intrusion she suffered or the use of police resources.
Groups like the Women’s Liberation Front were targeted for no reason other than curiosity on the part of the police and/or security services. According to Sandra Davies, the undercovers were not provided with guidance or limits about entering private homes or collecting personal, private details of their targets. Robertson’s remit was likewise to gather as much intelligence as possible on his targets.
In Diane’s case, there is none of the evidence that would be required to justify an overt investigation, never mind a covert operation. This made the surveillance unlawful.
Diane now knows that the files relating to her have not all been disclosed, and requests that this happens so she can fully and properly assist the Inquiry.
Kilroy pointed out that Harvey was allowed to choose his own targets and use his personal judgement when deciding what to include in his reports. He took up positions of trust (such as Secretary and Treasurer) within SWP branches and used these as an opportunity to gather intelligence on party members and activities. He reported personal information expecting it to be of use to the Security Service.
Madeleine was involved in SWP activities which were entirely open and lawful, aiming to create a fairer society. Vince Harvey himself noted that their main interest was in building a working class movement, for all that there was rhetoric around ‘revolution’.
Madeleine’s evidence is confirmed by a new witness in the Inquiry, Julia Poynter, a former SWP member, who attests to both the nature of the local SWP groups and Madeleine’s relationship with Harvey.
Owen Greenhall (representing Lord Peter Hain, Ernest Rodker and Jonathan Rosenhead)
Owen Greenhall
Greenhall opened with the anti-apartheid protest at the Star and Garter Hotel in Richmond, almost 50 years ago today. Activists sought to delay the departure of the British Lions Rugby team on their tour to South Africa.
Among them was a man known as “Mike Scott” (officer HN298). Fourteen activists, including Scott himself were arrested that day and later convicted at trial. This has already been referred to the panel considering miscarriages of justice. It is an affront to justice that he deliberately deceived the defence, prosecution and court to as to his identity and the nature of his role.
There was no prior authorisation for him to participate in a demonstration leading to his arrest; he withheld key factual information that should have acquitted the defendants; the presence of an undercover officer was never disclosed to the arresting officers, the defence, the prosecution or the court; and he breached legal privilege, reporting and recording confidential conversations between defendants and their lawyers.
These concerns have already been articulated in previous statements, however we are now looking the role of SDS managers. It is clear from the evidence at the current Inquiry hearings that this was all done with the full knowledge and encouragement of SDS managers and senior officers in at all levels of the Metropolitan Police.
SDS manager Sergeant David Smith (officer HN103) was present at the first court appearance on 15th May 1972 and SDS managers monitored the case closely. Within days details had been communicated to the highest levels of Special Branch.
Anti-Apartheid Movement poster, early 1970s
Deputy Commissioner Ferguson Smith sent a memo confirming the Assistant Commissioner had been verbally briefed. Senior management were strongly supportive, saying HN298 had acted with “refreshing initiative” and that they should “take advantage of the situation”.
Discussions were had about assisting Scott in maintaining his deception, participating in criminal proceedings in a false identity, and even applying for legal aid. The only concern expressed was about the potential for embarrassment to the police if they ever got found out.
This apparently sent the tone and created a template for a policy of total secrecy, lack of disclosure and complete disregard for legal privilege and the integrity of the criminal justice system.
Like Scott, ‘Desmond/Barry Loader’ (officer HN13) was arrested a number of times, faced trial, and was even found guilty of public order offences. No disclosure was ever made, however the court was told he was “an informant” (not a police officer), and were asked to ensure he did not go to jail.
In both cases, SDS managers at all levels were quickly aware of and complicit in the lies, with Deputy and Assistant Commissioners and even the Commissioner himself involved in decisions to deceive the courts. There is no mention of any concern for the rights of co-defendants or the integrity of the criminal justice system.
The themes of lack of policy, training, guidance and oversight; an overriding need to preserve total secrecy of SDS and prevent reputational damage to the police; and lack of consideration for the rights of those spied upon are echoed in other areas of concern, such as the targeting of political groups, the indiscriminate collection of information and undercover officers taking active roles within political groups.
Greenhall went into some detail about the targeting of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Young Liberals and notes that the evidence paints a picture painted of targeting led by the undercover officers themselves, with SDS managers unable to exercise proper control.
He also cited deeply personal details recorded on his clients and their families by the SDS and passed on to the Security Services.
He concluded by citing similar concerns over the indiscriminate recording and retention of information by Special Branch as reflected in a Home Office Paper produced in 1980 which noted that some of the information collected “may not easily be justified”, reflecting that disproportionate data collection was directly related to the lack of clear management guidance and recommending independent oversight and supervision. Yet forty-two years later, here we are.
Celia Stubbs was the partner of Blair Peach, who was killed by a police officer striking a blow to his head during a protest against racism in Southall in April 1979.
The circumstances of the tragic death of Blair Peach and the sustained cover-up that followed it is told in Celia Stubbs’ statement, and was summarised for Part 2 of the Inquiry. Undercover officers reporting on her commenced in the 1970s, and continued at least into the 1990s.
Her statement today, read out by Sam Jacobs, focused on the question how she became a target of the SDS and why intelligence was gathered on her for decades. Importantly, she found out that the Metropolitan Police still withholds information on the death of Peach.
The managers who have given written evidence generally deny any knowledge of why the Blair Peach campaign was reported on. However, when it comes to explaining the reporting on the funeral of Blair Peach, Angus McIntosh says that he would not have known to what use such information would have been put, but his understanding is that it was “for the Security Service, and for vetting, and identification/tracing”.
More was revealed in the summaries of the closed hearings the Inquiry has held. Officer HN21 recalled“one of the management” asked him to attend Blair Peach’s funeral, and it “could have been Geoff Craft [officer HN34].”
Blair Peach’s funeral, June 1979
As to why it was that the SDS wanted to report on the funeral, HN21 describes that “part of the core business was to identify people, individuals who were connected to groups.” In the instance of attending Blair Peach’s funeral, the motive “was just that” and he had not thought that there was any possibility of disorder.
As was mentioned earlier today, SDS managers did not want undercover officers to attend the rally at Southall, as it was known that uniformed officers were planning to “clamp down on the demonstrations” and dangers were “more than normal”.
Undercover officer HN41 also described the “disastrous mistake” in public order planning of closing down part of Southall.
For Celia Stubbs,
“this offers a glimpse into the information likely within the report that may have been profoundly important in exposing the approach of the police to the rally, and the violence which resulted in the death of Blair Peach.”
Crucially, HN41 recalled he was “smuggled in” to Scotland Yard to give a statement as the “Murder Squad” had heard of his presence at Southall. This shows that the officers investigating Blair Peach’s death were well aware of the SDS presence and likely knowledge of events, knowledge that was never revealed in the inquest at the time.
The fact that this has only been dealt with in closed hearings raises concerns about the ability for Stubbs and others to participate effectively in the Inquiry, as without full access it is not possible to question the witnesses properly. As Jacobs emphatically stated:
“This evidence must be revisited by the Chair.”
These revelations only add to Stubbs grief about the ongoing refusal of the Metropolitan Police to be open and honest about its actions. It is painful that time and again, it is up to her to come up with new evidence of the police’s failure. And of the Inquiry’s for that matter.
Like Diane Langford who we heard earlier this week, Stubbs submitted a Subject Access Request and received her Special Branch Registry File and some further documents from the Metropolitan Police that were not disclosed by the Inquiry.
The documents include the first information on her, with a photo attached, her relationship to Peach, and an assault by two members of the National Front for wearing an Anti-Nazi League badges.
One file shows that Special Branch information was collated on all individuals who provided a statement in respect of the killing of Blair Peach. Why was that information collected and put on file?
The disclosed reports – while heavily redacted – reveal the disdain that the Metropolitan Police held towards those seeking to hold police to account. Though she never did achieve justice for Blair Peach, her campaigning was valiant and dignified. To Special Branch, however, she was a mere “propaganda tool” for the “left wing publicity machine.”
Stubbs hopes the Inquiry understands how traumatic discovering this has been:
“I have felt more distressed but also angry. To put it bluntly, police officers took my partner’s life and then concealed the truth. The concluding job of this Inquiry is to uncover the truth.”
The Undercover Policing Inquiry hearing of 12 May 2021 gave summaries of three officers from the latter part of the period currently under examination (1973-82), before spending most of the day questioning officer ‘Paul Gray’ who infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party and the Anti-Nazi League.
We Did Not Consent: Police Spies Out of Lives banner at Beachcroft Avenue, Southall, where police killed Blair Peach in 1979 [Pic: Police Spies Out of Lives]
Summary of evidence:
‘Colin Clark’ (HN80, 1977-82)
Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer ‘Colin Clark’ (HN80, 1977-82) infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and was also active in the ‘Right to Work’ marches.
He is still alive and, despite the Inquiry’s Chair Sir John Mitting having previously said Clark’s deployment was ‘of significance’, he is not being called to give live evidence in the Inquiry. He has provided a written witness statement.
Before joining the SDS, he worked in other parts of Special Branch, including its ‘C’ and ‘B’ Squads. He says several times that the spycops unit’s existence was secret, even within the Branch. However, he socially knew another undercover, Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76), who persuaded him to volunteer for the SDS.
He knew – from talking to Rick – that the work would be ‘demanding and required high standards of intelligence and initiative’.
He did not realise how much time he would be required to spend away from his wife and young child – something that varied over time.
He recalls Detective Inspector (DI) Geoff Craft telling him that for security reasons his cover name would be classified as secret, and never released into the public domain. He says he had lengthy conversations with Craft, and that his task was to:
‘gather the best information on extreme left-wing activists and groups that I could be involved with’
in order:
‘to protect the public in London, assist the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] to deal with demonstrations and the Security Service in its counter-subversion role. Those three objectives did not change during my deployment, although dealing with terrorism and terrorist supporters came into clearer focus as part of protecting the public.’
TRAINING & GUIDANCE
Clark started working in the SDS office in December 1976, and was then deployed into the field undercover in March 1977. He says he learnt a lot from seeing the documents that came in, but:
‘It was much more a process of familiarisation, both as to the types of information that were useful and how this might be obtained, as well as to the general issues concerning the left-wing.’
His training consisted only of a series of discussions with SDS managers. There was no formal guidance on how much he should become involved in the private lives of the individuals he spied on. He says there was no need for advice on intimate relationships – he was adamant he would never engage in such relationships, because of his ‘strong family values’, saying:
‘I prepared my back story to forestall any advances.’
Likewise, with being arrested:
‘The nature of the unit was such that we were not expected to go to court as police witnesses… no advice was given about attending as a witness in any other respect’.
He was not given advice on becoming privy to legally privileged information or the ethical implications which would apply to him as a police officer in this eventuality.
COVER IDENTITY
Clark’s cover name was chosen following long discussion with Mike Ferguson (HN135, a former undercover who became an SDS manager). It was agreed a nickname would be useful, so he chose ‘CC’ and says he extended this out into ‘Colin Clark’.
Unlike other officers from this period, he refused to steal an identity stolen from a dead child, as the idea of it distressed him, as did the idea of the family finding out. In order to ‘show willing’, he says he located a death certificate, from a ‘Paul Clark’. He insisted on using the cover name ‘Colin Clark’, and giving ‘Colin’ the same birth-date as his own real one. His managers went along with this.
Clark grew his hair and beard. Once he began living in his fake identity he dressed down. He invented a serious, long-term, long-distance relationship with an airline hostess in New Zealand. This gave him an excuse to reject advances, but also facilitated his exit strategy, while protecting his cover identity once he left the field:
‘people would be more willing to believe I was someone else if the Colin Clark they knew had emigrated.’
He said of his wider relationships with people in the groups he targeted:
‘I maintained a friendly distance as much as possible from all of the individuals with whom I had contact during my deployment. While it was not always an easy or comfortable balance to strike, I believe I would have been considered as an “able comrade” or as a friend. I was never anything more than this.’
EMPLOYMENT, ACCOMMODATION & VEHICLE
He initially had short-term cover employment, but that became problematic so he ‘went freelance doing vehicle repairs’.
Clark arranged a bedsit for himself in Muswell Hill. He chose the area as his managers said it would be a good location for making contact with leading left-wingers. Whenever ‘Colin Clark’ went away, he arranged accommodation for himself and avoided sharing with other campaigners.
He had a Morris 1100, and later a Ford Cortina, both provided by the police.
DEPLOYMENT
Clark says he was directed to focus his attentions on ‘the Left’ in Haringey, not any specific groups. He says that there were conversations with his pre-deployment managers – Craft, Ferguson, and Sean Lynch (HN68, 1968-74) – and he was told to use his initiative in order to:
‘find an effective way to get information on extreme left-wing and revolutionary activity.’
He took his time before targeting any groups, ending up gravitating towards the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and establishing himself slowly.
He had significant discretion in how he operated:
‘the key aspect of this was that I had to act consistently with my cover identity and legend and not compromise my real role as a UCO [undercover officer].’
REPORTING
He naturally attended the events of groups associated with the SWP: the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) and Women’s Voice (WV). He says he had limited contact with the latter due to their radical feminism, but once gave a lecture to a WV group.
Clark says he also came into contact with Troops Out Movement, Labour Party members, assorted trade unionists and others on the left, and ‘Provisional IRA terrorist supporters in North London and the Kilburn area’.
He notes the absence of reports from the second half of his deployment when:
‘I know I was gathering information about links between the extreme left-wing in Britain and Irish terrorist organisations.’
The reports provided to him by the Inquiry do not reflect his memories of what he reported on (often by telephone). He notes that there are no reports at all from the period spanning November 1978 to July 1979.
Clark also reported on industrial disputes:
‘Industrial disputes have an intrinsic risk of public disorder, and so early reporting of these could be of assistance. As far as I was aware, there was no standing instruction to report industrial disputes unless there was potential for violence or disorder.’
He says that simply being able to list those who attended a meeting – not even the details of what was said – was considered ample justification for spying on it. He denies authorship of some of the reports attributed to him.
There is an SDS report from 1982 [UCPI0000017230], which includes a list of contacts (including details for Peter Hain and Celia Stubbs, two of the non-State core participants involved in this Inquiry) from somebody’s personal address book.
Clark says:
‘I never obtained or sought to use anybody’s personal documents for information purposes, such as the address book here. I was more than content, however, to report details contained within any organisational documents that I was given.’
SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY
He struck up conversation with SWP newspaper sellers and was invited to go to a meeting around May 1977. By that summer he had joined his local branch, Seven Sisters & Haringey, and was going to their meetings, paying subs, and generally making himself useful.
He started out selling the Socialist Worker newspaper, steadily becoming more involved at branch level, and then in the organisation’s work more widely. As many of his spycop colleagues, he took the role of treasurer in the organisation he was infiltrating, presumably because it would allow him access to membership details.
He says that he gave talks and yet somehow didn’t try to persuade anyone about any political ideas.
‘I did not push myself forward but I allowed other members to suggest that I take up the branch treasurer role. From there, I went on to be the treasurer for the Lea Valley district organisation… and this meant that I was then required to attend meetings of other branches within the district.
‘The SWP was highly organised and bureaucratic with frequent meetings, and a great deal of cross-over and support to other groups. As my deployment continued, I became involved in lecturing at their request… and also assisted other SWP groups within the region with running their affairs but only ever on a practical level. I never sought to direct their policy or activities.’
One example of this assistance was the help he gave to the Tottenham branch of the party after it ran into problems. He was involved in reforming it, and ended up chairing some of its business meetings on a temporary basis.
Clark reflected on his responsibility in terms of the democracy of those meetings:
‘All this would have entailed was having a vote at district meetings, and I tried to ensure that my vote always followed the majority, and that I never advocated anything which was contrary to good order.
‘As I have described above, my managers trusted me to act appropriately, so I do not believe I was even required to inform them of these developments, although they may have been discussed at some point.’
Having been encouraged to join in with the SWP’s sporting activities, he developed a friendship with leading party activist John Deason, so was able to report on him and his activities too.
INFILTRATING SWP HEADQUARTERS
Clark says that at one point he was asked to join the SWP’s Central Committee, but turned this down with the excuse that he was too busy. He was able to provide high-end intelligence to his managers as he had access to the SWP’s headquarters and a lot of information.
He explains that:
‘as a vehicle mechanic, I helped colleagues out if they had problems with their cars.’
This was extended to activists who who worked at the headquarters that he got to know, and led to him being asked to help the party out with administrative work:
‘because I was self-employed, I agreed. This was not something that I sought out actively but it very conveniently granted me access to the kinds of information that even a district treasurer would struggle to obtain. It was also a good opportunity to understand the dynamics of the organisation.’
This meant that he spent lots of time inside their main office building, around their secretariat.
He says:
‘My access to the SWP headquarters was ad hoc when I was asked to help out. I did not have a totally free run of the building but I was there with varying frequency from 1978 onwards, starting with the preparation for the national delegate conference that year. My managers would have been aware of my involvement at the headquarters from my reports.’
The documents he had access to included the SWP’s weekly internal bulletin, which contained a lot of details of the party’s paper sales, priorities and plans.
Clark was deployed until March 1982. He was not directly succeeded by another undercover, but is aware his deployment was extended to allow ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155, 1979-83) to establish himself in the field.
He travelled outside of London for events, such as attending the SWP conference in Birmingham and giving a lecture in Liverpool.
He attended the SWP National Delegates Conferences between 1978 and 1981, and worked as a steward or administrator:
‘because of the ad hoc work I was doing around headquarters and because they already relied on me as a helpful and organised “comrade”.’
He received a Deputy Assistant Commissioner’s commendation for his report on the 1979 conference.
RIGHT TO WORK CAMPAIGN
Clark allowed himself to be put forward to help with the admin of the Cardiff-to-Brighton Right to Work (RTW) march:
‘My analysis was that I could just as easily provide relevant information if I was helping with the catering, driving and dealing with donations received en route.
‘I was not tasked to get involved in RTW by my managers. They would only have known about RTW once I became involved. I would have kept them updated once I was invited to assist.
‘My position as National Treasurer enabled me to have access to good quality information without getting involved in policy or organising events, which I felt was consistent with my role as a deployed UCO.
‘I attended the entirety of the 1980 RTW march and drove one of the support vehicles as well as cooking on the evenings that no other arrangements were possible.’
He received another official commendation his contribution to a comprehensive report on the RTW march in 1980 [UCPI0000014610]. Clark’s successor of sorts, ‘Phil Cooper’, also a drove a support vehicle on the 1980 RTW march.
Clark’s witness statement describes the RTW demonstrators being attacked, with Clark himself having to fight off his assailants:
‘I was successful at providing information to my managers before the event and along the route of the march, including detail that large numbers were planning to attend the final picket of the Conservative Party conference in Brighton at the conclusion of the RTW march. This picket turned violent and it was the one occasion that I was not able to stay on the sidelines.
‘As I recall it, the disorder started around me, during the course of which I was badly assaulted around the head and shoulders, receiving severe bruising. It was also the only occasion when I struck out, although only in self-defence.’
This quote is fascinating for the way it fails to attribute the violence. Disorder ‘started around me’ and ‘I was badly assaulted’, but by whom? It won’t have been his comrades, as they would be on his side (and he would surely have specified, SDS officers seem to love the chance to report disorder committed by their target groups). Conservative conference delegates seem a very unlikely option. It would appear that he must be talking about his uniformed colleagues.
Assuming this is the case, it is yet another instance of a spycop being assaulted by police while undercover.
ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE
Clark’s targeting of the Anti-Nazi League was done on his own analysis and initiative. There were many violent clashes between the ANL and fascists in East London. He says:
‘the key thing was to get information to the local police in a very timely fashion given the relatively poor communications compared with today’s.’
He says he avoided getting too involved with his local (Haringey and Enfield) ANL group, or organising anything, but would sometimes attend their events.
Following a question about the reporting of the 1978 ANL Carnival [UCPI0000021653] he states:
‘In my view, it was justifiable and proportionate to report on this organisation, on the basis that the ANL was known to use violence and seek out confrontation. It was important to know where its support came from and was likely to come from in future.’
As well as their back-office at New Scotland Yard, the SDS had two field offices, or safe-houses, in West and South London. The spycops attended meetings at these flats twice a week. This is when they submitted their reports, and expense claims.
Right to Work march outside the Conservative Party conference, Brighton, October 1980
Sometimes they would put together a report about an event, or look at photographs to identify people in them, or ‘de-conflict which officers would attend the bigger events’. These get-togethers also provided opportunities to bring up personal issues with the SDS managers.
Clark says he didn’t enjoy these gatherings, and reduced his attendance to once a week, with his managers’ agreement, as his undercover life got busier. He was concerned that the meetings represented a security risk, and a threat to his cover identity. He only occasionally met up socially with the other spycops, and says that when they did this, they never discussed the details of their deployments.
Clark would call the SDS office every weekday. If there was any emergency, he says he could reach managers at their homes.
