Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 13

10 May 2021

Evidence from witness:
 ‘Madeleine’

The 10 May hearing of the Undercover Policing Inquiry was focused on ‘Madeleine’, one of the women deceived into a sexual relationship by undercover ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-1979), one of four women that he has now admitted to having sexual contact with.

She is the first person to give live testimony on her experience of the relationship and undergo questioning on it (another woman, ‘Mary’, had her statement read out by a lawyer last week). She gave a powerful account of her own activism and and time as a political campaigner with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Despite questions from the Inquiry that crossed the line, she gave an open and quietly compelling description of how she was deceived by Miller.

Miller is claiming it was only a one night stand, but Madeleine steadily demolished that, with a detailed account of the night they got together and their subsequent relationship. She went into the conversations where he emotionally manipulating her feelings, then suddenly withdrew as his time in the field came to an end. This included pointing to records of conversations she had with others at the time.

Miller is giving evidence tomorrow, 11 May.

It was forty years before she learned the truth, in 2018, and was able to deal with the knowledge, but the empathy that guided her activism was clearly now extending to all the other women affected – noting how much damage her younger self would have experienced if she had learned of it at the time.

Madeleine provided a witness statement to the Inquiry in February 2021 but, as Inquiry delays meant she had to produce it in a hurry, it didn’t include everything she has to contribute.

BACKGROUND TO AN ACTIVIST

Madeleine comes from a working class background, one that was deeply politicised by experiences of poverty and war.

Her father was a committed anti-fascist, at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 when an alliance of antifascists stopped the British Union of Fascists marching through the Jewish area of London’s East End. He then served in the International Brigades fighting fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and after he returned he joined the British Army simply to fight the Nazis.

Madeleine was about 15 when she joined the International Socialists (IS), which later became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

She had a break from activism when she was a student, but rejoined the IS Walthamstow branch in about 1973, and became an active trade unionist. This is the branch spied on by Miller throughout his deployment.

REVOLUTION, VIOLENCE & PLAIN OLD PAPER SELLING

Like with other non-state witnesses, the Inquiry are keen to find out just what was meant by the politics of the SWP, revolutionary politics and talk of violence. And again, like other such witnesses, she calmly dismantled the many (deliberate) misconceptions the police held of the group.

The SWP wanted an end to the constant class conflict of capitalism, seeking a fair and just socialist society, she explained. She rejected the Inquiry’s characterisation of the SWP as trying to overthrow parliamentary democracy:

‘We basically believed that extra-parliamentary activity was essential because we wanted to increase democracy, we felt that people should be active at all levels, not just voting once every five years. Our belief was in broadening participation in democracy…

‘We were not a terrorist group, we were not a violent group, we basically wanted to build a mass movement.’

Madeleine took issue with another mischaracterisation, disputing the implication that SWP members ‘infiltrated’ trade unions, rather they were trade unionists themselves and sought to support others.

They sold their Socialist Worker newspaper, held public meetings, and went on demonstrations:

‘Perfectly legal and legitimate methods.’

In the 1970s the far right were in the ascent with neo-fascists openly attacking minority communities and murdering Black and Asian men. Though the SWP, Madeleine was involved in the movement opposing fascism.

She said the SWP were opposed to active violence as counter-productive, and even expelled Red Action from the party.

WALTHAMSTOW SWP

With a membership of more than 40 people, the Walthamstow branch of the SWP was comparatively large, so split in two in 1977 – one covering Walthamstow & one covering Leyton/ Leystonstone.

This was the period when Miller was infiltrating. He became Walthamstow branch treasurer, and later district treasurer and social committee organiser for the Outer East London District Branch. This latter role would have entailedorganisingfundraising gigs and other socials.

The branches held regular meetings, as well as moresocial events. As people dedicated to the same ideals, their lives were very enmeshed:

‘We had a message to spread; we had a world to build’

All members were involved in selling papers, every week. They had regular pitches in the markets on Saturdays, and on weekdays would often sell papers outside factories, door to door on estates, and of course at any demos.

There were lots of demonstrations, about all sorts of issues, taking place most weekends.

The group were also active fly-posting and leafleting, to let people know about the speaker meetings they organised.

Madeleine lived in a large flat-share, with a huge living room and kitchen, four bedrooms. It was close to two popular pubs, so it was common for friends to come back after the pub closed.

Miller referred to it as ‘a drop in centre for SWP activity’ which Madeleine dismissed as sounding formal and functional, rather than domestic and sociable

BRANCH ACTIVITY – ‘A LITTLE BIT OF EMBROIDERY’

The Inquiry showed some reports on the branch’s activity. At one branch meeting in June 1977, 25 people listened to a talk on revolutionary feminism by a speaker from the SWP’s Newham Teachers Branch [UCPI0000017456].

Madeleine noted the women’s liberation movement was having a big impact on people’s thinking at the time. Women were not just oppressed as workers, but as women too. In essence they had two jobs – one at work to make ends meet and the other domestically:

‘We saw that the personal was very much political.‘

June 1977 saw the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, marked with a one-off Bank holiday. Not enamoured of the deference and imperial overtones of the occasion, Walthamstow SWP organised a family anti-Jubilee picnic in Epping Forest. The Inquiry asked if the picnic was likely to involve any public disorder:

‘Absolutely not, no. It was just a picnic. With children, I might add.’

The branch was also involved in protests at Sainsbury’s, with the Inquiry focusing on a report where mention was made of ‘occupying’ its supermarkets:

‘We felt supermarket prices were kept artificially high to extract profit for shareholders.’

Madeleine’s motivations andher politics shone through, as she spoke of the ongoing need to campaign about povertyin this country, illustrated by the existence of food banks, the estimated four million children living in poverty right now, and the recent campaigning of Marcus Rashford around school meals:

‘And now I’m thinking to myself, we were so right.’

Once again, she had to correct the Inquiry’s exaggerated ideas of their activity, explaining that they didn’t ‘occupy Sainsbury’s at all:what they probably did was stand outside with banners, handing out leaflets and talking to shoppers.

‘I believe that food, like clean water, fresh air, shelter, etc, are basic human rights.’

A July 1977 report [UCPI0000017571] of a meeting of 30 people describes their intention to produce bulletins for particular workplaces. Asked if this was done with the ultimate aim of recruiting, she once again rejected the suggestion of a hidden agenda, saying the aim was to get workers to:

‘build the movement, not necessarily get them to join SWP… we weren’t a secret sect – we were very much community based.’

Other reports showed cooperation with other groups – for instance, Women’s Voice involved a lot of SWP members, but also women who were not.

The July 1977 report claimed that the branch:

‘Restated its support for the Provisional IRA but remained critical of that organisation’s policy of random bombing of working class people.’

Again, Madeleine contradicted the characterisation:

‘We did not support bombing at all. Absolutely not. We supported a united Ireland, and we felt that Irish people had a right to self determination, and we saw British army as basically an occupying force’

Her witness statement refers to support for self-defence against the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. She explained that attacks by those institutions are well documented, and defence doesn’t mean physical violence, but non-cooperation in the form of things like rent strikes, workplace strikes.

She highlighted a practice familiar from spycop reports seen earlier in the hearings, of taking the most extreme or hyperbolic statement at a meeting and portraying it as the whole group’s real basis:

‘There’s a little bit of embroidery going on in many of the reports. There would have been people there who would have expressed opinions that we wouldn’t necessarily agree with, but we would discuss and debate and argue with them.’

REFUGEES FROM TORTURE

An August 1977 report [UCPI0000011129] describes a branch meeting addressed by a refugee from the Chilean dictatorship that had overthrown the democratically elected socialist government in 1973.

He told the meeting that he felt that if the Allende government had armed those prepared to defend it, they may have stood a chance. The report says there was a great deal of discussion about the need to arm the workers in the UK, which Madeleine dismissed out of hand:

‘That’s absolute nonsense. Absolute nonsense.’

But could the SWP envisage a situation where they’d like workers to be armed?

‘We foresaw, as I’ve said, a new society where the vast majority basically organised themselves, took action, and decided things would change…. We weren’t the Red Brigades, or anything like that; we didn’t support that type of activity. We basically believed… the working class would bring about this change, not us.’

Not content with this, the Inquiry highlighted the Chilean speaker’s observation that no people’s militia could directly oppose a trained army, so the only way to defeat it would be infiltration. So, the Inquiry asked, did this mean that the SWP considered infiltrating the Army?

Madeleine scoffed at the suggestion. Walthamstow SWP was selling newspapers and not even occupying Sainsbury’s.

The Inquiry failed to note that the whole issue was about the fascist overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government by the murderous General Pinochet. The refugee was actually speaking about counter-subversion, which was supposedly the SDS’s remit.

The report concluded with a mocking description of a branch member crying, and:

‘Someone threw an epileptic fit which ended my observations.’

Madeleine explained that they knew Chilean refugees who had been tortured in Chile, electrocuted and threatened with death. As compassionate people, they found that emotionally moving. That the spycop found it funny beggars belief.

FASCISTS ON THE RISE

Calling the National Front fascist is no exaggeration. Madeleine supplied a photograph [UCPI0000034395] of future NF leader John Tyndall in Nazi uniform in front of a framed portrait of Hitler.

Madeleine described how her generation was dealing with parents traumatised from the Second World War, and yet these avowedly Nazi groups were allowed to organise and demonstrate, seemingly with the approval of the State and the protection of the police. The SDS was not monitoring them at all.

August 1977 saw a key moment in the fight against fascism in Britain. The National Front were organising a march in Lewisham, and there was a huge counter-demonstration. The collision of the two became known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham‘.

Spycop Vince Miller says Walthamstow SWP members went to check out the route of the march the night before, and deposited piles of bricks that could be used the next day. He also claimed they took weapons with them in bags on the day.

Madeleine utterly denies all of this. There is no evidence that anybody ever planted any bricks at all.

Madeleine attended the demonstration of 13 August with comrades from her branch.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Inquiry asked Madeleine about the All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism And Fascism (ALCARAF), which it described as a coalition of the SWP, International Marxist Group and Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist).

She explained it was much wider than that, bringing in trade unions, faith groups and church leaders. It’s extraordinary that churches has noticed fascist violence on the streets and took action, yet the SDS officers say there was no problem they were aware of.

Madeleine explained ALCARAF been formed in January 1977 in response to National Front violence and open police racism. This is vital context to understand the Lewisham protests.

Instead of doing anything about the NF’s ongoing street violence in the area (the Sikh Gurdwara had been attacked, as had shops and individuals in the area), police launched an ‘anti-mugging’ crackdown – ‘muggers’ being a racist trope at the time, as evidenced by the NF’s ‘Stop The Muggers’ banner.

In one large operation local police had conducted house raids, smashing in doors, arresting mostly Black people. Madeleine recounted how a white woman arrested in a raid was strip searched by police and subjected to vile comments about how she was catching diseases from living with Black people.

60 people were arrested, 21 were charged. The Lewisham 21 Defence Committee was set up to support them. They held a march that was attacked by the NF. Acid was thrown on a young girl, one person’s jaw was broken, another knocked unconscious. This alone is more public disorder than the SDS has managed to pin on the SWP, and yet nothing was done.

Just before the Lewisham demonstration, the NF’s National Activities Organiser, Martin Webster, held a press conference and announced:

‘We intend to destroy race relations here in Lewisham.’

As an aside, Madeleine noted that Durham Police had invited Martin Webster to give a talk on law and order in December 1977.

She asked the Inquiry to show a photograph of the NF on the day [UCPI0000034396], in which one of them could be seen armed with a stick. Madeleine said:

‘We could see where their philosophy ends. My husband Is Jewish, his family have the yellow star of his great grandfather…. Part of the family tree ends in the 1940s at Auschwitz.’

THE BATTLE OF LEWISHAM

Against this backdrop of racism from both police and the NF, the August 1977 Lewisham counter-demonstration was always going to be full of outrage.

Police allowed the fascist march to go ahead, while changing the route of the anti-fascist one at short notice. Madeleine found herself trapped in a ‘kettle’ by Clifton Rise in New Cross. People climbed up the corrugated iron hoardings to escape the crush. There was a line of police blocking one end of the street.

People from the overlooking houses told them that the fascists were frightened by the sheer size of the crowd. The next thing she recounted was police horses charging down the street, right through the crowd of demonstrators.

The police led out the NF’s flag-waving contingent, but the rest of the fascists behind had almost no police protection even though many officers were available. ‘All hell broke loose,’ Madeleine remembered, describing missiles coming overhead from behind her.

She and her comrades wanted to get out of the situation. They were not involved in throwing things. She noted that the majority of people on marches were usually white, but this day saw a large proportion of Black people on the streets, and the police responded with aggression.

She felt that the police ‘just lost control and went wild’ in an outburst of rage vented against the local community. She recalled police vehicles driven into the crowd, indiscriminate arrests, and severe police violence, as they escaped and walked to a train station some distance away in an attempt to make it home safely.

MORE MEETINGS

The Inquiry showed some more reports on the SWP meetings. One from November 1977 [UCPI0000011513] held at a public library, was on the life and works of William Morris, a Victorian son of Walthamstow, known for both his wallpaper/ textile pattern designs and socialist beliefs.

The meeting was addressed by a speaker who ‘delivered a well prepared speech which he illustrated with photographs and slides’. The meeting was apparently that told Morris was a ‘pioneer of English socialism,’ even if his ideas were not entirely consistent with the SWP.’

Morris was pretty mainstream in thought and indeed in wallpaper design. Once again, the SDS was reporting on things that were in no way subversive or a threat to public order, and the documents were copied to MI5 where they are still held nearly 50 years later.

A report of a meeting in July 1978 [UCPI0000011337] shows Miller was involved in the branch’s Industrial Group, which organised sales of Socialist Worker at factories, picket lines and similar settings.

A January 1979 report [UCPI0000013063] says sales of Socialist Worker are going well on a local industrial estate, though they must avoid places with a predominantly Asian workforce as workers say they would be subjected to violence or the sack if they showed support.

Madeleine wonders if Miller had contact information for sympathetic workers at these factories, and if their details were passed on to industrial blacklists.

The report also mentioned School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN) and says it ‘can, with short notice, get large numbers of school students on to the streets, should the need arise’. The Inquiry asked Madeleine if SKAN were able to suddenly create a mob ready for street violence.

Yet again, she had to deflate suggestions of insurrection. She explained that SKAN had been formed when the NF held a demo outside a school in multicultural East London. About 200 pupils had opposed it, with 15 arrests – all but one of them Black kids.

SKAN was a self-organising group of kids responding to the upsurge of racism around them:

‘The idea that we would have somehow had to have planted these ideas in their heads is a bit ludicrous really. It was their own experience.’

SELF DEFENCE IS NO OFFENCE

In her statement, Madeleine notes other reports are deliberately facetious, and often selectively quote a few individuals’ opinions rather than the general view, even just picking up on comments made by members of the public – such as arming themselves with catapults [UCPI0000011196].

Madeleine said this suggestion was more likely made by a member of the public, and would have been ineffective given that a young woman selling the Socialist Worker had her pelvis broken by NF thugs with a sledgehammer. Rather:

‘the collective focus was was on how to stay safe by remaining in groups and avoiding situations where we might come under attack.’

The Inquiry did not address the above in the live evidence, but it did turn to another instance of SWP members protecting themselves against vicious racist violence.

A November 1978 report [UCPI0000012924] of an SWP meeting (of 22 people) details the compiling of a rota of members who would stay at the house of a Black woman with a Jewish boyfriend who needed protection from attacks by the National Front.

The report said that Dagenham police confirmed that bricks had been thrown through the windows at the house, one with an extreme right wing leaflet around it, the other bearing the letters DAK. The report said DAK stood for ‘Dagenham Axe Clan’.

The transliteration of ‘K’ standing for ‘Clan’ is unsettling. It seems like the police were attempting to deflect from the use of the word Klan, and the direct violent racism implied by it.

Again, these attacks are each worse than anything Miller has managed to conclusively attribute to the SWP. It disproves the claims that the SDS didn’t know about any threats from right-wing groups. And yet, there appears to be no record of the DAK being of interest to the SDS.

DISBAND THE POLITICAL POLICE

After SWP member and anti-fascist Blair Peach was killed by police at a demonstration against the NF in April 1979, there was a wave of outrage across the country. There were calls for a public inquiry into his killing, and for the notorious unit responsible, the Special Patrol Group (SPG), to be disbanded.

A July 1979 SDS report [UCPI0000021044] describes a Waltham forest District SWP meeting entitled ‘Police are the Murderers: Disband the Special Patrol Group’.

Madeleine reminded us of the unauthorised weapons and Nazi regalia found in the lockers and homes of SPG officers after they had killed Peach.

The report quotes a speaker as saying dissolution of the SPG is a necessary step on the path to socialist revolution. Madeleine broadly agreed – the SPG were effectively a repressive, paramilitary political unit, the opposite of policing in response to actual community need.

Although the meeting had not been advertised, two strangers arrived, separately, and were presumed to be police. The manner of their dress, their reluctance to divulge any details about themselves, and their leaving early gave them away.

The Inquiry asked if the meeting was private because it was doing something sinister. However, Madeleine explained that, as SWP meetings were being subject to fascist attacks, the party had simply become more security conscious.

PERSONAL DETAILS

The Inquiry then showed a report from November 1977 [UCPI0000011550] detailing Madeleine’s employment at a school, including her salary, start date, and a physical description of her. Another report from 1979 [UCPI0000021299] records her new job working on buses. Why did the spycops record this kind of personal info about her (and others)?

‘I’m outraged really. I find that a gross invasion of my privacy… Why did they need a detailed physical description of me? To what end? What was that used for?… I got a job in a school because I loved kids… and liked working with children very much.’

Even more disturbing was a report on Madeleine’s wedding [UCPI000011289]. She noted that, from her Special Branch Registry File number in the report, her file was opened in 1970, when she was only 16. Part of the details with that report are redacted:

‘I find that really, really sinister’

She demanded that the Inquiry reveal what’s been blacked out, and explain why they don’t want her to see information about herself from 50 years ago.

