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UCPI Daily Report, 13 Nov 2020

Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 10

13 November 2020

Evidence from:

Officer HN330 aka ‘Don de Freitas’ (summary of evidence)
Officer HN321 aka ‘William Paul “Bill” Lewis’ (summary of evidence)
Officer HN322 (real name withheld) (summary of evidence)
Officer HN328 Joan Hillier
Officer HN326 ‘Doug Edwards’

This Is A Cover Up projected on the Royal Courts of Justice

The Undercover Policing Inquiry had a full day of police witnesses, and it was a startling day of discovery.

This phase is only covering 1968-72, and today we learned that many of the spycops activities we’d been led to believe came later on were actually there from the start.

An officer having a sexual relationship with someone they spied on in 1968. An officer spying on a political group in Scotland in 1969. Officers pretending to be a couple to seem credible to the groups they infiltrated in 1968. An officer attending the wedding of someone he spied on around 1970. Officers going beyond the UK in their undercover persona before 1972. It seems that what the spycops units ever did, they always did.

If this is what we’re learning from what we’re told, just imagine what is being concealed by the anonymity orders that the Inquiry has granted to most spycops.

SUMMARY DISMISSAL

As with yesterday, one of the most significant exchange didn’t involve a witness, but the Chair’s irate interruptions of the victim’s barrister in order to prevent him from asking questions.

The day started with two short summaries of ‘Don de Freitas’, (referred to by the Inquiry as HN330), ‘William Paul “Bill” Lewis’ (HN321), and officer HN322, whose cover name is unknown.

Doing summaries of the careers of officers who are dead is one thing, but to have a lawyer simply read summaries of statements from living spycops without any apparent opportunity to challenge the evidence or question them is quite another.

Yet again, the Inquiry acts as if the police – whose decades of deceit and abuse are the subject – can be taken at their word, and those of us who were targeted can have no insight that hasn’t already occurred to the Chair, Sir John Mitting, and he can dismiss our objections out of hand.

‘Don de Freitas’
SDS officer HN330

‘Don de Freitas’ served briefly in SDS for a month over September / October 1968, infiltrating the Havering branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC).

As a Special Branch officer he used various cover names and occupation at different times, but his SDS deployment differed in that he used a fixed false identity.

Prior to his time with SDS, he had reported on Tariq Ali, and also Notting Hill VSC – particularly the Powis Square incident where members of the group were arrested.

Conrad Dixon, founder of the SDS

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.

His last reports on the IMG were regarding the IMG’s 1969 education camp in Dunbartonshire, which he attended, giving a lift to three IMG members in his cover vehicle.

[This shows that SDS were travelling to Scotland from within the first year of the unit, much earlier than had been previously admitted.]

He states that his only criminal activity while undercover had been obstruction of the highway and perhaps fly-posting. Generally he recalls being advised not to resist arrest if it happened, and that it could be ‘sorted out’ further down the line with charges probably being dropped.

SDS officer HN322
Real name withheld

This individual served in SDS for a short time in its early months and was not deployed undercover. Their real name is being withheld by the Inquiry.

He was approached by Conrad Dixon who personally invited him to join the squad. He was not given much information initially. He had a young family at the time and, once he realised it would mean a lot of time away from them, he asked to be taken off the squad.  He went on to have a senior rank in the Metropolitan Police.

In his experience, his time in SDS was much the same as time doing generic Special Branch work – both involved going to meetings and gathering intelligence.

He may have been directed to look at South East London VSC. He recalls being told to attend and report on a few different meetings. Reports show these were Earl’s Court VSC and the South East London Ad Hoc Committee of the VSC.

He wrote reports on behalf of officer HN335, Mike Tyrell, which covered private meetings and planned activities of the British Vietnam Solidarity Front and the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation.

He notes the lack of direction and supervision within the SDS as compared to the rest of Special Branch. He was advised to go to meetings, but given no direction or guidance about what to do when in attendance, and had a lot of free time.

Joan Hillier
SDS officer HN328

Only known before today as officer HN328, Joan Hillier gave evidence under her real name.

In her oral evidence, there was a lot she said she couldn’t remember, and some contradiction of established facts.

Hillier joined the Met in 1958, and moved into Special Branch in March 1968, coincidentally the day after the disorder at a Vietnam War protest outside the American Embassy in London, which spurred the formation of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

Hillier said there was little in the way of mentoring compared to when she’d joined the uniformed police. She got the impression that the Home Secretary had ordered that there be no repeat of the anti-war demonstration’s uproar and, in July 1968, Special Branch formed the SDS in response.

She remembers no application process, rather officers were invited from various Special Branch squads.

There was no formal SDS decision making on which groups to infiltrate, they ended to be selected by casual discussion among SDS officers. They were given casual, informal briefings on the politics of people they were going to spy on, rather than any structured lectures. Tactics were planned in detail, rather than targets. She said she did not remember any discussions about the risk of becoming involved in criminality.

PUBLIC ORDER OR POLITICAL POLICING?

At the time, Hillier was under the clear impression that the SDS was concerned with public order issues only, centered on the forthcoming October 1968 protest against the Vietnam War, rather than any wider counter-subversion spying. This is at odds with the fact that most SDS files were copied to MI5, who were not involved in public order policing.