OVERTIME
His pay increased significantly because of the huge amount of overtime he did – estimating that this would have added up to many thousands of hours over his five years in the unit. The spycops could be paid for any time they spent maintaining their cover as well as the time they actually spent with target groups. He recalls that there was some kind of upper ceiling on how many hours they could claim for.
A CLOSE CALL
On 7 June 1980 Clark was off-duty, shopping with his wife and child, when he was spotted by some SWP paper sellers. They recognised him, having seen him lecture, and came over to the family. Two of them took his wife aside and one of them:
‘found out my real surname and our home address. It was she who noticed my wife’s engagement and wedding rings on her left hand and told her “you must be married”. My wife confirmed this at the time.’
Worried that this woman would carry out her threat to visit them at home, he says he spent about three months living at his cover accommodation until they managed to move house. He says he sought permission from the Met to live outside the usual 20-mile limit, and was supported by his SDS managers in this, but his application was turned down.
EXIT
‘My exfiltration was planned with my managers but I was responsible for its execution. As mentioned… above, my back story included a long-term, long-distance relationship and I just let it be known that I was going out to New Zealand to spend more time with my partner and start a new life.’
The SWP held a leaving party for him, and John Deason drove him to the airport, having helped him dispose of his minimal possessions.
Clark was one of many spycops who have used a move to another country as part of their exit story.
Until the 2021 hearings started, the Inquiry had said that ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83) had infiltrated one main group – the Spartacist League of Britain (SLB) between 1979 and 1983.
While Tompkins did spend time with the SLB it seems groups such as the Revolutionary Communist Tendency, Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, and Workers Against Racism were as much, if not more, of a focus for him.
We are told that his health is deteriorating, and this is why he is not giving live evidence to the Inquiry. However, he did provide a witness statement.
JOINING THE MET – AND THE SDS
Tompkins joined the police in the early 1970s. He did plain clothes work in Special Branch for six months before joining the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). His recollection is that he was told there were vacancies within the SDS and so approached Mike Ferguson, then head of the unit.
Tompkins was asked if he was married, which he was. The SDS preferred to use married officers for this undercover work, thinking they were less likely to ‘go rogue’.
IDENTITY THEFT & BACK STORY
In order to construct his cover identity, he stole the name and date of birth of a deceased child, Lionel Barry Tompkins. Cover employment was as a delivery driver for a garden centre in Greater London. He also had a cover vehicle, which he occasionally used to transport activists.
Tompkins used several cover flats during his time undercover. Towards the end of his deployment he shared his Stoke Newington place with another undercover, Michael James (HN96, 1978-83) – who is giving evidence to the Inquiry on the 13 May.
INFILTRATE ANY GROUP (AS LONG AS IT’S LEFT-WING)
Like other undercovers, Tompkins was allowed considerable latitude about who he targeted.
He was not directed to infiltrate any group in particular, but told to focus on the ‘far left’, albeit with the proviso that major left-wing groups, such as the Socialist Workers’ Party, were already well covered by spycops.
FIRST REPORT: SPYING ON THE BLAIR PEACH CAMPAIGN
Deployed into the field in April 1979, the earliest report identified as being authored by Tompkins is dated 30 May 1979 [UCPI0000021297]. It includes a double-sided leaflet from the Friends of Blair Peach Committee, set up after Peach was killed by police at an anti-fascist demonstration. There are other intelligence reports linked to officer ‘HN109‘ on the subject of this justice campaign.
A report from May 1980 [UCPI0000013961] lists the names of people who attended a Friends of Blair Peach demo.
Another report [UCPI0000014149] mentions a new initiative; Peach’s partner Celia Stubbs and other members Friends of Blair Peach wanted to create a national network of groups campaigning about State brutality (such as the campaigns around Richard ‘Cartoon’ Campbell and Jimmy Kelly).
A July 1979 report [UCPI0000021047] lists some of the attendees at Peach’s – it is signed by SDS chief Mike Ferguson. Last week Celia Stubbs told the Inquiry how angry she felt about Special Branch monitoring her late partner’s funeral. Tompkins says that this was not his reporting, and it does seem likely that this list was compiled from information gathered from more than one spycop.
I‘M SPARTACUS!
Tompkins states that he came across the Spartacist League of Britain (SLB), which he describes as a revolutionary Trotskyist group, because they were active in the part of East London where he’d chosen to base himself.
Tompkins recalls speaking with some SLB members and thinking that they might be of interest to the SDS as they expressed pride at having thrown bricks at police officers during the Miners’ Strike pickets (which would have been seven years previously, in 1972).
He says the Spartacist League did not pose any significant challenge to public order. They were more intellectual than they were active. The Inquiry highlights some of the rhetoric of their weekly newspapers, but Tompkins thinks the only threat posed by the group was a theoretical one.
However, he believes their support for the Provisional IRA may have been of greater concern and thought:
‘The Spartacist League would have been capable of providing low-level support to the Provisional IRA.’
He did not provide further details as to what that might mean.
BUILDING UP CREDIBILITY
Tompkins thinks that he began buying the SLB newspaper and then began attending their meetings. He described his preparations, going to some general left-wing and Labour Party events and making sure to get a good grounding in Marxist/Trotskyist literature.
He feels the SLB were initially cautious, but gradually accepted him. Tompkins says he would not have been considered a member but instead as a relatively trusted supporter. The SLB is the main subject of intelligence reports attributed to him until mid-1980.
Actual offences committed are thin on the ground. Tompkins says that this did not go beyond low-level criminality such as spraying graffiti on Bow Bridge in London – where he acted as look-out so avoided active participation.
REVOLUTIONARY LABOUR LEAGUE
Tompkins’ reports from summer 1980 include some – [UCPI0000014134 & UCPI0000014148] – about the Revolutionary Labour League (RLL), a tiny group, whose members sometimes also attended Spartacist League meetings.
REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST TENDENCY
The Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (RMT) was ‘effectively a sister organisation’ to the SLB, and mentioned in some of Tompkins’ reports. It was allegedly formed by a merger between the RLL and some people who had left the Revolutionary Communist Tendency (RCT) in mid-1980. There is also mention of a ‘Leninist Tendency’ and lots of overlap between all of these groupings.
TOMPKINS’ OWN THREE-PERSON FACTION
Tompkins describes his own involvement in a brand-new activist group. He says that he – along with two disaffected individuals who he’d met through the SLB and/or RMT – started their own splinter group (whose name is unknown). He says these two people are the ones that he got closest to, and they would socialise together two or three times a week.
It is hard to imagine what the interest of Special Branch could be in a group consisting of three people – including Tompkins himself. Although this speaks to the sheer absurdity of SDS activity, it should not obscure just how out of control the unit was.
REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST TENDENCY
The majority of Tompkins’ reporting from 1980 onwards concerned the Revolutionary Communist Tendency (RCT) and Workers Against Racism (which was connected to it). The RCT changed its name in 1981, and was then known as the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) until 1996.
BARRY TOMPKINS & THE SOVIET ATTACHÉ
Given that the deployments that have been examined between 1973 and 1982 occurred at the height of the Cold War, there has been surprisingly little talk of connections between the infiltrated groups and ‘hostile’ foreign powers.
Tompkins’ deployment contains one, or possibly two, exceptions to this. He describes what he believes to have been an attempt by a Soviet embassy attaché to recruit him as a courier. He says he was told at a meeting in a Hackney pub that he would have to go to Russia for training. He told them that he needed time to think, and consulted his managers. However, they didn’t allow him to go, fearing that his cover identity wouldn’t stand up to the possible scrutiny.
Tompkins states that he had no further contact after telling this alleged KGB officer that he wasn’t seriously interested. He says that he saw a story in a newspaper later, suggesting that this officer was expelled for trying to recruit sailors in Plymouth.
His intelligence reports record this Russian as attending two RCP meetings in 1982 [UCPI0000018248]. The Inquiry has obtained contemporaneous documents from the Security Service (MI5) which largely corroborate his account [UCPI0000028784, UCPI0000028795].
Tompkins believes that he came into contact with another foreign security service. He says that he and his faction-of-three were in contact with an individual who was very keen to hear about any anti-apartheid activity, and paid them ‘money estimated to be in the hundreds in total’ in exchange for ‘little bits of information’.
This is not recorded in any of the intelligence reports and we are left to imagine what these little bits of information might have been.
WORKERS AGAINST RACISM & BLACK JUSTICE CAMPAIGNS
Many of the spycops focused on anti-racist campaigning – including that of Black family-led justice campaigns. Back in 2018, we compiled a list of these campaigns.
Workers Against Racism (WAR) was set up by the SBL/RCT/RCP, and attracted more supporters as you didn’t have to be a communist to join WAR, just against racism.
Through spying on East London Workers Against Racism (ELWAR), Tompkins came into contact with victims of racist violence and specific justice campaigns. One of his reports records a visit by a delegation of 17 ELWAR members to a housing estate in Walthamstow to garner ‘physical support’ from residents for a family who was being racially harassed [UCPI0000018095].
Tompkins justifies this reporting, with the amazing reasoning:
‘If I came into possession of information that people were being attacked and racially abused, I would have thought this should be passed on to the police.’
Tompkins was involved with ELWAR’s campaigning during the Greater London Council elections of May 1981. He recalls being tasked by his managers with assessing the accuracy of a Daily Mail article that year which suggested that ELWAR was a militant organisation.
Tompkins reported on an ELWAR meeting in April 1983 [UCPI0000019008] and included details of the group’s involvement in the case of a 13-year-old boy who had been beaten up and stabbed by police officers in Notting Hill, whose case had been turned down by a law firm. He was asked whether this incident would have the same ‘agitative effect’ as the case of Colin Roach, whose killing in a police station had led to a campaign for a public inquiry.
Tompkins also reported on the Hackney Legal Defence Committee and Newham 8 Defence Campaign [UCPI0000015892]. This report also names noted lawyer Gareth Peirce. His other reporting on justice campaigns included the New New Cross Massacre Action Committee [UCPI0000017186], and the Winston Rose Action Campaign [UCPI0000015540].
A November 1981 report [UCPI0000016706] summarises the contents of a WAR document entitled ‘Racist Violence and Police Harassment’, referring to a number of families in the Brixton area who have suffered ‘brutal treatment at the hands of police’ and of ‘racist attacks where the police have taken no action or obtained no result’.
Tompkins states that such campaigns were not a particular focus of the SDS – although the evidence suggests otherwise.
SENSITIVE INFORMATION
Tompkins said he reported all of the information available to him, and his reports bear this out. They include personal information about individuals, including addresses, telephone numbers, occupations, employer details and car descriptions together with registration numbers. The reports also contain more specific personal information, such as details of the subject’s partner and family, information about who group members live with, etc. One example is this report from September 1979 [UCPI0000013345].
REPORTING ON SEXUAL ACTIVITY & EVERYTHING ELSE
Even more intrusive is a report of September 1980 [UCPI0000014258]. It not only records that the subject of the report was ‘presently indulging in a sexual relationship’ but also contains the comment that:
‘Judging by the depressing regularity with which [redacted] suffers from attacks of cystitis, neither is permitting [redacted]’s tenuous position in the United Kingdom to interfere with more immediate needs.’
Another report from the same month [UCPI0000014543] details how an RMT member had been suspended by them for misappropriating party funds, and the theft was to pay off a sex worker. It also superfluously and cruelly adds that the person had a ‘physical deformity’.
Equally troubling is an April 1983 report [UCPI0000018782] which records that someone:
‘Recently had an abortion at a South London ‘day abortion’ clinic. Whilst the identity of the putative father is not certain it is known that [redacted] previously had a relationship with [redacted].’
In his written statement, Tompkins doubts that he authored many of these reports and/or included many of the personal details cited above.
SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS – NONE, ONE OR TWO?
Tompkins was interviewed by Operation Herne (the internal police investigation into the spycops scandal circa 2014) regarding a possible relationship with an activist.
Tompkins understands this was due to a Security Service document [UCPI0000027446] of July 1982. It says that Tompkins has been ‘warned off’ a [redacted group], as he has ‘probably bedded’ a woman – who presumably had a connection to the anonymised group.
Tompkins denies this accusation – and says he has no clear memory of who this person is – yet states that the only reason he remembers her is because she had a ‘party trick’ of lactating on demand and demonstrated this to activists on a couple of occasions.
However, Tompkins does concede that he developed a very close relationship with a different woman – an ex-partner of an activist whom he’d been spying on. Tompkins says he ‘bumped into’ her a few months after she had split up with this partner. He says a purely platonic friendship developed, and they would meet up for drinks, he would stay over at her house (but according to him, he would sleep in one of the children’s rooms and the children would share with her).
As a result, some activists began to refer to her as ‘Barry’s girlfriend’. Tompkins states that he did not correct them as it was helpful for his cover for people to think he had a girlfriend.
Trevor Butler, a manager in the SDS, asked to speak to him about an intercepted (bugged) telephone call that had mentioned ‘potentially storing items from Ireland at Barry’s girlfriend’s place’. Tompkins thinks Trevor Butler said something to him along the lines of:
‘You’re not going to get us into trouble are you?’
To which he replied:
‘No, it’s nothing like that.’
Tompkins wrote that he was ‘sad when he had to disappear’ from this woman’s life. What he does not explain is why he formed such a close relationship in his cover identity with someone who was not an activist – and by his own account was not a target of surveillance.
TOMPKINS INTELLIGENCE USED FOR DEPORTATION?
Tompkins describes how, about five years after he left the SDS, he was contacted by Tony Waite, who he believes was the Inspector in charge of the SDS at the time. He asked Tompkins about the accuracy of his reporting concerning a particular individual, which he confirmed. This was in connection with a possible deportation.
DEBRIEF
Unlike some of the earlier spycops we’ve heard from, Tompkins says he was fully debriefed following his deployment. There is a document [UCPI0000034280] from October 1983, which appears to have been created by MI5 to collate his intelligence about the RCP.
Tompkins has told the Inquiry that he never joined any trade unions whilst undercover, but this report says he joined the TGWU, at the behest of the RCP (who wanted him to go on to get involved in Trades Councils), and was a member for a while, until he allowed this to lapse.
The report offers an interesting insight into the party’s structure, rules, discipline and the standards/ level of commitment expected from members. It refers to the:
‘grindingly boring nature of average RCP activity.’
PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
One issue which the Core Participants wanted the Inquiry to explore was whether undercovers took their knowledge and skills to the private sector after leaving the police. The Inquiry is only asking one very narrow question about this – specifically asking if they did any more undercover work after retiring from the police – rather than a broader question about them using their inside knowledge, ‘tradecraft’ or other expertise.
Tompkins says that for a period in the 1990s, he worked as a private investigator. He describes one occasion when he was asked to carry out a check for a company that was considering investing in a business proposition. To do so he pretended to be a potential investor, using a fake name.
Note: The Inquiry was intending to request a supplementary statement from Tompkins, to address new documents that have come out and other matters in his written statement, but has not done so due to his deteriorating health.
The Inquiry also states that photographs of Tompkins have been shown ‘privately’ to ‘civilian witnesses’. We do not know which civilian witnesses they have been shown to as no former members of the groups that Tompkins infiltrated have been granter Core Participant status at the Inquiry. One former member of SLB applied for such status and was refused.
‘Bill Biggs‘ (HN356/124, 1977-82) infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party in South East London and subsequently Brixton, from February 1978 to February 1981. He also reported on the Anti-Nazi League, the Right to Work Campaign, and the Greenwich and Bexley branches of the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism.
It’s likely that he additionally reported on the Brixton Defence Campaign, set up to support those arrested in the 1981 Brixton Riots. He is notable for the extent to which he reported on anti-racism work.
Biggs joined the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in October 1977 and was married throughout his deployment.
He replaced Roger Harris (HN200, 1974-1977) and another unnamed undercover being deployed in SWP. This other officer is presumably one of the spycops for whom the Inquiry has chosen to restrict all details.
SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY
Biggs is one of many undercovers who targeted the SWP in London. He focused on the south east branches of Plumstead and Greenwich initially.
Like a number of his contemporaries in the SDS, such as Vince Miller (HN354, 1976-79), Biggs was active around the ‘Battle of Lewisham’ anti-fascist demonstration on 13 August 1977. However, this appears to be before he joined the SDS, so probably must have been present as a standard Special Branch plain clothes officer. If so, he is one of the eighteen Special Branch officers cited as being on duty that day.
One report [MPS-0733365] notes that Biggs telephoned Special Branch to say that at 14.55 on the day SWP ‘heavies’ would go to Church Street in Deptford, ready to attack the National Front marchers. This information was passed straight to the public order branch’s operations room.
It is around five months after Lewisham that we find the first report [UCPI0000011713] attributed to him as an SDS undercover. It is for a meeting of 24 January 1978 of the SWP’s South East District.
After this, Biggs regularly reported on the Plumstead branch meetings. Membership stood at seven people in March 1979, and attendance was often between five and ten people. In December 1978, Biggs chaired at least one meeting, his name given as ‘William Biggs’ [UCPI0000013021].
The Inquiry notes the tone of some of this reporting is dismissive, giving an extract from a February 1978 report as an example [UCPI0000011814]:
‘After a meaningless tirade on the exploitation of women, “gays” etc. and a brief discussion, the meeting was finally brought to a close.’
TREASURER & PAPER SALES ORGANISER
Biggs quickly rose to prominence in the organisations he infiltrated. He was elected treasurer of Plumstead branch of the SWP by April 1978 [UCPI0000011996] and in December 1978 became Branch Organiser for the Socialist Worker newspaper [UCPI0000013021] subsequently resigning as treasurer [UCPI0000013029].
In taking these positions, Biggs mirrors many of the other undercovers in the SWP from the era. Treasurer and membership secretary seem to have been common positions for spycops, presumably as they give access to the personal details of all members.
In September 1979, Plumstead merged with Greenwich branch [UCPI0000013398] but this was short-lived. Plumstead reformed in November 1979, as shown in a report with five people meeting at a private address, [UCPI0000013614]. This report notes that the Plumstead branch is also coming under criticism from the district organisation for being lax in its paper sales. The Inquiry noted that Biggs was paper sales organiser for almost year.
ANTI-RACISM CAMPAIGNS
On 12 December 1979, William Biggs of Plumstead was a guest speaker at the Greenwich SWP branch, giving a short speech on the political climate in apartheid South Africa. It is reported that he was able to speak of his ‘personal experiences regarding workings of apartheid’, which prompted a lengthy discussion [UCPI0000013688]. The Inquiry does not know if he did indeed have links or spent time in South Africa.
The Inquiry then draw attention to a report where he chaired a meeting of Greenwich SWP on 25 June 1980, which was addressed by the secretary of the Greenwich branch of the Indian Workers Association [UCPI0000014053]. The latter spoke on racism and fascism, and the oppression experienced by Asians in Woolwich and Greenwich.
In light of this, the Inquiry raised the point:
‘For the question is whether SDS officers, infiltrating the SWP, were tasked to use that position as a stepping stone to involvement with and infiltration of anti-racist groups.’
There are five reports on meetings of the South East London District of the SWP attributed to Biggs. They record financial and membership matters, union representation, newspaper sales, and liaison with SWP affiliated groups such as the Anti-Nazi League, Women’s Voice and Bexley Campaign Against Racism and Fascism.
MOVE TO BRIXTON AFTER THE RIOTS
Biggs’ reporting on the Plumstead SWP continued to at least March 1981, but by June 1981 he was infiltrating the Brixton branch. The Inquiry notes that this was not long after the Brixton Riots which had taken place in April that year.
Biggs was at the inaugural meeting of the Brixton SWP branch in June, attended by nine people. He was, true to form, elected treasurer of the branch [UCPI0000015441].
In October, Biggs was one of thirteen at an SWP meeting to discuss the Brixton Defence Campaign, which had been set up to support those arrested in the Brixton Riots [UCPI0000016622]. They agreed to organise pickets of courts in support.
WIDE-RANGING REPORTING
The Inquiry notes that Biggs’ reporting covers a variety of protests on different topics, from local policing, the Right to Work Campaign, harassment of SWP paper sellers by the National Front, support for Irish hunger strikers, and a picket of Eltham Police Station on second anniversary of death of Blair Peach, who had been killed by police at an anti-fascist demonstration in 1979.
There is also reference to a May 1980 march organised by local Trades Councils in south east London and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. Among those listed as attending is MP Guy Barnett [UCPI0000013983], which is another example of the SDS breaching the ‘Wilson Doctrine’, a rule that MPs should be informed if they are subjected to State surveillance.
As with other undercovers, Biggs reported on individuals as well as groups. An August 1979 report [UCPI0000011422] singles out someone who is an active shop steward in construction union UCATT who apparently boasts of contacts with the Provisional IRA. Another, in April 1978, states that a Plumstead SWP branch member was a porter and secretary of the hospital branch of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) [UCPI0000011911].
In June 1981, Biggs reports on a gay member of Brixton SWP for whom a photograph is supplied [UCPI0000015431].