WELCOMING THE SPYCOP

It appears that Miller joined the Walthamstow branch of the SWP in early 1977. He made contact via a Socialist Worker seller at Walthamstow Market.

The branch was always keen to welcome new members. Madeleine recalls him seeming an ordinary working class guy, in contrast with the largely white-collar membership.

He became very active in the group, selling newspapers papers, fly-posting, joining pickets at the Grunwick strike. In all these things, his ownership of a van made him invaluable. Being the one with the reliable vehicle had rapidly became standard tradecraft for spycops since the early 1970s. It meant they were told of any action that needed transport, they got to chat to people while driving, and drop them home which provided opportunity to get their addresses.

Madeleine remembers Miller as a sociable person, always first to the bar after a meeting, well liked by all:

‘He was very enmeshed in the group, socially and politically.’

An old flatmate of Madeleine’s has located diaries from that time. They show that Miller visited their home as early as May or June 1977.

When Madeleine first knew Miller, she was married, and thinks she was probably less socially active and less friendly with him then, but increasingly regarded him as a friend after her marriage broke up in the autumn of 1978.

ROMANTIC DECEIT

In the summer of 1979 Madeleine was 25 and newly single. She was not actively seeking a relationship after the end of her marriage. She described how shy and quiet she used to be; her husband had been extremely possessive and abusive so it was only after she left him that she felt more confident socialising and talking to other men. She was still feeling vulnerable when she got together with Vince but believed she could trust him:

‘I thought he was lovely. A really nice guy. I thought he was a genuine, lovely, easy going person, I thought he was sensitive, he had this story of heartbreak and all the rest of it. I felt he was looking for genuine relationships with people.’

Madeleine was asked for her account of the house party in Ilford where they became romantically involved. She recalled 40 or 50 people, mostly young people connected with the SWP, there, drinking and dancing.

Miller turned up late and sat down. Madeleine went to try to get him to come and dance, but:

‘He pulled me onto his lap and that’s where I stayed for the rest of the night.’

He said how hard it had been to get to know her, which surprised her as he hadn’t indicated any romantic interest before. She trusted him and was happy to stay there, chatting and flirting.

Some friends came to get her to dance, but Miller put his arms around her and said ‘ ‘no, she’s quite happy here’. She found this funny and laughed.

Later, when the friends were leaving, Miller assured them he would get Madeleine home. He took her back to her flat and they began a sexual relationship. He stayed the night.

‘I was very keen on him. I thought he was lovely, a really attractive guy. I was very keen for it to continue, I was never looking for a one night stand or casual sex with anyone.’

Madeleine says that they saw each other about once a week for a couple of months. They always met at her house, she never visited his.

CYNICAL SYMPATHY

He told her a backstory, of having been in a long-term committed relationship that went toxic in some way, and how he’d had to leave all his possessions behind. The loss of this alleged relationship with someone he’d thought would be a life partner left him devastated and heartbroken, and he said he was too wary of get close to anyone as a result.

He also spoke of a troubled childhood that had damaged his ability to trust, and how he’d always had to rely on himself.

His cynical tale of woe is another piece of spycop tradecraft, one that other women deceived by spycops will recognise all too readily. By telling a story of a damaged upbringing, the officers gave themselves cover for not wanting to tell a full life story. More than that, it made the listener feel that they had been trusted, and so would be likely to reciprocate that trust.

Miller never stayed over after that first night. At some point in the early hours he would suddenly say he had to go home, saying ‘I have to wake up in my own bed because that’s where I feel safe’.

Madeleine accepted that explanation, and hoped it would change. She didn’t consider herself as part of a couple, but she hoped it would become that, and she didn’t see anyone else:

‘He was the focus of my affections, as it were.’

Her feelings for him grew, as he surely knew:

‘I think in the beginning he seemed very keen on me. He became increasingly distant, and I began to become disappointed that it didn’t seem to be going the way I wanted it to go. And, yeah, I kind of became a bit upset about it.’

Her flatmates knew about her relationship. She has a very strong recollection of one asking in the morning ‘is Vince still in bed?’ and commenting on his bad manners in not staying all night.

THE LAST TIME

The last time she saw ‘Vince Miller’ was at a friend’s house. She hadn’t seen him for about a week and saw him sitting on the other side of the room. He was with another woman, and she sensed from their body language that there was something between the two of them. She now thinks this is the other SWP woman he has admitted deceiving into a relationship.

He ignored Madeleine and, when he left, she followed him into the street to ask him why he was being so distant. He said that he’d already told her that he couldn’t get too involved and that he didn’t want to get hurt again.

He said he was going to go to California to ‘find himself’. This is yet another early example of what became standard practice – spycops would cover the end of their deployment by feigning emotional distress and say they were going abroad to sort themselves out.

The depth of emotional turmoil conveyed by some of the later officers had huge impacts on those who loved them. More than one desperately woman deceived into a relationship went searching in the country where her partner was supposedly living, not knowing he was actually back at a desk job in Scotland Yard.

Madeleine and Miller hugged for a long time and parted ways.

THAT’S NOT WHAT HE SAYS

In his statement to the Inquiry, Miller describes his relationship with Madeleine as a ‘one night stand’ with no hard feelings and said that the pair remained on good terms thereafter.

In his version, he uses being drunk as an excuse for starting the relationship with her, and for his other ‘one night stands’.

She says that, on the night they got together, he didn’t seem drunk and she certainly wasn’t.

Madeleine then cited a close friend’s diary entry dated 9 January 1980 [UCPI00000034310]

The friend describes Miller as Madeleine’s ‘ex-lover’ and, noting his persistent leaving before dawn, suggests that he may be some kind of vampire who needs to be back in his coffin before sunrise.

Madeleine remembers Miller’s departure damaging her self-esteem, leaving her feeling upset, disappointed and rejected. She saw it as part of a pattern with her marriage and thought:

‘God, have I made another mistake?’

IF SHE KNEW THEN

The Inquiry said that despite everything, the whole affair would have had little impact on her life if she hadn’t latterly found out the truth about spycops.

Asked how she would have felt to discover Miller’s true identity at the time, she said it would have been devastating. She was young and naïve, and would have been profoundly shocked and distraught:

‘I’d made myself very vulnerable to him and I trusted him, and to me it would have been an absolute betrayal… I would have regarded it, as I do regard it now, as rape.’

As it is, she had some fond memories of him, and used to sometimes think about him, hoping he’d come to terms with his troubles and had a happy life. But now:

‘To discover that I didn’t know him at all and that he was a fiction, that’s been quite difficult to get my head around. He doesn’t actually exist, it was all an act, wearing a mask… it’s really chilling and sinister… I just don’t know how people can behave like that.’

Despite promises by the Inquiry to reveal the real names of undercovers to the women deceived into relationships, it has not provided Madeleine his name though she has requested it. The Inquiry are effectively providing cover for a serial sexual abuser – who has admitted to deceiving four women.

‘Like the other officers who deceived women into relationships during their deployments, Vince Miller has lost the right to have his identity protected on privacy grounds. And, like the other women who were deceived into relationships, I should be entitled to know his real name.’

Full written statement of ‘Madeleine’

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (7 May 2021)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (11 May 2021, part 1)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 12

7 May 2021

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.

The Inquiry has prepared a lengthy summary of Coates’ undercover work, and you can read this on pages 191-206 of the Counsel to the Inquiry’s opening statement. You can also read Coates’ full witness statement. Yesterday, a related statement from the family of Coates’ contemporary ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) was published by the Inquiry.

 

‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79)

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.

Coates states that Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) had a reputation for having sexual relationships.

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

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.’

Morris, a life-long activist, gave an opening statement to the Inquiry at its first hearings in November 2020. Then, having learned he was spied on by Coates, Morris gave a second opening statement in April 2021.

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.’

(By coincidence, the hearing was on the 25th anniversary of Meltzer’s death, and Freedom News published a eulogy for him)

ANARCHIST POLICE

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.

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.’

Full written statement of ‘Graham Coates’

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (6 May 2021)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (10 May 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 11

6 May 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘Jimmy Pickford’ (HN300, 1974-77)
‘Barry / Desmond Loader’ (HN13, 1975-78)

Introduction of associated documents:
‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78)

Evidence from witness:
Celia Stubbs

 

Today’s hearing of the Undercover Policing Inquiry started with the reading of witness statements of undercover officers that could not or did not want to appear in person.

‘Jimmy Pickford’ (HN300, 1974-77)

‘Jimmy Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-77) infiltrated a number of groups, including anarchist ones, like the South London branches of the Anarchist Workers Association (AWA) and the Federation of London Anarchist Groups (FLAG).

He spent a year in Special Branch – including ‘C Squad’, the left-wing surveillance section – before joining the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in the summer of 1974. He started off in the back-room, and by October was ready to be sent in to the ‘field’.

His first reports show that he targeted radical newspapers (including ‘Freedom’, ‘Lower Down’, ‘Up Against the Law’ and ‘Pavement’) as well as local, grass-roots groups around Battersea and Wandsworth in South West London.

These included the Battersea Park Action Group (BPAG), the Battersea Redevelopment Action Group (BRAG), and the Battersea & Wandsworth Trades Council Anti-Fascist Committee.

Pickford met an (unnamed) woman during his deployment (in his cover identity), with whom he had a sexual relationship. His expressed desire to tell her his real identity led to his withdrawal from active deployment in 1976. He has since died, so will not be giving evidence.

FAMILY STATEMENT

However, the Inquiry has received a statement from Pickford’s second wife and children, detailing the impact of his undercover work on them.

The family are concerned that publicity from the Inquiry will interfere with their right to a private life, so have asked for his real name to be restricted.

They are concerned about ‘unscrupulous individuals’ who were around him in later life, who might try to ‘cash in’ on this association by selling (untrue) stories to the press. They are also concerned about the possibility of other police officers making connections due to his undercover work, and sharing details of his deployments.

They say that before becoming an undercover officer, ‘Pickford’ was supplied with assurances that his true identity would never be disclosed, to ensure the safety of both him and his family:

‘This was of paramount importance to him and he mentioned this to us many times’

He taught his children to be vigilant, not divulge information, and to be suspicious of anyone seeking information, no matter how innocuous it seemed. He talked about other police work, but never his undercover deployment. After this ended, he took public-facing roles. His family believe this is because he felt his identity was secure.

They believe he infiltrated at least two groups that represented high levels of risk and danger. One of these groups remains active now, in another form. They are worried that people from these groups will try to target the family, physically or via the media/ online. They believe they could easily be tracked down.

UNDERCOVER

Pickford radically changed his appearance when undercover, growing his hair and a voluminous beard.

The family say that he would disappear for long periods of time, with no way of being contacted. No emergency contact details were provided to his wife, and no support was given during his absences.

IMPACT ON FAMILY LIFE

He parked his cover vehicle away from the family home, to which he returned during the evening and night – there would only be occasional contact prior to his arrival. This caused considerable disruption to the family routine, especially given his children were very young at the time. They feel they have made enough sacrifices as a family for his work, which he saw as protection of the country.

To avoid compromising his cover, there was no going to joint social gatherings or having friends round to their home. This left his wife extremely isolated while trying to raise her children, as she had no family in the UK and so was reliant for support on close friends.

Because socialising, even with fellow police officers, was minimal, she was effectively a single parent, socially vulnerable and alone. There was no support from Special Branch.

RELATIONSHIPS

While undercover, he began a relationship with another woman. This, along with the strains that had been put on the family (by the demands of his deployment), led to their divorce, within a year of Pickford leaving the field.

He went on to marry the other woman and have a child with her. This marriage also ended in divorce, some years later. She has not been traced, having remarried.

The Inquiry has confirmed that another, unnamed undercover officer has now provided an account of being tearfully told by Pickford that he had fallen in love with a woman associated with his targets and wanted to tell her the truth. This officer says that they offered to act as a conduit between him and the SDS managers [UCPI0000034307].

Pickford’s wife and children did meet this other woman, and the children joined them on holidays. They noted that she sometimes called him ‘Jimmy’. This indicates she had met him in his undercover identity.

The Inquiry has caused the family distress and anxiety, causing them to re-live unhappy times. This is exacerbated by needing to keep it from other family and friends. Having kept their obligations of confidentiality about Pickford’s work, they now feel betrayed at the thought of this information being released, especially as it led to the collapse of the marriage.

THE INQUIRY’S ACCOUNT OF REPORTS

Pickford’s time undercover has been set out by the Inquiry. He focused on anarchist and community groups in the Battersea/ Wandsworth area. He came across a number of other people who are now core participants at the Inquiry, including Dave Morris in 1976 [UCPI0000021496, UCPI0000017641].

He was particularly interested in Ernest Rodker, who he reported on throughout his deployment, providing many personal details including legal proceedings and birth of his son. It would appear that Rodker was the key focus of his deployment.

The early part of the deployment in 1975 focused on publications such as ‘Freedom’, ‘Lower Down’, ‘Up Against The Law’ and ‘Pavement’ [UCPI0000007125]. He also reported on small local left-leaning groups which held meetings and lobbied politicians – such as BPAG and BRAG (which Rodker was also active in).

ANARCHIST WORKERS ASSOCIATION

Having joined the Kingston branch of the Anarchist Workers Association (AWA), he helped set up the Wandsworth branch in July 1975 (later it became the South London AWA) [UCPI0000006950, UCPI0000012805].

He was elected treasurer of Wandsworth AWA in July 1975 [UCPI0000012685], remaining in that role until the end of his deployment.

He was highly active in the AWA, particularly at branch level where he was responsible for much of the local organising. This included arranging public events and writing articles for the AWA paper. He was the Wandsworth branch’s delegate to the Federation of London Anarchist Groups.

The Inquiry notes the high degree of activity, in comparison to the small numbers at the meetings, and asks whether it was it in fact him who essentially kept the Wandsworth branch functioning: would it have survived without him?

He also gave him access to the larger AWA network. He attended delegate conferences as well as AWA’s national conference.

The Inquiry notes that there are various reports from Pickford indicating his targets were alive to the possibility of police infiltration. There are also times when he cites some AWA members as having a willingness for violence to advance their aims, but it is all very rhetorical and about future revolutionary moments.

There is little in the reports to suggest any criminality or violence; the most tangible threat is a September 1975 report of some members thinking about disrupting a Royal Navy recruitment event with stink bombs and smoke pellets [UCPI0000007604].

Two local, community-oriented papers, ‘Pavement’ and ‘Lower Down’, are reported on. Even the collective members’ personal relationships and living arrangements are recorded [UCPI0000014967].

‘Up Against the Law’ (UPAL) was another publication, put out by a campaign group that assisted people trying to overturn wrongful criminal convictions.

It is believed – but unconfirmed – that Pickford acted as a distributor for the paper. He certainly reported on them – for example this November 1974 report details a dispute between UPAL and their printers [UCPI0000015096]. As with many Special Branch reports, it hard to imagine the relevance of this information to the police.

Like almost all undercovers from this period, Pickford also spied upon anti-fascist campaigners – in his case an umbrella group called Wandsworth Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Committee [UCPI0000021581].

 

---

‘Barry / Desmond Loader’ (HN13, 1975-78)

‘Barry / Desmond Loader‘ (HN13, 1975-78) was deployed into the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) from 1975 to 1978. He is deceased.

His widow confirmed in a very brief statement [MPS-0740967], that he stole his cover surname from a deceased child from Wiltshire, and that he had told her of the surname during his deployment.

The Inquiry says that Loader’s affiliation with the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) provided entry to several associated organisations, including the Communist Unity Association (Marxist-Leninist), the East London Peoples Front, the Progressive Cultural Association, and the Outer East London Anti-Fascist Anti-Racist Committee.

EARLY REPORTING

The first report held by the Inquiry believed to be attributable to Loader dates from February 1975. These include intelligence on the Marxist-Leninist Organisation of Britain [UCPI0000012145], the Free Desmond Trotter Campaign [UCPI0000007024], and the West London Campaign against Racism and Fascism [UCPI0000007632].

COMMUNIST PARTY OF ENGLAND (MARXIST-LENINIST)

Loader’s reporting from 1977 onward focuses largely on the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (CPEM-L), in particular the East London Branch. Loader was also an active member of the Party’s cutural activities offshoot, the Progressive Cultural Association.

Like many of the undercover officers we have heard from in these hearings, Loader reported on people involved in actions against the National Front (NF), such as the organisation of demonstrations, pickets, and leafletting as well as a willingness to confront the NF directly.

Loader attended the counter-NF demonstration that became known as the Battle of Lewisham on 13 August 1977. He was injured during the event, receiving a blow to the head – the first of the two times he was assaulted by uniformed police.

A report on a meeting of the CPEM-L in the aftermath of the Lewisham demonstration states that the Party were reviewing tactics to ‘attack’ the NF [UCPI0000011180]. Loader also notes in the same report:

‘it is generally agreed amongst members that, with the advent of the police shield, more sophisticated ‘weaponry’ is required in the riot situation.’

Internal Special Branch documents show that Loader met with Deputy Assistant Commissioner (‘A’ Ops) along with Peter Collins (HN303), DCI Pryde and DI Willingale following the Lewisham demonstration.

They wanted to convey his experience and provide recommendations for future policing in similar circumstances [MPS-0732885]. This meeting ultimately resulted in a note authored by DI Willingale aimed to assist with methods of policing future demonstrations [MPS-0732886].

ARRESTED TWICE & ‘BATTERED’ BY POLICE AGAIN

Loader was arrested twice while in his cover identity. The first occasion, in late 1977, was for ‘insulting or threatening behaviour’ following a clash with the NF outside Barking police station. Chief Inspector Craft of the SDS recorded that Loader was ‘somewhat battered by police prior to his arrest’ [MPS-0722618].

Seven other individuals from Loader’s group were also arrested. Superintendent Pryde maintained contact with a court official during the proceedings in April 1978. He informed them that one of the defendants was a police informant who they would be ‘anxious to safeguard from any prison sentence’ [MPS-0526784].

Ultimately, the charges against Loader were dismissed. Three of the other seven individuals were found guilty and fined on 12 April 1978 [UCPI0000011984].