She was shown a paper authored by the SDS founder and boss, Chief Inspector Conrad Dixon, about ‘penetration of extremist groups’ [MPS-0724119, not yet published at the UCPI website]. This was something she said she had no memory of seeing before.

Invited to define extremists, she said it was people who use extreme means – violence, disorder – to get what they want, seemingly without awareness that the threat and use of violence is the basis of the power of uniformed police.

The SDS was just another Special Branch squad, Hillier said, but with the added advantage of being members of targeted groups and so able to go to non-public meetings. And yet, many of Hillier’s reports are of public meetings, both before and after she joined the SDS.

WOMEN UNDERCOVER

Hillier’s written statements said that there were no female undercover officers in the SDS at the start, yet we’ve seen that there was not only herself and Helen Crampton, but officer HN334 whose statement says she had a cover job and address, which is even more involved than Hillier’s activity.

Spycops Helen Crampton (left) & Joan Hillier (right, redacted)

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.

Vietnam Solidarity Campaign marchMitting 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

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 reported on a meeting of eight of them, intending to produce leaflets for a forthcoming by-election with the slogan ‘don’t vote, all parties lie’. He reported the personal details of at least one member to be put on file.

He was asked about the rowdy day at the South African Embassy that he described in a statment was with the West Ham Anarchists:

‘That’s a good question. Do you know, I can’t remember that. I was on a demonstration outside in Trafalgar Square at the South African Embassy, and it got a bit tasty. They started smashing windows and it was violent, and there we are. The mounted police came in then, to try and stop things… I know they were anarchist groups because they were all chanting this “Anarchista!” was the order of the day.’

He said the group definitely committed some minor criminal damage and graffiti – ‘just making a nuisance of themselves locally’ – and this was covered in the local press.

ILP – ANTI-DEMOCRATIC SPYING

Logo of the Independent Labour Party

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’.

His witness statement from February 2019 was somewhat more expansive but no more specific:

‘DMC was concerned with a dam in Mozambique or South Africa and it had something to do with South African politics too. I do not remember what the group stood for or what they did. I do not remember how I infiltrated the group or why I infiltrated them. It may have been something to do with the group being on the fringes of all of the trouble with the movement against apartheid.’

The fact that the officer can’t even remember the politics of a group he was part of, suggests it made very little impression on him. This is not what we would expect to see from membership of a group committed to serious disorder, which is what the SDS claims it existed to spy on. The fact that he thinks it may be allied to undermining the struggle against apartheid compounds the sense of anti-democratic action emanating from his words.

SOCIALIST ALLIANCE AGAINST RACIALISM

An April 1970 report by Edwards on a new socialist anti-racist group, Socialist Alliance Against Racialism (SAAR), was shown to the Inquiry. Once again, Edwards said he didn’t remember them at all.

Mark Kennedy's injuries after beating by police, 2006

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.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (12 Nov 2020)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (16 Nov 2020)>>

Help Get the Truth About Spycops in Scotland

A Saltire

An explosive new report on spycops in Scotland proves the need for a proper inquiry into their activity. The Scottish government is refusing to address the issue, so victims are launching a legal case to force them to act.

Officers from Britain’s political secret police worked all over the UK and beyond. They undermined campaigns, invaded families and violated the fundamental human rights that police are sworn to uphold. Everyone affected deserves answers, but people in Scotland are being shut out.

HALF AN INQUIRY

In March 2014 the Home Secretary announced there would be a full-scale public inquiry into political undercover policing. It came as a shock when, a year later, the Inquiry’s terms of reference said it would be limited to events in England and Wales.

John Dines on Barra
SDS officer John Dines, undercover on the Scottish island of Barra

There were voices of outrage. The German government officially asked to be included. Irish parliamentarians challenged ministers to do the same. A judicial review of Northern Ireland’s exclusion is underway, backed by Amnesty International. But nowhere has the objection to exclusion been stronger than in Scotland.

Many of the known spycops were active in Scotland, over a period of decades. Every known active officer was at the 2005 protests against the G8 meeting in Gleneagles.

A number of officers initiated and furthered intimate relationships with women they were spying on whilst in Scotland. Some of them took the women on special trips to Scotland purely to cement and deepen the relationships.

By the Metropolitan Police’s own admission,

‘these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma.’

All these visits to Scotland should have been sanctioned by the local police forces. Either Scottish police were complicit, or else they weren’t told, which would be a serious breach of protocol. Either way, it warrants investigation.

The matter has been twice debated in the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Justice Minister met with victims of spycops in Scotland. The Scottish government, supported by every party in the parliament, made repeated official requests to be included in the public inquiry. The Home Office refused.

POLICE ASKED TO EXONERATE THEMSELVES

HMICS whitewash

The Scottish government’s response to the rebuff was as baffling as it was insulting to victims. They hired HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) – a body of career police officers – to conduct a review.

HMICS decided to put the task in the hands of Stephen Whitelock, who had worked in and alongside the posts that deployed undercover officers, including authorising Strathclyde’s deployments of the very Met officers his review examines. It was a corrupt self-investigation. Victims protested to no avail, and so it went ahead without actually speaking to anyone who was subjected to the abuses.

It got worse. When the Strategic Review of Undercover Policing in Scotland was published in February 2018, it went beyond the anticipated whitewash. Much of its content was given over to other kinds of undercover policing, information that was utterly irrelevant to the political infiltrations. It didn’t even mention officers having relationships with women they spied on, let alone what happened and who was responsible.