BEXLEY ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE & OTHER CAMPAIGNS
As interest in anti-racism campaigns among the left was growing, Biggs’ reporting repeatedly touched on the issue. This includes the SWP affiliated Anti-Nazi League (ANL) from 1978 to 1981 and, through his involvement with them, other issues too.
Anti Nazi League ‘Never Again’ poster, 1978
One report is of the September 1978 inaugural meeting of Bexley ANL, at which the Assistant General Secretary of NUPE is a speaker on anti-racist activities within trade unions [UCPI0000011472].
Biggs attended other Bexley ANL meetings, and reports on a picket they organised in aid of the Blair Peach Memorial [UCPI0000013500].
The Inquiry also pulled up a report of February 1981 [UCPI0000016486] when the ANL protested at Deptford Police Station to highlight police inaction in investigating the New Cross Massacre, when thirteen young black people died in a fire at a house party thought to be an act of arson.
Biggs also reported on both the Greenwich and Bexley Campaigns against Racism and Fascism (CARAF). He was at the inaugural meeting of Greenwich CARAF in March 1978 [UCPI0000011917] and recorded who attended a July 1978 event protesting against racist attacks in Lewisham [UCPI0000011330].
REQUESTS FROM MI5
Towards the end of his deployment there were requests for information from MI5 on SWP groups in south London, including on particular individuals. For instance, a 1981 memo [UCPI0000028839] notes the Security Service’s interest in:
‘[the SWP’s] future policy direction, particularly as regards blacks.’
The Inquiry says it will be investigating the degree to which the Security Service influenced SDS deployments.
QUESTIONABLE VALUE
The Inquiry notes three annual appraisals of Biggs by his managers for 1978 [MPS-0743908], 1979 [MPS-0743907], and 1980 [MPS-0743906], calling his work ‘useful’ and noting he is well regarded.
‘Although some of HN356’s reporting seems likely to have been of some use to the policing of public order, other reports, taken in isolation at least, appear to us to be of questionable policing value.’
Most of the day was taken up with evidence in person from ‘Paul Gray’ (HN126, 1977-82) who infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party and Anti-Nazi League.
Unlike the other former spycops we’ve heard from so far, Gray’s evidence was only audio-streamed to the live hearing room, so those who attended were not able to see his facial reactions (or, inexplicably, those of the Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, and the lawyers).
What did come through the audio was his irritation and exasperation at being asked all these questions by the Counsel for the Inquiry. He failed to answer many of them, and often gave obtuse replies to straightforward questions. There were multiple discrepancies between what he’d put in his written statement, and what he said today (as recorded in the transcript).
There was a pattern to Gray’s questioning. He was taken back to his own witness statement to refresh his memory, and would then be shown a series of reports to illustrate or, more often, contradict what he had written.
He used a wide variety of defence mechanisms to fend off questions and avoid answering them, including one that we are very familiar with now: (selective) memory loss, ‘I can’t remember’, ‘I don’t recall’, ‘it’s 45 years ago’.
He interrupted the Counsel for the Inquiry with complaints that she had misread or misunderstood things, even when she hadn’t. He complained about being ‘confused’ by his own words, and came across as both evasive and pedantic, sometimes just responding with things like:
‘If I wrote that, it must have been what I thought at the time… If it says so in the report, that is what happened.’
Gray also denied accountability for or authorship of a number of reports, on the grounds that his signature wasn’t on it (although it had been signed by Chief Inspector Mike Ferguson, who was in charge of the SDS at the time), or that he wasn’t ostensibly a member of the target group on the date of the report.
His strangest excuse was that he wasn’t responsible for his own witness statement – saying several times things along the lines of:
‘I can’t remember writing this. You’ve got to remember that this was written for me, and not all of it is in my type of English.’
This confirms what has long been suspected – that the State’s lawyers ‘helped’ the former spycops to write their statements for the Inquiry.
Counsel for the Inquiry responded:
‘Alright, but this is a statement that you had a chance to review before signing it; is that right?’
We note that Gray had begun his testimony by confirming his written statement as ‘true and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief’, shortly after making an oath on the Bible to tell the whole truth, so it’s surprising that he doesn’t appear to have read it closely at all.
Gray worked in the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch for nine years before joining the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). We know that he spent at least one of those years in ‘C Squad’, whose remit included gathering intelligence on left-wing groups.
According to his police service record, Gray was posted to its ‘Industrial section’. However, he now disputes this official record, claiming that he didn’t work on C Squad at all until after the SDS, when he joined it as a ‘senior officer’. He also seemed to deny having anything to do with the Industrial section.
He remained within the Branch for the rest of his career in the police. He described the Branch in his statement:
‘it was a small, collegiate work environment, everyone knew everyone else, and we all called one another by our first names.’
He says he was first invited to join the SDS by an undercover, who was a friend of his:
‘He said that I would be absolutely ideal for the job, and that I should join up.’
Gray explains that he didn’t take up the suggestion at that time, due to personal circumstances, but decided to join the spycops a few years later, in September 1977. By then, this friend had left the SDS and moved back to other Special Branch duties.
However, Gray says that he was familiar with the SDS supervisors of the time, as well as the senior officer (thought to be Ken Pryde, HN608) who formally offered him the job, after a short interview.
He says he remembers little of that half-hour interview, but is adamant that he was told his anonymity would always be protected.
MARITAL STATUS
Gray wasn’t asked about his marital status, going on to say:
‘Most of my colleagues, including those who were already in the office of the SDS, knew my home arrangements, and we all used to socialise together, with wives, many times. So yes, they did; they were aware.’
Asked why he’d said ‘I thought that you had to be married’, he explained that he’d assumed that all of the spycops were, until he was deployed and met one who wasn’t.
Having ‘a secure background, a secure home’ and ‘someone to come back to, after a long weekend or a long day’ was considered important, ‘so that you didn’t go round the bend, quite honestly.’
He doesn’t think that anyone spoke to his wife about the possible impact of this new role on her and his family life. He doesn’t recall what he was allowed to tell her, though she and other wives of undercovers did know the squad was nicknamed ‘the Hairies’.
A LETTER FROM HIS WIFE
The Inquiry then displayed an astonishing piece of evidence – a letter sent anonymously to then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir David McNee, in 1980 [MPS-0726912]. It contained accusations about the sexual conduct of SDS officers, on police property, makes mention of the National Front, and is signed ‘an ex-friend of the Hairies’. The police opened an investigation into the letter.
By this time, Gray had met, and moved in with, a colleague from the Yard, and divorce proceedings were underway. The police suspected that his wife was responsible for the letter, so ‘discreetly obtained’ a sample of her handwriting to analyse. The report says it is ‘highly probable’ that she was the author, and describes a visit being paid to her home.
The Met’s main concern is avoiding her taking these allegations elsewhere, and revealing the existence of the secret spying unit, rather than their veracity or the impacts on her.
Gray says that following this, he offered to resign, but his senior officers (then Barry Moss and Ray Wilson) persuaded him not to. He says they were fully aware of his new relationship; they all knew the woman, and that he had moved in with her. He later married her.
Did he have any sexual relationships in his undercover identity?
‘Absolutely not… It was something I would never have done. And none of my colleagues at that time were expected to.’
STOLEN IDENTITY
Like other recruits to the SDS, Gray spent some months in the back-office before being deployed.
He got to know ‘Bill Biggs‘ (HN356/124, 1977-82), who was a few months ahead of him in the process, and learnt a lot from him. One of these things was the SDS’ preferred method of creating a false identity – locating the birth certificate of a child who had died at a young age.
Gray says he was instructed (by Chief Inspector Ken Pryde) to go to the government’s birth registry at St Catherine’s House and find a name to use, and Biggs was sent to help him. He chose to steal the name of ‘Paul Gray’, whose birth date was close to his own.
He does not remember any discussion about this practice, or being given any other options.
Gray explained:
‘We’d all watched “The Day of the Jackal” a couple of years earlier, when it came out, and that’s how the identity was done in that.’
Frederick Forsyth’s best-selling book including identity theft of dead children had come out in 1971, the film in 1973.
However, in his written statement, Gray suggested that this practice had been ‘thought up’ by the unit’s founder, Conrad Dixon.
Asked again about this at the end of the day, he said he’d looked up the film on Wikipedia and now assumed that was the source of this particular tradecraft.
All in all, he remains of the view that this practice was:
‘a sensible precaution, just in case someone decided to look you up.’
The undercover says that he didn’t do any research into the family of the real ‘Paul Gray’, and didn’t give much thought to the possibility that they might find out about his identity’s theft. Asked if he felt uncomfortable about it:
‘I don’t think it ever crossed my mind after it had all been okayed with the people in the office.’
Although he created a detailed back-story for ‘Paul Gray’, he says he never needed to use it:
‘I probably would have bluffed my way through the conversation had anyone asked about my background.’
He said nobody ever ‘tested’ his false identity.
EXPOSURE
Gray’s belief that identity theft was ‘sensible’ is at odds with the fact that it could fail spectacularly. Though it provided the spycop with a real birth certificate in case suspicious comrades checked, it also meant they had a death certificate that was just as easily found. And it happened.
Just before Gray’s deployment began, SDS officer Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) was presented with a copy of the real Richard Gibson’s death certificate:
‘It was very much in all our minds when we joined the Squad.’
He said that he had heard rumours about why Rick had ‘come off in a hurry’, but was reassured by the SDS office staff:
‘That it would be okay; and there were other parts of his deployment that I would never have gone into, so in my mind it didn’t matter.’
It became clear that Gray had come to believe that it was the relationships Clark had had whilst undercover that caused him to be confronted.
However at the very end of the day, when asked to clarify this matter, Gray contradicted what he had said before. He now claimed that he only heard these rumours prior to joining the SDS, while he was working in the wider Special Branch. He went on to say that by the time he joined:
‘Everybody had forgotten about it at that time… we were all getting on with our postings and we were making sure we didn’t make the same mistake.’
The Inquiry asked how they were sure they were not making the same mistake unless everybody knew what had gone wrong, the only thing Gray had to say was:
‘We knew we should try and not have intercourse with somebody … who was one of the subject of ours undercover.’
He remains convinced that his contemporaries were all aware of the rumours, as many of them had been in the SDS with Clark.
TRAINING & GUIDANCE
During his time in the SDS back-office before going undercover, Gray read reports including those from deployed officers. He also attended the regular meetings at the SDS safe house (twice a week by that time), where he talked to them about their experiences and was given advice on what he should be doing once in the field.
‘After the meetings I would go and have a pint in a local pub with the officers who were undertaking deployments in groups similar to the one that I would be deployed into. If they did not drink, they would just have a chat with me at the end of the meeting at the SDS cover flat. They would give me advice on what I should be doing when I went into the field.’
According to him, this was the usual way for SDS officers to learn – from those who had already been deployed.
At this time, his managers included two former undercovers: Mike Ferguson and ‘HN68’ (who had used the cover name ‘Sean Lynch’ in his deployment).
There was no formal training, and he was not provided with any kind of manual or handbook. Indeed, Gray claimed he was surprised anyone might think there would be any formal training or rules to follow:
‘We were police officers. We were expected to use our common sense and judgement. You learnt on the job.’
The only guidance Gray can recall being given is to telephone the back-office if he was ever arrested. He wasn’t told avoid committing any crimes, and says he tried to avoid any violence at demonstrations.
He does not believe he ever saw the 1969 Home Office Circular, which prohibited undercover officers from being involved in legal cases, nor did he receive any formal guidance on other legal or ethical issues.
Despite going on to far more senior roles in the police, Gray said he had no understanding at all of the phrase ‘legal professional privilege’ – meaning confidentiality between lawyers and clients, which should not be spied on by police – and added that this didn’t exist in his day, which is untrue.
What about relationships (in the widest sense, including friendships) with those he spied on?
‘I was allowed to get close.’
Gray was explicit about the spycops being encouraged to socialise with those they spied on; it was recognised as an excellent way of gathering information.
He also talked of people getting lifts in his cover van and that he visited some people’s homes and being invited in for cups of tea, for example when dropping off copies of the ‘Socialist Worker’ newspaper.
‘I was never aware of anybody who worked at the same time as me having a sexual relationship.’
He wasn’t told not to though:
‘It was never mentioned that we were not able to have relationships, but there again, it was not expected… And I’m sure if I’d heard about anyone else who was having a relationship, I’m afraid I would have had reported it to the office.’
Gray cheerfully admitted to drink-driving while on duty, claiming that this was just ‘common sense’:
‘If you’re going to go to the pub after a meeting, or a lot of the meetings were held in pubs, you would have a couple of pints, and that you were going to drive home. You had to deliver all the people in your branch back to where they lived. So that’s as far as breaking the law was concerned.’
He went on to make excuses for this criminality on the grounds that the beer was very weak in those days. He then said he had his cover job as a driver as an excuse to leave the pub early if he wanted to.
Later on, Gray made a comment about how people tended to buy their own drinks in those days, rather than rounds, making it easy to hide how much or little one was drinking. However he didn’t say that he actually did this himself.
CLOSE & COSY WITH SENIOR MANAGERS
It also emerged that Gray had a particularly cosy relationship with the unit’s managers, in particular Mike Ferguson and ‘Sean Lynch’. In his statement he said they were:
‘absolutely brilliant, very experienced, they would always be there if you needed them.’
Speaking to the Inquiry, he clarified what he meant – they had experience of being undercover (rather than of being managers), which they passed on to him and the others – and called them ‘good all-round officers’.
He knew both men before joining the SDS. It sounds like he socialised and played squash with them regularly:
‘It is difficult to separate what I learnt from them on the squash court rather than in the office. I mean, we were big friends.’
Asked if the other undercovers had a similarly close and supportive relationship with the SDS management, he said:
‘I’d like to think so, but I don’t know.’
OTHER SPYCOPS – IGNORANCE IS BLISS
Gray attended the spycops’ weekly gatherings every week starting when he was working in the back office. Since the evidence of ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1976-79), who vividly described what amounted to a sexist culture at the SDS, the Inquiry has been asking other spycops about their experience with this kind of ‘jokes’ and ‘banter’.
Gray claimed he didn’t experience any of this offensive language, either at the safe-house or in the pub afterwards, saying:
‘I wouldn’t have approved of it and I quite honestly can’t imagine any of the colleagues that I knew doing anything of that sort.’
He also claims not to have known about anyone at that time indulging in sexual relationships. The Inquiry noted that he served alongside ‘Vince Miller’ (HN354, 1976-1979) who had admitted to at least four sexual encounters. Gray says he was surprised about this, and denied all knowledge:
‘I never knew what was going on, but then again, I wasn’t in his circle.’
He went on to claim that he didn’t even know that ‘Vince’ had infiltrated the same target group as himself, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
In his statement, Gray described the work of his fellow spycops in glowing terms, saying they did an ‘exemplary job.’ Asked if he considered this still to be the case, now that he’s learnt about ‘Vince’ and the way he abused his position, Gray said yes.
When questioned about a number of other undercovers who deployments overlapped with his, he denied ever hearing anything untoward. Rather, they didn’t talk about what they actually did in their deployments:
‘I hadn’t a clue what the other officers were doing… even the ones who were in the same group as me. It wasn’t something that was talked about a lot.’
Asked more about his contemporaries, and who he was closest with during that time, Gray recalled sometimes going out for curries together in a group:
‘We would try to carry on normal life as much as we could away from our undercover jobs. We would never talk about our undercover jobs when we met like that, unless you needed some advice from someone who had done it before. Generally, you would have absolutely no idea what the others were doing.’
HIS ROLE AT GRUNWICK
Another inconsistency emerged between Gray’s written and oral evidence when he spoke of the long-running Grunwick industrial dispute. According to his statement:
‘Several of my SDS colleagues attended and reported on the Grunwicks disputes.’
How did he know this, if they never spoke about what they were doing?
He kept ducking the question, causing the Counsel to ask it three times. He eventually conceded that it was possible that Grunwick had been discussed at the spycops’ get-togethers but insisted that he ‘didn’t see their reports’.
This strained his credibility, especially as he said:
‘One of the reasons that I was moved to that particular part of London was to replace an officer who had in the past reported on Grunwick. You have got to remember, Grunwick went on for two years, every day, and I don’t think I submitted any reports, because most of the work done with myself was going to the early morning pickets of the Grunwick factory and giving detail beforehand to the office of how how many people were likely to be on the streets, whether it was going to be a big one or a small one, and that was all done by telephone. That’s why probably I say I don’t recall submitting any reports.’
Police press back pickets as buses of strike breakers arrive, Grunwick dispute, London, July 1977
Gray kept saying that he didn’t write any reports about Grunwick himself as his reporting was all done by telephone.
He added:
‘I didn’t know what my colleagues were doing. You might see one of them. We’re talking about 7 o’clock in the morning when the Grunwick employees were being bussed in. On some days, it was a big punch up, on other days there were hardly any pickets there at all. But the pickets came from all over the country, and quite notable people were attending.’
VISITS FROM THE TOP BRASS
The spycops were visited in their safe-house by senior police officers, including a Deputy Assistant Commissioner (probably Robert Bryan), and on one occasion by an Assistant Commissioner for Crime.
Gray recalled that the latter:
‘was very shocked by seeing us and hadn’t a clue what we were doing. But we gave him lunch and he went away happy.’
He noted such visits were ‘always treated with a little bit of humour’ and explained:
‘Because if you’re working in a situation in Scotland Yard where everybody looks the same and they’re all doing their job, and you then come out, to a not-very-tidy flat in the middle of nowhere, and meet ten chaps who are smelly, hairy, not very nice, and you are told that they’re your officers, it was a bit of a shock, I think, and that happened on a couple of occasions.’
He assumed that the senior SDS office staff briefed these visitors.
Asked if the shocked Assistant Commissioner for Crime was Gilbert Kelland (1977 – 1984), he said the name of the visitor he remembered was Mastel. The latter was a contemporary Assistant Commissioner, but for A Division – not C – and that is peculiar as he was not in the line of command of the SDS.
THE REPORTING PROCESS
Gray has complained that many of his reports he remembers making are not in the bundle of evidence that the Inquiry has provided him with. If he had anything urgent to report – including information for the Met’s public order department (A8) – he tended to telephone it in.
However, he also submitted many written reports, and it is clear that many of them are missing:
‘There are a hell of a lot of bloody meetings that I reported on that are not in my bundle.’
He says that he would draft what he called ‘current reports’ and then give them to the office staff to finish off, and maybe collate with others. Earlier he said that Special Branch – beyond the Special Demonstration Squad – would sometimes consolidate intelligence from different spycops into single reports.
At the end of his deployment, Gray was asked to bring the files of various individuals up to date before he left the unit. He described this as ‘topping and tailing’ reports, by writing down everything that was known about the subject; where they lived, how much spare time they had, what they did with it, how often they had people over, how much involvement they had with campaigning, etc.
The Inquiry illustrated this May 1982 report on a member of Kilburn SWP and West Hampstead CND [UCPI0000018134].
Even the notion that people were politically inactive for years was seen as an important input to an ‘up-to-date’ report, and these files would be retained (for example [UCPI0000018131]).
Gray complained that the examples shown today were ‘not representative of an ordinary up-to-date report’, and Mitting promised to examine the others.
REGISTRY FILES
He explained the significance of the numbers that appear on the sides of these reports: these were Registry File reference numbers added by office staff, after they’d run a check on the names of any individuals and groups mentioned.
Gray also clarified that the police had a special photography unit, who took photos at demos and meetings. Sometimes an album of these photographs would be shown around at the safe-house, for anyone there to help with identifying the people in them.
‘SUBVERSION’ & THE SWP
Gray was sent to North West London, as another undercover had just left the area:
‘probably because at that time, we were having a lot of trouble with getting the right numbers of police officers on the streets in the mornings at Grunwick.’
He also stated:
‘I was not tasked beyond being told to infiltrate the SWP’
In his witness statement he said that the SWP:
‘was a revolutionary group which was involved in demonstrations. They were willing to achieve that by whatever means possible, and did not believe that the ballot box was the only way. They were dedicated to the downfall of the government at the time.’
He accused them not just of being ‘subversive’, but also of presenting a ‘challenge to public order’ and being ‘involved in criminal activities.’
The Inquiry sought to clarify what he meant by these assertions. How did he know they were ‘subversive’? Did he ever witness the SWP or its members doing anything to ‘bring down the system of government in this country’?
His answer was frankly bizarre; he began talking about their participation in anti-fascist demonstrations and the ensuing conflict in Brick Lane on Sundays, when members of the fascist National Front would confront SWP newspaper sellers, saying it was ‘quite violent’ and ‘very, very unpleasant’.
When asked if that had anything to do with subversion, he replied:
‘It could be. Whatever subversion is, I don’t know.’
We were shown a report from September 1979 [UCPI0000013385], of a meeting of the SWP’s NW London District Committee. According to this, the SWP was ‘at an all-time low’, with only 3800 members nationwide, to be suffering from apathy, and low circulation figures for the Socialist Worker newspaper. Gray said he did not remember this, nor any discussion with his managers about his continued deployment in the group.