These convictions were the subject of a 2014 report to the Crown Prosecution Service drafted as part of Operation Shay [MPS-0722618], examining miscarriages of justice stemming from undercover deployments.

Discussion in Special Branch Minute Sheets reveals that Loader’s senior officers prioritised keeping Loader’s identity secret over any other consideration.

SECOND ARREST

Just three days after his court appearance, Loader was arrested a second time during trouble at a National Front meeting held at Loughborough School, Brixton on 15 April 1978.

He was again charged with threatening behaviour under s.5 of the Public Order Act 1936, along with three others [UCPI0000011356].

At the hearing, an application was made to hear all the defendants’ cases together. However, the Magistrates decided to hear Loader’s case alone. This was, allegedly, because Loader had been involved in a separate incident to the other defendants, who had infiltrated an NF meeting while Loader stayed outside.

In fact, records reveal that Superintendent Pryde established contact with a court official during the proceedings and told them that one of the defendants was:

‘a valuable informant in the public order field whom we would wish to safeguard from a prison sentence should the occasion arise’.

Unlike the previous arrest, however, it is noted that Loader’s cover name was specifically given to the official [MPS-0526784].

All the defendants, in this case, were found guilty, with Loader being fined and given a one-year bind-over of £100. It is noted in the Minute Sheet that this sentence was considered ‘very useful’ as it would allow Loader to keep a low profile for the remainder of his deployment [MPS-0526784].

The Inquiry said that there is no evidence to suggest that this officer engaged in any sexual relationships in his cover identity.

A note made of a meeting with Commander Buchanan in 2013 suggests that Loader had difficulty reintegrating with the police following his deployment [MPS-0738057].

Loader is recalled by former CPEM-L party members with little detail, although they confirm he was known as ‘Barry’ rather than ‘Desmond’.

One member of the Party applied for Core Participant status at the Inquiry but was refused, despite obviously being in a good position to help the Inquiry with Loader’s evidence.

 

---

‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78)

Summary of Evidence

‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78) does not reside in the United Kingdom and the pandemic has prevented him from coming over, but he will eventually provide a witness statement.

To introduce him now, the Inquiry cites the account he gave to the Metropolitan Police risk assessor a couple of years ago. At the time he had not had access to the vintage reports attributed to him.

Wallace was a member of the Hammersmith branch of the International Socialists (IS) from summer 1975 to autumn 1978; IS became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) during his deployment. He stole the identity of a dead child as the basis for his undercover persona.

SPYING ON SCHOOL CHILDREN

We heard earlier in the Inquiry that Paul Gray (HN126) spied upon a group called ‘School Kids Against Nazis’. Wallace also spied on school children.

The first report on the Hammersmith branch of IS signed by him [UCPI000009576] is dated 29 January 1976 and refers to students at Chiswick Comprehensive School’s intention to organise a Right to Work Campaign meeting for school leavers.

SPYING ON LAWYERS

In the course of the Right to Work Campaign, in April 1976 the IS magazine Socialist Worker hired solicitors to represent those arrested during the activities. Wallace reported [UCPI0000012323] on their complaints about police conduct, probably breaching legal privilege.

Wallace’s reporting contains many references to pickets and protests, some upcoming, some containing a list of those involved. In particular, he reports on a number of campaigns to protest the closure of local hospitals, such one [UCPI0000012378] on an April 1976 meeting of the Save Acton Hospital Campaign.

SPYING ON TRADE UNIONS

Wallace seems to be the undercover officer reporting in March 1977 [UCPI0000017818] on the Trade Union Committee Against Prevention of Terrorism Act. This was a Hammersmith group formed in April 1976 by local members of IS, the Troops Out Movement, Camden, Hackney and Hammersmith Trades Councils and various trades unions. Its aim was to provide a solicitor for anyone arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act which conferred emergency powers on police forces whenever terrorism was suspected.

According to a report from Wallace in April 1976 [UCPI0000012373] the Committee was suspected of having an underlying political goal; self-determination for the Irish people. In reality, they were actively campaigning for repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act by staffing pickets outside police stations holding people detained under the Act.

When the police raided the home of one of the activists in January 1978 [UCPI0000017917] they found a note amongst the seized paperwork that said: ‘In the event of no transport, phone Geoff Wallace’. Having a van available remained a key point in the tradecraft of generations of spycops afterwards.

YET ANOTHER TREASURER

Wallace held a series of positions of authority within his target group. The October 1976 report [UCPI0000021481] of a branch meeting of Hammersmith IS indicates that, as of 6 May 1976, Wallace was branch treasurer. Numerous other spycops of the era held the same post in groups they infiltrated.

By July 1976, it would appear Wallace had become the branch’s Socialist Worker newspaper organiser [UCPI0000017922].

SPYING ON ELECTION CANDIDATES

In a report on 5 August 1976 [UCPI0000011981] Wallace reported on a discussion at a meeting of the Hammersmith and Kensington branch of IS about standing in the Walsall by-election. In March 1978 the SWP talked about standing a candidate in the forthcoming general election in Hammersmith North. As these activities are within the parliamentary system, it is difficult to see how they fall under the counter-subversion remit of SDS.

NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL ‘RIOT’ 1976

The Notting Hill Carnival in August 1976 ended in a protest of young people of colour, harassed by an antagonising large police presence, and defending themselves against arbitrary police arrests. IS encouraged their members to join pickets outside the Magistrates Court where those arrested would appear. In September 1976 the branch also proposed [UCPI0000021361] that IS join the defence committee set up by the Black Liberation Front and Grass Roots and contribute to its funds.

YET MORE REPORTING ON ANTI-FASCIST ACTIVITY

In February 1976, the Coventry and Chrysler Right to Work Committee organised a march, supported by the IS, to counter-protest at a demonstration held by the National Front under the slogans ‘A Right to Work for Whites Only’ and ‘ Stop Immigration’.

According to the report [UCPI0000012230] that the Inquiry attributes to Wallace, after a peaceful march some IS members made their way to the location of the National Front election offices and attacked people with stones and bricks. At least one person was taken to the hospital.

Then, according to the same report, IS members then marched to a shopping precinct to chase away members of the National Party. This breakaway faction of the NF was led by fascist and Holocaust denier John Kingsley Read, who built a reputation for having said, after the murder of a young Sikh man in a racist attack, ‘One down, a million to go’. Read later joined the Conservative Party.

The Inquiry looks to this incident to perhaps justify this undercover deployment:

‘We note that, if the report is accurate, this was an occasion on which the violence was started by left-wing activists from the infiltrated group.’

This is not the first time that the Inquiry has used reports of ‘violent’ anti-fascist protests as a justification for many of the deployments.

ANTI-FASCISM IN BIRMINGHAM

Wallace may very well have have been one of the SDS deployed officers who attended a counter-protest march against the National Front in Birmingham. On 24 February 1977, London branches of the SWP and the IMG sent coachloads of their members to join the march.

An SDS report dated 7 March 1977 [UCPI0000017776] describes a single coach of SWP members being attacked by ‘five coaches’ of National Front supporters at Watford Gap Service station.

For some reason, the Inquiry glosses this incident in neutral terms:

‘The SWP contingent from NW London and West Middlesex districts appears to have been involved in an encounter with the National Front in a service station en route to Birmingham…’

This gives a misleading impression of this serious unprovoked attack by the NF on SWP members.

DS Richard Walker (HN368), representing the SDS management, was also dispatched to Birmingham by DI Geoffrey Craft (HN34) to ‘look after our interests’ as is remarked in a note in February 1977 [MPS-0730703].

BATTLE OF LEWISHAM & ANTI-JUBILEE PROTEST

A member of SWP who announced that he was mobilising local trades union branches to support an anti-Jubilee demonstration during the visit of HRH Princess Anne to Kensington Town Hall on 31 May, ended up in a report dated 26 May 1977 [UCPI0000017437].

Wallace also notes that of the 1,500 demonstrators expected, 1,000 were likely to be trade unionists who were ‘violently opposed’ to Jubilee celebrations, if such a thing were possible.

At the same meeting, branch members were urged to assist in staffing picket lines for the strike at the Grunwick photo processing factory. Again, in the Inquiry’s statement ‘intelligence’ on the Grunwick strike is offered as a supposed justification for the covert policing.

A report dated 21 July 1977 [UCPI0000011055] refers to the intention of the Hammersmith and Kensington SWP to send two mini-vans of people to an anti-fascist demonstration in Lewisham on 23 July 1977 ‘in order that the National Front could take a real ‘hammering’.

 

---

Celia Stubbs

Celia Stubbs is a Core Participant at the Inquiry because of her relationship with Blair Peach and the campaign that followed his being killed by police in 1979, and the police cover-up that continues to this day.

As Stubbs’ lawyer Matthew Ryder QC told the Inquiry two weeks ago, 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.

Stubbs believes the spycops reported on her to prevent other police officers from facing justice.

MEETING BLAIR

Stubbs began by telling how she’d first met Peach in his native New Zealand around 1962 when she was there with her then-husband who was teaching there.

Peach visited London after she had separated from her husband, and they became a couple. They lived together from 1971 onwards. Peach took an active role as step-father to her two daughters

Stubbs has campaigned since Peach was killed, seeking greater police accountability and supporting miscarriage of justice cases, and other bereaved family campaigns. She was a founding member of Inquest, and involved in Hackney Community Defence Association.

POLITICAL BACKGROUND

In 1972, Stubbs joined the Hackney branch of International Socialists (IS), who later became the Socialist Workers Party. Peach joined later, around 1977.

She has recently learnt that Special Branch held ‘Registry Files‘ on both her and Peach – hers began in 1974/5, Peach’s in 1978 – but she hasn’t been shown any of the content of these. She feels that it would be useful to see these files.

Peach was a teacher, and ‘a very fervent trade unionist’ according to Stubbs, active in the National Union of Teachers in Tower Hamlets and Hackney.

IS put a lot of emphasis on building the class struggle, and Stubbs sold the ‘Socialist Worker’ newspaper in many places. She attended the group’s meetings, both public and private, as well as demonstrations and events supporting striking workers.

NATIONAL FRONT

One area of particular concern was a groundswell of far-right sentiment, especially the active presence on the streets of the National Front (NF). Stubbs and her comrades sold the Socialist Worker in the multicultural area of Brick Lane in East London, and regularly came into conflict with racist NF paper-sellers there. Peach and Stubbs joined the Anti Nazi League (ANL) when it was formed in 1977.

There was organised anti-fascist resistance to the NF, and usually a large police presence too. Stubbs recalled talking to people, lots of shouting at the fascists, banners and of course paper-selling.

The Inquiry showed a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) report [UCPI0000010769] about the first public meeting of Hackney Community Relations Council, which took place at Stoke Newington Town Hall on 22 July 1976. It was attended by 250 people, significantly more than was normal for political meetings at the time.

The officer describes an NF member being ‘ejected from the assembly room amid a shower of fists and invective’, and that as people left they were taunted by NF members but did not physically confront them.

Asked if this was typical, Stubbs said she only remembered even that relatively low level of disturbance at one other meeting. She highlighted the fact that the anti-fascists had not risen to the goading of the fascists, adding:

‘I do remember unprovoked attacks and, you know, of course members of the left were often arrested. We certainly didn’t go out to do that, you know? We didn’t go to provoke’

The next report [UCPI0000021207] is from a meeting in a pub in North West London which took place on 24 April 1979, the day after Peach had been killed.

Persisting with the Inquiry’s habit of emphasising the violence of activists they read out the report’s summary of a speech made by SWP founder Tony Cliff.

Cliff is described as comparing the Southall anti-fascist demonstration with one two days earlier in Leicester, saying the vital difference was preparation, planning and organisation by the ANL. He is reported as saying ANL had provided Leicester stewards with maps of the area leading to:

‘a successful attack here on the police by about 200 demonstrators, high police injuries and a small number of arrests. On the other hand, at Southall, due to the lack of organisation and inadequate ANL stewarding, a lot of police had been injured, many demonstrators had been arrested and, more importantly, many demonstrators had been badly injured, with one death’

The bias of the reporting officer is apparent in the next paragraph which said:

‘many of the contributors from the floor then recounted their adventure during the demonstrations in Leicester and Southall and discussed instances of “extreme police brutality”.’

Stubbs said Tony Cliff was ‘absolutely wrong to compare Leicester and Southall’ or claim Southall just needed better organisation by the ANL in future. She explained that Southall was a very tight-knit community, ethnically diverse, a strong industrial base with factories around Heathrow, and well-organised, by the likes of the Indian Workers Association.

THE FATAL DAY

The NF’s meeting at Southall Town Hall on 23 April 1979 was part of their campaigning in the run-up to the general election two weeks later. Their candidate didn’t even live in Southall, but they were targeting constituencies with large Black and Asian populations.

She told how the local community called for anti-racists from all over London to come to Southall to support them. She heard about it from her trade union. There wasn’t an IS branch in Southall at the time.

Stubbs and Peach travelled separately to the demo – he was on school holiday, whereas she came after work with some colleagues. She had never been there before.

When she arrived, Stubbs found it very crowded. She recounted finding herself near Southall Park where police were chasing people on horses, and on foot with truncheons, hitting people.

5,000 local residents had signed a petition against the NF being allowed to meet. Stubbs described factories shutting down in protest, and how it had started out as a large peaceful sit-down demonstration. But at 1.30pm, more than 3000 police moved in and it was ‘a town under siege’. Police shut all four of the roads that converged by the Town Hall, creating chaos, and started dragging protesters out.

Stubbs said:

‘it was almost as if the police punished the people of Southall… with the 700 people who were arrested, and then there were 348 people actually charged with offences.’

She made her way back to the station at about 7pm, and got the train back to Hackney without having seen Peach. She only learnt that he had been hurt later that evening when, at around 10pm, she received a phone call from a friend who was at Ealing Hospital.

SPYCOPS IN SOUTHALL

She knows that one of the spycops attended the demo in Southall that day. The Inquiry has taken evidence in secret from officers who it does not want to identify. It has then blended their testimony into a single ‘gisted’ document. In it, an officer says they were at the demonstration in Southall, saw violence and were horrified, and left before Peach was killed.

Stubbs is offended at this. Firstly, the total secrecy around the officer – we aren’t given their name, cover name, or any other details at all. Secondly, the idea that there was only one spycop at the demo is ridiculous.

Stubbs said it looks very much like the officer was distancing themselves as far as they could from the killing of Blair Peach. In this, it reminded her of the statements of the officers from the team responsible for his death, who said their van had actually stopped well away from Peach, that other police were present, and other things that were simply lies.

SPYCOPS AT THE FUNERAL

Blair Peach’s funeral was held on 13 June 1979. Members of Peach’s family came all the way from New Zealand for it, and 10,000 people came to pay their respects. Undercover police officers took photos of them for later identification.

Spycop ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83) says he attended the funeral in case there would be a risk of public disorder, something dismissed by Stubbs as ‘absolutely ludicrous’. 71 mourners are listed by name in Tompkins’ report.

The Inquiry showed several SDS reports [UCPI0000021218, UCPI0000021270] on meetings and protests that showed that the campaign for the truth about Peach’s death was a prominent topic among many sectors of the left at the time.

CAMPAIGNING FOR THE TRUTH

The Inquiry showed a report [UCPI0000021297] which included a leaflet produced by the Friends of Blair Peach. The report, seemingly unable to accept that the police were responsible for his death refers to injuries ‘it is alleged’ caused Peach’s death.

The SDS’ Annual Report for 1979 [MPS-0728963] outrageously suggests that it was the protesters’ fault that he died, saying that his death was the result:

‘of the virulent anti-fascist demonstrations.’

The campaign ideas on the leaflet are what one might expect: writing newspapers, phoning local radio stations, organising collections of money in workplaces, visiting MPs and circulating a petition to push for a public inquiry, putting forward motions at trade union branch meetings, encouraging affiliation to the ANL, and supporting calls for the Met’s notoriously violent Special Patrol Group, whose officers had killed Peach, to be disbanded.

These are traditional democratic campaigning practices, a long way from the SDS’ alleged remit of subversion and public order problems.

BURYING THE FACTS

The Met’s internal report, by Commander John Cass, found that it was ‘almost certain’ that a police officer from the Special Patrol Group killed Peach with a blow to the head.

A search of the officers’ lockers found numerous unauthorised weapons. One officer’s home had Nazi memorabilia and more unauthorised weapons. This information was leaked to the campaign and made public in June 1979.

Stubbs’ solicitor saw the weapons. One was a long cosh with metal at one end, which fits description of weapon that killed Peach.

The Cass report was published on 12 July 1979, then updated on 14 September, but it was not made public. Indeed, Stubbs had to wait more than 30 years before the Met would allow her to see it.

THE INQUEST

An October 1979 report [UCPI0000013435], detailed pickets being planned at Kilburn and Harlesden police stations, to coincide with door-to-door leafleting nearby on the eve of the opening of the first inquest into Peach’s death.

Stubbs explained that over 100 police stations were picketed in this way:

‘people were so angry about it.’

The coroner, John Burton, refused to sit with a jury. He also refused to allow the Cass report to be considered. Campaigners went for a judicial review, stopping the first inquest on that first day.

The Director of Public Prosecutions agreed that there was ‘no case to answer’ and so no police officer would be charged in relation to Peach’s death.

The inquest started again in April 1980, with a jury. The coroner, despite having seen the Cass report, did not accept that established version of events to be taken into account. The inquest concluded in May, the verdict: ‘death by misadventure’

LICENSE TO KILL

One of Peach’s friends and teaching colleagues, David Ransom, wrote a booklet called License to Kill about the killing of Peach and the Special Patrol Group. The chapter on the Special Patrol Group (SPG) is being published by the Inquiry along with the Cass report [UCPI0000034077].

License to Kill cited the Met’s attempts to defy the facts and portray the SPG as an elite, disciplined unit. They told the press that the SPG was the only specialist unit within the force and around 50% of applicants failed the vetting. Those who qualified did a ‘full tour’ of three years. The Met said it had no room for the ‘headstrong type or those who are liable to over-react to any difficult situation’.