The Scottish government accepted this vacuous decoy of a review and said there was no need for a further inquiry.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SPYCOPS IN SCOTLAND

Earlier this year, the Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance published Political Undercover Policing in Scotland: The facts about spycops in Scotland & the questions that remain unanswered [PDF].

Written by academic Dr Eveline Lubbers, it focuses on the two main spycops units, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU).

There are extensive details on the activity of nine officers in Scotland, their relationships, and the groups they targeted. It also covers Scottish issues affected by political policing (as opposed to officers visiting the country as part of UK or international issues) including anti-nuclear, anti-war, climate and trade union campaigns.

Additionally, the SCOPS report profiles a number of senior Scottish officers seconded to one of the Met’s spycops units. One of them, Phil Gormley, went on to become Chief Constable of Scotland.

Dr Lubbers told Bella Caledonia:

‘Our research found that Scottish officers had crucial leading management roles in both the NPOIU and the overseeing body ACPO TAM, and were as such involved in setting the agenda for the secret undercover units. Our findings confirm that the NPOIU acted on a national level, and that Scotland was within its remit.’

The SCOPS report vaporises any credibility that the HMICS report may have had. SCOPS has delivered a copy of the report to every MSP, including Justice Minister Humza Yousaf. Mr Yousaf has yet to respond.

You can download the report for free, or order a paper copy to be delivered, at the bottome of the SCOPS page.

JUSTICE FOR ALL

The spycops committed crimes, some of them serious. They were agents provocateur, lied in court and set people up for wrongful convictions. They are known to have orchestrated dozens of miscarriages of justice, and the true figure may be in the thousands. They systematically sexually and psychologically abused women they spied on. They stole the identities of dead children from bereaved families.

Every instance of these abuses should be exposed wherever it happened. Every officer should be held accountable. Everyone targeted by these officers and tactics deserves the truth, and the state should give victims all the support and opportunity for redress that they need. They, and the public, must have answers.

Andrea‘, who had a long-term relationship with officer Carlo Soracchi, told The Scotsman:

‘As a victim of political policing in Scotland, I seek the truth as to why I was spied upon and why my life and the lives of my family were so cruelly disrupted. I want to know who was responsible for (Soracchi’s) activities in Scotland and which of his handlers secretly travelled with us.’

It cannot be right that people violated by unlawful and unethical political policing in England and Wales have a judge-led inquiry, whilst those in Scotland get nothing at all.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Tilly Gifford, an activist targeted by political secret police in Scotland, is bringing a legal case to compel the Scottish government into having a credible inquiry into spycops in Scotland.

She has launched a crowdfund appeal for the costs. Please share the link and, if you can afford it, contribute.

Landmark Scottish Spycops Court Case

Tilly Gifford

Tilly Gifford

Today sees a vital court hearing in the battle for truth and justice for victims of political spycops in Scotland.

Our new sister organisation, Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, explains the background:

After a series of “activists” were exposed as long-term undercover police spies, and the revelation that police undercover officers had been spying on political campaigners from 1968 to the present day, a Public Inquiry into undercover policing was ordered.

The UK government, however, chose to limit the Inquiry to England and Wales. Many of the same police spies now being investigated by the Inquiry also operated in Scotland. We know that they spied in Scotland, we know that they lied in Scotland, and we know some of them were with their unsuspecting activist partners in Scotland – something the Met concedes is a breach of fundamental human rights that police are sworn to uphold.

The Scottish government made repeated formal requests to the Home Office to extend the Inquiry to cover Scotland. Every party in the Scottish Parliament backed the call. They were repeatedly refused.

Rather than have their own inquiry, the Scottish government hired HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland – an organisation of career police officers – to do a report. It was the most brazen whitewash imaginable. It ignored all policing before 2000 and failed to even mention officers deceiving women into relationships.

Tilly Gifford, a social justice activist with the Plane Stupid climate campaign group, was targeted by spycops in Scotland in 2009. In 2016 Tilly took legal action to challenge the UK government over its failure to extend the Inquiry to include Scotland, and also to review why the Scottish Government failed to have its own independent public inquiry.

She was denied legal aid as the case supposedly had no merit. After considerable legal wrangling, and some crowdfunding, she got the decision overturned. The full hearing is happening today and tomorrow, the 19th and 20th of July.

Realising this crucial moment was coming, a month ago, Tilly and other activists, researchers and lawyers called a public meeting in Glasgow to form the Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (“SCOPS”).

SCOPS, along with its UK-wide counterpart Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, is an alliance of people spied on by Britain’s political secret police. SCOPS’ focus, however, is on political policing carried out by Scottish police forces and on political policing in Scotland. The first task for SCOPS is, of course, to support Tilly in her judicial review.

SCOPS believes that victims of political policing in Scotland deserve nothing less than a full, independent, Scottish public inquiry. We’ve looked in increasing horror at the undercover policing inquiry in England and Wales, and we are determined to learn from its mistakes.

It must be led by a panel of experts. One sheriff – or judge, in the case of the Inquiry down South – is not nearly representative enough. Time and again we’ve seen the Inquiry’s chair display his lack of awareness of modern life. Scotland can and must do better. Whatever the outcome of this week’s judicial review, SCOPS will continue to campaign for a proper independent public inquiry.