In his statement, he says:
‘it was the role of Special Branch to report on subversive activity, but it was the role of the security services to deal with it, not the police. The main role of the SDS was intelligence gathering to assist with public order policing.’
He knew that the Security Service (MI5) was interested in the spycops’ work, pointing out that they were sent a copy ‘of everything that we produced’ and explaining the ‘Box 500’ stamp in the corner of the copies seen by the Inquiry indicates this.
We saw examples of ‘Box 500’ requesting information, including a document dated January 1980 [UCPI0000013713] which contains personal details about a member of the SWP’s Kilburn branch being treated in hospital following a car crash.
Did he ever think of the SDS – or the Met police more widely – as being subordinate to MI5?
‘It never crossed my mind.’
RACISTS & VIOLENCE
In his statement, Gray said that there was ‘always a sub-group’ who were looking for trouble, but that he chose to stick with the people who chose to avoid aggravation so, as a result, was never caught up in violence or injured at any demonstrations.
Asked if he ever considered confining his reporting to those who were getting involved in the violence, rather than the peaceful ones, he said he didn’t. Although he admits that many SWP members were entirely peaceful and law-abiding, his excuse was that he had to report on the group as a whole.
Later on in his written statement, he wrote:
‘I suspect that all of them had run-ins with the police’
However, he said he didn’t know if any of them were arrested. He defined ‘run-ins’ in an unusual way – describing groups of activists running at police lines to break though them – but denied taking part in this practice himself, saying that all he got involved in was:
‘linking arms and trying to stick together with my comrades.’
Why did he describe the SWP as ‘a leading group in the public order field?’
Gray said their newspaper sales were prolific, and still are. They were active, they went to a lot of demonstrations and pickets. There was disorder. In his written statement, he claimed that they were involved in criminality, and he frequently saw them engage in violence.
When questioned more about this, the only example he could provide was the violence he saw at Brick Lane in East London. He spoke about them throwing missiles – ‘bricks, rubbish bins, anything that was going’ at the National Front (NF).
Despite admitting that the NF deliberately chose that place to demonstrate because it was a predominantly Asian area, and the NF ‘wanted to get rid of them’, and ‘the Bangladeshi restaurants and shops would get smashed up’ by the NF. Yet he also insisted that the violence he saw ‘was provoked by both sides, and the police had to keep them apart.’
There are no reports on any violence of this kind in his entire deployment. Gray claimed this was because the spycops provided ‘pre-emptive intelligence’ so were able to prevent such violence from taking place.
In response to this, the Inquiry laid out some other examples of his reporting, which were not ‘pre-emptive’ at all, but about things which had already occurred.
One such report concerned a car being used by a local Anti Nazi League (ANL) group who went around painting over racist graffiti [UCPI0000011447]. Gray said the security services would have been ‘very interested’ in the details of the car and its owner.
In contrast, it appears that the police weren’t interested in taking action against the NF, and the SDS did not infiltrate them. This was confirmed by Gray, in his own words, when talking about that letter written by his wife, in which she mentions spycops infiltrating the extreme right wing, he said:
‘She didn’t get it from me, because we weren’t, in those days.’
UPWARD MOBILITY IN THE SWP
The Inquiry traced Gray’s journey through the SWP’s hierarchy, with the help of some more documents.
The first SWP meeting he attended and reported on seems to have been a meeting of the Cricklewood branch in February 1978 [UCPI0000011859]. He explained that this was the only branch of the party in the area at the time, but again failed to answer the Inquiry’s question: did the SDS view infiltrating the SWP as a ‘stepping stone’ to other groups?
The next report [UCPI0000011354] was from a much smaller meeting of the Cricklewood Branch Committee, in July 1978. This took place in someone’s home, and elections for the Committee took place. Gray was voted in as a committee member – he is listed as the ‘Socialist Worker Organiser’.
He now claims that he had no idea this election was due to take place, and that he was nominated from the floor, and had no way of excusing himself or contacting the office for authorisation before accepting it. He suggests that the reason for his nomination was that access to a vehicle was essential for the role of moving a lot of newspapers. In any case, he believes he was a trusted member of the group by then, and his managers were happy about this.
In January 1979 he was elected to the North West London District Committee [UCPI0000013111]. He is adamant that he did not volunteer for this either, but he knew in advance that he would be appointed, and says this:
‘It’s better not attract attention by putting up your hand.’
A week later, at a meeting of seven District Committee members [UCPI0000013123], Gray became the District Organiser responsible for newspaper distribution. He was tasked with organising regular meetings with Branch Organisers across the wider area. Partly, it seems, because he had a van.
He explained that he would turn up at their Branch meetings and talk to them about their paper sales. This meant he could gather a lot more intelligence, about a lot more people. Asked if this gave him more influence over Branch Organisers, he responded by talking about how hard it was to collect money for papers sold.
When asked if joining the District Committee could be considered a step up in the SWP hierarchy, Gray claimed he ‘never thought of it that way’ and repeatedly claimed that he had little influence over decisions, he just transported papers around.
We saw a few more reports about paper sales and party members being exhorted to sell more. A National Organiser came to the District Committee meeting in September 1979 [UCPI0000013435], and proclaimed that selling the ‘Socialist Worker’ was the most important duty of any party member, and told Gray he should be doing more to boost sales, including spot checks on the branches in his patch, causing an ‘embarrassed silence’ in the room. Gray himself did something similar in April 1979 [UCPI0000021170] just before the General Election.
After some discussion about the his position in the party structure and how it compared with others, for example that of Branch Secretary – during which Gray absurdly claimed that there weren’t ‘any hierarchies around’ in the SWP – we saw a report [UCPI0000014064] of him chairing a District Committee meeting in June 1980.
Paragraph 5 of this report makes interesting reading:
‘The meeting was informed that it was feared Acton SWP had been infiltrated by a “spy”… it was decided that he was too inefficient to be a member of the Special Branch, but was probably from the National Association for Freedom.’
Gray claims to have no recollection of attending this meeting at all. Not unreasonably, Counsel to the Inquiry asked:
‘Was it not memorable that you were present as an undercover officer from Special Branch at a meeting at which it was being speculated that somebody else might be an infiltrator from Special Branch?’
He insisted that he has no recollection, and told Counsel to ask the office people about this as well.
ANTI NAZI LEAGUE
According to Gray, all members of the SWP were expected to join the ANL. When asked if he was sent to target them, he snapped:
‘When I was first deployed, there was no ANL.’
This is untrue. The ANL was launched (at the House of Commons no less, thanks to some Labour MPs) in November 1977, just as Gray was being prepared for deployment.
He was shown a report [UCPI0000011970] about an ANL meeting that he attended on 23 March 1978, just one month after his first SWP meeting.
The ANL quickly mushroomed into a massive grass-roots movement, with 250+ groups across the country, which played a part in the eventual demise of the NF.
According to Gray though:
‘It was a recruiting tool for the SWP and it was very successful.’
He felt that spying on the ANL was completely justified for this reason, falsely claiming that ‘most of them had dual membership’. The ANL was a much larger, wider organisation, so joining it meant he came into contact with activists who weren’t SWP members.
Rock Against Racism (RAR) had already launched in 1976, and put on hundreds of gigs, bringing together punk, reggae and other types of music, with a strong anti-racist, political message. In 1978, they put on two huge RAR carnivals in London.
The first was held in the East End’s Victoria Park, at the end of April. The Tom Robinson Band reportedly stole the show in a line-up that included X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse, the Ruts, Misty in Roots, the Clash and others.
The second was in Brixton’s Brockwell Park, in September 1978. The line-up there included Stiff Little Fingers from Belfast (a replacement for Sham 69, who felt forced to drop out after receiving death threats from right-wingers), Elvis Costello, and Aswad.
Both carnivals were preceded by marches from central London, which attracted 80,000 and 100,000 people respectively.
Further carnivals took place in other cities, and RAR went on to announce a 23-date ‘Militant Entertainment’ tour in 1979, before the General Election, ‘aimed at racialist candidates of whatever party’.
Local ANL groups, like the Kilburn & Queens Park branch, organised similar events, albeit on a much smaller scale.
We saw a July 1978 report [UCPI0000011301] about this branch’s organising committee meeting to plan a multi-racial music festival in Kilburn Grange park on 23 July.
‘Paul Gray’ from West Hampstead ANL is listed as attending this meeting. He claims no recollection of the meeting or anything to do with the organising of the music festival, or even membership of the West Hampstead branch.
The Inquiry respond by showing document [UCPI0000011497], a report of the West Hampstead ANL Organising Committee meeting from September 1978. Despite Paul Gray named as attending, he still refuses to admit membership of the ANL:
‘I don’t know. I can’t – can’t really say I was in the Anti-Nazi League. I can’t remember which – which branch it was.’
The next report was from the following month [UCPI0000012960]. There was discussion about merging two groups: West Hampstead ANL and a local branch of Camden Against Racism (CAR), to form ‘Camden Against Racism/ Anti Nazi League – West Hampstead and Hampstead Group’ – about which Gray chuckled, and made a comment referencing Monty Python.
Again, we see Gray’s name listed – he was elected as a delegate from the group at CAR Central Committee meetings. He nit-picked about the Inquiry’s choice of words when they mention him being elected, interrupting to say he was ‘delegated’. Counsel confirmed that he was elected to act as a delegate, and pointed out that he ended up on the committee of every single group he has spent time around.
Gray said, by way of explanation, that this meant he could do his job better. He would know even more about who was involved, and be able to gather information for both Special Branch and the Security Service. He says he avoided taking on any responsibility in these committee roles.
Before moving on, we note that the first three general meetings of this new amalgamated group were chaired by ‘Paul Gray’, who explained this is because it was made a rotating role, and he was first on the rota. He also chaired the group’s general meetings, for example one held in November 1978 [UCPI0000013002], when he reported back from a recent meeting at Brent Trade and Labour Hall.
According to another report [UCPI0000013135], meetings of the group were still being chaired by ‘Paul Gray’ in January 1979. This particular meeting agreed that Gray should accompany another member to the ANL’s NW London Coordinating Committee meetings in future to ‘assist’ her. Gray insisted that he didn’t think he would have influenced the ANL’s activities.
The Inquiry drew attention to Gray’s statement, were he described the ANL as ‘an anti-fascist group rather than than a subversive group’, that attended many of the same demos as other left-wing groups. And that both the SWP and ANL would ‘get involved in public disorder and violence, particularly when the NF turned up’. Asked about this, Gray confirmed that he regarded members of both groups as targets.
Attached to a report from August 1978 [UCPI0000011380] is a newsletter produced by West Hampstead ANL. This includes a piece describing the NF’s activities in and around Brick Lane in the East End, saying:
‘This area has been the scene of two brutal racial murders, frequent attacks on Bengali’s by gangs of NF thugs, and a regular presence by gangs of paper sellers pushing the most provocative and disgusting racist propaganda…
‘If we can peacefully occupy the area every Sunday morning between now and the general election, we can destroy their credibility amongst the elements that might be impressed by their success.’
Gray was sceptical about this:
‘I don’t know if they used the word ‘peaceful’.’
Counsel pointed out that it’s there in black and white, in the leaflet that Gray himself had included in the report.
‘Well, there you are, yeah.’
The last report in this section was another from August 1978 [UCPI0000011355]. This is about two members of the Kilburn & Queens Park ANL, who are living in a squat.
An article is attached, from ‘Women’s Voice’ – another SWP publication – entitled ‘Organise your street against the Nazis’. Why report on this? Because they were planning to hold meetings in Kilburn High Street – which, to Gray, is ‘all to do with public order. That’s what our remit was.’
He claimed to be trying to provide as full a picture of ‘Women’s Voice’ as possible for Special Branch’s C Squad (which spied on left wing activists) and MI5. He also says that organising against Nazis equates to them ‘sliding sideways’.
BLAIR PEACH
Blair Peach
The next report from the SWP NW London District in April 1979 [UCPI0000021193] lists counter-demonstrations organised to protest the NF’s election rallies. The Front had booked town halls as venues for these meetings, despite strong local opposition to their race-hate.
The community in Southall had tried to get the NF rally at their Town Hall cancelled, but when that failed they sent a call-out for anti-fascists, trade unionists and others to come to Southall on 23 April to protest outside the NF meeting.
ANL and SWP member Blair Peach was one of the thousands who responded to that call. He was killed when he was hit over the head with a weapon a member of the police’s Special Patrol Group that day.
Like so many of his colleagues, Gray claims he didn’t go to Southall that day:
‘I didn’t attend because I was either at the office meeting on a Monday, or I was at my employment.’
This seems implausible, as we’ve already heard that SDS officers would skip the safe-house meetings if something important was going on.
As for the possibility of him begin at his cover employment, Gray appears to have forgotten telling us in his written statement:
‘I never did any actual work for him.’
It would have been nice to see the Inquiry ask more about this sort of discrepancy.
According to him, there was no discussion of Southall at all amongst the spycops, and none of them were there that day:
‘all I heard about the death of Blair Peach was what I saw on the television news’
This was a major case of public disorder, with 200 arrests and many injured, so it seems vanishingly unlikely that a police unit dedicated to demonstrations and disorder wouldn’t talk about it.
Even more unbelievably, Gray claims that he didn’t hear this case being discussed within the ANL or SWP either, despite that fact that he wrote reports detailing exactly that [UCPI0000021218].
He claimed complete ignorance of the entire campaign for justice started by Peach’s partner and long-standing SWP member Celia Stubbs and the Friends of Blair Peach Committee, and even Stubbs herself (although he referred to her by first name only, which seems a little familiar). However, another of his reports, from June 1979 [UCPI0000021313], is all about the Committee.
Likewise, Gray denies joining the thousands of people who attended Blair Peach’s funeral in June 1979. Having been told it was a Wednesday, he didn’t use the excuse of the SDS meeting, but said:
‘I was probably at work.’
Again, the Inquiry did not ask him what other work he could possibly have been doing that day.
We saw some other reports, believed to be written by Gray, that refer to the door-to-door leafleting and peaceful vigils held outside Kilburn and Harlesden police stations on the eve of the first inquest into Peach’s death. Gray eventually admitted that he must have been present at these, in order to produce a list of names of those who attended [UCPI0000013435] and [UCPI0000013498].
Another report of Gray’s from October 1979 [UCPI0000013520] includes copies of a photo that was published in the ‘Kilburn Times’. It shows an activist attending the vigil at Kilburn police station. Why do this with a photo that’s freely available?
Gray’s tone became snappy in response:
‘It’s not freely available at Scotland Yard and at the Security Service’
He claimed that he was just a ‘conduit’ and the fact that they kept it on file for all these years somehow proves the value of his ‘intelligence’.
Another photo is shown, [UCPI0000013539], of a woman at the Peach funeral, and Gray confirmed that the SDS played a role in identifying people in photographs of this kind.
REPORTING ON SCHOOL KIDS
It was made clear from a series of documents that Gray reported extensively on children, and had quite a preoccupation with one of them.
There is a photograph of a schoolboy attached to a report dated 19 May 1978 [UCPI0000011275]. According to Gray, this child is a member of the Finchley & Barnet SWP branch and is just fifteen years old, but:
‘I remember that he had a lengthy criminal record for violence at demonstrations.’
He claimed the boy ‘often instigated violence’.
We are not supplied with any details of these alleged previous offences, but it seems likely that he was a victim of the Met’s institutional racism and the prejudice of its officers – he is also Black, six foot tall and ‘well built’.
The same ‘very active’ boy is mentioned in other intelligence reports, including one from 20 April [UCPI0000011970] highlighting his role as an ANL Organiser in NW London. Another report from 27 April [UCPI0000011997] describes him speaking at a meeting of School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN).
The Inquiry pointed out that in the 20 April report, the words ‘no trace’ appear by his name, indicating that Special Branch has not already begun a Registry File on him.
In the 27 April report, the word ‘mentions’ appears by his name, and Gray explained how this system worked. A number of mentions would trigger a new file being created about that individual.
By 19 May, this boy had been assigned his own file number. Does this mean that Gray is responsible for a Special Branch file being opened on this school child? No, he squirmed. He says this would only have happened after a certain number of ‘mentions’, and other spycops must have mentioned him too.
Referring to the boy’s supposed list of crimes, Gray said:
‘I think he was quite proud of the fact he had a record.’
Asked about this ‘lengthy criminal record’ and whether this might have led to a Special Branch Registry File being opened, Gray said it wouldn’t as criminal records were stored on a separate system.
In November 1978 [UCPI0000012951], the boy was is arrested for obstructing a police officer outside an NF rally. Gray admits this was typical of what he’d have reported on the boy, however, it is not what he means when he said the teenager had a lengthy record for violent offences.
A further report from Gray concerning this boy was filed in June 1979 [UCPI0000021004]. According to this, the boy had left his family home:
‘after a long period of family unrest ending in a serious fist-fight with his brother… having been “thrown out” by his parents.’
Basically, it reports on a family row.
Gray eventually conceded that he never witnessed this boy committing any violence, but recalled ‘he was the first one out of the bus’ at Brick Lane and in the face of the National Front, ‘he had that sort of temperament’.
The final report we see of this enthusiastic teenaged anti-fascist’s activity, dated October 1979 [UCPI0000020068], mentions that he has booked a mini-bus to take a group of National Union of School Students members around schools to distribute leaflets about planned education cuts.
Asked how was this significant for public order, Gray responds that school students were ‘very unruly sort of people’ and claimed handing out these leaflets:
‘It would have been quite unpleasant for the schools who were being leafleted and for children trying to go in and come out. I have no evidence of this other than this was what he was boasting about.’
SCHOOL KIDS AGAINST THE NAZIS
One of the groups this teenager was involved with was School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN). In his statement, Gray had alleged:
‘Although SKAN’s members were young they were just as violent as any other anti-fascist group.’
He later clarified that he meant the SWP and ANL. He considered reporting on them was entirely justifiable.
We saw some reports of SKAN events, including a meeting they held in Shepherds Bush in April 1978 [UCPI0000011997] – where they talked about what was going on in their schools, and planned to travel together to the upcoming Rock Against Racism Carnival. There is no indication that the group is planning any disorder, never mind violence.
Another schoolboy is the subject of an April 1978 report of Gray’s [UCPI0000011994]. He was a member of Finchley SKAN and the SWP.
Is this the sort of report he would send in? By this stage Gray was increasingly defensive, claiming that these kids were all SWP/ANL.
Next the Inquiry played him some film footage of SKAN from 1978, then asked if this was consistent with his memories of the group at the time.
Gray was forced to agree that the footage – featuring the group’s slogan: ‘We are black, we are white, we are dynamite’ – did not give the impression of a violent group, but to his defence suggested that this film was deliberately made to ‘bolster’ the group’s image:
‘I would say that the characters that I was aware of were a lot more violent than those youngsters there.’
Gray filed reports about the activities of other school-children, for example about a group of pupils at one school in Barnet going on ‘strike’, as a protest about girls having to wear skirts rather than trousers at school [UCPI0000021267]. He doesn’t understand why his reports are problematic, claiming that the strike would have made the national news (it didn’t) and so this made it ‘of interest to Special Branch’.
This same report focussed on a 15-year old boy who spoke about the strike at the SWP’s annual Easter rally in Skegness. The boy is described as having an ‘effeminate manner’.
The Inquiry asked why Gray thought this was an appropriate thing to include in a report. He could only respond by saying that none of his managers criticised this at the time, so he thought his reporting was fine.
OTHER TARGETS
Gray said that he didn’t join any trade unions during his time undercover, but may have attended a few SWP-supported pickets.
However, the Inquiry produced a number of his reports about trade unionists, including one from May 1978 [UCPI0000021645] details an individual who worked at General Motors and was active in his trade union, as well as the Troops Out Movement.
The next report was from August 1978 [UCPI0000011379] about the secretary of Barnet Trades Council, whose employment (as a lecturer at Hendon College of Technology) is detailed, along with his membership of the National Association of Teachers in Further & Higher Education.
A further report dated March 1979 [UCPI0000013201] is of an ambulance driver, who was also a NUPE (National Union of Public Employees) shop steward at his hospital.
Finally on the union spying, a December 1981 report [UCPI0000016795] was about a carpenter who worked on a building site, and was also a shop steward forconstruction union UCATT.
Gray was unable to help the Inquiry whether reporting on trade union activity fell within the SDS’s public order remit, or their subversion one. All four people reported on were members of the SWP, and he seems to insist that this alone may have been enough of a reason to report on them.
He claims to be not aware of anyone losing their jobs as a result of involvement in groups like the SWP, or in trade union activity. Neither has he heard of anyone being ‘blacklisted’, even though the Metropolitan Police now admit that Special Branch officers supplied information to illegal employment blacklists.