This was all nonsense. The Met had a number of specialist units including, as we’re seeing, Special Branch and the SDS.

The purported ‘rigorous controls’ described by the Met had never existed at any time. At least seven of the officers who gave evidence to the Peach inquest had been in the SPG for longer than four years. One of them had been in the SPG for eight years, and two others had been part of the unit since it was founded, 14 years earlier. One of these was PC White, driver of the vehicle that delivered the killer to Peach.

SELF-INCRIMINATION

On 1 June 1980, the Sunday Times published an interview with the SPG’s Inspector Alan Murray. He is now widely believed to be the officer who killed Blair Peach.

Murray had just left the police and appeared to be trying to use the interview to cast his role, and that of his erstwhile unit, in a good light.

He spoke of how ‘the loony left’ were expected to behave in Southall that day, and that it promised to be ‘a tasty one’. He talked of the ‘elan’ (which Wilkinson said she took to mean ‘enthusiasm’) in the unit, and said they were proud to be known as ‘The Cowboys’. He recounted how they played the ‘Dambusters’ soundtrack as they arrived on duty.

‘When I was out with my unit I was my own boss to a large extent. Before acting I didn’t have to ring up and say “Guvnor, do you think this is right?” I followed my own experience to do what was expected.’

PC ‘Chalkie’ White, who had been suspended, was reinstated, not just as a police officer, but back into the SPG. Murray went on to become a lecturer in corporate social responsibility.

ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIONS

On the first anniversary of Peach’s death, SWP and ANL groups organised pickets at police stations all over London, as described in a report [UCPI0000020094] 18 April 1980.

Another report from the same day [UCPI0000013891] lists 16 police stations at which vigils were planned.

In 1981, on the second anniversary, public feeling was still high. A report [UCPI0000016434] mentions the South London Right to Work group’s plans to picket Eltham police station on the day.

The next report [MPS-0001219] was from decades later. It was written in the summer of 1998, regarding the plans to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Blair Peach’s killing on 23 April 1999.

The Inquiry wanted to avoid doubt and said that the line ‘Intelligence: Touchy Subject’ refers to the code-name used by the officer who filed the report, and is not some kind of comment on Stubbs or the Peach case.

Stubbs leapt at the opportunity to illuminate this topic. She told the Inquiry that the officer referred to was Mark Jenner (‘Mark Cassidy’ HN15, 1995-2000) who infiltrated the Hackney Community Defence Association and the Colin Roach Centre (also in Hackney). Whilst undercover he deceived an activist, ‘Alison‘, into a long-term relationship.

Cassidy reported that:

‘local trade unions are organising a large rally and demonstration, which will be presented with a strong anti-racist/anti-police flavour… the event will inevitably attract a large left wing presence with particular accent on anti-police type groups and the potential for disorder will be significant.’

Stubbs was indignant at this:

‘we’d had remembrance demonstrations after five years, after ten years, and this was twenty years. There’d never been any disorder. I don’t know why he put that. I think it’s pretty unpleasant.’

In 2019, for the 40th anniversary, a blue plaque for Peach was unveiled at Southall Town Hall, the Inquiry said. Stubbs added that there was also one for Gurdip Singh Chaggar, a teenager killed by white racists in Southall in 1976.

A year later, in June 2020, the plaques were stolen. It is not known if the culprits were supporters of the police, or of the National Front, or someone else.

BANDING TOGETHER

Returning to the aftermath of Peach’s death, the next report [UCPI0000014149] was from July 1980, concerning the formation of a new network of justice campaigns for cases of police brutality.

Stubbs was visibly emotional as she recounted the details of some of these, including:

• Jimmy Kelly, who had been severely beaten by Liverpool police on his way home from a pub in 1979 and taken into custody where he died within the hour.
• Richard Campbell, a 19 year old Black Rastafarian who was in Ashford prison, charged with breaking a shop window which he denied, who was force fed and died alone.
• Liddle Towers, a 39 year old electrician who died after being beaten in custody by eight officers in 1976. His first inquest ruled ‘justifiable homicide’. After campaigning, a second inquest ruled it was misadventure.
• Matthew O’Hara who was remanded to Pentonville prison for withholding his name at a hearing for rate arrears in March 1980. Though he had diabetes, the prison did not administer insulin. He was kicked in the stomach by a prison officer. After four days without insulin he was rushed to hospital and later died.

Stubbs explained that they wanted to get together with these other justice campaigns so they could support each other through the official processes such as inquests, as well as share information and push for reform of the inquest process. She does not see any valid reason to spy on these activities.

We were next shown a report from 1999 [MPS-0001707]. The Macpherson inquiry into the 1993 racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence Inquiry had been concluded in 1998, and plans were afoot to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Peach’s killing.

This report mentions many of the family justice campaigners who were active at this time, as well as the Lawrence family themselves.

As with Mark Cassidy’s report, the author feels compelled to make false claims about the likelihood of disorder:

‘Suresh GROVER, who is the organiser of this event, will positively contribute to ensuring that the day passes off without disorder. However, given the large number of groups and individuals who are likely to attend this march, the potential for disorder is high.’

MISSING OFFICERS, MISSING FILES, CONVENIENT AMNESIA

The Met’s own annual report of 1979 described the Southall protest as its ‘most significant event of the year’ yet we don’t see any spycops statement, apart from the single one summarised and blended into the gisted document.

Stubbs noted there were also scant spycops reports from the 1974 anti-fascist demonstration at Red Lion Square when protester Kevin Gately was killed. ‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76) told the Inquiry he was at that demonstration but said he could not remember anything about it and only vaguely remembered Gately’s name.

Nothing from the SDS was presented to the public inquiry into the Red Lion Square protest. It’s simply not credible to say so few officers were involved and no significant reports were made.

Contrast these two anti-fascist protests – at which people were killed – with others in the same era where nobody died. Records show at least 18 undercover officers were present at the 1977 ‘Battle of Lewisham’ and we have more than 50 pages of reports.

It’s obvious that when someone is killed, the police don’t want to be associated with it. This looks like yet another cover-up. It makes us feel like we’re not being heard.

EAGER DENIAL

She wonders why spycop ‘Paul Gray’ (HN126, 1977-82) has been flagged up to her:

‘I was told that his statement was pertinent to my being spied upon. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing in his statement that involves me, except when, on 12 June 1979, he said he went with the SWP members of the branch he’d infiltrated to view Blair laid in state at the Dominion cinema in Southall.

‘He said he only went because it would have looked bad for him if he hadn’t and might have disturbed his undercover, but he then, immediately after that, said in his statement, “I never had anything to do with the family or Friends of Blair Peach”.

‘Why did he make that remark? It seems as though he quickly wanted to distance himself from. There must be something.’

Stubbs said that, having seen so many secret police reports, is left with as many questions as she had before.

‘I mean, Blair was killed by police officers and our feelings and campaigns were criminalised. The police, I think, wanted to keep ahead of our campaign so that Blair’s killers: we were never able to hold them to account.’

Speaking of how she and other Core Participants at the Inquiry feel violated, she concluded:

‘Core participants are fighting injustice in a climate where they are vilified by authority and we’ve been targeted. We don’t know why we’ve been targeted. I just hope this Inquiry, you know, will protect core participants, and that when you come to write your report, this will be foremost in your mind.’

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, thanked her for her evidence, though it’s unclear how much weight he will give it.

Before the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s hearing on 23 April 2021, the 42nd anniversary of the killing of Blair Peach, there was a minute’s silence in his memory. In his introductory words, Mitting referred merely to Peach being killed by ‘a blow to the head’. He did not mention the police at all. It seems the Inquiry is unwilling to fully admit even the facts established by Commander Cass decades ago.

Full witness statement of Celia Stubbs

Stubbs recently spoke about Blair Peach, and spycops, to Channel 4 News.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (5 May 2021)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (7 May 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 10

5 May 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘Gary Roberts’ (HN353, 1974-1978)
‘Geoff Slater’ (HN351, 1974-1975)

Introduction of associated documents:
Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76)

Evidence from witnesses:
Richard Chessum
‘Roger Harris’ (HN200, 1974-1977)

The Undercover Policing Inquiry hearing on 5 May began with summaries of evidence from ‘Gary Roberts‘ (HN353, 1974-78) and ‘Jeff Slater‘ (HN351, 1974-75).

Neither is giving any evidence in person. This goes against the wishes of non-state core participants, who believe all undercovers should give live evidence and have their evidence examined by Counsel.

‘Gary Roberts’ (HN353, 1974-1978)

This officer’s cover identity was stolen from a deceased child.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS & INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP

Roberts was deployed undercover in the spring of 1974, targeting first the Finsbury Park branch of the International Socialists (IS). He then switched to the South East London branch of the International Marxist Group (IMG). Within the IMG, Roberts had another pseudonym – a so-called ‘party name’ of ‘Gary Shopland’.

His involvement with the IMG began in late 1975, and he remained a member of the group until his deployment ended circa June 1978. Roberts thinks that he may have been tasked with infiltrating the IMG as a replacement for HN338.

STUDENT AT THAMES POLYTECHNIC

To further his cover story, Roberts became a student on a degree course at Thames Polytechnic attending classes and taking exams over the years. He became Vice President of the Student Union there. The course was paid for by the Metropolitan Police, although he never completed the degree.

MISSING REPORTS

It is likely that of the reports relating to IMG meetings and members in South East London, some were written by HN338 and others by Roberts. There is some dispute about this.

Roberts has pointed out that he has not been shown any reports filed by him for the period December 1977- June 1978. He attended many large demonstrations, and reported on public order situations, but these reports seem to be missing. He says he witnessed public disorder at clashes between right- and left-wing groups.

In particular, he recalled the counter-demos mounted by anti-fascists against National Front marches in both Wood Green and Lewisham in 1977. He also recalled being charged by mounted police at a demonstration.

There is a report of him attending one demo during the summer of 1975 – a small National Abortion Campaign protest [UCPI0000012738]. This included a speech by Labour MP John Fraser which was also reported. He does not recall any property damage.

COUNTER PROTESTS AGAINST FASCISTS

He claims in his statement that IMG members, having learned of the location of the Wood Green march in 1977, scouted the route to find good places to throw missiles at the fascists.

Also in his witness statement, he recalls his attendance at the counter-demonstration thinking that the police had left too great a gap between officers as they escorted the National Front demonstrators. This had enabled the IMG to confront the marchers, resulting in violence.

Somewhat surprisingly, not mentioned in summary evidence read out by the Inquiry, in January 1977 it seems Roberts may have attended the initial meeting of the All-Lewisham Campaign Against Racialism and Fascism in his capacity as vice president of Thames Polytechnic Students Union. The group contained representatives from the IMG, the Anglican Church Council, the Labour Party, the Communist Party, and Black and Asian groups [UCPI0000017686].

‘HOOVER’

Of his reporting style, he said:

‘I would hoover up everything.’

This included the political content of meetings, as he knew the Security Service (MI5) found this interesting.

This is borne out by his reporting on the 1976 IMG National Conference [UCPI0000021343]which almost exclusively focuses on the debates between different ideological groups within the IMG. The value of this report is indicated by the fact he received a telephone message from MI5 and a Deputy Assistant Commissioner’s commendation.

Roberts assessing the potential for subversion on the IMG says they:

‘were strong in words, but in hindsight, I think they were not really likely to act on them.’

On other witnesses in the Inquiry, he does recall ‘Mary’, who appeared in several of his reports, as well as Richard Chessum [UCPI0000008223].

Piers Corbyn is also mentioned, including in relation to his election campaign for the Greater London Council, which is an example of spycops targeting the democratic process [UCPI0000008229].

Roberts says that he did not engage in any criminal activity, did not have any intimate or sexual relationships with activists, and did not join a trade union, although there he did make one report on Greenwich Trades Council [UCPI0000009380].

Summary of Roberts’ evidence by Counsel to the Inquiry
Written statement of ‘Gary Roberts’

---

‘Geoff Slater’ (HN351, 1974-1975)

Special Demonstration Squad officer HN353 used the name ‘Jeff Slater’ or ‘Geoff Slater’ to infiltrate the Tottenham branch of the International Socialists (IS) for under a year (1974-75).

His fake identity was stolen from a deceased child.

Before his deployment he spent time in the SDS back office but was given no formal training or any specific guidance about what information to collect.

He had cover employment at a car dealership, and a cover address which he occasionally visited but did not stay overnight at. Slater was also provided with a cover vehicle and documentation.

The first known report from Slater is dated August 1974 [UCPI0000007918] and the last is March 1975 [UCPI0000006971].

Slater does not remember enough to comment on these reports. He says he did not type them up himself. Nor does not recognise any of the reporting he has been shown and does not believe that he was the author of any of them, except two.

UNSPECIFIED VIOLENCE

Slater says he attended various demonstrations to initiate contact with activists. He recalls that IS were viewed as a ‘subversive’ group who were:

‘organising to bring about the fall of the State and they would use any means available to achieve this, including violence.’

He alleges that IS members used violence, though says he never took part in any himself. He also claims to have witnessed many incidents of major public disorder, which included police officers being assaulted. However, he does not cite any specific instances to support his claim.

A report from November 1974 mentioned IS becoming involved in industrial action [UCPI0000015056]. However, Slater denies that he became involved with any trade unions during his deployment.

According to one report, dated January 1975, he became the official Socialist Worker Organiser of the Tottenham branch, [UCPI0000012014].

Some of the groups he spied on were campaigning for racial and sexual equality [UCPI0000014964]. His reports also cover global political issues, the Irish situation, plans for protests and educational classes, and personal information about group members.

Slater also stated in his witness statement, whilst having no recollection of the contents of reports (including [UCPI0000014961]), with regard to Irish matters he states that he was:

‘instructed to report on any matter relating to the IRA and Irish Troubles more generally which were of relevance to Special Branch at the time.’

He says he did not get particularly close to any of the activists or form any sexual relationships during his relatively short deployment.

BABYSITTER & BIRTHDAY PARTY SPY?

The babysitting rota of the North London District of IS was shared in a report dated 8 January 1975 [UCPI0000012021]. This list shows ‘Geoff Slater’ as volunteering for this. It is unknown if Slater ever took his turn on the rota, but it would obviously be a concern to any parent to discover that they left their child with an imposter.

Another report attributed to Slater (wrongly, in his view) was on an IS member’s birthday party [UCPI0000006850].

EXIT

Slater’s deployment ended in the spring of 1975. This was at his request, as he found the work to be ‘debilitating and exhausting, both mentally and physically,’ and did not think he was suitable for it. He spent some time working in the SDS back office after this doing clerical work.

Written statement of ‘Geoff Slater’

---

Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76)

The inquiry mentioned that it was releasing documents relating to undercover officers ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) and ‘Desmond/Barry Loader‘ (HN13, 1975-78). However, as Thursday’s hearing will include summaries of statements from both men’s widows, the COPS daily reports will deal with their respective material in one go then.

The Inquiry also mentioned its release of materials about SDS officer Richard Layton Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76).

Clark spied on this hearing’s next witness, Richard Chessum, and ‘Mary‘, among others.

He was deployed into Goldsmiths College in December 1974 by the Special Demonstration Squad.

He was 29 years old, married with children, and had been a police officer for five years. He stole the identity of a deceased child, Richard Gibson, as the basis for his undercover identity. He enrolled at the Goldsmiths College on a Portuguese language course.

Clark’s target was the Troops Out Movement. It’s an interesting target from the perspective of this Inquiry,because it did not fit with the stated aims of the SDS. The Movement posed no public order risk at all.

Its aims were publicly stated and straightforward:
i. Self-determination for the people of Ireland and
ii. the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland

Their methods included lobbying Members of Parliament, drafting alternative legislation and raising awareness, with occasional low-key demonstrations, talks and film-screenings.

Clark is also known to have reported on the Free Desmond Trotter campaign in May 1975.

His deployment ended in late 1976. By December, he had been posted to another area of Special Branch, ‘S Squad’.

Clark was promoted in 1986, to the rank of Detective Inspector. He received other medals and awards before finally retiring from the police in 1998.

He has since died, so we will not be hearing any evidence from him, only from those who he spied on, and some of his erstwhile colleagues.

For a more detailed account of Richard Clark’s extraordinary deceit as a spycop, see the opening statement to the Inquiry from James Scobie QC.

---

Richard Chessum

The Inquiry’s next witness was a non-State core participant, Richard Chessum, who was part of the Troops Out Movement (TOM). He was spied on by a number of spycops, including Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76). Clark is now deceased.

Chessum and ‘Mary‘ provided the Inquiry with an opening statement, and Chessum has provided his own written witness statement as well.

POLITICAL OUTLOOK

The overarching aim of Chessum’s political activity over a lifetime has been to contribute to a better world. He was a Methodist lay preacher, involved in the Labour Party and in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) before he moved to London in 1968 and got involved in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) and then the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM).

He joined in with the anti-apartheid Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) action at Oval cricket ground in 1969 – a pitch invasion carried out with the intention of creating an opportunity for dialogue with the all-white South African team.

He enrolled at Goldsmith’s College in 1970 and, because there was no Socialist Society there, he set one up. He recalled people’s disillusionment with the Labour government of the time. The Socialist Society held open weekly meetings, and advertised its activities to both students and staff. Among the people he recruited from his stall was the woman who later became his wife.

Chessum also joined the Anti Internment League, which opposed the internment without trial of republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. In 1972, he organised a demonstration after ‘Bloody Sunday’, when British troops killed 14 people on a civil rights march in Derry. He got more active about the situation in Ireland due to an Irish house-mate at the time prompting him to do so.

He eventually joined the International Marxist Group (IMG) in 1972, having deliberately avoided joining any of the left-wing groups that existed up till that point. He left within a year, preferring ‘to be on the open sea’ rather than stuck in a small ‘political goldfish bowl’.

Though his membership of the Labour Party had lapsed when he moved to London, he later re-joined. He says he felt very ‘at home’ within the Labour Committee on Ireland, and became its press officer.

Chessum is still politically active now, with a local group set up to assist asylum seekers and refugees, offering company and an opportunity to learn English. This group has fought against both destitution and racism. It now has over 300 volunteers and has become, in his words, ‘a substantial presence in the city of Sheffield’.