We hope you’ll join us on the 19th and 20th of July at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. But whether you’re able to join us or not – if you, or someone you know, has been affected by political policing in Scotland, or can share information on political policing by Scottish police forces, please do get in touch.

We believe political policing is likely to disproportionately affect Scotland, where trade union activism has always been strong. It’s notable that the construction industry blacklist – in which police help to illegally prevent political activists from working – has a disproportionate number of Scottish names. We strongly suspect recent campaigns in Scotland – from Faslane to the Independence Referendum – will have been targeted by spycops. Every piece of information that comes to light seems to prompt further revelations.

Our campaign is just beginning, and it won’t end until political policing in Scotland ends.

SCOPS on Twitter

SCOPS on Facebook

Scottish Campaign Opposing Police surveillance logo

Scotland Surveillance & Spycops, Glasgow

Poster for Haldane/COPS meeting, Glasgow 23 June 2018

Come and hear from those at the heart of exposing Britain’s political secret police and campaigning for truth and justice for those spied on in Scotland.

Hundreds of undercover police officers spied on thousands of political campaigns over 50 years, violating human rights, orchestrating miscarriages of justice, stealing citizens’ identities and more.

The scandal is the subject of a full-scale public inquiry – but only for events in England & Wales. Although many of the officers were committing the same abuses in Scotland for decades, the Home Office has refused repeated requests from the Scottish Government to extend the inquiry.

Faced with this, the Scottish Government commissioned an organisation of career police officers, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, to produce a whitewash report.

If Scotland is to be excluded from the London inquiry, it must set up its own.

Come and hear from people who were spied on, the researchers who have been unmasking spycops, and stalwarts of the campaign for truth and justice.

Neil Findlay MSP has ensured that the Scottish parliament has had two debates on the scandal which he led with powerful, eloquent contributions.

Andrea is a Scottish woman who was deceived into a long-term relationship by undercover officer Carlo Neri in 2002. They met on an anti-war demonstration, and she was involved in trade union, socialist and anti-racist campaigns. They lived together for two years and got engaged. She is now bringing legal action against the Metropolitan Police and campaigning with Police Spies Out of Lives.

Tilly Gifford is a social justice activist who was targeted by undercover political police in Scotland. She is bringing a judicial review of the UK and Scottish government’s refusals to have an inquiry into spycops in Scotland.

Eveline Lubbers is a researcher and writer for the Undercover Research Group who have been meticulously investigating Britain’s political secret police, exposing officers and mapping the methods. Their work has been at the forefront of highlighting the failings of the official investigations.

Where: The Pearce Institute, 840-860 Govan Road, Glasgow, G51 3UU

When: Saturday 23 June, 11am-5pm

Register on Eventbrite.

The meeting has been jointly organised by the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers and the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance.

Amnesty International Demands Widening of Spycops Inquiry

Amnesty International logoAmnesty International has joined the struggle for justice in the spycops scandal, backing a legal case by victims to get the public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police extended to cover Northern Ireland.

When the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s remit was announced three years ago, campaigners were shocked to see it was limited to:

‘undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces in England and Wales since 1968’

Though the Inquiry will cover operations starting in 1968, when the Special Demonstration Squad was formed, it will nonetheless ignore much of the spycops’ activity. A large proportion of the known undercover officers went beyond England and Wales – most of the independently profiled officers were in Scotland and several in Northern Ireland (as well as 15 other countries beyond the UK government’s jurisdiction).

The German government formally requested inclusion in the UK inquiry in 2016. In September 2017, Irish MEP Lynn Boylan hosted an event at the European Parliament which not only covered British spycops abroad but also the array of unaccountable political police officers crossing borders. It is possible that these efforts could be building towards future cases coming to the European Court of Justice.

Whilst in all these places, the spycops engaged in many of the shocking activities that the inquiry is supposed to examine. There are many officers who were there whilst deceiving women into intimate relationships, something the Metropolitan Police has conceded is an abuse of police power and a violation of human rights.

SPYCOPS AROUND THE UK

Though the complaints from Germany and other places outside the UK lie beyond the power of the Undercover Policing Inquiry to rule on, there is no excuse for excluding Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Spycops didn’t just extend their abuses from England and Wales into these places, they also got involved in some specific local issues. In Northern Ireland at least one Special Demonstration Squad officer, Mark Jenner, visited to get in to Irish politics and was involved in a confrontation with police officers in 1995.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland says it appears police there were unaware of Jenner’s presence, and that the Met sent him in without any co-ordination of briefing from local officers.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has described the SDS decision to do this as:

‘an act of madness’

Given the Special Demonstration Squad had an officer, Rick Gibson, taking active organisational roles in the Troops Out Movement twenty years earlier in the 1970s, it seems likely that Jenner wasn’t the first of their spycops to be involved in Irish politics.

The public inquiry cannot fulfil its purpose by only looking at part of the facts. It cannot be right that human rights abuses in England and Wales warrant a full public inquiry while the same acts by the same officers in Scotland and Northern Ireland get no answers or redress.

FIGHTING FOR INCLUSION IN SCOTLAND

The pressure for inclusion has been strong in Scotland, where Neil Findlay MSP has initiated two parliamentary debates on the subject. This culminated in repeated formal requests by the Scottish government – supported by every party in the parliament – for the Home Office to include the country in the Inquiry.