Gray claims that he was never specifically tasked with reporting on trade union activity, but would include such information to give his reports:
‘a full, rounded idea of what somebody was up to.’
A report dated November 1980 [UCPI0000015145] was about a member of the SWP’s Kilburn branch, who is also said to be:
‘a supporter of the Gay Liberation Movement and an avid reader of “Gay News”.’
It also includes his home address, details of his bank account and that he has a Northern Irish accent.
Gray says he’s not sure that this report was his, even though it is dated 1980, when he was spying on Kilburn SWP, but explains that recording the man’s sexual interest in men was:
‘something that would have… identified him in future.’
Other reports attributed to Gray include a highly-redacted one from August 1981 [UCPI0000015536], which contained details of an SWP member’s ‘private sexual activities’.
The final report [UCPI0000018100], was about a former SWP member suffering from schizophrenia. Gray disputed the authorship of this as it is dated 13 May 1982, after his deployment ended. The Inquiry pointed out this was only very shortly after he was withdrawn from the field. It is also around the time when he was in the SDS office writing post-deployment reports.
And so ended a long day for someone who clearly did not want to answer for his actions.
Evidence from witness: ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79)
The Undercover Policing Inquiry hearing on 7 May 2021 was entirely devoted to evidence from one witness, former officer ‘Graham Coates’, who certainly has a lot to say about the Special Demonstration Squad.
It appears that ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79) joined the SDS in late 1975, having spent time working in various parts of Special Branch.
Coates says he was asked to attend a political meeting and report back by Detective Inspector Creamer. Shortly afterwards he was invited to join the secret unit. In his written witness statement, he recalls ‘an element of pride at having been asked’.
He was initially deployed to spy on the Hackney branch of the International Socialists (IS) – later renamed the Socialist Workers Party – in the summer of 1976. From 1977, he turned his attention to anarchist groups, including the Zero Collective and Anarchy Collective.
He also spied on the group Persons Unknown (‘PUNK’) and the Croydon branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
JOINING THE SPYCOPS
Coates first knew about the existence of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) when in Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s C Squad, which monitored left wing political groups. At some point he realised that he was looking at intelligence which had been collected by the SDS.
Having apparently passed that assignment, Coates was asked to present himself at ‘Room 1818’. At that time, the SDS was part of S Squad, and its office was on the top floor of New Scotland Yard. When he got there, he remembers the suggestion that he join the SDS.
He was asked if he was married or in a stable relationship. On being questioned why they wanted to know this, he replied:
‘It was explained… in very general terms that they felt that an officer in a stable relationship or a stable married relationship would be a more stable character, given the likely exposure to stresses and strains of the likely work involved.’
He was told that his undercover deployment would last for four years.
Like all SDS undercovers we have heard from to date, he received no formal training for the role. Instead, he spent five months in the SDS back office, accompanying managers to the regular weekly meetings of undercovers at the unit’s safe house.
Who typed up the reports in those days? He says there was a dedicated typing pool – he definitely didn’t type them himself.
The Inquiry drew his attention to the Registry File numbers and asked who obtained the numbers for incorporation into these reports? Coates confirmed that this was the sort of administrative work he was tasked with during his time in the back office.
Coates has stated that the undercovers were asked for their opinions of these new recruits. Asked what managers were looking for, he replied:
‘I imagine that they were looking out for somebody who would not stand out in any way as obviously being a serving officer.’
SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS : ‘BE CAREFUL’
In Coates’ written statement, he says the advice on sexual relationships, if any, was to ‘be incredibly careful’ if you were going to get involved in people’s private lives, especially if you were going to engage in a sexual relationship.
The Inquiry asked specifically what being ‘very careful’ meant.
His explanation:
‘really and truly this is not something that we advise, but if you have to, take every precaution of all kinds that you can imagine necessary.’
Coates clarified that by ‘precautions’ he meant contraception but also the:
‘common sense preservation of an identity of an individual, of a group of individuals and of the risk that would be entailed if the whole system became exposed, if that relationship became exposed.’
However it was left to individual officers to decide whether to take this advice or not and, as we heard later, many of them ignored it.
He says that he avoided sexual relationships when undercover:
‘I found the whole business of operating as an undercover officer stressful enough.’
Asked if he had any moral views on this, he said that his views had taken ‘more definite shape’ over the years, but he did feel it was wrong for an undercover officer to have a relationship of this kind with a member of the public who didn’t know who they really were.
DEFINING SUBVERSION & LACK OF TRAINING
He defined ‘subversion’ as something:
‘likely to cause disruption to an established system of government.’
Was this the system of parliamentary democracy, or the government of the day?
‘I think it was probably both.’
He talked about aims and means – and said that Special Branch would take an interest in any group with subversive aims, even if they did not have the means to make anything happen.
Asked if he felt properly prepared for his undercover role, Coates gave an emphatic ‘no.’
He went on to say that he:
‘just had a feeling that the management of the day really expected potential officers… to fully understand all of the ramifications of such a posting’
He now wishes that he had asked more questions but was not actively encouraged to do so. He thinks more formal training would have helped.
IDENTITY THEFT
Like many other undercover officers, Coates was instructed to visit the government’s birth records registry at Somerset House and to locate the identity of a dead child for his cover name. He was advised that the ‘person should not have died incredibly old’ because an older child would have ‘much more history that could be checked’.
He stole the identity of a child called ‘Graham Coates’ to form the basis of his false persona. As part of his ‘legend building’, he visited the real Graham Coates’ place of birth – something he said he did of his own volition.
The Inquiry asked if he had carried out any kind of risk assessment (even just in his head) about the possibility of being compromised or confronted with a death certificate for Graham Coates. He answered he may have considered that ‘fleetingly’ but quickly discounted it as extremely unlikely.
Coates candidly admits to not having any qualms at the time about stealing a dead child’s identity. He doesn’t know if his fellow SDS colleagues had reservations about this practice, but also said that they did not really discuss it.
His managers did not test his cover identity in any way – they trusted the undercovers’ ability to create a solid enough story. Coates says he was not warned that activists might try to test his identity, or told of any contingency plans for such a situation.
TRADECRAFT
He wasn’t able to grow as full a beard as other undercover ‘hairies’, but altered his appearance by wearing thick heavy-framed glasses. He habitually smoked a pipe:
‘I also developed the habit of always having a hole in the knee of my jeans. This was part of my general scruffiness.’
He had a driving licence in the name of ‘Graham Coates’, a rent book and maybe a library card. His cover accommodation was in North London, and he told people he was self-employed as a window cleaner.
As part of this cover, he drove a blue Mini van with a roof-rack, and carried step-ladders and other window-cleaning equipment around:
‘The job fitted the lackadaisical lifestyle I wanted as I could make my own hours.’
Coates said that he ‘chose not to be prominent’ within the groups he infiltrated. Rather, how he presented himself was connected to how he felt it might affect his safety, saying that he unconsciously ‘probably kept what I’d now regard as a Covid 19 distance from them’.
The Inquiry returned to the issue of the SDS safe houses. Were there always two during his deployment? Coates confirmed that there were, explaining that one of them changed during this time, but there were always two. He described one as a ‘large flat’.
According to his written statement, undercover officers could go into another room for a private chat with managers. He said this was something he did ‘seldom, if ever’.
He kept a standard police diary. It was used to:
‘convey in the broadest strokes the daily activities of the UCO, commencing from phoning in to start work… meeting informants at such and such a hostelry… until the early hours of the morning when you finished work.’
These diaries were submitted at the meetings. The spycops were paid for their ‘overtime’ and expenses.
CONVERSATIONS AT THE SAFE HOUSE
Coates was able to shed light on the regular meetings at the flat. There was no formal agenda. ‘It was a fairly light-hearted gathering over tea and coffee’ followed by a ‘long and moist lunch’ at a pub.
Coates was rather vague about what was discussed at these meetings but remembered them including, for example, what was defined as on- and off- duty.
The Inquiry asked why this distinction was discussed, and he said the main reason was the spycops’ claims for overtime. His were never challenged, so he assumes they ‘fell within acceptable limits’. However, he did say that in ‘one or two cases, eyebrows were raised’.
The undercovers sometimes discussed the demonstrations they attended – the discrepancies (eg in reported numbers of people attending) as well as who attended and spoke, and how the uniformed police behaved.
Were the politics of the groups being spied on discussed in the safe house? He says he had the feeling that their politics were ‘not disregarded but belittled’, and this belittling was not deliberate, it is ‘just what happened’.
He describes his relationship with his fellow undercover officers as a ‘working friendship’. He could relax with them. The group contained a wide range of personalities. They would joke together, and he remembers banter, which the managers would join in with.
‘BANTER’
In his written statement, he described ‘informal banter’ at the undercover officers’ safe house about women these officers had encountered while undercover, and ‘jokey remarks’ about sexual encounters made in the presence of managers. This behaviour was never challenged.
He also recalls that ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) had a reputation for chasing after women and was widely known as a philanderer. A third officer, whose details he did not recall, also behaved in this way.
In his statement, he says the unit’s managers:
‘must have known it was almost bound to happen with certain individuals who had a predilection for chasing women before during and after their time with the SDS. Indeed, single men were generally not admitted to the SDS and I understood this was partly about avoiding relationships.’
Asked whether the kind of ‘banter’ would have gone down well with 1970s feminists he went much further and said that it probably would have been considered offensive by most people, even back then.
RICK GIBSON – RISK OF COMPROMISE
Asked about Richard Clark, who used the cover name ‘Rick Gibson’, he said his clearest recollection was while Coates was still working in the back office before his deployment began, when he became aware that unit’s managers were worried about Clark’s identity being compromised.
How concerned were the managers about this situation? Coates suspects the managers were more concerned about the safety of Clark’s role and function as a supplier of covert information, rather than the officer’s personal safety, adding pointedly:
‘although they would deny that, wouldn’t they?’
He thought the SDS managers didn’t want to lose this valuable source of intelligence, adding:
‘if one brick falls out of the building, maybe others will become unstable, or will be discovered to be unstable.’
They were very keen to keep the unit out of the public eye. How security-conscious were they? ‘Apparently quite,’ Coates replied drily.
MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE OF RELATIONSHIPS
Ever since the spycops scandal broke, a central question has been whether or not senior officers knew about the undercovers’ abusive intimate relationships.
Speaking about Clark’s sexual relationships, Coates was clear:
‘What I heard left me in no doubt that the management were aware of that officer’s behaviour.’
Senior officers:
‘could not have failed to have drawn the obvious conclusions from the comments that were being made’.
Coates explained that the sexual comments being made in conversation in the SDS safe houses were ‘of a gross nature’ have left nobody in any doubt the nature of the Clark’s relationships:
‘It was made quite plain with jokes and banter.’
Coates is extremely clear and very emphatic that there is no way anyone working in the wider SDS office at the time could have been unaware of Clark’s exploits.
At this time, the unit was run by Chief Inspector Derek Kneale. Detective Inspector Geoff Craft (and possibly DI Angus McIntosh), who would certainly have known, as would have Sergeant ‘HN368’, if they were in the unit at that time.
Pressed for details of a ‘gross comment’ of the kind he’d mentioned earlier, he reluctantly shared one example:
‘he’ll have made her bite the blankets again last night.’
Coates reiterated that the managers never openly criticised or expressed disapproval of the unit’s ‘banter’. They actually took part in what he called a ‘low level of communal humour’.
Coates accuses the managers of being ‘deliberately blind in some areas’, including these sexual relationships.
Did the spycops discuss the Women’s Liberation Movement in their safe house? As Coates remembers, their attitude and thinking was similar to many other men at the time – feminists were ‘a bunch of angry women that could be ignored’.
The Inquiry then asked Coates more about specific officers accused of sexual misconduct in this era.
JIM PICKFORD (HN300)
According to Coates, Pickford was widely known as a ‘philanderer’:
‘anybody who knew that officer, at any stage of his service, would very quickly have known what his propensities and proclivities were in that regard… he really didn’t keep anything very secret… It was common knowledge, within and outside of ‘S Squad’ [the SDS parent unit], that he could not be in the presence of a woman without trying it on.’
Coates says he witnessed this for himself. He’d have been surprised if Pickford hadn’t talked about the women in his target group.
He didn’t think Pickford did falling in love, but knew that he’d formed a relationship with a woman he met while undercover. He says he didn’t know that Jim later married such a woman.
Again, as it was the subject of safe house banter, Coates does not see how the managers could have been unaware of Pickford’s sexual relationships.
BARRY TOMPKINS (HN106)
Turning to ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83), Coates said he couldn’t recall anything about this man’s reputation with women, or any gossip about his indulging in sexual relationships. The Inquiry asked him if he could recall an anecdote circulating in the safe house about an activist woman who could lactate on demand, but Coates said he didn’t.
Documents being published by the Inquiry suggest that Barry Tompkins did indeed have a relationship whilst undercover.
PHIL COOPER (HN155)
Coates said the banter about ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155, 1979-83) tended to be about financial matters, such as the size of his expense claims. He doesn’t remember any sexual relationships but says he would not be surprised to hear that Cooper had a ‘reputation with women’.
Asked why he wouldn’t be surprised, he went on to explain that Cooper was a ‘very charming, easy-going, light-hearted individual’ who found it easy to strike up friendships, and probably would have had ‘small to no’ qualms when it came to ‘accepting an offer of sex’ while undercover.
VINCE MILLER (HN354)
Although he couldn’t recall who ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79) was when he wrote his statement, Coates now remembers him. Despite them being deployed at the same time, near each other, he says he didn’t know Miller all that well.
Coates says he wasn’t aware of his ‘reputation with women’ and knows nothing about any sexual relationships that this officer might have had.
Miller admits having relationships with four women while undercover.
Coates does not believe that the spycops gave any consideration to how these women might feel about being deceived.
TESTING FOR POTENTIAL ABUSERS?
With hindsight, Coates thinks that there should have been much stricter guidance in terms of the potential damage of such relationships to individuals and families, and that intimate relationships should have been discouraged. In particular, he suggested today that:
‘prospective UCOs [undercover officers] should be schooled for far longer, and in greater breadth, for all considerations of the work.’
When asked if he thought the men should also have been screened, so that those with a predilection for chasing women were excluded, Coates talked about why it suited the managers to ignore these sexual relationships due to the intelligence being obtained.
Coates was also asked if sexual relationships had been clearly prohibited, and if this issue been covered in training, would it have prevented them happening?
Coates replied that, in his opinion, some of the undercovers he knew would have had them anyway:
‘I don’t think it would have had any effect’.
Later in the day, Coates said he was unsurprised to hear about the high number of sexual relationships between spycops and their targets after the story became public in 2011, saying there was ‘almost a sense of inevitability’ about such things occurring.
REPORTING
Coates understood that his role was to gather information, and that:
‘no scrap of information was ever rejected as irrelevant.’
According to his statement, undercover officers were expected to ‘take information in through the skin’.
You can’t ignore things, no matter how trivial they seem – they might turn out, years later, to be ‘the missing piece of the jigsaw’ he explained. He said it was normal within Special Branch for senior officers to decide what was included in final reports, saying ‘it’s not for us’ (the reporting officers) to make such assessments.
However, he admitted to doing some filtering himself, saying he would use his own judgement and relied on his conscience as well as his experience to do so. He said that he would not report personal information – although many Special Branch reports are littered with such material.
He is not sure how complete the reporting that has been provided to him is – he says he is surprised there is not more.
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Special Branch employed covert photographers. He was often shown these pictures and asked to identify people in them. He did not photograph any activists himself.
One document shown by the Inquiry [UCPI0000011265] is a heavily censored image of an ‘anarcha-feminist’– he is asked if this is a typical example of such photos?
He agreed that it was, and explained the significance of the cropping of the image – it looks like it was a photograph that that been taken and processed by Special Branch itself.
HACKNEY INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS
At the start of his deployment, Coates was tasked to infiltrate the Hackney International Socialists (IS) by DCI Derek Kneale. He found it easy to infiltrate them – he hung around Dalston and got into conversation with some of its members from which they recruited him to help sell papers and invited him to meetings.
Reports attributed to Coates go back to a meeting of the Tower Hamlets branch of IS in May 1976. There are more reports from him that hot summer – many of the meetings he spied on took place at Centerprise – a cross-cultural community hub in Dalston that combined a bookshop and coffee bar, providing advice and resources, and meeting space for all kinds of groups.
These included one meeting of the North East London Workers’ Action Support Group in July 1976 [UCPI000009764], and regular members-only meetings of the Hackney IS group.
Since the Hackney IS meetings were very small, Coates was asked how much impact his presence had on the decisions made in these meetings.
He said that he retained his sense of caution throughout, and tried not to raise any suspicions. He would minimise how often he voted and abstained as often as he judged he could.
A report dated 24 August 1976 [UCPI0000010831], concerns an educational meeting organised by Hackney IS. ‘Graham Coates’ is not only listed as one of the five attendees but is named as giving a 20 minute talk on the history of the Labour Party.
Coates believes he was asked to give this talk as a way of establishing his knowledge, as a recent recruit to the IS group, and that it would have helped his credentials.
His report [UCPI0000010756] of an August 1976 meeting at Earlsmead School mentions that Paul Foot ‘spoke on the spectre of racism’.
In February 1977, Coates filed a report [UCPI0000017759] of a meeting which discussed the case of the ‘Islington 18‘ – a group of Black defendants who were arrested in North London on spurious grounds of conspiracy.
The Inquiry asked whether the SDS reported on such justice campaigns as part of their ‘any info is fair game’ approach or did they take a particular interest? Coates says the former.
BLAIR PEACH
Blair Peach
Coates says he was not made aware of any need for sensitivity around spying on those kinds of family justice campaign groups. He was asked what he knew about Celia Stubbs, who was a member of Hackney IS at the same time as him, or her partner Blair Peach. He said that he recalled seeing Stubbs at meetings, but never met Peach.
Did he remember attending a demo in Southall on 23rd April 1979? Coates asked if this was a reference to the Grunwick dispute. He had to be reminded that this was the antifascist protest at which Blair Peach was killed by police.
In contrast with his openness in answering questions about the SDS’ misogynist culture, Coates clammed up and seemed tense – he claimed not to remember any discussion of this case, or the subsequent campaigning for justice.
CLASHES BETWEEN LEFT & RIGHT
We returned once more to the subject of public disorder caused by fascist agitation, attacks, and intimidation, which has featured throughout the evidence.
In contrast to other instances, three reports from 1976-77 [UCPI0000010769] [UCPI0000011139] [UCPI0000011244] were used to show that the National Front (NF) frequently turned up at their opponents’ events and sought to intimidate and physically attack people.
A report by Coates from July 1976 [UCPI0000010659] includes a reference to a ‘negress’ in the audience talking about the West Indian Defence Committee in Brixton, who were engaged with knives and coshes ready to meet physical racialism with physical attacks.
It’s noteworthy that, throughout this period, although the NF and other right-wing groups were extremely violent, they were not being spied on by the SDS in the way that anti-fascists routinely were.
We went back to a report from June 1976 [UCPI0000009764] on a meeting of North East London Workers Action Support Group. Somebody who spoke at this meeting is reported to have said:
‘the only reason that the anti-fascist demonstrations appeared to attack the police and not the NF was because the police actively supported and protected the NF and therefore any such confrontation was an anti-fascist action… that would always be mischaracterised by the capitalist press.’
Coates explained that the view that the police always sided with the right-wing groups was prevalent. Unfortunately the Inquiry idn’t ask the obvious follow-up question – did Coates think there was any truth in this?
Coates’ October 1975 report [UCPI0000021460] about Brent Trades Council organising a picket at an NF meeting being held in Burnt Oak Library in Edgware was, he agreed typical of the reports that he and other undercover officers submitted.
GRUNWICK STRIKE
Coates was asked about his memories of the Grunwick dispute. This was a long-running strike at a north London photo processing works in the late 1970s over unfair working practices which attracted widespread support and involved mass pickets.
Coates recalled it was something to do with the discrimination faced by Asian women workers, but didn’t think he went there.
However, in his written statement, he describes his attendance with IS in some detail, and the fact that it sticks in his mind because:
‘The Grunwicks demonstrations were the only significant public order disturbance I witnessed.’
After being reminded of this, he said he thought he had gone there on one occasion.
The Inquiry highlighted part of his witness statement’s comments about violence:
‘I never witnessed any violence close-hand, but heard afterwards from other activists that people had been hit by the police. I think there were many arrests at Grunwicks for public order offences, such as obstructing the highway, offensive or abusive words or behaviour, and possibly resisting arrest.’
He then added:
‘Of course, there was always an element of a badge of honour to it – if, as an activist, you could claim that you had been hit by the police, because it just proved how rotten they were.’
SOCIALIST WORKER STRATEGIES
The Inquiry showed a report [UCPI0000010956] from September 1977, in which a member of the SWP described Grunwick as a ‘good training ground in the use of tactics on the picket line’. They added the Party should get involved in industrial disputes at an earlier stage and recommended forming ‘cells’ in factories that could persuade people to join picket lines. To this end, he suggested, there should be a list of unemployed SWP members who could join a workplace at short notice if it was thought a dispute was in the offing.