SPYCOP ENTERS THE SCENE

In 1974, Chessum was elected to the Students Council at Goldsmith’s. He had been a member of the Anti Internment League (AIL) in the past, and he supported the aims of the Troops Out Movement (TOM).

TOM was formed in West London in September 1973 by Irish solidarity activists, trade unionists, socialists and Irish people living in Britain. It was a campaigning organisation committed to bringing an end to British rule in the north of Ireland.

TOM had two stated aims. First, it campaigned for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. Second, it campaigned for self-determination for the Irish people.

TOM also campaigned around related issued including justice, policing, equality, demilitarisation, employment discrimination, cultural rights and the Irish language.

Chessum explained how he came to meet the spycop ‘Rick Gibson’. He was contacted by the national TOM office, who told him a Goldsmith’s student had been in touch asking if there was a TOM branch in South East London.

Chessum decided to set one up at Goldsmith’s, and met with ‘Gibson’ in the student union bar to discuss this plan. He thinks this meeting would have taken place in December 1974, just before the holidays.

The Inquiry has found a Special Branch report of a Socialist Society meeting which took place at Goldsmith’s in January 1975 [UCPI0000012122]. Titled ‘Why a Troops Out Movement?’, it was attended by 45 people.

STARTING A GROUP TO SPY ON

The main speaker was a former paratrooper named McConnell, from the North London branch of the TOM. Chessum proposed the formation of a SE London TOM branch and an informal meeting was planned for the following week.

That informal meeting in Februaty 1975 was the subject of the next report [MPS-0728678] we saw. There was a very low turn-out, with only two people (presumably Chessum and Gibson) present at the start. They were later joined by three IMG members (who only came along because their own class had been cancelled that night). One of them was ‘Mary’. He knows that Mary remembers meeting ‘Gibson’ for the first time at a political stall.

This next Special Branch report [MPS-0728205] is all about Richard Chessum, detailing his personal life and political activity, and even his sister’s move to York.

The Inquiry then took Chessum through a series of reports that, for the most part, demonstrate just how small the group’s meetings were, and how quickly the undercover officer made his way up through the ranks of the TOM.

These included a report [MPS-0728701] about the inaugural meeting of the SE London branch on 12 March 1975. Numbers were disappointingly low at this meeting too. Lots of left-wing groups and trade unions had been invited to come, but most hadn’t. Chessum chaired the meeting. The only invited speaker was a senior figure in TOM, Géry Lawless.

The group met again a week later, on 18 March, as detailed in the next report [MPS-0728710]. This meeting was attended by just 11 people. Elections were held, with Rick Gibson being elected Secretary of the new branch. It was also agreed that he and Chessum would be sent as delegates to the ‘Liason Committee Conference’ that weekend.

Chessum explained that, at the time, he and others were coming up to their final exams, so they didn’t put themselves forward for the role of Secretary as they knew that it would require quite a lot of work. However Gibson volunteered himself, and the use of his car.

From the perspective of intelligence gathering, it was an interesting position. It gave Gibson access to the personal details of every member.

Prospective members would contact the TOM Secretary in the first instance, giving Gibson a chance to assess them as they joined the group, and quite possibly influence the process. At first, the group met at Chessum’s home. Later they met at Charlton House.

The group organised events like a picket outside the house of local MP (and Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland) Roland Moyle. Chessum recalls being invited in for tea and biscuits. At the time he assumed people present were colleagues of the MP, but now he wonders if they were part of the State, as they did ask the group lots of questions about their personal political views.

However, Gibson’s report differs from Chessum’s memory, stating that Moyle was present that day but refused to speak to the demonstrators, and that nobody was invited inside the house at all.

A meeting at Charlton House on 21 May 1975 was probably the first public meeting of the new TOM branch outside of Goldsmith’s. The report [MPS-0728681] says it was a success, with about 45 people attending thanks to ‘good local publicity’, and credit for this outreach is given to Chessum and Gibson.

Gibson is one of the few officers who, in his reports, wrote about his own activities as if he is one of the members of the group. He had a habit of including himself on the list of attendees, with his Special Branch registry file number added.

We are left with the impression that Gibson put a lot of effort into getting people to come to these meetings, and then when they did, he would report their attendance to Special Branch.

The next report [MPS-0728668] is of South East London TOM members attending a Labour Party meeting at Alderwood School in June 1975, and questioning the Labour candidate about his views on the Irish situation:

Chessum explained that there was no public disorder:

‘The objective would have been to try and persuade people in Labour to support us’

Unsurprisingly, the Inquiry asked Chessum about the legality of TOM’s actions, despite the reports showing that the group supported parliamentary democracy to such an extent that they lobbied MPs to try to get them onside.

Chessum was unquivocal; TOM did not carry out or promote illegal acts. There was certainly no direct relationship between TOM and the Provisional IRA. He suspects that a September 1975 report about a visit to Northern Ireland [UCPI0000007665] was inaccurate – members of the TOM may well have met with Sinn Fein, the political party, but not with the IRA, which was a highly secretive organisation.

FRIENDSHIP

Chessum developed a friendship with Gibson. The two men spent time together, not just in the pub after meetings, but they also attended some Charlton Athletic football matches together. Chessum also recalled meeting up on the Woolwich free ferry at lunchtimes after Gibson had begun (he said) working near him in that part of London.

He thought that they bonded over their distaste for sectarianism, and found it relaxing to discuss things freely with someone who wasn’t a zealous member of any particular group. This is a practice known as ‘mirroring’, reflecting back someone’s perspective in order to create a closeness. Other spycops have said they were trained to do this.

There are a number of reports on the TOM, including meetings of its London Coordinating Committee and its national secretariat, and their plans to hold a demonstration and rally about Bloody Sunday, which was commemorated every year.

The next report [MPS-0728777] is about one such meeting, which took place in January 1976. The group had planned for a rally on 1 February, and booked the Hammersmith Palais for it, but this booking had just been cancelled on them at fairly short notice. Chessum recounted how the police at the time used to go round pubs encouraging landlords not to allow political meetings on their premises.

Another report from January 1976 [MPS-0728774] shows TOM’s press officer being criticised for inactivity, and the group deciding to replace him with a Press Committee. Three people, including Gibson, were then elected to this new committee. The committee’s first task was to prepare a statement about the Hammersmith Palais cancellation and the State’s repression.

In hindsight, Chessum is concerned that an undercover officer got involved in this kind of task, as the wellbeing of the TOM was clearly not his priority.

PLOTTING AND SCHEMING

During this era, sectarian groups, like Workers Fight and the Revolutionary Communist Group, were often disruptive at TOM meetings.

Chessum recalled that to counter the influence of these groups, an informal alliance had formed between Géry Lawless, other ‘independents’ within TOM, and members of Big Flame.

Gibson went on to higher positions within TOM nationally. We can see him being described as a ‘London Organiser’ and a member of the national Secretariat in this report from early 1976 [MPS-0728777].

Chessum says he was approached by Lawless and by a member of Big Flame about becoming a London Organiser himself, but in the end it was Gibson who filled that role.

TOM’s South East London branch elected two delegates for the Coordinating Committee. Both Gibson and Chessum stood for these delegate positions. Workers Fight and the Revolutionary Communist Group both turned up en masse to the meeting where this election took place.

The sectarians were on one side, Rick and Richard on the other. They felt sure that the votes would go one of two ways – but what happened was that Gibson and one of the sectarians were narrowly voted in to these two positions. Chessum reckons this must be because Gibson voted for himself, but not for Chessum.

Having now reached the national level of the TOM, Gibson would have had access to a great deal of information about their plans, members and about any legal advice they ever received – for instance about the Hammersmith Palais cancellation.

Some serious, internal, personal criticisms are revealed in a report from a Blackpool fringe meeting from May 1976 [UCPI0000009684]. Chessum explained:

‘I understand that one of the people attacked was someone called Sean McKavanagh [founder and leader of Workers Fight], a bitter enemy of Lawless.’

He went on to suggest that Gibson may well have done this in order to curry favour with Lawless. It is obvious that Gibson was now trusted by Lawless and others, and given a lot of responsibility.

BIG FLAME

Big Flame had been described as ‘libertarian Marxists’ and the Inquiry asked Chessum to explain what that meant. He said they differed from the more authoritarian, dogmatic groups found on the left – they didn’t have a strict ‘party line’ and were more open to discussing different viewpoints.

There were ‘lots of feminist women’ in Big Flame, and Chessum said he thought they probably felt more comfortable in this more egalitarian, less sectarian environment.

Chessum began attending reading nights organised by Big Flame, and as soon as Rick Gibson found out about that, he asked if he could come along.

He recalled one incident where Gibson was due to ‘take a turn’ addressing the group on a topic of his choice, but performed badly. His notes were of no help, and he completely clammed up. Chessum now thinks this should maybe have been an indication that Rick wasn’t really a committed person’.

In the meantime, Gibson appeared to have become convinced that Géry Lawless was too powerful within TOM. Gibson convened a meeting at his undercover flat to with some members of Big Flame to organise an internal coup to put an end to Gery Lawless and his ‘leadership clique’, as detailed in his Special Demonstration Squad reports of August [UCPI0000010775] and September 1976 [UCPI0000021388].

Chessum remembers that he found it strange to hear that Big Flame felt able to ‘take over’ TOM at that time. Seeing that Gibson was heavily involved in this internal situation, he can’t help but wonder if Gibson was deliberately responsible for the breakdown of the alliance.

SPYCOP SUSPECTED

Chessum knew Gibson had sexual relationships, first with his friend ‘Mary’ and then with her flatmate, and says that was general knowledge at the time. He only found out later he had also got intimately involved with at least two Big Flame women, one of whom he had a more long-term relationship with.

In the potent opening statement made to the inquiry last week on behalf of Richard Chessum and ‘Mary’, their lawyer explained how Gibson used these relationships to ingratiate himself into the groups he infiltrated, and the role they played in his activist career.

When Gibson applied to become a member of Big Flame, the group carried out some background checks on him; they were suspicious of his motives and his over-eagerness. He told some people that he planned to move to Liverpool, a city with a very active Big Flame group, as well as a large, well-connected, Irish community.

We don’t know exactly what else raised their suspicions, but Chessum recalls that when Gibson first turned up and got involved with TOM, activists had wondered why he was so invested in campaigning about Ireland as he had no obvious personal connection or Irish background. They even discussed the possibility of him being some kind of spy right at the start, but decided he wasn’t one.

Did he accidentally tell different women different things, and they then compared notes and spotted the discrepancies in his cover story? ‘Mary’ said he didn’t share any contact details with her, was often very hard to reach, and she knew very little about his background. There was also the failed presentation at the reading night that exposed a lack of political insight.

Richard Chessum got married in July of 1976 and so was away on honeymoon in Cornwall. By the time he returned to London, Gibson had been exposed, and had disappeared.

SPYCOP UNMASKED

Big Flame had told Gibson that they always carried out background checks on prospective members, and gone to work on him. They had got hold of his supposed date of birth and checked for the birth certificate at the government registry at Somerset House. They then went to the local records office where Rick Gibson had been born, where they discovered his death certificate.

Now they knew he was not really Rick Gibson, but had no idea who he really was. They thought he might be working for Special Branch or MI5. He had mentioned being employed at a campsite, so Big Flame folk went to visit it. Upon discovering it was run by an ex-army guy, they wondered if their spy had military connections.

Many of the details he provided for his ‘relatives’ were for people living in port towns, so this made them wonder if there was a link to Special Branch. They even wondered if he was a fascist of some kind.

They told Gibson that they needed to know more about his background, but none of the details he gave of family members or the school he went to checked out. He kept inventing new stories to explain it away, but he failed to convince the group.

This intense process didn’t deter Gibson from wanting to join, so Big Flame took more drastic action. They invited him to meet them in a pub and then spread out all the evidence they had gathered. ‘He looked as though he was going to cry’, Chessum was told about this incident.

He came up with one last story and gave them a phone number of the office where his brother was supposed to work. It was another lie. When they went to check his flat, they found that he had done a midnight flit, and it was empty.

Chessum was told about all this by someone from Big Flame. He was shown the dossier of evidence that had been compiled. This was later sealed and hidden away by the group. It included the birth and death certificates, and a letter Gibson had left behind for the woman he had the more serious relationship with. Chessum was told to keep the story secret, and he did, for many years.

After this, he met with Mary and her flatmate, and told them what he had seen. He says they were shocked but not surprised. They had already discussed the possibility of him being some kind of police officer. They had noticed his habit of never staying overnight, and wondered if this was because he had a wife to go back to.

LEGACY OF DECEIT

Chessum now wonders to what extent Gibson was sent to target him personally. He worked in Woolwich in those days. Gibson suddenly found a job nearby, and they would sometimes meet up in their lunch breaks. Gibson’s supposed workplace was nearby, and he and talked about an office behind a bank.

Chessum remembers visiting him there at least once, and seeing other people at work, and files in the rooms. After Gibson’s disappearance, we went to take a look, and found the office completely empty, with no traces of Gibson or anyone else.

Workers at the bank gave him a phone number to try. He was put on hold for a very long time, and then told that Gibson no longer worked there.

Chessum was not surprised that the spycops were interested in the political activity he was involved in, but he was surprised by the sheer volume of personal information being recorded and retained about him and others:

‘I find it sinister, actually’

Afterwards, he found it hard to find employment, not just in his academic area of expertise but even at a postal sorting office, and suspects that he was ‘blacklisted’ in some way due to his political activity, especially due to the connection with Northern Ireland.

The Inquiry’s Chair,, Sir John Mitting, thanked Chessum for providing such quality evidence, and for putting him right about his earlier assumptions. Mitting has previously described Gibson’s deployment as ‘unremarkable’ but now sees that this was not the case at all.

Let’s hope that Mitting continues to learn from the evidence of non-State core participants and witnesses, and everyone who was spied on by these disgraced spycops units rather than trusting the police to provide answers.

---

Roger Harris (HN200, 1974-1977)

The Inquiry’s next witness was Special Demonstration Squad officer ‘Roger Harris’ (HN200) who was deployed between April 1974 and October 1977 to infiltrate the Twickenham branch of International Socialists (IS).

IS later became the Socialist Workers Party, but before that the Twickenham branch was suspended from IS – during Harris’ deployment – and most of its members went on to join the Workers League.

Harris joined the Metropolitan Police in the 1960s and was based in central London. This meant he spent considerable time policing demonstrations.

He thinks demonstrations presented a lot of public order problems for the police in the 1960s, and much less in the 1970s. He is convinced that this was due to the work of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), noting that it was set up in 1968.

He transferred from uniformed duties to Special Branch, working in ‘C Squad’ which gathered intelligence on left-wing groups. As part of this work, he grew a beard and longer hair in order to fit in at meetings.

Harris became aware that the SDS existed – though not by name – when he recognised Special Branch officers among activists. All the same, he says the SDS was not an ‘open secret’ in Special Branch.

He was recruited into the SDS by officer Detective Chief Inspector HN294, who had been undercover 1968-69, and was running the unit by the time Harris joined.

TARGETING INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

Seemingly trying to illustrate the benefit of SDS tactics, the Inquiry showed a Special Branch report of Harris’ [MPS-0739315] from October 1971, before he was in the SDS.

It describes a meeting of the Hackney & Islington branch of the IS. This took place in the Rose & Crown pub in Stoke Newington. The report lists 21 people as attending, to discuss matters arising from a recent conference in Skegness.

It may sound unworthy of police attention, but the report shows Harris was among a total of nine Special Branch officers observing the meeting from the bar, having failed to gain entry to the back room it was held in. The police collected details and descriptions of those who attended, including their car registrations. The SDS would have been able to get more information than that, we were told. Though why they’d need to is another question – one the Inquiry did not ask.

In his witness statement, Harris said he felt fortunate being sent to infiltrate the IS, as if he had been sent into a Marxist group he would probably have quit. In person, he elaborated:

‘IS was similar to a lot of my friends, I like to have a sort of light-hearted attitude to life, and from what I heard these Marxist groups were very serious’

Harris found many of the views held by IS were reasonable positions that a police officer could agree with. This is somewhat refreshing, given how many other undercovers have sought to exaggerate the supposedly dangerous or subversive nature of the group.

TRAINING

Harris was not provided with any formal training when he joined the SDS in 1974, though was an experienced Special Branch officer. He spent six months in the SDS back office, and picked up more about the work of the unit as he went along. This included attending SDS safe house meetings prior to being deployed, to help prepare for what he was likely to face and to familiarise himself with the way the unit worked.

STEALING AN IDENTITY

The Inquiry has treated us to a number of euphemisms for spycops stealing a dead child’s identity – ‘adopting’, ‘using’, and ‘relying on’ it. It was straightforward identity theft. Just because it was police doing it doesn’t mean we should downplay it with softer language than anyone else would get for doing the same thing.

Harris stole the identity of a deceased child as the basis of his undercover identity, as this was standard practice, taught by his superiors.

‘I was a bit upset and I actually said “why is that necessary?”… it wasn’t something that sat comfortably with me. The reason I was given was that we needed to have a birth certificate to obtain subsequent documentation for myself, such as obtaining car insurance, and that sort of stuff.’

He was not told that this was a relatively new technique, and that it hadn’t always been used by all officers in the unit.

He went to the birth registry at Somerset House with a colleague. He chose the name of a teenager rather than a baby, as he thought the birth and death certificates would be further apart in the records and less easy for someone from IS to find if they were checking up on him.

Did he ever consider the possibility that the family of the dead child might find out?

‘that was why I was not happy with it in the first place’

POLICE CRIMINALITY

Unlike most of his colleagues who have been asked, Harris says he did see the Home Office Circular [MPS-0727104] that expressly forbids undercover officers from participating in serious crime, or from being involved in anything that is likely to lead to a court being deceived. It’s notable that the officers who did lie to courts have no memory of ever hearing the unequivocal instructions of this document.

Harris specifically remembered that he and his colleagues were given a special phone number so if they were arrested and taken into custody they could give that to someone at the police station and be released. He doesn’t recall anyone ever using it.