After the initial refusal from the Home Office, the Scottish government ordered a review of spycops in Scotland by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. This body of career police officers is not independent which, coupled with the review having a narrow remit, meant that spycops’ victims boycotted the whole process.

The HMICS report was published in February 2018 and, as expected, it was a whitewash. On the basis of its conclusions, the Scottish government has decided not to have its own spycops inquiry. This makes it all the more import to get Scotland included in the main public inquiry process. Without this, we will never know the truth about political undercover policing in Scotland.

Two spied-upon activists have launched legal challenges to the imbalance, separately securing the right to a judicial review of then-Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision to exclude Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, Tilly Gifford was initially denied legal aid because the case supposedly ‘had no merit’.

She crowdfunded the costs and won the right to a judicial review yet was still refused legal aid until persistent campaiging forced the Scottish Legal Aid Board to grant it last month.

FIGHTING FOR INCLUSION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

In Northern Ireland, Jason Kirkpatrick has brought a case for a judicial review in Belfast. He had an easier time than Gifford in getting to court but since then – as with other spycops victims in every legal process on their issue – he has been faced with governmental delay tactics.

In February 2017 the Belfast High Court ruled that a call to extend the UCPI to Northern Ireland should go to full Judicial Review within the next few months, but delays by the NI Secretary of State office and the Home Office have dragged the process out.

After a year with no action in the case, last week Amnesty publicly called on the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to act now and extend the public inquiry.

‘Northern Ireland must not be left behind due to the ongoing absence of government ministers advocating in our interests.

‘Activities of undercover police were not limited to England and Wales, so nor should the inquiry. Two previous Justice Ministers have called for the extension of the Inquiry which we believe must now happen urgently.’

Kirkpatrick told Radio Foyle about the counter-democratic policing he’d been subjected to:

‘In 2005 I met this undercover officer, Mark Kennedy, in Dublin. He travelled around with me and others, he paid for the trip. We drove from Dublin to the west of the Republic and then on up to Belfast, giving lectures about environmental issues and so forth. In Belfast we were at the City Church, a cross-community church. I became his friend, we were very close friends I thought, for five years.’

 

Kirkpatrick told the Belfast Telegraph:

‘The operations and depth of the deception by the police who spied on me was not limited to England and Wales and so neither should the investigation. Our rights must be upheld. I’ve been fighting for what’s right on this case since 2010 and it’s time the Government stop doing everything in its power to prevent justice.’

Amnesty’s Northern Ireland Campaigns Manager, Grainne Teggart, added:

‘Victims, such as Jason, should not have to take to the courts to have their rights realised. Those affected deserve nothing less than the truth around covert operations that violated trust, privacy and intimacy.’

Dates for the judicial reviews in Northern Ireland and Scotland have yet to be set. But given that the Undercover Policing Inquiry is still working through its preliminary issues, there is still time for the Home Office to extend the geographical boundaries of its remit.

Britain’s political secret police didn’t stop at national borders, so neither can a credible, thorough inquiry into their deeds.

Scottish Government Refuses Spycops Inquiry

Michael Matheson MSP

Michael Matheson MSP: Spineless betrayal

The Scottish government has said there will be no Scottish inquiry into the political undercover policing scandal.

The announcement by Justice Secretary Michael Matheson came hours after he finally published a report into undercover policing in Scotland.

The review had been conducted by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. It had been boycotted by victims as HMICS is a body drawn from the police, including officers personally connected to political spying.

SPYCOPS IN SCOTLAND

When then-Home secretary Theresa May ordered an inquiry into undercover political policing in 2014, many were shocked to see it would only be allowed to examine events in England and Wales. A large proportion of the spycops worked beyond those borders. With only 10% of them exposed, we could list seventeen different countries spied in over a period of 25 years.

These are not suggestions or allegations. It is a plain, established fact that numerous officers were in Scotland including many furthering their sexual relationships with women they spied on. Some came on political actions, other on holidays to deepen the relationships. Carlo Neri was living with Andrea in London but repeatedly came to Scotland to integrate into her family.

This is something the police concede is an abuse of police power and a violation of the human rights to a private life and to freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The Scottish government emphatically agreed. Backed by every party in Holyrood, they formally asked to be included in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. The Home Office refused.

In asking for inclusion, the Scottish government were declaring that these acts warranted a public inquiry. That makes today’s refusal by Michael Matheson not just a betrayal of abused citizens but an act of personal and institutional hypocrisy.

DON’T LISTEN TO VICTIMS

Today’s HMICS report devotes most of its space to describing conteHMICS whitewashmporary undercover policing in the broad sense. Only four of its 62 pages are devoted to the political spycops whose abuses triggered the report to be commissioned in the first place.

It admits that records are incomplete, and thus implicitly admits we cannot know the truth without the testimony of witnesses. It has not spoken to any victims, and Matheson’s contact is scarcely better, limited to half an hour’s meeting at which he gave no concession.

The HMICS report doesn’t consider any events before 2000, event though we know officers were in Scotland before then, and the Special Demonstration Squad had been active since 1968. This omits periods of intense police activity against political campaigns, such as the 1984-85 miners’ strike.

Matheson’s decision is a spineless abdication of responsibility and an affront to justice. It is a brazen, shameless U-turn that serves to protect yesterday’s abusers and thereby embolden tomorrow’s. He is choosing to cover up the counter-democratic undermining of political campaigns in Scotland.