The speaker said Grunwick showed that at least a thousand comrades would be needed to attack or block the factory gates, and the plan would need to be enacted swiftly and forcefully to avoid it being stopped by police. The SWP have the ability to take such action, he said, but not the capacity to organise it.
Coates was asked if this tallied with what he knew of SWP strategy. He said that the Party was ‘moderately OK in handling small pickets’ but lacked the ‘joined-up thinking and foresight’ to do anything on something as large scale as the Grunwick dispute.
Asked if the SWP was cooperative with the police in planning demonstrations, Coates was unsure but imagines they were.
This question has been asked of multiple witnesses now. The Inquiry seems to be implying a lack of cooperation somehow goes to justifying the deployment of undercover police – without looking at the fact that the right to free speech and assembly are protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention is clear that any interference with those rights has to be both necessary and proportionate.
As if it was somehow illegal and subversive to simply hold a demonstration without prior state approval.
The SWP was only ever minimally involved in any criminal activity, and even that tended to be maverick and spontaneous rather than planned and approved by leaders. As the SWP sought revolutionary change, how far had they got when Coates infiltrated them?
Coates retorted, ‘no further than they are now, and added that at the time of his infiltration the prospect seemed remote.
Coates’ last report on the SWP [UCPI0000017375] was dated 11 May 1977.
ANARCHY IN THE UK
At around this time, in the spring of 1977, Coates moved into the ‘anarchist field’, as he was finding the IS tedious:
‘I basically found them boring, for want of a better word, and not very active… they were always just happy to just talk about the party the party, the party, the party. But they didn’t actually do anything very much, from my point of view, to make my life interesting or more sparky,’
Rather, he had developed:
‘a fascination within me about the subject of anarchism.’
He said SDS managers were keen to accommodate the wishes of spycops, so the change was approved. A contemporary, ‘Jimmy Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-77), had been infiltrating anarchist groups and was leaving his deployment, but Coates says he didn’t discuss his new focus with Pickford.
How did Coates prepare himself for anarchism?
‘I made myself thoroughly disreputable looking, for a start.’
In his written statement he said that he thinks he was:
‘drawn to the anarchists as I felt their unstructured and disorganised lifestyle might match my own lifestyle at that time.’
Coates described that infiltrating anarchists was, ‘to a great extent’, based on forming personal relationships with individuals.
He targeted Dave Morris:
‘because he was very cagey as an individual, but he was very approachable at the same time in lots of ways, and I knew a little about him, that he was a key mover in the area at the time.’
Coates describes the two as being ‘close but not huggingly close’ for around 12-18 months.
A report [UCPI0000017641] of a Federation of London Anarchist Groups meeting in December 1976, described how Dave Morris spoke at the start, and then the meeting split into groups to discuss housing, claimants, law and education.
Coates was unequivocally clear that Morris was not a violent man. Yet, Coates filed a report [UCPI0000011003] in September 1977 where Morris had apparently said to close friends he was being ‘inextricably drawn’ towards political violence and it being ‘inevitable’ that he will resort to it. Coates conceded that, to his knowledge, Morris had never resorted to violence.
Coates also deliberately sought out esteemed anarchist Albert Meltzer in order to seem part of the scene. He met him twice at Freedom Bookshop.
In his written statement, Coates explained:
‘I suppose you might call it a little vanity project, but it was very important for me to set myself little targets like this as I found the day-to-day life undercover very monotonous.’
Coates wrote articles for several anarchist publications during his deployment. He says he used his cover name (but this is more likely to mean his fake initials, ‘GC’). He doubts that he would have flagged this activity up to his managers. He suggests that they would have known, as he probably submitted copies of the publications with his reports, but this assumes that they bothered reading them.
He had written articles for IS, but found that harder as he did not share their politics. There, he asked for topics to cover and wrote what he thought people in the group would want to hear. However, with anarchists it came readily as he was:
‘expounding upon my feelings on the subject – my own personal feelings on the subject.’
He remembered writing an article about the difference between true work and exploitative work. We note this is a feat of compartmentalising, to be analysing such a subject and setting out his position, but as an act of paid work for an agency that wants to undermine the beliefs that he’s expressing.
The Inquiry described him as ‘a police officer with anarchist leanings’ – Coates did not correct this assertion. There was a sense among some of those watching his evidence that he quite liked it being put this way.
ANARCHIST GROUPS
Coates infiltrated a number of anarchist groups. He was not surprised to learn that, as an active anarchist, ‘Graham Coates’ has a Special Branch Registry File.
The Zero Collective produced a newsletter of the same name in the 1970s. The group was very small, commonly just three or four people in the meetings. The group didn’t commit any criminal offences or public disorder that Coates is aware of.
Likewise, another target, the Anarchy Collective produced Anarchy magazine. It was also a small group, with meetings often of only three to five people, held in private homes. Coates said that they were tenuously connected with the Angry Brigade, a far-left group responsible for 25 bombings in England between 1970 and 1972.
This connection, Coates recalled on being pressed, turned out to be that someone knew Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie, who had once been caught in Spain trying to assassinate fascist leader General Franco, and had later been acquitted at an Angry Brigade trial.
As for the Anarchy Collective itself, again, he said that they were not involved in any crime or disorder. He bluntly said they had not effected any change to the political system and, in his opinion, had no prospects of doing so.
Persons Unknown (known as PUNK) was a support group for three of the defendants in a legal case, and also campaigned against increased police powers. Again, he says he has no knowledge of them committing crimes or any public disorder.
He had previously said that he may have reported on another group, the East London Libertarians:
‘I don’t think they posed any more threat than any other small rag-tag organisation of any political persuasion.’
Finally, he spoke about anarcho-syndicalists like the London Workers Group. They were more linked to trade unionists and probably more effective at calling out support.
He got to know the Freedom Collective, anarchist publishers who he describes as ‘largely an organisation of wishful thinkers’.
After the Angry Brigade bombings a few years earlier, Special Branch was worried about further such campaigns. Coates saw nothing to suggest that was ever a risk. He was aware of ‘The Anarchist Cookbook’ which contained information about explosives, but said it was not widely circulated and he only once saw a copy (at the home of an Anarchy Collective member).
For someone who left IS because he felt it was all talk and no action, Coates’ choice of targets show a marked focus on publishers rather than action. It seems that he just personally preferred anarchism to socialism.
He said:
‘if every undercover officer told the truth, they would have to admit that at some point during their deployment they had some sympathy for the ideas and tenets of the group or groups that they were involved with.’
Coates is adamant that without spycops the police would not have been able to find out so much about these anarchist groups.
POINTLESS REPORTS
Coates reported [UCPI0000010997] on a September 1977 meeting of 23 anarchists to discuss ‘how should we react to racialism and anti-fascist demonstrations?’
It came in the wake of disturbances at counter-demonstrations against fascist street marches at Wood Green in April and Lewisham in August that year. This was time of a large and growing number of racist attacks in London.
The report describes the meeting as being split between pacifists who wanted public meetings and others who:
‘could hardly restrain themselves from rushing out to assault the nearest fascist/racialist.’
He readily conceded that the group was not actually overtaken by the latter faction. He was not asked what he thought the correct and proportionate response was to fascist throngs on the streets. He could not remember his colleagues ever discussing the far right.
Coates denied that report [UCPI0000021703] was his work. It concerned an anarchist meeting at the London School of Economics on 1 May 1978. It said that a speaker from the Paedophile Information Exchange had been invited, and this info leaked to the fascist National Front in the hope that they would come along to attack it so that the anarchists could provide physical resistance.
The report claimed there were about 65 people, including some up on the roof with things to throw down at any fascists who might arrive.
The Inquiry asked:
‘was the deliberate ambush of political opponents a tactic you came across?’
Coates said it was the kind of thing people might talk about but he never saw it happen.
Flame, the SWP’s Black workers newspaper, Sept 1977
After that odd report, the next one [UCPI0000021710] was frankly bizarre. It said that a speaker, having agreed that a previous suggestion to burn prison gates was unworkable, suggested attacking a school.
The purpose would be to point out to pupils the uselessness of academic education. This would be done by locking pupils and staff either in or out of the building, beating up the teachers ‘with a reputation’, distributing leaflets, and doing it all within 15 minutes before leaving so as to avoid capture by police.
Coates said this was not his report and he knew nothing about such an idea. Not for the first time, it seems that Special Branch did not want to distinguish between hyperbole and actual plans. As with all the other reports mentioned, this one had been copied to the Security Service (MI5).
Despite reporting no intelligence that would build a picture of concern, managers didn’t question his continued deployment until more than a year later when he was told to switch to infiltrating Croydon SWP:
‘I think that was because they felt that my output… had become insufficient.’
He did this for a few months and, again, is not aware of the group being involved in any criminality or disorder. More than that, Coates says he never took part in any crime while undercover, and neither did the groups he infiltrated.
FRATERNISING WITH THE ENEMY
The Inquiry asked Coates about socialising with those he spied on. He said that he went to the pub with IS as a group after meetings, but not to people’s houses.
He socialised more with the anarchists because he felt more ‘at home’ among them.
His mangers never asked him about this aspect of his deployment, but would have expected it. Drinking ran a risk of Coates accidentally saying things he shouldn’t, but he still drank extensively anyway.
PREJUDICE
The Inquiry then highlighted some prejudiced language and attitudes in Coates’ reports.
A report in June 1978 [UCPI0000021776] said that following police raids elsewhere, Dave Morris had seen fit to alter his appearance quite dramatically by shaving off his beard and having his hair cut short:
‘This has revealed he has a long thin face, large Jewish nose and full lips.’
An August 1976 meeting titled ‘Women: The Fight for Equality’ was reported on [UCPI0000010823].
It describes an IS party member and school teacher, speaking to an IS meeting for the first time:
‘in addition to being attractive, she was both eloquent and forceful.’
Coates denied authorship of the report, but conceded that either way there was no need to rate the woman’s physical appearance as ‘attractive’.
The Inquiry listed a number of other objectionable observations in reports attributed to Coates. There was a reference to activists having ‘a mongol child’, a derogatory term for someone with Down’s syndrome. Another child was noted as ‘exact parenthood unknown’. Sexual orientation was commented upon, and affairs were recorded.
Coates not only tried to shrug it off as the culture of the time, he sought to justify it:
‘I can only tell you it was accepted, it was not queried… on the grounds that you never know when it might come in useful, who it might lead to, where it might lead’
RIGHT TO THE TOP
Coates recounted that the head of the Metropolitan Police, Commissioner Sir Robert Mark, visited the SDS safe house to personally congratulate the officers on their work. He remembers managers insisting on maximum attendance from all deployed undercovers that day.
Unexpectedly, he recalled that Mark made a comment when he was introduced to ‘Phil Cooper‘ (HN155, 1979-83):
‘when introduced to him, he said words to the effect of, “Ah, yes, your name should be Gold”.’
This was allegedly a reference to the size of Cooper’s expenses claims. This is a strong indication that the ‘top brass’ paid close attention to everyday details of the spycops unit. It demonstrates the importance of proper cross-examination at the Inquiry.
The Commander of Special Branch also visited to cast a favourable eye over the unit.
END OF DEPLOYMENT
Coates said that he had found the undercover life became more and more stressful as time went on. By 1979 his home life was also difficult.
‘I made an error of judgement on a particular day which resulted in my immediate withdrawal and posting back to Scotland Yard.’
This was obliquely referred to as ‘a traffic matter’ in which he told a uniformed officer from another constabulary his real name.
SDS boss Mike Ferguson (a former undercover himself) was ‘incandescent’, not just at Coates’ own indiscretion but for the potential revelation of the unit and its methods. Coates was withdrawn from the field on the spot.
This account is somewhat curious when one notes the various other indiscretions of undercovers, especially ‘Stewart Goodman’ (HN339, 1970-71) crashing his car while drunk and telling police on the scene officer he was undercover.
OFFICER WELFARE
Coates pointed out that by the time he joined the SDS, the unit had had plenty of time to set up systems to look after the spycops welfare, but it had not done so.
He said that it would have been useful for potential recruits to be given a ‘much broader, fuller, longer period of immersion’ before entering the field.
He had no debriefing or period of rest after being withdrawn from his undercover life.. He doesn’t remember being told about any support on offer.
Nobody really checked up on his welfare after his deployment ended. He says now that at the time he seemed to be coping OK, but nobody knows how they’ll react to stress in the short- and long-term. He says the managers should have been more proactive and asked. He went on to complain that he was left feeling bereft:
‘I’ve gone through all of this and now it’s as if I don’t exist’.
Like a large proportion of spycops, his marriage foundered and he separated from his wife shortly after his deployment ended.
Coates sticks by the sentiment from his witness statement, that the SDS generally did not actually protect the public from danger, but that it was nonetheless worthwhile:
‘If the SDS had never existed, I do not think disaster would have befallen the streets of the capital apart from maybe on a very small number of occasions when there were very large demonstrations. But I think the work of the SDS helped to make sure police resources were not being wasted on small demonstrations, and that larger demonstrations were properly policed.’
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.
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:
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.’
‘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.
Phillippa Kaufmann QC representing Core Participants who had relationships with undercover officers
Phillippa Kaufmann QC
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.
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.
Matthew Ryder QC representing three anti-apartheid activists (Ernest Rodker, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead & Lord Peter Hain), & Celia Stubbs
Matthew Ryder QC
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.
Dambusters Mobilising Committee leaflet
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.
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
Celia Stubbs, 2021
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.
Blair Peach
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.
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.
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.
Conrad Dixon, founder of the SDS
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.
[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.
Spycops Helen Crampton (left) & Joan Hillier (right, redacted)
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).
Rajiv Menon QC
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 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
Logo of the Independent Labour Party
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’.
‘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.
Mark Kennedy’s injuries after beating by police, 2006
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.
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.
The morning was taken up by that first police witness, officer HN 329 aka ‘John Graham’. After many years of waiting, we finally heard a former undercover officer speak from the witness box. Unfortunately, most people could not see or hear as only a near-contemporaneous transcript was broadcast.
‘YOU WILL BE SILENCED’
With the very first police witness giving evidence at the Undercover Policing Inquiry, barrister for the victims of spycops Rajiv Menon QC wanted to ask a series of questions. But the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, cut him off lest it be stressful for the spycop. When Menon tried to debate the matter, Mitting told him to obey or ‘you will be silenced’.
This outburst was just an unruly version of what we’ve seen from Mitting all along – the prioritisation of the comfort of spycops over the desire of victims and the public to know the truth. He ignores the fact that this is an inquiry into police wrongdoing and is clearly affronted at the impudence of those who would challenge a police officer.
Screenshot of UCPI live transcript with Chair telling Rajiv Menon QC: ‘You will be silenced’
Most of the afternoon was devoted to lifelong anti-war and left-wing activist Ernest Tate, on of the organisers of the 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War that sparked the founding of the Special Demonstration Squad and, as such, events to which the Inquiry is giving a lot of attention.
At the end of the day, there were summaries of the statements from two former spycops who aren’t giving evidence in person, then brief details about the careers of six deceased officers.
Officer HN 329, aka ‘John Graham’
[Note, throughout this we refer to the officer by his cover name, John Graham].
Graham principally spied upon the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) of whom protest organiser Tariq Ali’s testimony we heard yesterday.
The questions were put by David Barr QC, Counsel To the Inquiry. He began by asking him some questions about joining the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). Specifically, he was asked whether he volunteered or if he volunteered by someone else. He replied that he thought he was told to join the new unit in 1968.
He had joined Special Branch early on, initially working for the ‘naturalisation inquiries’ section, which gave him insight to the sort of reporting Special Branch generally wanted. Senior officers would check over work to ensure nothing ‘irrelevant’ was included.
Prior to joining the SDS, he also worked in ‘C’ Squad in Special Branch – responsible for monitoring communists and this involved ‘normal’ plain-clothes Special Branch work with no undercover name or persona used.
UNDERSTANDING SPECIAL BRANCH
There were a number of questions that Graham could either not help with or gave unhelpfully vague answers. These included what Special Branch’s definition of extremism was.
He was a little more helpful on Special Branch’s duty regarding the ‘Security of the State’ – or at least his earlier written statement was. There he suggested that by collecting information covertly, Special Branch would be able to find out about any violent intent on part of protesters.
Expanding on this line, Barr again referred to the officer’s written statement, eliciting about the Special Branch’s role vis-a-vis policing political groups:
‘I understood the role of Special Branch to be carrying out enquiries concerning the security of the State, in other words gathering intelligence on activities that sought to undermine the status quo, the government of the day and the political establishment’.
The conflation of national security with the convenience and policy of the government has always been a central factor in what spycops do.
TRAINING & ACTIVITIES
On training, he explained that his time in Special Branch had already given him a good idea of what was expected, and what kind of information they would have been interested in collecting. For instance, they would have been interested in personal details, any distinguishing features. It also included info about the dynamics of the group he was reporting on and any analysis that he thought useful. He left any ‘filtering’ of the information to someone else.
Graham explained that there wasn’t much of a difference between normal Special Branch duties and those within the SDS in terms of attending political meetings. As part of the ‘general inquiries’ section of Special Branch, he would attend in plain clothes.
Once he joined the SDS, he would just wear ‘nondescript clothing’. He said that sometimes people who were dressed smartly might be regarded with suspicion (and asked to leave a meeting) but ‘if you were scruffy.. nobody bothered you’.
A REVOLUTIONARY PERSUASION
Graham infiltrated various VSC branches in North West London, attending meetings in Camden, Hampstead, Kilburn, and Willesden. He added that the Camden group was ‘considered prominent as it contained Geoff Richman’. (Geoff and Marie Richman were prominent in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign itself, and Geoff, a medical doctor, was a member of the Socialist Medical Association.)
Graham describes the Richmans as ‘nice people’. A question might have been put here whether this made the officer feel uncomfortable in spying on them. However, there was no hint of regret or remorse at any point in Graham’s oral hearing.
Barr asked Graham about the revolutionary sentiment he found in Camden that was apparently so in need of infiltration and monitoring:
Barr: You describe the Camden VSC in terms which suggest they were revolutionary but they were not going to use violence to try and achieve their ends. Could you describe in what sense you understood them to be revolutionary?
Graham: Well, they – they wanted to change the government.
Barr: And if they were not going to use violence, how were they going to seek a change of government?
Graham: To try and persuade people to their point of view.
Graham said that the Camden VSC group once did a performance in a market, but apart from that they only really went on the big demonstrations. None of the groups he spied on tried to do anything secret, he said.
He confirmed that SDS boss Chief Inspector Conrad Dixon sometimes attended these VSC meetings too. Most of the time Graham was alone at these meetings. However, if more than one SDS officer was in the same meeting, they would play it by ear, and maybe not even acknowledge each other saying.
A PUBLISHED AUTHOR
Next a publication called ‘Red Camden’ (UCPI0000007701) was referred to. This was the journal of the Camden VSC. In one 1969 issue was an article which was attributed to the name ‘John Grahame’, which spoke of him attending a Vietnam Solidarity Campaign Working Committee meeting, where he was expecting political infighting.
Article by spycop ‘John Graham’, 8 June 1969 issue of Red Camden newsletter, a publication of the Camden Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
Graham had no recollection of writing it, but said it was possible that it had been written by Dixon or another SDS colleague, and his name added to it. A clearer copy can be found on the Undercover Research Group’s profile of John Graham.
Another document referred to was a report from a VSC meeting at Conway Hall on 17th September 1968. Barr noted that this was attended by at least seven members of the SDS. As well as John Graham, this list included squad head Chef Inspector Conrad Dixon, DI Saunders, DS Wilson, DS Fisher, DS Creamer and DC Moss.
The obvious question of why so many police attended the same meeting, to which Graham could only reply:
‘It may have been a question of, that there was nothing else on, so people felt that they ought to be doing something.’
Even among the extreme stories of the spycops, this was an extraordinary moment.
Last week police lawyers emphasised that the SDS was established because 1968 was a volatile time with feral subversives everywhere. Today we’re told seven of them went to the same anti-war meeting because of a lack of work. They’d rather spy on the undeserving than not spy at all.
Graham also explained that this might have made it easier for the undercovers’ to remember stuff (as they couldn’t make any notes during the meeting) and to identify attendees (who were numerous). This explanation doesn’t ring true, as if it were it would be common practice.
Graham was asked if he and fellow SDS officers would take part in ballots at meetings, and thereby influence the results? Not understanding the significance of this obvious interference with the political process, Graham just said he voted on motions without giving it much thought:
‘it’s just a question of sticking your hand up with the majority once you knew which way the vote was going to go anyway.’
The next meeting mentioned involved the Anti-Imperialist Solidarity Movement. In this context, Graham was asked why he felt the need to record the ethnic origin of attendees, or use the word ‘coloured’ to do so? Only answering the second part of the question, He said that it was common to do so at the time.
ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
Barr then moved on to the officer’s attendance at a much smaller meeting, of the VSC ‘working committee’ – by this time he had been embedded in the group for many months, and so was able to access these less public discussions, that took place in private homes.
In his first written statement, Graham states that none of these meetings were ‘closed’ – you just had to have had attended a previous open meeting to know about it. He claimed not to recall much about his participation in these meetings – said that he probably just went along with the majority opinion as to the most ‘sensible and safest tactic’ and that no guidance was given about meetings in private homes, or in travelling outside of the Met’s jurisdiction.
MOBILE ESPIONAGE
On this, he said he said he attended an event in Sheffield in May 1969. When asked if it was common for SDS officers to travel to other areas, he said he had ‘no idea’ as ‘everyone was working separately in their groups.’ This illustrates the lack of day-to-day oversight of these early deployments.
A protest of particular note in the evidence was an early 1969, Australians and New Zealanders Against the War in Vietnam organised a meeting at Australia House then marched along the Strand in London to the Savoy Hotel, where the Australian prime minister was staying.
Graham remembered that event as he was punched in the ribs by a security guard while being ejected. He expanded on this, saying the rest of the group had got up to shout in defence of one guy who was being ejected from the building, so Graham felt he had to partake to maintain his cover saying: ‘I thought I better get to my feet and I remember saying ‘let him speak’. He was grabbed and dragged out and recalls he pretended to resist.
DINNER DATES & GHOST WRITERS
The next questions were about Graham inviting a woman activist out to dinner, and going through on it even though by this time he was aware he was being withdrawn as an undercover officer. He said he couldn’t remember why he had done this, or really anything about it at all, though his statement noted he hadn’t wanted to let her down. He denied there was any sexual motivation for the date. This still leaves the puzzle of why he invited her out in the first place, or why he did not cancel it.
When asked about the possibility of signing his name to any reports which he hadn’t written, which had been written by another undercover, Graham said in general ‘I wouldn’t have signed anything I didn’t know to be true.’
More then was asked about the ‘ethos’ of the SDS – ‘were you open with each other or secretive with one another’, to which he replied that ‘In the main, I suppose we were open’. On the stresses and strain of being undercover, Graham was blasé, neither finding his deployment stressful or felt that he needed any special support.
SIMPLY THE BEST
Finally, when asked for his view of those early days of the SDS, Graham said:
‘The original group, from Conrad Dixon down, were the finest representatives of Special Branch. And they were excellent officers who did exactly the proper job.’
This was the end of David Barr’s questions, which were thought unsatisfactory by many watching as issues raised were not followed up in the search for more firm answers.
‘YOU WILL BE SILENCED’
Tariq Ali’s barrister, Rajiv Menon QC, then rose, requesting permission to ask supplementary questions. He wanted to ask Graham about:
1) the political motivations of the VSC in those early days;
2) the selection and targeting of the VSC, and some more detail about what the officer was told to do;
3) the general methodology of the SDS, and what happened at these near-daily or daily meetings at the unit’s ‘safe house’ (the rented flat used by the SDS away from New Scotland Yard to spend their daytime and write up reports, as the political meetings they spied on tended to take place in the evenings)
4) what information the officer had collected that made a difference, particularly resulting in a lower level of public disorder in the October 1968 Vietnam demonstration than there had been in March;
5) the use of ‘Box 500/MI5’ (how much intelligence was passed to the security services)
6) and finally, some questions in relation to one of the documents already exhibited – the meeting attended by 7 SDS officers.
Menon added that the early finishing of Barr’s questions meant there was sufficient time before the next witness. What happened next was truly shocking. Mitting refused Menon’s request, saying it would repeat questions that Barr blatantly had not asked, and that it may be uncomfortable for Graham. Mitting’s words were:
Mitting: ‘That may be so, but I have to keep order in the proceedings and to ensure not merely that this witness is not troubled by questions that have already adequately been covered by Mr Barr and by his statement and by the documents, but also that this does not set a precedent for future such requests.
‘Of the seven topics that you have given to me, one and one only may give rise to a question that can rightly be posed to this witness, and that is the last one: the meeting where the vote was taken about the route that was to be adopted on 27 October. You may ask about that, but not about other topics.’
Some what perplexed, Menon began to ask for clarification:
Menon: ‘But, sir, I’ve highlighted -‘
Instead of giving him a civil reply that the point deserved, a visibly agitated Mitting interrupted:
Mitting: ‘You may ask about that but not other topics. That is my ruling.’
Menon accepted and sought to clarify, saying:
Menon: Very well, sir. Can I make it clear that I cannot understand –
At which point Mitting cut straight across him with a threat of censorship:
Mitting: No, you may not. I’m sorry. You may ask your questions, or you will be silenced.
This outburst from Mitting was met with shock, but for many core participants is symptomatic of the general hostility and downright contempt with which the Chair has treated the non-state participants in both his decision-making and his attitude throughout the Inquiry. Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance have since issued a media release questioning Mitting’s behaviour.
A PERMITTED QUESTION
The only question that Mitting was prepared to allow was the one about the VSC meeting when a vote was taken about the route of the 27 October Grosvenor Square demonstration. Menon asked the officer about the voting that took place at this meeting. His explanation (earlier on) was that if he hadn’t voted, he would have stood out like a sore thumb. So he must have put his hand up but has no recollection of it.
When asked whether this vote discussed later on, back at the flat, Graham claimed not to remember how he’d voted, or any discussions with other undercovers afterwards about how they had voted. He also said that they would have all gone off on their separate ways, and that other SDS officers who were normally back office staff wouldn’t usually have come to the flat anyway.
Asked about whether the information the police spies gathered would have made it into other officers’ reports, he answered ‘it would have assisted at some stage with identifying people’.
After the stormy and frustrating end to the questioning of the first police witness, the Inquiry broke for lunch.
Ernest Tate Political activist
(written statement read in full by Nick Stanage)
Ernie Tate & Jess MacKenzie
Ernest Tate was unable to give evidence in person, his statement was read for him by Nick Stanage QC.
Tate was born in Belfast in 1934. He emigrated to Canada at the age of 21 and worked in mechanical engineering.
Politically active all his life, Tate has written a memoir of his activism in the 1950s and 1960s, relating to his time in the International Group (a section of the Fourth International, as founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938) which, in Britain, became in the International Marxist Group (IMG).
Tate was in Britain for almost five years between 1965 and 1969, and in that time was heavily involved in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC), which was set up in 1966.
Returning to Canada in 1969, he became involved in the trade unions and for many years was Chief Steward and Vice President of a major local of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. He is now retired, and living in Toronto.
ERNEST TATE, FILE 402/66/451
The Undercover Policing Inquiry had sent Tate a ‘Witness Pack’ of 23 Special Branch intelligence reports dated between 8 February1965 and 3 March 1969 in which his name is mentioned. The Inquiry asked him to answer questions about his activity in general and the documents in particular.
The reports were based on on activity of officers of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s undercover political unit, founded in 1968 as the ‘Special Operations Squad’ (SOS), and re-named the ‘Special Demonstration Squad’ (SDS) around 1972-3.
Tate’s Special Branch ‘Registry File’ has the reference number 402/66/451, which indicates it was opened in 1966. Such reports were routinely copied to MI5. Like many others targeted by spycops, Tate’s full file remains ‘Top Secret’. The fact that he left the UK over 50 years ago and the groups he was in no longer exists make no difference to the secrecy.
The few reports given to Tate are only a fraction of the secret surveillance files held on him, the International Marxist Group [RF 400/58/152] of which he was a full time organiser, and the
Vietnam Solidarity Campaign [RF 346/65/15], in which he was was also heavily involved.
FEW FACTS, FEWER ANSWERS
The Inquiry has made it harder for Tate to contribute, because it has chosen not to let him see any of the Witness Statements made by any of the SOS officers who spied on him, nor any statements from managers or an appropriate officer who could provide evidence on behalf of a deceased officer.
Additionally, he hasn’t been shown any photographs of officers in their undercover guise, save for one of Chief Inspector Conrad Dixon.
The path to clarity is further obstructed by the failure of the Inquiry to ask the Metropolitan Police to provide Position Statements, which would set out exactly why the SOS was set up, what its operational parameters were, and why it was necessary to begin more intrusive surveillance, including forming intimate relationships with targets.
Tate presumes the State will argue that this clear breach of the basic human right to privacy was justified due to a threat of serious violence from those groups or individuals spied on. In which case, the Met should have to explain why the SOS was allowed to continue to operate after the 27 October 1968 demonstration against the Vietnam War had passed off largely peacefully.
Tate completely refuted the notion that he, the VSC, or the IMG, threatened violence, especially serious violence. Equally, he rejected any suggestion that any of them deserved to be targeted because infiltration would allow the police to monitor others.
He asserted that there is no justification for the gross intrusion by the police into people’s private lives on the basis that a person’s, or group’s politics is frowned upon by the State, unless there is a real, not fanciful, threat of serious violence. The UK had been a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights for many years by the time the spycop unit was formed, and the Article 8 of the respect for privacy, private and family life, should be applied to any judgment about the legitimacy of its actions.
SECRECY WITHOUT END
Special Branch records from 1887 onward are subject to almost complete secrecy regardless of age. A few documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by journalist Solomon Hughes 10 years ago in an attempt to establish what happened in 1968, and these were put onto the Special Branch Files Project website.
The advent of the Inquiry has seen the release of some spycops’ documents, but it’s a sliver of what was created. It means it’s almost impossible for Tate and other core participants at the Inquiry to counter any narrative given by the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police
Tate then turned to the specific questions the Inquiry had asked him, saying:
‘It is clear in my mind that these questions focus very narrowly on the issue of violence, hence it appears to me that this will be the justification used by those in charge of SDS throughout the period…
‘The other major interested parties, the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office who oversaw the wrongdoing of SOS officers, have full access to every file they want’
He pointed that, in contrast to the clandestine and secretive nature of the British State, he has nothing to hide. The Inquiry, the Police and members of the public can read what he has written about his activities in his two-volume memoir, Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s, Ernest Tate, A Memoir’ (Volume 1 Canada 1955-65, and Volume 2, Britain 1965-1970).
Tate was asked to clarify his role in the VSC. He was one of its founders in June 1966. He was a member of its National Council and its executive committee, from that date on until April 1969. The executive committee, a sub-committee of the National Council, provided leadership to the VSC between National Council meetings and was responsible for its national functioning on a day-to-day basis. Beyond that, Tate publicly wrote and spoke for the VSC.
A million people perished in the Vietnam War, including 50,000 US soldiers, most of whom were teenagers. Tate explained that the VSC aimed to build a solidarity campaign with the Vietnamese against the American aggression, calling for its immediate end and the withdrawal of all of American forces, and the end of British collusion with the Americans. It also called for support for the Vietnamese National Liberation Front.
It sought to achieve this through building broad united-front coalitions of like-minded organisations and individuals to create mass mobilisations on the streets against the war.
NOTHING TO HIDE
There was no vetting of members, they merely had to agree with the broad aims, provide funds and attend meetings. The political debates were quite open, and as a result, at the founding conference in 1966, a large number of Maoist delegates withdrew to a separate location and formed the rival Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF). The anarchists also held separate conferences, as they wanted to be clear they were ‘neither Washington nor Hanoi’.
There was no secrecy of any kind. All VSC business and policy meetings were open to all members, though not to the general public. They knew the police were interested in what they were doing, but because none of it was illegal they didn’t worry about infiltration. They specifically warned members against pointing fingers of suspicion at anyone, knowing how that had been used in other groups in the past to divide and destroy the movement.
The Inquiry asked if there was violence planned for, or witnessed at, the March 1968 demonstration.
Tate unequivocally affirmed that there was none planned. He described how the march, tens of thousands strong, tried to enter Grosvenor Square, they were met by hundreds, if not thousands, of uniformed police, many on horseback, who in aggressively confronted them in order to prevent anyone getting near the American Embassy. Violence erupted with many police and demonstrators injured and/or arrested, the blame for which Tate lays firmly with the police.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP
Tate also described the IMG and his role there. He helped to organize the group and was a member of its National and Political Committees. His primary loyalty was to the IMG, rather than the VSC. The IMG was primarily responsible for the creation of the VSC, its members functioned as an open caucus to prepare for its various conference and activities.
He confirmed that the IMG was a revolutionary group, and gave a series of refreshingly direct and concise answers.
Inquiry: Did the IMG believe that revolution would, or might, require the use
of force?
Tate: Yes.
Inquiry: Did the IMG believe that force should be used to bring about revolution in 1968-1969?
Tate: No.
Inquiry: Did the IMG believe that public disorder would advance its cause?
Tate: No.
Inquiry: Did the IMG believe that breaking any laws was justified or necessary to advance its cause? If so, which laws and for what purposes?
Tate: The IMG did not believe in breaking the law, but if a particular law was oppressive or dangerous to our democratic rights, and there was mass opposition in society to it, then the IMG might have explored ways to challenge that law.
Tate declared the infiltration of the VSC and the IMG and scandalous:
‘It reveals how far democratic tights in Britain have been abused over the past fifty years. It has become the norm, it seems to me, for the State to put the boot to anyone it doesn’t like. If you’re a socialist or Marxist or someone who has different ideas about how the economy and society should be organised, should we expect dirty tricks from those who are supposed to protect us?’
A HANDFUL OF FILES
The Inquiry then ran through the documents it had revealed to Tate, and asked for his opinion on their accuracy. He criticised the selection of documents as a ‘bizarrely selected and highly partisan package of material’ that had the huge absence of the great bulk of contemporaneous relevant documents that must have been created. What have the Met and the Home Office got to hide?
‘if this is really meant to be a Public Inquiry then the public – journalists and academics, historians and those of us who were involved at the time – should be allowed to see the material.’
Tate went through the documents methodically, giving a facinating insight into how much the spycops targeted one person. The documents included:
MPS-0739885: This was a report of a meeting on 8 February 1968.
According to Special Branch officer “David Hughes’ (HN299/342), it was an open public meeting attended by about 70 people at Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel to show the film ‘American War Crimes in Vietnam’. One of the future protests mentioned was against Dow Chemical in Wigmore Street, London, the manufacturers of the notorious substance napalm which burnt people alive and was being extensively used by American forces in Vietnam.
June 8, 1972: Kim Phúc, (centre left) running down a road naked near Trảng Bàng after a South Vietnam Air Force napalm attack
What is interesting is that this routine report is prior to the formation of the covert SOS/SDS unit. This shows that Special Branch were easily able to access the meetings and report on everyone without the need for deeper-cover infiltrators.
Tate highlighted the lack of any witness statement from ‘David Hughes’ in his Witness Pack, in which ‘Hughes’ might have explained the difference between his routine Special Branch duties in monitoring these meetings and his later doing the same thing within SOS/SDS.
No photograph of this officer, who was then presumably in his twenties, has been supplied to assist Tate in trying to recall him and his activities. But ‘Hughes’ has been granted anonymity at the Inquiry.
In a decision typical of the orders that are allowing the overwhelming majority of spycops to get away unnamed, the Inquiry ruled that:
‘publication of his real name would risk unwelcome media attention and the attention of those who maybe disposed towards him within his small community… The interference with his right to respect for his private life which it would risk would not be justified’.
Tate wryly replied:
‘I am pleased to see that the Inquiry is underlining the importance of the right to respect for private and family life. and I trust this same important right will be afforded to the people who were spied on when and if any judgments are reached concerning the gross interference with this right as practiced by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch and others.’
MPS-0739886: Report of a private meeting of 35 people on 15 February 1968, though ‘David Hughes’ was there again to report on it which, said Tate, indicates that it would have been an open meeting for anyone who wanted to be involved in VSC activities.
The report says that towards the end of the meeting some people present said they intended breaking windows at the US embassy and were prepared for a ‘punch up’ with the police; others said they wanted a sit-down protest.
Tate responded:
‘To be clear, VSC policy was always non-violent, we were only too aware that the violence was a particularly strong attribute of the State. The officer’s assessment that a ‘fair amount of violence’ could be expected at the forthcoming solidarity demonstration in March 1968 was not an assessment I would have shared at the time.’
MPS-0730911: This report of the 17 March 1968 demo was submitted by the Special Branch
Commander to the Director of Public Prosecutions. This means that, rather than gathering intelligence, it was explicitly prepared for the sake of supporting prosecutions by the State, presumably of the VSC leadership.
It is surely unusual that Special Branch officers (including the later head of SDS, Chief Inspector Conrad Dixon) were tasked to take ordinary witness statements from members of the public. It would help to have a witness statement explaining the reason for this report too, but there is none.
It details two particular incidents that resulted in the confrontation with police in Grosvenor Square, firstly the initial refusal to allow the letters of protest to be delivered to the Embassy, as had been agreed with the Met beforehand; and secondly the fact that the march was blocked by police at the corner of North Audrey Street, in such a way that the demonstrators were very compressed and so burst forth.
This created panic among the authorities which, in turn, led to the formation of the SOS/SDS in the summer of 1968. And yet the answer to this militancy is given in a leaflet enclosed with the report, which described how the mood and temper of the demonstration was determined by the American aggression, and that it was impossible to remain calm and peaceful before the barbarism of American aggression in Vietnam.
MPS-0722106: This report of 2 April 1968 by Chief Inspector Conrad Dixon, signed off by Chief Superintendent [name redacted, presumably A Cunningham] is another report into the March
1968 VSC demonstration.
Noting that the author was the founder and head of the spycops unit, Tate mused:
‘I think that Conrad Dixon is an important player in the history of the SDS and it is a shame that he is now deceased as I am sure he would have plenty to say. In his 1999 obituary in The Times it is stated that he was the leader and founder of SOS, having been born into an army family, educated at Oxford and joined the Royal Marines. At Special Branch he apparently “specialised in anarchists, Trotskyists and anarcho-syndicalists”.’
When setting up the unit, Dixon had legendarily asked for men, a budget, and a free hand. Tate homed in on this point:
‘I would like to emphasise the words “a free hand” as this suggests a complicity at higher levels with the SDS being allowed to thrive in a culture that broke the rules. I also note that his obituary is quite open about his role in SDS, in contrast to the institutional secrecy of the Metropolitan Police.’
Though Dixon’s report suggests there were proposals for violent action at the demonstration, he also said:
‘it is not possible to use these sources for evidential purposes, and no evidence of violent intentions was obtained by police officers who gained entry to some of these closed meetings.’
Tate laid the contradiction wide open and, having already shown that Special Branch had infiltrated the VSC, speculated that we may have found the real reason the spycops unit was established:
‘This can only mean that there are existing Special Branch reports (perhaps filed in RF 361/68/12 Ad Hoc Committee?) that detail these supposed discussions. I would like to see them… This all sounds like make-believe; Cl Dixon obviously knew what his masters wanted to hear. One wonders if the future creation of SOS/SOS was not out of desperation to try and find this supposed ‘evidence’ that was so sorely lacking.
‘The truth is there was not the slightest evidence that VSC planned any form of violence. VSC only believed in lawful resistance to police violence (i.e. lawful self-defence). It seems clear to me that this Special Branch report is obviously expressing and reflecting the political prejudices of the British government of the day and the police, it is utterly self-serving and the Inquiry should beware of placing too much weight on it.’
Tate said the Inquiry should examine the dossier compiled by the National Council for Civil Liberties, that provided independent observers on the day of the demonstration. This dossier is referred to by Peter Jackson MP in his speech to parliament on 4 April 1968. His account supports Tate’s.
MPS-0741312: Documents, placed in the files in July 1968 for Chief Inspector Dixon to action, are the first that are dated after the creation of the Special Operations Squad. They include copies of the minutes of a VSC Executive meeting held on 5 July 1968, and the VSC National Council on 10 July
1968. There is nothing in these meetings or minutes that was secret.
MPS-0738746: A report of a VSC meeting at Conway Hall on 20 August 1968, seemingly from Detective Sergeant Roy Creamer. Tate noted that Creamer is absent from the Inquiry’s list of officers. Who exactly was he?
The report is was marked ‘Box 500’, meaning it had been copied to MI5. Tate notes that the Registry File numbers have been redacted, as well as what is presumably the word ‘Secret’ at the top of the document.
MPS-0730063: This is another significant report, dated 10 September 1968, by the head of the new SOS unit, CI Conrad Dixon. It written up just a few days after the VSC National Council meeting in Sheffield on 7 September 1968 – about which there is inexplicably no report disclosed – which confirmed the route of the October demonstration.
Tate described it as:
‘an utterly superficial and very opinionated police summary of contemporary British radicalism… very distorted, but just what I would expect from a secret policeman. His characterization of Tariq Ali as a “mob orator” and Ralph Schoenman as a “notorious agitator” and the general tone of the report suggests a policeman with a deep loathing of his subjects: he is perhaps aware that his career is better assisted by producing alarmist reports of this nature for his superiors than more carefully considered ones: the creation of SOS had to be justified.’