PREPARING FOR INFILTRATION

Harris was tasked to infiltrate IS by DCI Derek Kneale. Harris was replacing ‘John Clinton’ (HN343, 1971-73) in the organisation, and the two met to discuss the handover.

Like most of his colleagues, Harris doesn’t think he had any training or guidance on the limits of intrusion into personal lives, nor on the prospect of sexual relationships with people he spied on.

WHY SPY?

Asked to define subversion, Harris declared:

‘if you have an established system like we have in this country, we’re a democracy, and somebody tries to interfere with that by surreptitious means, I call that subversive’

Having said IS had subversive objectives, he conceded they were more seeking to interfere with or disrupt, rather than fully overthrow the system.

Asked how they sought to do it, he replied:

‘I can’t recall a particular incident’

Harris said he did not see any violence while undercover. Though he qualified it slightly with an anecdote that did not actually describe anything violent:

‘there was only one that nearly got violent, and that was the closest we came… it never actually came to violence. We came to a face to face – two cordons, one of police officers, one of the IS, but it didn’t erupt into anything more than that.’

He said that being in IS was great cover for spying on other groups, as everyone expected IS newspaper sellers to turn up at every event and let them be. However, he seems to have done very little reporting on organisations beyond those he was actively infiltrating.

Challenging his deployment due to its pointlessness wasn’t something that even occurred to him:

‘I wouldn’t have thought of doing that [challenging it] anyway because I was happy to go in areas that they were short of officers in.’

Asked if he remembered any demonstrations against the fascist National Front turning violent, Harris drew a blank.

DEATH IN RED LION SQUARE

Nevertheless, early in his deployment, on 15 June 1974, Harris attended a counter-demonstration against the National Front at Red Lion Square, London.

Police charged the crowd, with officers on horses using batons to strike protesters’ heads. Following one such charge, protester Kevin Gately was left unconscious from a blow to the head, from which he later died.

It was the first time anyone had been killed at a demonstration in Great Britain for decades. As with all the other spycops who have been asked, Harris claimed not to remember the event, let alone any discussion among his colleagues. He vaguely admitted to remembering Gately’s name ‘now you mention it’.

There were surely many reports written about this demonstration, but the Inquiry has been unable to find very much at all.

PART OF THE GROUP

Harris was part of the Twickenham branch of IS. Meetings averaged about 15 people, sometimes as many as 25, though these were not all members as most meetings were open – undermining his earlier talk of needing to be deep undercover to access these meetings.

He was appointed as the branch’s Contact Secretary. He says this meant he had a notebook full of members’ contact details:

‘obviously, every time there was a new contact it would come through me, so that could be useful, depending on who they were’

However, Harris denies having too much influence over the direction of the group. He claims to remember being told early in his deployment that his role was reactive, rather than pro-active, and that he shouldn’t lead the action in any way, nor take up senior official roles that could steer a group’s direction. He was not questioned further on the obvious disconnect: if he was the first point of contact for new members, and the public face of the group, he had a great deal of influence.

He did not deny voting at meetings, but said he just voted with the majority, so his vote didn’t really matter.

But what would you do if it did matter?

‘It depends’

The Inquiry did not pursue the point. This fact highlighted the problem of the Inquiry asking questions supplied by lawyers as a check-list exercise, without knowing what point they’re trying to elicit nor how to press an issue. See the comments at the end of the report for more on this.

Harris recorded trade union membership in reports. A January 1975 report [UCPI0000012060] of a meeting of the West Middlesex District of the IS refers to two recent strikes. However, Harris says this is the only time he remembers any discussion about IS getting involved with industrial action.

SCHISM AND THE WORKERS LEAGUE

The Twickenham branch of IS had a schism with the national leadership, which led to the branch being suspended and becoming a branch of the Workers League (WL).

The WL was a small organisation having a total national membership of only 143. As to whether they were subversive, Harris mused:

‘Not particularly, no’

Were they a threat to public order in any way, then?

‘It was never discussed at the early meetings, the ones which I went to’

He kept spying on them anyway.

Harris recorded which IS branch each Workers League member had belonged to, as well as details of their trade union membership. He also reported details of theiremployment – for example, a December 1976 report [UCPI0000017609] notes that a member works for the London Borough of Ealing.

Asked why this was worth reporting, Harris explained:

‘if they were employed in a position like that in a council, or also if they were employed in a college or something like that, it would be normal to put it in’

Harris wasn’t asked why these institutions were ones that would be ‘normal’ to report on, let alone if it was believed to contribute to public sector blacklisting. It’s already established that every constabulary’s Special Branch routinely supplied a construction industry blacklist with personal details of politically active people. It seems unlikely that was the only sector.

SAFE HOUSE MEETINGS

Harris went to SDS meetings at the unit’s safe houses twice a week, once at each of two locations. The majority of the active spycops attended these, unless there was a specific reason they couldn’t.

Reports were submitted on Mondays, with the spycops aggregating and formalising notes from that weekend’s demonstrations.

Sometimes there would be some group discussion, which he described as relaxed and open:

‘They were normally fairly light hearted… It was just basically an open forum that people could throw anything in, and obviously some of that affected other people and they might have experienced something similar’

He would spend around four hours at the safe house with his fellow spycops on Mondays.

He estimated that the meetings on Thursdays went on for longer – maybe six hours – as these were more social occasions. Sometimes they cooked lunch, and they would talk about problems and share experiences:

‘It was time to get away from all the undercover stuff and get, you know, back to normal a bit’

Harris recalled two occasions when the highest officer in the Met, the Commissioner, visited the SDS at their safe house. Harris remembers Robert Mark and, later, his successor, David McNee, both visiting during his deployment.

This tallies with similar reports by spycops from the 1960s and 1990s. This suggests it was an established part of the Commissioner’s role, or at least the existence of the unit was something brought to the attention of every Commissioner.

Harris said that, at some safe-house meetings, they were asked for suggestions about ways to infiltrate more extreme groups or events.

All this seems plausible for a group who would meet hundreds of times with the only other people who could possibly understand their lives. And yet, it is in direct contradiction to the tight-lipped responses from the majority of other undercover officers who have given evidence.

Just 24 hours earlier the Inquiry was being told by Harris’ contemporary ‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, 1971-1976) that spycops at the meetings didn’t discuss politics or anything else that affected their work, not even if they were likely to be at the same upcoming event.

SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Harris was friends with the late Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76). The pair had known each other before the SDS, and would do so long after as well. Clark deceived four women into relationships while undercover.

Harris claims they never really discussed details of their undercover work. He knew that Clark had infiltrated the IS, but says he only learnt today that he also reported on the Troops Out Movement.

The Inquiry asked Harris if he recalled Richard Clark having a reputation of being a ‘ladies man’, as has been alleged by another officer, or whether he remembers Clark being teased about this reputation within the unit?

Asked if he remembered ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) having a similar reputation, he replied:

‘I think the answer to that would be yes’

They inquiry did not follow up on this straight away, but after the a break to allow core participant lawyers to make representations, Counsel returned and did press the point.

He seemed at pains to say he knew this without admitting it was ever discussed among spycops. Instead, he said he was aware of the reputation because:

‘I was in hospital and he came to visit me, and I didn’t see him for the visit. But when he went, my nurse came and said “oh your friend’s very nice,” and he’d been talking to her all the time instead of visiting me.’

Full witness statement of ‘Roger Harris’

FORMAT FAILING THE PURPOSE

The questioning of Harris by one of the Inquiry’s Counsel, in this case Rebekah Hummerstone, threw into stark relief an issue that has dogged the Inquiry throughout these hearings and also the previous ones in November 2020.

Whilst the Inquiry’s use of a ‘neutral’ Counsel to ask the questions steers it away from having an ‘adversarial’ format, it also leaves key questions unanswered, and points set out but not responded to properly – because this Counsel has simply moved on to the next thing on their list rather than unpacked an answer or pressed a point that the witness is avoiding.

This is particularly true where the question comes from the ‘non-State core participant’ victims of spycops. Too often merely asking a question is deemed sufficient. This is problematic when it is asked in a different way from what has been submitted.

Another problem is that those asking the questions don’t always take the time to understand the reasoning behind asking the question in the first place. This means that they often do not see the relevance of the answer or know how to deal with it. This causes some hair tearing, when having elicited a significant response, there is no follow-up and the moment is squandered.

This not only undermines the point of asking the question, it defies the purpose of having a witness appear in person at all.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (4 May 2021)<<
>>Next UCPI Daily Report (6 May 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 9

4 May 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76)

Introduction of associated documents:
‘Peter Collins’ (HN303, 1973-77)

Evidence from witnesses:
‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76)
‘Mary’

 

‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76)
Summary of evidence

‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76) was deployed late 1971 to May 1976. His main target was the International Socialists, but he also targeted the main Irish political campaigns of the time. Though still alive, the Inquiry has chosen not to call him to give evidence, instead reading out a summary of his statement

The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer joined Special Branch in 1970/71, considering it an ‘elite unit’. He was recruited to the SDS soon after. There was no formal training, and he picked up all he needed from his three months in the back office.

He says he was given ‘free rein’ to direct his own tasking:

‘I understood that the SDS’s function was to gather information about groups that posed a threat of public disorder and violence. That said, the SDS gradually morphed into more of a general intelligence-gathering unit.’

Once in the field, he visited the SDS safe house 2-3 times a week. Initially this was an informal arrangement, but by the end of his deployment it had become a requirement. All field officers were expected to attend on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to meet with SDS managers from the New Scotland Yard office.

From the large gaps in dates on the reports in the Inquiry’s possession, it’s clear that a proportion of his reporting is missing. Stubbs himself specifically notes the absence of his reporting on small demonstrations – such as industrial pickets.

COVER EMPLOYMENT & THE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

Stubbs believes that he was chosen in part due to his dark complexion, which may have assisted him to infiltrate groups focusing on Middle Eastern politics. This was a time when Palestinian hijackings were of significant concern.

His first task was to befriend a leading activist in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – then a coalition of left groups from the Young Liberals to the International Marxist Group, and unconnected with armed groups.

He obtained a job as a laboratory technician at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital where this activist also worked. It was a full-time job but after a couple of months he had failed to strike up the friendship with his target and so the attempt was abandoned.

MAIN TARGET – INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

He then switched to the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party), joining its Hammersmith & Fulham Branch. He subsequently moved on to the Wandsworth & Battersea branch and finally the Paddington branch in late 1975.

Stubbs believes that the International Socialists were principally of interest to the SDS because of the possibility of public disorder and violence, particularly during anti-fascist counter protests.

He acted as treasurer for both the Paddington branch [UCPI0000009537] and perhaps also the Hammersmith & Fulham branch. In his statement he recalls being told at the beginning of his deployment that the SDS encouraged field officers to take on a position in activist groups that would give them access to membership information.

Stubbs says he was on friendly terms with activists and would on occasion have a drink with others following a meeting. However, he says he did not form any close relationships.

In March 1973, Stubbs produced a report on the IS national conference [UCPI0000007905]. The political committee recommended that IS form factory branches and challenge the communist leadership of industrial action from the shop floor.

In April 1974, Stubbs fed back intelligence on the formation of an IS Lawyers Group, [UCPI0000007915], which aimed to provide legal advice to any member (or trade unionist) ‘who clashes with the law on pickets, marches and demonstrations’. In March 1975, [UCPI0000006921], he noted the intention of the IS to stand a candidate in the Walsall by-election.

As with many undercovers of that era, Stubbs reported on anti-fascist activity. On 6 September 1975, members of the South West London District of IS, with which Stubbs was associated, were in the ‘vanguard’ of IS members who attempted to disrupt a march by the National Front in Bethnal Green [UCPI0000007566].

RED LION SQUARE

During the course of his deployment, Stubbs witnessed public disorder and violence during demonstrations involving IS and the National Front. In particular he was was at clashes in both Leicester, and in Red Lion Square in London – the latter being the anti-fascist demonstration where Kevin Gately was killed by the police.

At this event, Stubbs says he was punched by a police officer, joining a growing list of undercover officers who were assaulted by their uniformed colleagues.

Given that police and the Scarman Inquiry blamed the death on the protestors, the fact an undercover was subject to police violence at the protest is significant. It is one of the reasons why non State core participants would have liked the undercover to give evidence.

ANTI-INTERNMENT LEAGUE (AIL)

He used his membership of IS to report on meetings of Irish political groups, particular the Anti-Internment League (AIL), which campaigned to stop the imprisonment without trial of republicans in Northern Ireland.

Whilst not directly tasked to attend meetings of the AIL, as its activities were related to the Troubles they were of automatic interest. He does not recall the AIL posing a threat of public disorder, but suspects that some members approved of the use of violence as a political tool, and of the activities of the Provisional IRA.

His reporting include AIL conferences where support for both Provisional and Official IRA was apparently voiced, and which delegates from Sinn Fein and Clann na h Éireann attended.

Other examples of his reporting include a 1972 AIL delegate meeting [MPS-0728874], where he records the detailed knowledge that one activist present, Géry Lawless, had of the alleged route to be taken by the Irish Prime Minister on his visit to the UK.

Stubbs and officer HN338 produced a joint report on the ‘Police oppression and victimisation’ conference [UCPI0000015700] organised in response to police raids on Irish homes in Coventry.

TROOPS OUT MOVEMENT – WEST LONDON BRANCH

Stubbs also reported on the later Troops Out Movement, which called for British troops to be withdrawn from Northern Ireland. In particular, he attended meetings and reported on the West London branch, which was possibly the first of the TOM groups.

His earliest report about the TOM is dated 12 November 1973 [UCPI0000009938]. He cannot recall any violence, criminality, or public disorder involving TOM members. Rather, he presumes the SDS interest in TOM was due to a supposed connection to ‘Irish extremism’.

NICRA

Several of Stubbs’ reports related to the West London branch of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. He does not recall reporting on the Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA) but accepts that he must have done because there are reports in his name [MPS-0737808] regarding the group’s activities.

BELFAST TEN DEFENCE CAMPAIGN

He also seems to have had access to the Belfast Ten Defence Committee with a report of 2 December 1974 [UCPI0000015115] referring to a Committee member opening a Coop bank account for the group. The Belfast Ten had been accused of carrying out IRA bombings in London in March 1973 and held on remand, leading to a campaign for their release.

VISIT FROM THE COMMISSIONER

Stubbs recalls Sir Robert Mark, the Met Commissioner, on one occasion making a surprise visit to the SDS flat in North West London.

Bob Stubbs’ deployment came to an end in May 1976, after approximately five years, which was considered an optimal length, as he commented:

‘five years would allow time for officers to become comfortable in their role and get to know activists, but it was not such a long period that they would then find it hard to transition back to their normal lives.’

He denies any involvement in criminal activity, sexual relationships, or any kind of legal proceedings. He also stated that he never joined a trade union.

Written Statement of Bob Stubbs

‘Peter Collins’ (HN303, 1973-77)
Introduction of associated documents

‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77) infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) from 1974 to 1977. He was asked by them to in turn infiltrate the National Front, remarkably something SDS management agreed to.

The officer is allegedly far too ill to submit a written statement, however the Inquiry highlighted reports relating to his deployment in an appendix to its opening statement.

The WRP was a Trotskyist organisation, led by someone called Gerry Healy for many years, receiving public attention due to the involvement of actress Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin.

It grew to a sizeable organisation with wide reach in the 1970s. Collins’ reports discuss the size of the organisation’s membership and the circulation of their newspaper, as a report on a 1975 delegate conference demonstrated [UCPI0000022002].

The same report also describes the revolutionary intent of the WRP as seen through Collins’ reporting, in which he quotes Vanessa Redgrave as telling conference that:

‘the ruling class knows that civil war is on the agenda…the time for class compromise is over; the struggle can only be resolved by force.’

Collins’ own focus seems to have been branches in North London.

POLICE RAID ON THE RED HOUSE

In the summer of 1975, Corin Redgrave purchased the White Meadows Villa in Parwich, Derbyshire, which became the WRP Education Centre. Shortly after its opening in September 1975, it was raided by police and some old bullets were found in a cupboard. The WRP’s reaction to this raid was reported by the SDS [UCPI0000009265].

A report dated 4 February 1976, [UCPI0000012240], compiled by Collins after he had attended an educational event at the Centre, details the extensive security arrangements in place there and the purported discovery of listening devices at the Centre following the police raid.

In correspondence between senior Special Branch management [MPS-0741115], Commander Rollo Watts noted:

‘It is valuable for us to learn that, despite all the speculation, the courses at ‘White Meadows’ do not include incitement to public disorder.’

Earlier, in May 1974, Collins had reported [UCPI0000009964] on measures to be taken by the WRP to combat police spies and informants and any other ’spies and agent provocateurs’ who might try to steer them away from their revolutionary Party-building and towards the kind of ‘popular-front’ actions which may expose the WRP to ’police persecution and ridicule in the capitalist press’.

As a counterpoint to the raid, the Inquiry also pointed out that although the WRP was involved with the Free George Davis Campaign, it actively sought to avoid being associated with criminal acts, [UCPI0000009410]. Davis had been jailed for bank robbery and become a cause célèbre over irregularities in the prosecution evidence.

As some point in 1975, ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76) began reporting on the WRP, so the authorship of some SDS reports on the group is unclear.

MI5 INTEREST

It is notable some of the SDS reports regarding the WRP are in response to Security Service (MI5) requests for information. This includes a March 1975 report [UCPI0000006993] where MI5 asked to clarify what was meant by the term ‘sleeping WRP members’.

WRP TRADE UNION ACTIVITY

Collins’ reporting on the WRP regularly referred to the WRP’s associations with trade unions. These included the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – both Core Participants in this Inquiry.

A March 1975 report [UCPI0000006909] details a Conway Hall meeting of the WRP’s Builders Section.

A report dated 24 March 1975 [UCPI0000006961] gives information about a march from Hull to Liverpool organised by the Wigan Builders Action Committee in support of the Shrewsbury Two, and claims the route was chosen to put pressure on National Union of Mineworkers’ leader Arthur Scargill to support the campaign.