This is certainly not the first time spycops victims have had obstacles thrown in their path by the state, but we had expected more from someone who had consistently said that it warranted the fullest level of investigation.

He has decided not to let Scottish people know what was done to them, whilst the English are entitled to answers. The fight is far from over.

LEGAL AID FIGHT

Spied-upon activist Tilly Gifford has already brought the Scottish and UK governments to court over the decision to exclude Scotland from the public inquiry. The Scottish Legal Aid Board refused to fund the case, saying it had no merit – even though a similar case in Northern Ireland is going ahead.

Gifford crowdfunded the money, and courts said the case did, after all, have merit and should proceed. The Scottish Legal Aid Board then moved the goalposts, saying they still wouldn’t fund the case as they felt it was unlikely to succeed.

It’s hard to see this as anything other than political interference, something of a piece with today’s decision not to investigate the known, sustained, strategic serious abuse of citizens in Scotland.

You can add your voice to the clamour for justice by demanding Matheson investigate the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s decisions – the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers have set up a handy online form with suggested text.

As The Scotsman said in May 2017

‘those spied on by police in Scotland face the prospect of being the only ones unable to get accountability for what happened to them.

‘Scotland cannot be left behind. Should the English inquiry not be extended north of the Border, then Scottish ministers must act to fill the void.’

Help Get Justice for Spycops Victims in Scotland

Tilly Gifford

Tilly Gifford

The Scottish establishment is inexplicably stalling investigations into political secret police in the country, but you can help.

Most of the known spycops were active in Scotland, including many who had deceived women they spied on into sexual relationships, something the police concede is an abuse of police power and a violation of human rights.

Despite such serious events being well known, the public inquiry into undercover policing is limited to events in England and Wales.

In December 2015 the Scottish government – supported by every party in the Scottish parliament – made a formal request for Scotland to be included in the Inquiry. The Home Office refused.

One would have thought the SNP government in Scotland would have seized on this – English officers committing gross violations of citizens in Scotland, and whilst English and Welsh victims get a full scale Inquiry their Scottish counterparts get nothing.

However, Scottish justice minister Michael Matheson merely commissioned HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) to conduct a review of the matter. As HMICS is effectively a satellite body of the police, we have no faith in its ability to deal with the issue in a credible way.

We met Michael Matheson in May 2017, and he told us he expected the report in September. He assured that that if the review showed serious issues, he would order a proper inquiry.

HMICS did indeed finish their report in September. After preparations, it was delivered to Matheson on 2nd November 2017. Nobody has heard anything about it since.

JUDICIAL REVIEW – WHEN IS A CASE NOT A CASE?

Meanwhile activist Tilly Gifford, who was targeted by spycops in Scotland, has sought to have a judicial review of the Home Office’s refusal to include Scotland in the public inquiry. The Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) turned her down for funding, saying the case ‘did not have merits’.

This is at odds with a parallel case in Northern Ireland, where a judicial review is going ahead with public funding. Gifford crowdfunded her case and in September 2017 the Court of Session in Edinburgh accepted the merits of the case and granted permission to proceed to a full judicial review.

Gifford reapplied for legal aid but SLAB have moved the goalposts and now say they won’t fund the case unless it has ‘a good probability’ of winning.

This flat-out refusal with changing excuses is, on its own, enough to make one suspect political interference. Taken alongside the Scottish government’s reluctance to have a proper inquiry into spycops’ abuses, it is increasingly hard to come to any other conclusion (even before we consider other allegations of political interference in Scottish policing).

This is where you come in. We would like people to write to Scottish justice minister Michael Matheson to conduct an investigation into the decision to deny legal aid in this case, and to table a motion asking for the decision to be overturned.

As Gifford told Bella Caledonia this week:

‘I still don’t know how long I had been followed. I still don’t know who commissioned me as a target. I still don’t know what files are held on me. What I do know is that I was followed on the streets, that they had access to my home, that they could call me on my personal phone from untraceable numbers when they wanted…

‘communities in Wales and England who have suffered extreme abuses have the potential to have light shed on these sexual, emotional and physical violations carried out by the state. Yet, as it stands now, people in Scotland have no such recourse to truth or accountability. There are women who know they were targeted for sexual relationships by undercover operatives in Scotland.’

The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers have provided an online form and suggested text for you.

Please take a few minutes to add your name to the call and help secure access to justice for Tilly Gifford, that she may then let the country know what counter-democratic abuses have been committed in their name.

 

Spycops Activists Meet Scottish Minister, Demand Inquiry

Spycops campaigners at the Scottish Government, Glasgow, 10 May 2017. From left: Donal O'Driscoll, Merrick Cork, Helen Steel & Tilly Gifford

Spycops campaigners at the Scottish Government, Glasgow, 10 May 2017. From left: Donal O’Driscoll, Merrick Cork, Helen Steel and Tilly Gifford

People spied on by political undercover police in Scotland met with the Scottish Justice Minister Michael Matheson last week, demanding an independent public inquiry.

The forthcoming Undercover Policing Inquiry, led by Lord Pitchford, is limited to events in England and Wales, despite the fact that most known spycops were also active in Scotland.

After the Home Office refused to include Scotland in the inquiry, last September the Scottish Government appointed HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) to conduct a review of undercover policing in the country.