‘As for the supposed rumours or reports about the acquisition of (fire)arms and the preparation of Molotov cocktails, these are the product of a febrile imagination; even he admits have no evidential basis. He even accepts that the anarchist conference of 8 September 1968 in London condemned ‘senseless violence’.
‘I believe that there was a deliberate State tactic to foment public hysteria to frighten people away from joining future demonstrations – notwithstanding that the increased publicity may have actually had the opposite effect.’
MPS-0738815: A report of a meeting of the NW London Ad Hoc Committee on 11 September 1968 at the Friends House in NW3. Two officers were present, CI Dixon and a Detective Inspector HN 332 whose identity has still not been disclosed. Tate has no memory of the meeting.
UCPI0000005782: A report of PC Barry Moss and CI Dixon dated 19 September 1968 attaches a report, said to be written by Tate, on the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation. Unfortunately the copy is almost completely illegible and impossible to read. Whatever was in it, it was sent to MI5.
MPS-0722099: A report on a meeting of 32 people of the VSC Lambeth branch at the ‘Duke of Cambridge’ pub on 26 September 1968, authored by ‘William Paul Lewis’.
Tate agrees with the report detailing his attempts to secure the support of the working class and trade unions for the demonstration. As for ‘Lewis’ himself, Tate observed that the Metropolitan Police applied in July 2017 for his cover name to remain anonymous, despite the fact that this is meant to be a Public Inquiry.
The application said that he did not steal his identity from a deceased child, but aside from this we know nothing. Again, the absence of the officer’s statement in the Witness Pack has constrained Tate’s ability to comment.
‘It is likely that disclosure of his real name would prompt intense and unwelcome media interest in him and so would give rise to serious interference with his and his family’s right to respect for their private life under Article 8 of the European Convention which would not be justifiable under Article 8(2). Closed reasons accompany this note.’
Why would the media be especially interested? What are the ‘closed reasons’ that we’re not allowed to know?
MPS-0730096: Another report by CI Conrad Dixon, this time dated 3 October 1968 and described as a ‘regular weekly report’ on the preparations for the national demonstration three weeks hence. Tate is mentioned as an IMG member and member of the VSC executive.
Interestingly, this document was made public in 2008, obtained by the journalist Solomon Hughes – but paragraph (b) was redacted for some reason; it mentions a supposed attack by London School of Economics (LSE) students on the Stock Exchange and an occupation of the LSE itself.
According to his Times obituary in 1999, Dixon was involved as an undercover officer in that occupation on 25 October and seized the telephone exchange. This is presumably the reason for the redaction.
Dixon said students have provided the bulk of the support for the VSC demonstrations thus far, and ‘their behaviour on demonstrations is largely spontaneous’.
Tate concurred with this assessment, adding that it actually proved his point:
‘there was never any plan for violence from the IMG or the VSC, rather the complete opposite, we wanted a huge but peaceful demonstration. Insofar as the Maoists wanted a more militant approach by confronting police in Grosvenor Square, we in the VSC were opposed to this and the three Maoist-controlled VSC local branches had been disowned by the National Council for this reason.’
Dixon says the Maoist contingent was said to number no more than 100 people. He concludes that it is the people who are not represented on the VSC – anarchists, Maoists and ‘foreign elements’ – who are most likely to use violence and be hostile to the police. In saying this, Dixon completely undermines the supposed reason for infiltrating the VSC at all. If it wasn’t about violence, it must have been about politics.
When all this is considered, it’s pretty clear that police and organisers only expected a tiny number of people who were desirous of a clash with the police, and any such situation that arose would be largely spontaneous. All that undercover policing made not the slightest difference to the
manner in which events transpired on 27 October 1988.
The Times obituary of 1999 gives Dixon credit for advising that the police lines needed to be thicker to prevent demonstrators breaking through. It did not take undercover police, or indeed any police at all, to come up with that idea, it’s just obvious crowd control stuff.
MPS-0730091: This is Cl Dixon’s next weekly report, dated 16 October 1968, and signed off by Chief Superintendent A. Cunningham. It notes both Tate and his partner Jess MacKenzie as being prominent in VSC affairs.
MPS-0730093: This appears to be the definitive police report of the 27 October 1968 VSC demonstration, submitted by Chief Superintendent A. Cunningham.
Tate refuted the claim the VSC was ‘to a considerable extent responsible for the violence which occurred at the demonstrations in London on October 1967, March and July 1968’, and wondered why, if the July demo was of interest to the police, no documents have been shown to him:
‘It is unfair to characterize the approach of the VSC and myself as simply ‘paying lip service’ to
the concept of an orderly demonstration. This is what we wanted. We did disagree with the Maoists and excluded them. His statement that ‘the majority were well disciplined and acted in an orderly manner under the direction of the VSC marshals’ is correct and rather belies his earlier dire warnings of considerable public disorder being likely.’
MPS-0731634: A report on an IMG meeting of about 30 people held in ‘The Earl Russell ‘ pub on Sunday 3 November 1958, to discuss the political situation in Northern Ireland, where Tate is from. ‘William Paul Lewis’ wrote the report, and had presumably become an IMG member. A copy of this report went to MI5 and another copy to ‘B Squad (“Irish Extremism”).
Tate commented:
‘The context was that the first Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) march had
taken place on 24 August 1958 in Dungannon, drawing 4000 people. This passed off peacefully, but on 5 October 1968 another NICRA march was attacked by police officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), this was the start of what became known as The Troubles.’ Once again, the serious violence was from the police not the protesters.’
MPS-0730768: A report by Cl Dixon of a meeting of the VSC at Conway Hall on 11 November 1968. 100 people came to discuss the 27 October demonstration.
Further undercover officers were present:
TN0034, a Detective Sergeant;
HN321 ‘William Paul Lewis’;
HN329 ‘John Graham’;
HN326 ‘Douglas Edwards’.
No witness statements of any of these officers were included in Tate’s Witness Pack.
Tate then returned to the Inquiry’s questions. They asked, having seen the reports, what additional access to the VSC would the use of undercover police officers, as opposed to plain clothes detectives, have given to the police?
Tate said, ‘I don’t know, It probably made it easier for them to steal membership lists.’
The Inquiry went back to the report dated 30 July 1966 (MPS-0738693) in which Tate is described as a ‘dove’ on the question of violence by comparison to the ‘hawk’, ‘Albert’ Manchanda.
Tate’s response was at once exasperated and dismissive:
‘This is gossip I have never heard before. My disagreements with Manchanda were fundamentally political, about what should be the program of the VSC. I did not know at that time what his views were about violence in relation to the Vietnam protest movement, I never ever discussed this issue with him. I never trusted him. He led a splinter group which tried to wreck the founding conference in 1966. The Maoists formed a separate organization, the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF).’
The Inquiry also highlighted a report’s claim that ‘the more cautious representatives of International Socialism and International Marxist groups paid lip service to the vision of a peaceful demonstration’.
Tate rebuffed the sneering insinuations:
‘This is gossip from sources that were not involved in the campaign. We in the leadership of the VSC and the Ad Hoc Committee, were totally committed to peaceful demonstrations, and if violence took place, it was incidental and outside of our control. This is why we did not go to Grosvenor Square on 27 October 1968. It was mainly a peaceful event, much to the surprise of the police, who by that time had frightened the authorities into a state of panic.
‘I and the rest of the leadership of the VSC suspected the Maoists would make an effort to hijack the demonstration as it made its way past Trafalgar Square; that’s why we stopped the demonstration in the middle of the street when they tried to divert it to Grosvenor Square. We effectively policed our own demonstration.’
Responding to a list of tactics which spycops regarded as having been suggested at branch, but not national level, Tate was equally disparaging:
‘This is the product of the fevered imagination of the security services who seemed to be out to frighten their superiors and the Wilson Labour Government. It looks like every little piece of scary information from whatever source, or whatever they invented, was used for this purpose.
‘We, the organizers of the demonstration, wanted the largest mobilisation possible, one to which the participants could bring their families without the fear of being exposed to violence. That’s why the Ad Hoc Committee adopted a march route that ended up with a rally in Hyde Park. What happened on that day highlights the wisdom of that decision. Over 100,000 people turned out.’
The Inquiry moved on to ask Tate about the impact of the spycops revelations. He cited the Canadian McDonald Commission (1977-81), which had comprehensively dealt with a similar scandal there, while the American Church Committee (1976) had done a similar job with the comparable COINTELPRO affair. At the time these bodies were delivering their damning verdicts, the SDS was escalating its activity in Britain. It’s time for a reckoning.
He summed up his position:
‘The Inquiry has to decide whether it will simply protect the interests of the police and the State, even after all these years, or whether it will come down on the side of civil liberties and the right of people to have a private life free from intrusion by State security forces. I hope that the Inquiry will lead to legislation and public oversight that will limit their ability to harass those who happen to be critical of society or are fighting for social change.’
For the last session of the day, the Inquiry then had one of its own staff present a summary of evidence supplied by two early SDS officers, HN218 (Barry Moss, aka ‘Barry Morris’ or ‘Barry Morse’) and HN334 (‘Margaret White’).
Officer HN 218, aka Barry Moss (summary of evidence)
Moss was in the SDS from its formation in July 1968 until late September 1968. He returned to the SDS as a manager in 1980. His real name is Barry Moss, and while undercover he used Barry Morris or Morse. He had been a detective constable in Special Branch for only several months when he was told by Detective Chief Superintendent Arthur Cunningham that he and a dozen or so others, were joining the newly formed SDS.
He recalls:
‘I didn’t opt into it and I don’t think it occurred to anyone there that we could opt out. There was no formal training or guidance provided for the role.’
He used a cover flat merely as an address to write on attendance lists at meetings. He did not live there. He used his own vehicle registered in his own name to attend those meetings.
He believed the unit had a short term remit, gathering information about the upcoming October 1968 demonstration against the Vietnam War. In his witness statement, Moss noted the only real difference from Special Branch work was actually joining groups instead of just attending meetings.
SDS boss Conrad Dixon told him which groups to spy on, but not how to do it. However, while undercover, he had almost daily contact with his cover officer, Detective Inspector Phil Saunders.
He joined the Maoist Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF). He does not recall joining the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) which was something of a rival group, but reports on the VSC include his name.
The reports mention five different groups; the Joint Committee of Communists, the Committee for Solidarity with Vietnam, the VSC’s Ad Hoc Committee, and two branches of the VSC.
MIXING WITH THE MAOISTS
He remembers people being in several of the groups at the same time and there may have been a shared Maoist ideological connection (even though the VSC had a significant ideological split with Maoists).
His reports show a mix of public and private meetings mostly concerned with planning for the October 27 demonstration, including, banner making and choosing slogans. On 24 September 1968 at a meeting of the October 27 Committee for Solidarity in Vietnam, it was recorded that a decision was made to break away from the main demonstration to target the American Embassy.
Moss confirmed at that some meetings there were SDS officers and ordinary uniformed officers not working together. At other meetings there would be more than one SDS officer, simply because their respective groups had attended the same meeting.
NINE OFFICERS VOTING
At a public meeting of the VSC’s October 27 Ad Hoc Committee, nine police officers are stated to have been present, including the majority of the SDS’s senior officers. According to the report, the significant occurrence at the meeting appears to have been a vote against the proposal made by Maoists to march to Downing Street on 26 October and then to Grosvenor Square (home to the US Embassy) on 27 October 1968. Presumably these nine officers all voted to avoid looking conspicuous.
Moss said some of the meetings raised ‘of particular interest to Special Branch’. Reports have detailed descriptions of branch members, including those with no previous trace or Special Branch record, notes of speakers expressing political opinions, and reporting of contacting journalists to arrange a private meetings.
ANTI-ANTI-APARTHEID
After he left the SDS, Moss wrote a report analysing the support of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
Moss was the first spycop to leave the SDS, withdrawing even before the 27 October demonstration the unit had been set up to target, in order to attend an accelerated promotion course. He thinks he may have made up a family incident that required him to leave London as part of his withdrawal strategy.
Before he left, he introduced his replacement – Detective Constable Mike Tyrell HN335 – who he introduced as his “best pal” to a meeting of the Earls Court VSC. Tyrell’s cover name is unknown and he is now deceased. He is absent from the Inquiry’s list of SDS officers.
Moss said he didn’t actually see any subversive activity whilst undercover, stating:
‘The group I joined wasn’t really trying to overthrow the government, they just wanted a big demonstration’
He does recall two pieces of information that ‘were probably passed on for use in policing’ in his two months undercover; the possibility of protestors carrying ball bearings to use on police horses, and women being told to flirt with officers on the frontline to try to win them over.
Moss said that, whilst his reporting alone would not have made a great difference to policing, he does think that the October demonstration was well policed and any disorder at it was controlled as a result of the intelligence provided by the SDS as a whole.
BACK TO MANAGE
He returned to the SDS as a Detective Chief Inspector in February 1980. He was promoted to the rank of Superintendent in early 1981, and left the SDS in December of the same year. In 1995, he became commander of operations in Special Branch, with a remit that included the SDS. He became Head of Special Branch in October 1996.
[Note: Moss will be heard from again in later tranches, not least because he was a pivotal officer in the founding of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.]
Officer HN 334 aka ‘Margaret White’ (summary of evidence)
The Inquiry has granted anonymity to the real name of HN334 ‘Margaret White’.
Prior to joining the SDS, she was a Detective Constable in Special Branch. She remembers attending the same sort of political meetings, both as an officer serving with Special Branch and with the SDS. The distinction she draws between the two roles is the need for her identity to be completely secret as an undercover officer, unlike with Special Branch where she would give her name, if asked.
Neither her memory nor the documents can say exactly when she joined and left the SDS. Whilst in the unit, she attended meetings of the Havering branch of the VSC between 30 September and 29 October 1968. She does not appear on the list of the unit’s personnel in the document entitled ‘Penetration of Extremist Groups’ dated 26 November 1968 suggesting, in accordance with her recollection, that she left the unit shortly after the 27 October demonstration.
She does not remember having any training for the role. She created her assumed background over a couple of days, altering her appearance by wearing a long haired wig, adopting a cover name and cover employment, and finding a flat where she would stay occasionally. In her witness statement, she said she knew she would be on a short term deployment that concluded with the October demonstration.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
She was deployed to Havering VSC along with fellow SDS undercover HN330 ‘Don de Frietas’. They were instructed to act as a couple, attending all of the meetings together. She describes the group as having no formal membership structure or procedure. She understood that she was to report exactly what she saw and heard. She never attended any meetings alone, nor did she author the police reports.
She was tasked to this particularly group because senior officers thought that it would be a trouble-making group. From what she saw and heard, it was not.
The Inquiry holds reports relating to the branch dated between 30 September and 29 October 1968. They record small private meetings, mainly concerned with preparations for the October demonstration, including discussions about the composition, printing and distribution of leaflets, lines to take with the press, elections for the post of secretary and treasurer and the likely maximum size of the Havering contingent (about 100 people).
Apart from them considering doing some fly posting, she gives is no evidence of any intention to break the law, or a militant attitude.
EXIT STRATEGY
In addition to information about preparations for the October demonstration, the reports record information about political activity of an individual in the Labour Party.
The final report concerning a meeting held on 29 October 1968 contains the officer’s account of the views of her group about the demonstration, that it had been ‘a complete and utter disaster’. The officer used this as an excuse to leave the group. She then withdrew from her service with the SDS and returned to Special Branch.
She only remembers infiltrating the one group during her time. Any other Special Branch reports by her were, she said, the result of specific tasking whilst a member of Special Branch and not in her SDS undercover identity.
One report authored by her in August 1968 concerned an individual and her correspondence in connection with the funding of an art college’s October 25 revolution account. Other reports from the same period have her and another SDS officer HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’, attending a private meeting of the Camden Branch of the International Socialists. The subject of the meeting was ‘Negro struggles in America’, with associated information about activism for racial equality.
Five reports in the hearing bundle relate to her work in Special Branch after leaving the SDS. They relate to groups on which the SDS did report and appear to be examples the SDS working from other sources of information such as informers on those groups, such as the Women’s Liberation Workshop and the anti-apartheid the Stop The Seventy Tour Committee.
Details of Deceased Spycops
Beyond the hearing today, the Inquiry also published documents relating to deployments of six other former SDS officers who are now deceased.
HN 68 – ‘SEAN LYNCH’, REAL NAME NOT PUBLISHED
1968-1974
Also held a managerial position in the SDS 1982-1984.
‘Lynch’ targeted the International Socialists (forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party) and Irish campaign groups, including the Irish Civil Rights Campaign, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and Sinn Fein. His real name is withheld by the Inquiry to protect the privacy of his widow.
HN 331 – COVER NAME UNKNOWN, REAL NAME NOT PUBLISHED
1968-1969
This officer infiltrated the Notting Hill branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. His cover name is unknown. He was killed in road traffic accident in the 1970s. His real name is withheld by the Inquiry to protect the privacy of his widow.
HN323 – HELEN CRAMPTON, COVER NAME UNKNOWN
Crampton also infiltrated the Notting Hill branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.
HN327 – DAVID FISHER, COVER NAME UNKNOWN
Fisher infiltrated the Notting Hill and Croydon branches of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.
HN318 – RAY WILSON, COVER NAME UNKNOWN
Wilson infiltrated various manifestations of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, including the north-west London Ad Hoc Committee, the Notting Hill, Croydon and Earl’s Court branches, plaus the North-West London Ad-Hoc Committee and the October 27 Ad Hoc Committee, as well as the libertarian left. Previously referred to by the Inquiry as ‘back office/ management’ rather than undercover, implying an additional later role. Author of ‘Special Branch: The History 1883-2006’.
HN335 – MIKE TYRELL, COVER NAME UNKNOWN
Tyrell infiltrated Maoist groups, plus the Earls Court branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, the October 27 Committee for Solidarity with Vietnam, the south-east London Ad Hoc Committee, the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front, the March 9th Committee for Solidarity with Vietnam, and the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation.
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.
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 QC
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.
Imran Khan QC & Baroness Doreen Lawrence
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.
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’.
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.
Neville Lawrence
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.
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 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.
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.
Andrew Trollope QC
(Azhar Khan, Miscarriages of justice)
Andrew Trollope QC
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.
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.
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.
The McLibel 2: Dave Morris & Helen Steel [pic: Spanner Films]
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
Spycop Bob Lambert (right) at McDonald’s handing out the McLibel leaflet he co-wrote, 1986
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.
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.
Imran Khan QC (The Monitoring Group, Justice campaigns)
Imran Khan QC then spoke for the Monitoring Group.
Suresh Grover, founder and director of 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.
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.
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
Pete Weatherby QC
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‘.
Spycop 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.
Spycop Jackie Anderson
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
Spycop ‘Lynn Watson’
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.
Spycop Rob Harrison
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’
Spycop ‘Marco Jacobs’
‘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.”
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
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.
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.
Jim Boyling whilst undercover in the 1990s
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.
Kate Wilson and Mark Kennedy
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.
Kate Wilson outside the Royal Courts of Justice, 3 October 2018
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.
Heather Williams QC (People in relationships with spycops, represented by Bindmans)
Heather Williams QC
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.
“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.”
“…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.
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’
Spycop 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 Lambert holds his new born son TBS, September 1985
‘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.
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.
Barbara Shaw, holding the death certificate of her son Rod Richardson
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.
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.
“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.
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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Two weeks ago the Crown Prosecution Service announced no charges would be brought against undercover police who had sexual relationships with women they targeted.
![Anti-racist protesters, Lewisham, 13 August 1977 [Pic: Syd Shelton]](http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Anti-racist-protesters-Lewisham-13-August-1977-300x195.jpg)
![We Did Not Consent: Police Spies Out of Lives banner at Beechcroft Avenue, where police killed Blair Peach in 1979 [Pic: Police Spies Out of Lives]](http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/beechcroft-ave-680x454.jpeg)
The second was in Brixton’s Brockwell Park, in September 1978. The line-up there included Stiff Little Fingers from Belfast (a replacement for Sham 69, who felt forced to drop out after receiving death threats from right-wingers), Elvis Costello, and Aswad.
The Inquiry pointed out that in the 20 April report, the words ‘no trace’ appear by his name, indicating that Special Branch has not already begun a Registry File on him.
The speaker said Grunwick showed that at least a thousand comrades would be needed to attack or block the factory gates, and the plan would need to be enacted swiftly and forcefully to avoid it being stopped by police. The SWP have the ability to take such action, he said, but not the capacity to organise it.
The 
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.
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.
Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 9
Tate was asked to clarify his role in the VSC. He was one of its founders in June 1966. He was a member of its National Council and its executive committee, from that date on until April 1969. The executive committee, a sub-committee of the National Council, provided leadership to the VSC between National Council meetings and was responsible for its national functioning on a day-to-day basis. Beyond that, Tate publicly wrote and spoke for the VSC.
Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 7
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.
Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 6
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.