SHREWSBURY TWO

There are two reports which reference the Shrewsbury Two – Ricky Tomlinson and Des Warren – who were framed and jailed for ‘conspiracy to intimidate’ for their part in protesting to improve working conditions for builders during the industry’s national strike in 1972.

After nearly 50 years, their convictions were overturned earlier this year. There are two reports, [UCPI0000012752] and [UCPI0000012781], which detail the meeting of the Shrewsbury Two Action Committee organised by the WRP at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool on 29 July 1975. This was attended by hundreds of people, including coachloads from London.

REPORTING ON THE NATIONAL FRONT – ON BEHALF OF THE WRP

In 1975, not knowing their member was a spycop, the WRP asked Collins to infiltrate the National Front (NF), and a small offshoot of them, called the Legion of St George. This was cleared by his SDS managers, so he reported on them to the SDS for several months, until he left the field altogether [MPS-0728980].

It worth noting the two rather different assessments of Collins’ far-right infiltration contained in the SDS annual reports.

The 1975 report [MPS-0730099] mentions it in positive terms – boasting that Collins is now acting as a double agent, and leading a ‘triple life’.

However the 1976 report [MPS-0728980] noted that the NF was no longer of interest to the SDS as ‘the information gained added nothing of real value to that obtainable from already excellent Special Branch sources’ It was not considered worth placing another SDS officer into the NF after Collins’ deployment ended.

The four reports that the Inquiry has published of Collins reporting on the far-right are: [UCPI0000006931], [UCPI0000012751], [UCPI0000009480] and [UCPI0000009553].

PUBLIC ORDER DISCUSSION

In November 1977, Collins and another undercover, Barry/ Desmond Loader (HN13, 1975-78), were taken to meet Deputy Assistant Commissioner David Helm. He oversaw public order policing for the Metropolitan police.

They talked about the perspectives of those on the ground and the changes needed within the police following such events as the street violence during the confrontation between fascists and anti-fascists at the 1977 ‘Battle of Lewisham’ and the Grunwick Strike, [MPS-0732885] and [MPS-0732886], – indicating the presence of undercovers at these events.

‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76)

‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, deployed 1971-1976) is the cover name used by a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer who – according to the Inquiry – infiltrated the Young Liberals, Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) from 1971 to 1976.

In the Inquiry, he is also known at HN298, his real name is protected. He stole the identity of a living person, Michael Peter Scott, as his cover name.

His evidence is among the most remarkable of the former undercovers heard to date, covering a clear miscarriage of justice among anti-apartheid campaigners, the theft of an identity from a living person with a callous lack of concern over the impact it could have had, and the gratuitous physical assault on a campaigner who had rightfully identified him as an undercover – something he dismissed as not really a crime.

From evidence given by Jonathan Rosenhead and Christabel Gurney on Thursday last week, it is clear that he had infiltrated the Stop The Seventy Tour, a different anti-apartheid group, rather than the AAM.

Crucially, in May 1972, Rosenhead, Gurney and ‘Scott’ were arrested with 11 others for taking part in a direct action to prevent the British Lions rugby team from leaving for a tour of apartheid South Africa. As part of a wider campaign for a sports boycott against the apartheid state, they blocked a coach carrying the British Lions team as it was about to leave a Surrey hotel for the airport.

A press report from the time recorded that he had told the court that his name was Scott and that he lived in Wetherby Gardens, Earls Court, West London. This was the address of his cover flat (at number 16). Scott was convicted of obstructing the highway and obstructing a police officer. He was fined and given a conditional discharge. Rosenhead and Gurney were also fined.

Scott’s superiors authorised him to use his fake identity in the criminal trial and to be convicted under his alias. The Inquiry is also investigating if the conviction became a criminal record attached to the real Michael Peter Scott.

In their opening statement, the Counsel to Inquiry stated:

‘Indeed it appears that senior management encouraged his participation in the criminal proceedings in the full knowledge that he would attend meetings to discuss trial tactics, but there seems little appreciation by senior management either that these meetings may be subject to legal professional privilege or that his participation in criminal proceedings as a police officer in a covert identity raised any legal or ethical considerations.’

This deceiving of a court potentially provides sufficient grounds for the activists to have their convictions overturned, something Rosenhead is considering.

Groups he targeted included:

• Putney branch of Young Liberals – early 1972 to mid-1974
• Commitment and the Croydon Libertarians – early 1972 to mid-1973
• Irish Solidarity Campaign – mid 1972 to September 1972
• Anti-Internment League – September 1972 to late 1973
• Workers Revolutionary Party – Spring 1975 to April 1976

JOINING THE SPYCOPS

Scott had worked in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s ‘C Squad’, which monitored communists. Reporting on these meetings gave him a good idea of what kind of information Special Branch was interested in.

The existence of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was well known within C Squad and their offices were close to each other inside New Scotland Yard.

Scott says he actively sought out the role. He does not remember any formal interview process, but does recall starting to grow his hair and beard on hearing that he was likely to be accepted into the unit.

He didn’t receive formal training and doesn’t recall any informal advice either – whether about guidance around being arrested and going to court in his undercover identity, or avoiding legally privileged conversations, though these were all issues that played a part in his deployment.

The SDS was ostensibly tasked to gather intelligence on subversion and threats to public order. Asked to define subversion, Scott replied:

‘Well, subversion is when you would do or carry out acts that would endanger the well-being of the State’.

He was clear that he felt this meant anything that would upset whoever happened to be in power at the time:

‘The government of the day, whoever they are, is elected and so therefore they have a right to be there and govern. And so therefore, anything that was likely to endanger that proper democratic situation would be subversive.’

Admitting the SDS cast a wide net, he said:

‘Most groups were not subversive but some of course had a potential to be, and that’s what we were reporting on.’

IDENTITY THEFT

As his previous Special Branch work had made him familiar with researching the background of ‘persons of interest’, Scott was familiar with the government birth registry records at Somerset House. When asked to come up with a fake identity, he went there and located a birth certificate for someone whose name and date of birth were similar to his own.

Asked if he did any assessment of the risks of stealing the identity of a living person, Scott gave an answer that implied yes, but actually means no:

‘I did an instant risk assessment, and that was that there wasn’t any risk.’

As to whether he thought there could be ill effects from having a criminal record applied to the real Michael Peter Scott, he brushed the concern aside:

‘What happened to me was not exactly a criminal record, it was really of no consequence, actually.’

In fact, it was exactly a criminal record.

There could be circumstances where he might break the law, with the permission of superiors. This is not something he’d expect to do – ‘you’re a police officer, after all’ – but says he was given no instructions or guidance, it was just left to ‘common sense’. He said that approach applied to all aspects of the job:

‘you were left to get on with it, but that was no bad thing. To have a big rigmarole about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do would be, I suppose, limiting the intelligence of your officers.’

He used Michael Scott’s birth certificate, and had a driving licence, bank account and other registration documents in the name. He thought this may, if anything, be positive for the real person:

‘It might assist him because my credit record was good.’

This quote typified the cavalier approach Scott throughout his evidence took with regard to the potential impact on the person whose identity he stole. This is seen again when the impact of his conviction in the identity of Mike Scott is covered (see below).

TASKING

Scott states that he was never tasked to infiltrate any particular group, Instead, he decided for himself which meetings and organisations would yield information of interest to Special Branch. To do this, he simply looked out for anything that would involve demonstrations, causing nuisance, or acting contrary to the law.

All the groups he and his colleagues targeted were on the left of the political spectrum:

‘There weren’t any right-wing groups who were demonstrating, or causing any problems as far as I can recall, at the time.’

Scott’s method was meandering. There was no master plan to use one group to get the credibility for a later target. He said it didn’t matter if officers duplicated one another’s work by infiltrating the same group.

Prompted by the Inquiry, he said he never discussed with management whether a group actually warranted infiltration.

MEETING AT THE SAFE HOUSE

Scott was asked about his reports and the weekly get-togethers at the SDS safe house where managers would check in and take information. His memory there was scant.

All the officers would meet there at the same time, around a dozen of them in one living room. He recalled there was high quality food and drink, as it would be ‘a fairly social occasion… it wasn’t all business’.

And yet, having gone to several hundred such meetings with a rarely-changing group, Scott does not remember the undercover discussing their deployments with one another. He claimed they didn’t discuss politics or anything else that affected their work, not even if they were likely to be at the same upcoming event.

He does remember chatting about toy lead soldiers, and claiming expenses though.

When this point was examined, he conceded that he ‘felt quite friendly with’ a few colleagues. When asked to list which ones, he only specified ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76)

Scott’s skill for drawing blanks extended to his knowledge of colleagues deceiving women into sexual relationships.

Asked specifically whether Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76), who deceived at least four women into relationships, had, as a colleague described, ‘a reputation as a ladies’ man’, Scott said he knew nothing about it.

He also refuted allegations by a colleague that there was banter at the safe house meetings about sexual relationships. If such things had occurred they would not have been spoken about, he explained:

‘It’s a private thing and that’s a matter for them.’

The spycops were visited by very senior officers. Scott remembers the then-Commissioner Sir Robert Mark visited the safe house, and on another occasion Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vic Gilbert.

STARTING SPYING

Early in his deployment, Scott spied on the Spartacus League, which he described as a ‘revolutionary group’. He doesn’t remember them organising any demonstrations, though.

The Inquiry showed a July 1971 report by Scott [MPS-0732350] on a public meeting of the South West Spartacus League. One of the items mentioned was a ‘Revolutionary Training Camp’ – a week-long event under canvas in the New Forest.

When it was suggested this seemed more about public speaking and political teaching than armed revolution, Scott explained it was still of interest to Special Branch:

‘Because obviously armed insurrection starts somewhere. It starts with things like that.’

From there, Scott moved to the Enfield branch of International Socialists (IS), which later became the Socialist Workers Party.

He admitted that IS demonstrations were expected to be orderly, but certain individuals might come along and make them disorderly.

‘Revolution begins with groups like the International Socialists and there has to be some roughing up of the system in order to get on the road to revolution… I don’t think anyone was far down the road to revolution in 1971, but there was plenty of activity.’

In a wry move, Counsel confirmed that revolutionary groups would be of interest to the SDS, and turned to Scott’s infiltration of Putney Young Liberals. This lasted for at least half his deployment, with the Inquiry publishing Scott’s reports between January 1972 and August 1974.

PUTNEY YOUNG LIBERALS

Young Liberals, the youth wing of the Liberal Party (which later merged into the Liberal Democrats), was engaged in the same kind of civil rights and environmental issues that concerned the Party at large. The Putney branch meetings were usually 10-20 people, held at the home of Peter Hain, who gave evidence to the Inquiry last Friday.

Did Scott’s managers have any qualms about spying on a mainstream political party?

‘It wouldn’t have mattered what party they were from. If they were demonstrating and perhaps making a nuisance of themselves, they would have been reported on.’

The Putney branch of the Young Liberals was targeted because it included the Hain family.

In another of his explanations that start off as a denial and end up with an admission, Scott said:

‘It wasn’t the fact of Peter Hain being there. I think he was the president of the Young Liberals at the time. But in any event, much of this activity against South African rugby teams or the cricket teams were because of him. His family were very opposed to apartheid. Not just him, his parents as well, and that was the focus.’

DON’T TELL PARLIAMENT

Scott suspects managers may have thought spying on a mainstream party was risky to their reputation:

‘well of course such things, if it were to flare up, they could make a lot of fuss about it in the Houses of Parliament and people would be then worried about their jobs and, you know, it filters down.’

It’s an extraordinary admission. To say that, if the government of the day found out what he did, then his managers would have been sacked. It contrasts with his earlier claim that the SDS existed to uphold the wishes of the government of the day.

Continuing on the infiltration of Putney Young Liberals, Scott averred he was just ‘an observer’ at meetings. The Inquiry, however, showed report [UCPI0000008240] from January 1972. It’s the minutes of the Putney branch of the Young Liberals at which, of the 14 attendees, Scott was elected as the group’s Membership Secretary.

Two of the others present were Peter Hain’s younger sisters Jo-Ann and Sally, who were under 18. Scott said he didn’t remember them being there, and didn’t remember being Membership Secretary, and in fact even though he’s the credited author he may not have even written the report.

‘I’ve got no recollection at all of Jo-Ann Hain or Sally Hain or any children at any meetings because they’re of course of no relevance’.

In perhaps his most extraordinary denial-admission U-turn of the day, he went on:

‘As has been shown by the green movement, there are young ladies of tender age that can be quite significant, and so I would have possibly put them down anyway if they were in attendance’

HIGH STREET SUBVERSION

Another report on the Young Liberals [UCPI0000008254] of April 1972, describes discussion of the traffic on Putney High Street. There was mention of direct action to close the High Street, and support from a member of the Putney Society are recorded.

Scott defended his reporting by spreading the SDS’s remit to anything that might be of interest to any area of policing:

‘they were talking about closing the roads, closing the High Street. That clearly is of interest to the police. That’s it. The SDS is part of the police… I think the activities of the SDS were well-directed, and I think it was money well spent.’

CENTRE-LEFT EXTREMISTS

The Young Liberals’ 1972 annual conference was the subject of the next report [UCPI0000008255] shown by the Inquiry.

In it, Peter Hain is described as being ‘centre-left’. This report is from a unit who, according to one of its Annual Reports during Scott’s deployment:

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

There are some extremely distasteful details in this report – including a mention of the ‘Blagdon amateur rapist’, a comment Scott described as ‘amusing’.

There are details about MP David Steel’s attendance at the conference. Under the Wilson Doctrine, no MP should be subject to state surveillance (this has more recently been amended to it being permissible with authorisation from the prime minister).

Scott said his managers didn’t even remark on his breach of protocol:

‘MPs are not above the law and so in the context of the reporting no, no comment was made’

During Steel’s speech, paper planes were thrown at the stage by members of a libertarian group called Commitment. Scott attended Commitment meetings (see below), ‘as they seemed to be the ones likely to cause trouble’.

The Inquiry asked whether he meant more throwing of paper planes.

‘I expected that they could be more serious than that… none of these people, in the end, turned out to be very serious.’

Scott was asked why he reported [UCPI0000008248] the details of the red Volkswagen used by Peter Hain and his secretary in February 1972:

‘he was a person of interest and therefore it makes sense to note the vehicles such people are using.’

DEATH ON THE STREETS

The next report [UCPI0000008269] is on a Young Liberals Council meeting held in Birmingham in June 1974.

The meeting passed a motion expressing deep regret for the recent death of Kevin Gately at an anti-fascist demonstration in Red Lion Square, London, and called for a public inquiry into the way the police had handled this demonstration and the events that led to Gately’s death.

It was the first time anyone had been killed at a demonstration in England for years. The right-wing National Front were meeting nearby, and the anti-fascist counter demonstration was repeatedly charged by police, including mounted officers swinging truncheons.

At 6’ 9” tall, Gately’s head was well above the level of the crowd. He was found after a police charge, having been struck on the head. It was a major political event of the time. Scott says he has no memory of it at all.

Scott’s report records that the meeting Young Liberals Council:

‘condemns the vicious & unnecessary attack on the left wing demonstrators by the police and blatant bias shown by the police in favour of the march organised by the National Front’

It also asked the Home Secretary to commission a public inquiry and disband the Met’s notoriously violent Special Patrol Group (who five years later went on to kill another anti-fascist, Blair Peach, during another counter-demonstration against the National Front).

Scott said that ‘you need as much information as you can glean’ if you’re allocating resources for forthcoming demonstrations. But, it was pointed out, this is not about any future event, it’s a political party asking for an inquiry into a past event, within the democratic process.

Asked if the Young Liberals were targeted because they were involved in anti-apartheid campaigning, Scott confirmed that the protests at sports matches by all-white teams from apartheid South Africa were scenes of public disorder.

Why would a self-tasking undercover like Scott not choose to spy on the far right?

‘Well, as far as I know, there weren’t any problems with the far right. I guess you mean the National Front… I wasn’t aware of too many demonstrations organised by them’

COMMITMENT

Commitment was a small libertarian anarchist group who met in South London who Scott said wanted ‘to irritate and inconvenience some large companies’. Meetings were usually 6-8 people.

In March 1972, Scott reported [UCPI0000008560] on them and their objection to Rio Tinto Zinc mining in Snowdonia National Park.

He cannot recall Commitment being involved in any public disorder or criminal offences. So why infiltrate them at all? His explanation, once again, ended up opposing where it began:

‘potentially they could cause chaos in the streets. The fact that they didn’t was probably lack of organisation rather than a will to do so… because clearly if you can speak about it you can carry it out.’

Scott also infiltrated Croydon Libertarians, whose membership overlapped with Commitment. One of his reports [UCPI0000008152] from April 1973 describes how Croydon Libertarians used a length of chain to block a road as part of a campaign to create a pedestrian precinct. The chain only stayed in place for five minutes or so, to the consternation of the group. It seems clear that Scott was responsible for this rapid removal.

He said the group was no threat to public safety:

‘it was on this kind of level, no one was thinking of doing anything that was too dangerous or dramatic, it was this kind of level of stuff’

STAR & GARTER ARRESTS

On 12 May 1972, protesters blockaded the Star & Garter Hotel, Richmond, in order to prevent the British Lions rugby team leaving for the airport to go on a tour of apartheid South Africa.

A report [MPS-526782] from 16 May 1972 describes a planning meeting of around 20 people at the house of Ernest Rodker. The activists planned for look-outs – those who kept an eye on the movements of the rugby players – and for cars and deliveries of skips that could be used to block the coach from leaving the hotel.

There was a discussion of methods for signalling to each other. The report includes a story of Jonathan Rosenhead offering flares for this purpose, and later lighting one in the car-park. Rosenhead told the Inquiry last week that he has never handled a flare in his life.

Asked of he might be mistaken, Scott was adamant:

‘If I’ve written the report that said that he did it then he would have done it.’

A Special Branch report [MPS-0737087], from the day after the action, tells of activists sitting down to block the British Lions rugby team bus, saying as each small group was arrested, another group would replace them.