As HMICS is a body of senior police officers, many victims of the spying do not find it credible and eighteen of them recently declared a boycott of the process. Outraged that the Justice Minister commissioned a review without even speaking to those affected, they requested a meeting, and on Wednesday a delegation they met him in Glasgow.

The group included Helen Steel, who had been in Scotland with her partner John Barker, aka undercover officer John Dines; Climate activist Tilly Gifford, targeted by undercover Scottish police and so outside Pitchford’s remit; Donal O’Driscoll and Merrick Cork, spied upon at the G8 protests in 2005; and the sister of ‘Andrea‘ who was deceived into a relationship by undercover officer Carlo Neri who then integrated into Andrea’s Scottish family.

Matheson repeated his claim that the HMICS review will be ‘thorough and independent’, despite the fact that it only covers policing in Scotland since 2000 and is done by police officers, some of whom have personal connections to the abuses.

The group recounted their personal experiences. Andrea’s sister recalled a number of family occasions, including Carlo Neri coming to her graduation.

Tilly Gifford was a member of climate campaigners Plane Stupid when she was singled out by undercover officers who tried to recruit her as an informer. She told the Evening Times

‘I don’t know who these people were. They were using Strathclyde Police resources but their names did not appear on any Strathclyde Police databases…

‘Because this happened in Scotland, I will not be included in the Pitchford Inquiry. Although there is evidence, and it is documented, that I was targeted, I will be completely left out of the inquiry.’

Gifford is applying for a judicial review of the UK and Scottish government’s exclusion of Scotland from a real inquiry. She has already crowdfunded the costs to get it going (though more is needed and you can donate here).

It was pointed out to Matheson that, given the fact that the spycops targeted elected Labour and Green politicians, it’s probable the SNP were spied on too, including his colleagues and their families.

The group made plain to Matheson that there is already enough established fact to warrant an a full scale inquiry that is credible to the victims, and were absolutely clear that they will not settle for less. Describing the HMICS review as ‘a figleaf’, they demanded it be scrapped immediately.

Matheson insisted he would wait for the HMICS review – planned for publication around September – and only then decide if further inquiry is needed. He made it plain that he would not be dissuaded on this point.

The Scotsman weighed in with an unequivocal opinion piece

Campaigners have already won a judicial review of the Home Office decision in Northern Ireland and should Ms Gifford’s action be successful in Scotland, the courts may take the dilemma out of the SNP’s hands.

If not, those spied on by police in Scotland face the prospect of being the only ones unable to get accountability for what happened to them.

Scotland cannot be left behind. Should the English inquiry not be extended north of the Border, then Scottish ministers must act to fill the void.

Mr Matheson was left in no doubt that this is what is required of him.

Spycops Victims Boycott Scottish Inquiry

HMICS whitewashPeople spied upon by Britiain’s political secret police in Scotland are boycotting the forthcoming Scottish review of the issue, saying ‘it cannot be trusted’ and branding it ‘pointless’.

The review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) was commissioned by the Scottish government. Although most known officers from the disgraced units were active in Scotland, the Home Office has limited the full-scale public inquiry to events in England and Wales. The Scottish government – supported by every party in Holyrood – formally asked for inclusion but were rebuffed in July last year.

The Scottish government responded by asking HMICS to do a review, but only of events in Scotland since 2000.

Now eighteen people have written to HMICS, decrying both the remit and the choice of the body itself.

Most of them were so heavily spied upon that they are among the 200 people designated core participants at the London-based public inquiry. They include several women who were deceived into relationships by undercover officers and have received an abject apology from the Metropolitan Police.

Others were only targeted in Scotland and so cannot be part of that inquiry. Among them are former MSP Frances Curran and climate activist Tilly Gifford who is bringing a case to force a judicial review of Scotland’s exclusion.

Many were also on the illegal construction industry blacklist, despite never having worked in that trade. Several hundred activists were on the list as every constabulary’s Special Branch illegally supplied it with the details of people who were politically active.

‘The HMICS review has none of the muscle it takes to bring the truth to light, even if it were within the remit and was so disposed.

‘There is little point in another report that simply says things were wrong but it has all changed now. We and the Scottish public need proper answers. We want to know the truth of who spied on us, how we were targeted and why police thought they could get away with it. Without that truth there is no path to justice.’

The group add that they ‘do not want to be complicit with measures that treat a violation as less serious if it occurs on Scottish soil’.

Citing earlier reviews in England as inadequate, they call for an entirely different approach that puts the abused first, rather than leaving everything to the abusers and their colleagues;

‘the HMICS review should be scrapped and replaced by something that is credible to all sides and to the public at large’.

 


The full text of the letter:

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland
1st Floor West
St Andrew’s House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

27 April 2017

Dear HMICS,

Re: Review of Undercover Policing in Scotland

We were spied upon by undercover political secret police officers in Scotland. Some of us were spied on to such a significant extent that we are core participants at the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI), yet the same officers committing the same acts against us in Scotland will not be considered by the UCPI. Some of us were only spied upon in Scotland and so are ignored by the UCPI. We all deserve the truth, as do the Scottish public whose democratic rights have been interfered with.

In 2011, when the truth of what had been done to us came to public attention, we were met with denials from senior police, and sham inquiries that were narrow investigations by police officers. We have no faith in police investigating themselves. We said these reviews were not sufficiently transparent, robust or independent to satisfy public concern and would not come close to addressing all of the issues raised. We were proven right.

As the scale of what went on became clearer and the content of many of these reports – including one from your sister body HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) – were discredited, more serious action was taken. Mark Ellison’s reviews were followed by the announcement of the UCPI. Its exclusion of events in Scotland is a serious limitation. Most of the exposed officers were active in the country and the truth of what happened in Scotland is just as important as it is in England.

For the Scottish Government to commission a review by HMICS is a retrograde step. It is much like the response we had in 2011; police self-investigating a tiny part of what happened, a fob-off to give the appearance of doing something.

We are far beyond that now. We are not dealing with allegations, but proven abuses. This includes officers initiating and furthering intimate relationships with women in Scotland, which the Metropolitan Police has conceded was a violation of human rights and an abuse of police power. It warrants comprehensive and impartial investigation, which we have no faith HMICS is capable of delivering.

Firstly, there is a mater of trust. HMICS is a body of career police officers investigating their colleagues. On that basis alone, it cannot be trusted.

The proposal to look at two disgraced units that were, at the time in question, overseen by the current chief constable of Scotland (whose wife works for your sister organisation, HMIC). This makes it even harder to feign independence. Additionally, the review is being led by Stephen Whitelock who has been working in and alongside the posts that deployed undercover officers, including authorising Strathclyde’s deployments of the abusive Met officers this review examines. The decision to choose him and HMICS gives the appearance of corruption. We cannot think of anyone less appropriate to be doing this.

Secondly, there is a matter of scope. The HMICS remit is limited to events since 2000, a fraction of the lifetime of the units. Among the many outrages committed was the targeting of women through intimate relationships, the use of stolen identities of dead children and the illegal blacklisting of construction workers, environmental and community campaigners. All of these took place in Scotland before 2000 but the investigation will treat them as if they did not happen. To ignore such a significant part of the pattern of abuses makes the investigation unable to see anything like the whole picture and renders it pointless.

Thirdly, there is the element of HMICS’ power to investigate. We have battled for years to get as far as we have, faced by a police culture that will do anything it can to avoid accountability. We have some hope that the UCPI, with its power to compel witnesses who give testimony under oath, might elicit some truth. The HMICS review has none of the muscle it takes to bring the truth to light, even if it were within the remit and was so disposed.

There is little point in another report that simply says things were wrong but it has all changed now. We and the Scottish public need proper answers. We want to know the truth of who spied on us, how we were targeted and why police thought they could get away with it. Without that truth there is no path to justice. There is also no means for the Scottish public to learn how these undemocratic abuses came about and so put steps in place to ensure they do not happen again.

No police report to date has offered anything like that and there is no reason to believe HMICS could, let alone would, do so.

We believe the Justice Secretary should have spoken to those of us abused by these officers in Scotland before deciding on an appropriate course of action. Instead, he spoke only to police and their satellite bodies and then hired them.

We do not want to be complicit with measures that treat a violation as less serious if it occurs on Scottish soil. The HMICS review should be scrapped and replaced by something that is credible to all sides and to the public at large.

The Scottish public and those abused in Scotland deserve a proper Inquiry into the abuses committed by political undercover policing units, just as those in England and Wales deserved one.

Andrea
Alison
Claire Fauset
Donal O’Driscoll
Dr Nick McKerrell
Frances Curran
Harry Halpin
Helen Steel
Jason Kirkpatrick
John Jordan
Kate Wilson
Kim Bryan
Lindsay Keenan
Lisa
Martin Shaw
Merrick Cork
Olaf Bayer
Tilly Gifford

Help Force a Proper Spycops Inquiry for Scotland

John Dines on Barra

SDS officer John Dines whilst committing human rights abuses on Barra in the 1990s. This will be ignored by the public inquiry & the Scottish police self-investigation.

Most known officers from Britain’s political secret police were in Scotland. It happened over a period of decades and included the targeting of women for relationships that the Metropolitan Police have conceded were ‘a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma’.

Despite this, the public inquiry is limited to events in England and Wales. The Scottish government formally asked for the remit to be extended to Scotland but was refused. They have commissioned a police self-investigation instead which will only look at events since 2000, a gesture so inadequate that it is insulting.

The same abuses were committed by the same officers, and if people deserve answers in England they should get them in Scotland too. More than that, we can only understand what happened by seeing the full picture. To look at officers or campaigns in an isolated way means we cannnot get the full truth.

On 24th October 2016 the Public Interest Law Unit through solicitors in Scotland launched Judicial Review proceedings against the Home Office and the Scottish government. The proceedings filed in Edinburgh challenged:

  1. the decision of the UK Government to refuse to extend the terms of reference of the Undercover Policing Inquiry into undercover policing to cover Scotland; and separately
  2. the decision of the Scottish Ministers to refuse to set up a Scottish Inquiry under and in terms of the Inquiries Act 2005 with terms of reference equivalent to those of the Inquiry but covering Scotland.

Despite this being a strong case, with good facts, supported by clear domestic and human rights law, in March the Scottish Legal Aid Board have refused the legal aid application.

This is where you come in.

A crowdfund campaign has been launched to raise £5,000 to take this case forward and to get the Court to grant permission for it to proceed to a full Judicial Review. We have a month to do it. Please share this widely and donate if you can afford to.

More information and donation details here.