Ernest Rodker in his evidence provided at handwritten letter [UCPI0000033628] from a witness to the action. In it, Scott is described as still present after most people had been arrested, and being with a woman who was trying to stop the police from moving a red Mini blocking the entrance.

Scott was one of 14 people arrested that day. His report included comments from the activists’ lawyers – these have been redacted from the documents released by the Inquiry as even now, 50 years later, they are subject to legal privilege. And yet they were put in a report to the prosecution side from a spy among the defendants!

He confirmed that he was present at meetings of the defendants and their lawyers.

The group was summonsed to appear at Magistrates Court on 14 May 1972. All the defendants pled Not Guilty and were bailed to return to court in June.

POLICE PLEASED WITH THEIR CRIME

He did not inform anyone at the court that ‘Michael Scott’ was not his real name. He was not told of anyone else doing so.

Scott had earlier told the Inquiry he did not recall ever seeing the 1969 Home Office circular document on informants who take part in crime, which expressly forbade any course of action that was likely to mislead a court.

After that first court appearance, a report [MPS-0526782] shows Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ferguson Smith also declaring himself happy to ignore Home Office protocol and continue with this subversion of the judicial system:

‘Faced with an awkward dilemma for so young an officer, I feel that DC [redacted] acted with refreshing initiative, as a result of which he must now have both feet inside the door of this group of anarchist-oriented extremists under the control and direction of Ernest Rodker. This man has been a thorn in the flesh for several years now, having had no fewer than 14 court appearances prior to 1963 for offences involving public disorder.’

Ferguson Smith is none other than the officer who oversaw Conrad Dixon’s founding of the SDS in 1968.

Arrest of undercover officers was dismissed as:

‘merely as one of the hazards associated with the valuable type of work he is doing. there is absolutely no criticism of the officer’

The memo said that the Assistant Commissioner (Crime), one of the most senior officers in the Met, had been informed. There can be no longer be any doubt that the SDS’s activities were known and approved at the highest levels of the Met.

According to another report by Scott [MPS-0737109], 13 people attended a meeting at Jonathan Rosenhead’s home on 21 May 1972 which included some discussion on legal strategy in the case – which is reported back. Scott does not recall any discussions with the unit’s managers about this legal case.

A further report by Scott [MPS-0737108] includes advice given to the group of defendants by their lawyer Ben Birnberg. Again, he has no recollection of the managers commenting on this.

Along with the others, Scott was found guilty (of obstructing both the highway and the police) and was fined. He thinks he would have claimed this under his spycops expenses.

CRIMINALISING THE REAL MICHAEL SCOTT

Scott was convicted under the identity of a real person. Asked if possible repercussions on the real Michael Scott bothered him, he was unruffled:

‘It was such a low key thing that it wouldn’t matter who you were. If you had been convicted of such a thing it would mean very little really.’

If the conviction didn’t belong to the real Michael Scott, did the spycop who stole the identity consider himself as a person with a criminal record, did he declare it if he was asked about previous convictions?

‘No, I didn’t. I never gave it another thought really.’

WEST CROSS ACTION GROUP

Scott also infiltrated the West Cross Action Group (WCAG), which opposed proposed construction of an urban motorway.

‘I suppose it’s like anyone that is protesting about a road. There’s the possibility that they would do something to stop it happening, and that’s of interest to the police.’

The reason this particular group was infiltrated became clear when we saw a report [UCPI0000008258] describing a meeting that was convened by Peter Hain and held at his home.

The next WCAG meeting report [UCPI0000008260] is from a different campaigner’s home. According to the report, Hain suggested some form of direct action should be incorporated into the campaign and suggested painting the roads at the points where the motorway would cross existing avenues might be a good idea.

Scott admitted WCAG did not cause disorder, paint roads, nor any other crime. So, were they seeking to overthrow parliamentary democracy?

‘They may well have been. They may well. But I don’t think so.’

And yet, Scott infiltrated the group, attended the meetings, and his reports were copied to the Security Service (MI5).

‘Well it wasn’t all about overthrowing democracy, it was about nuisance value and the fact that they caused problems and possibly danger to the public by their actions and therefore this is the role of the police. This is what we have police for, to look after us’.

IRISH SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

There are reports by Scott on the Irish Solidarity Campaign (ISC) for a short period in 1972, following in the wake of Bloody Sunday.

On 30 January 1972, British soldiers in Derry opened fire on a march protesting against internment without trial in Northern Ireland. 26 civilians were shot, 14 died. Many of the victims were shot fleeing the soldiers, and others while trying to help the wounded.

Outrage spread to Great Britain. Scott infiltrated the ISC, reporting on them from May to October 1972. He was appointed the coordinator for the donations of books to send to detainees.

He concedes that the organisation was not violent, but may have been supportive of people who were. Harking back to the formation of Special Branch – founded in 1883 to spy on Irish nationalists in London – he said:

‘this was the function of Special Branch in its origins and therefore they had a responsibility’

ANTI-INTERNMENT LEAGUE

He moved on to infiltrate the Anti-Internment League (AIL), another organisation opposed to detention without trial in Northern Ireland, from September 1972 to November 1973. He was unable to grasp the civil liberties and human rights issues, saying of the group:

‘It was about supporting the rebellion in Ireland really’

Characteristically, he contradicted himself a few minutes later. Queried about his report [MPS-0728845] that detailed a pro-bombing speech at the October 1972 AIL conference, he said such views weren’t common in the group:

‘there were many people that were essentially liberals that really, that just didn’t believe in interning people and that kind of thing.’

His report said that the conference disappointed many who came, and two members of the International Marxist Group, Géry Lawless and Bob Purdie, had taken leadership roles in the AIL.

TROOPS OUT MOVEMENT

In a September 1972 report [UCPI0000007991], Scott mentions the Troops Out Movement (TOM). He admits TOM was not violent, and did not seek to overthrow parliamentary democracy, but nonetheless:

‘Troops, I suppose, are of interest to all of us, including Special Branch. As an organisation upholding the law, they would be interested in anything that was actually anti the troops.’

There was also some crossover between TOM and the International Marxist Group, who were already targeted by spycops.

Lawless was involved in the running of TOM, and was already spied on by SDS officer Richard Clark who – as ‘Rick Gibson’ – had set up a TOM branch in order to climb through the organisation to its top level before sabotaging it. (See also the statement of Mary below.)

‘IMG is a virulent Marxist group and they were endeavouring to infiltrate anywhere they could really cause problems. But in the case of Géry Lawless, he was Irish, of course, and he was – what can I say? – he was a problem wherever he went… he was just a nasty individual actually.’

VIOLENCE AGAINST TRUTH

Scott was told Lawless had accused him of being a police officer. He decided he had to do something about in order to make everyone believe that the allegations were false.

Amazingly, the same night he was told of the accusation, while driving he apparently chanced across Lawless, who was making a call in a phone box. Going to the phonebox, Scott opened the door and confronted him angrily. On being told to ‘feck off’ he punched Lawless hard enough to chip a bone in his hand and require medical attention.

Scott laughed as he remembered this incident, claiming that Lawless was trying to take off his belt to defend himself.

Why was a crime of violence against a member of the public acceptable?

‘It was acceptable to me and I was the one that made the decision. I was the one that was there, and the person that was the so-called victim was Géry Lawless’

It was nonetheless a crime of violence, surely?

‘I don’t think so, no.’

Throughout this section of the evidence, the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, was visible on-screen. He did not appear to be taking this spycops criminality very seriously.

WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

Scott chose the Little Ilford branch of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) as his next target. He described the WRP as Trotskyists who were trying to infiltrate trade unions and foment industrial unrest.

We were shown one report [UCPI 0000006961] from 1975 to illustrate their ideological position. It referred to a march from Hull to Liverpool which would pass through the Yorkshire coalfields, where National Union of Mineworkers’ leader Arthur Scargill would be denounced as a ‘Stalinist betrayer of the working class’.

‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77), also infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party, with an unusual outcome. Not knowing he was a spy, the members asked him, in turn, to infiltrate a breakaway group of the far-right National Front.

Scott recalls meeting with Collins at the SDS safe house. He says he was not aware of this extra deployment into the far-right, and in fact says the two men never even discussed their shared experience of infiltrating the WRP.

There are many reports on the WRP, including a June 1975 report [UCPI0000012752] of a meeting of around 500 people in Liverpool that discussed the case of the jailed striking building workers known as the Shrewsbury Two.

Despite being credited as the report’s originator, Scott says knows nothing of any of these campaigns events or the case, including that the trials were held in Shrewsbury.

In April 1975, Scott reported [UCPI0000007111] on the forthcoming Catholic marriage of two members of the Little Ilford WRP:

‘It’s important to know that when members change their name by marriage and who they’re married to, it’s important to know. You build up a picture of what’s going on.’

This lack of proportionality took many forms. A month later, Scott reported [UCPI0000007176] that:

‘The Workers Revolutionary Party is actively considering infiltrating Labour Party Young Socialists with a view to the eventual subversion of all branches of the LPYS… Similar infiltration of other groups is being considered but apparently the Young Communist League has been rejected on the grounds that it is virtually non existent.’

Quite where the WRP were going to find thousands of people across the country to take over every branch of the Labour Party’s youth wing does not appear to have been considered.

After attending a WRP training course at White Meadows in Derbyshire, his deployment ended.

In all his five years undercover in the Special Demonstration Squad, Scott can only remember witnessing one occasion of public disorder. It was a demonstration in Whitehall and a man in a bowler hat trying to hit people with an umbrella. Scott can’t remember why, nor what the issue was.

Full witness statement of ‘Mike Scott’

‘Mary’

‘Mary’ is one of the women who was deceived into a relationship by Special Demonstration Squad officer Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76).

Mary attended Goldsmith’s College in London from 1972 to1975, and joined the Socialist Society formed of students on the far left, including the International Marxist Group, International Socialists, and many independents.

The Socialist Society assisted students, and was involved in many campaigns beyond the campus, in workplaces, factories and communities in South London. It held weekly meetings with speakers on historical, economic and social issues. These often involved topical subjects, such as Vietnam and South Africa.

Mary recalls they also had speakers on issues of anti-racism, women’s liberation, academic freedom, civil liberties, free speech and human rights in general. One of their demands was for a daytime crèche for students who were parents. It was a successful campaign.

We were affiliated to and attended the local Trades Council, and we hoped to support local workers in their struggles for improved pay and conditions.

To support the national miners’ strike in the early 1970s, we adopted a mine in Wales. I visited the town and stayed with a local family to show our solidarity.

The Socialist Society also engaged in campaigns against the fascist National Front. Mary notes that it’s important to understand that during this time the fascists had united in one organisation. They were both racist and anti-democratic:

‘The State was standing by as the fascists organised. The police by their nature were institutionally racist, and as a result let the National Front organise at will’

Mary had come to London from South Africa, so the anti-apartheid movement’s struggle was especially close to her heart

During the period she was spied upon she also supported the International Marxist Group (IMG) and National Abortion Campaign.

‘I feel uncomfortable continuing to answer the questions about the IMG and my involvement in it. The questions appear loaded.

‘My activities were for social justice and in defence of human rights — which the last time I checked, are allowed in a democratic society.’

‘Seriously, I thought this public inquiry was meant to be investigating undercover political policing’

Her statements echoes what others have said last week. With the passage of time, many of the issues we were campaigning around have been shown to be completely justified.
We were on the right side of history.

In order to campaign effectively it required challenging the State, which is our legal right and responsibility as citizens:

‘At no point was I ever involved in conspiracies or discussions to involve myself in illegal or violent activities.

‘In fact, there were a number of occasions where I felt unprotected by the police when I should have been protected. Our meeting in East Ham Town Hall was smashed up, fascists coming into the building. The police who were outside stood back and let it happen.

I had forgotten that I had a ‘party name’ but have discovered from Rick Gibson’s notes that my alias was ‘Millwall.’ I sold Red Weekly every other week outside the Den, Millwall Football Club’s ground, and outside factories in south London. I have to say I was a braver woman than I thought I would ever be.’

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

We then get to the topic of the sexual relationship with Rick Gibson.

‘He was easy to befriend, he was a harmless sort of person and he was not predatory. He was very mild, very bland and also very boring.’

Last week at the Inquiry we heard that Rick Gibson built his career infiltrating activist groups, using relationships with four different women to win trust and build his cover story.

‘He was a frequent visitor to both myself and to my flatmate (who was also an activist). I assumed that our sexual encounters were a manifestation of a mutual attraction. They proved to be half-hearted and fizzled out.

‘Had I known he was a police officer there is absolutely no way I would have had any sexual contact with him at all. His use of sex was a way of consolidating his history, and to cement his reputation. He was using it to get closer to us as a group of activists.

‘I do find it appalling that in the reports for senior management ‘Rick Gibson’ has seemingly left out the sexual contact.

‘I find the whole strategy and practice of spycops having sexual relations with activists as immoral unprincipled and a criminal abuse of emotions. It is also an abuse of their own partners and families.

‘I am totally opposed to any acts of violence. That stems from my background of being aware of State violence in South Africa.

‘I would also add that the sexual contact that I and other women faced was a form of State violence.

‘Finally, I am angry with the Metropolitan Police. It took it upon itself to do this and had a cavalier attitude to privacy. Nor did the Metropolitan Police consider the rights of people to be involved in legal and genuine political activities.’

GIBSON’S ENTRANCE

Gibson wrote to the national office of the Troops Out Movement in December 1974. Quite likely, his membership application was a police response to the Birmingham pub bombing in November. He asked if there was a local branch in South East London.

‘His letter prompted myself and other activists, such as Richard Chessum, to meet with him and launch an entirely new branch. Without the undercover, it would not have existed.’

Mary first met Rick Gibson in December 1974 or early January 1975, when he approached her at a political stall at the University. Soon thereafter, the Socialist Society launched the Troops Out Movement in South East London, and had their first meeting.

As is now clear, befriending Mary and Richard Chessum was just a stepping stone to bigger things. Gibson became London organiser of the Troops Out Movement relatively quickly, and the convenor of the national officers next.

Mary probably saw Gibson for the last time in late 1975. As he became more and more involved in TOM nationally and moved up the ‘career’ ladder he became increasingly peripheral to her.

The Inquiry has asked her if she remembered other undercover officers active as well; ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76), ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76), and ‘Gary Roberts‘ (HN353, 1974-78). Mary said she sadly she can’t be of help without further information, disclosure or contemporaneous photographs that the Inquiry refuses to supply.

GIBSON’S EXIT

Gibson was exposed by members of Big Flame who did not trust him, and in their investigation found both the birth and the death certificates for the real Rick Gibson, whose identity the spycops had stolen.

Mary was simply astounded when she found out he was a police officer. But certain aspects of Rick Gibson’s behaviour clearly fell into place.

‘He was always strangely unobtainable. He would not exchange contact details and he always had reasons why he could not be contacted. He said he worked for the water board and was often away.

‘He had no political back history, no other back history, he seemed to be extremely politically naive and also utterly new to the idea of activism.’

Looking back, it is clear that his sexual advances, and the use of sex was a way of ingratiating his way into the group as a whole.

‘I am disgusted that the police felt it appropriate to spy on people campaigning for better conditions for working class people, for democracy, civil liberties and human rights.

‘I am not traumatised, just feel embarrassed and foolish being used and conned. It really angers me as the police had no right to do this.

‘The only solace I can take is that that everybody else was fooled by ‘Rick Gibson’ as well until Big Flame found out who he really was.’

Finally, Mary wants to know what personal information is held on her by the police, Special Branch and MI5, and what was passed on when she moved to Cardiff. This includes her correspondence, whether her phone was tapped and what records there are of her conversations with her friends.

Mary believes that the intelligence reports that have been disclosed only form a small part of the whole picture, and hopes the Inquiry will disclose more.

‘The reports disclosed to me must have been seen by senior civil servants and Ministers.

‘This type of political policing is completely unwarranted. I would like to know who authorised this activity by the police, and how it was justified.

‘In a democratic society there is a duty to campaign and protest when and where necessary, the actions of the police and the undercover officers bring democracy into disrepute.’

Full Witness Statement of Mary

You can read more about this case at:
‘Rick Gibson’ – spycops sexually targeted women from the start, 28 November 2017
‘Mary’ proves: sexual targeting was always part of spycops, 30 January 2017

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (30 Apr 2021)<<
>>Next UCPI Daily Report (5 May 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 8

30 April 2021

Evidence from witness:
Peter Hain

On Friday 30 April, the Undercover Policing Inquiry was devoted to hearing evidence from just one person, Peter Hain. Hain had a rich career as an activist, and hence a thick secret police file that include decades of reports from undercover officers of the Special Demonstration Squad.

His long experience as a public speaker and a politician made him a strong witness. Not only did he challenge the line of questioning the Inquiry had chosen, he also made a strong case for non-violent direct action.

Hain refused to be put in the position where, as an activist, he had to defend his campaigning, telling the Inquiry this attitude put them and the police at the wrong side of history. Time and again, Hain used the questions as an opportunity to say what he had to say. In doing so, this day of testimony resulted in an interesting lecture on social history.

FROM ACTIVIST TO PEER OF THE REALM

As well as his involvement in the Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigning against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, Hain was in the Young Liberals – a more radical and progressive group than the main Liberal Party. He served as a member of its National Executive between 1973-75, and then as President from 1975-77.

Hain chaired the Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) campaign, which opposed a planned cricket tour of England by an all-white South African team, from its launch in September 1969 until it was disbanded in late May 1970.

He was also active in the Action Committee Against Racialism 1970-73 and a founder member and press officer for the Anti-Nazi League (ANL). He joined the Labour Party in September 1977 and was then elected as an MP in 1991. He was then a government minister for five years and Cabinet minister for seven years.

This meant that he signed off ‘on work of utmost sensitivity’. He signed warrants for surveillance and interception, and saw intelligence reports produced by the police, Security Service (MI5), MI6 and GCHQ. Hain has been a Privy Councillor since 2001, and a member of the House of Lords since 2015.

APARTHEID

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. It categorised people into a hierarchy of racial groups, with whites at the top.

The laws segregated all areas of life, reserving the best for whites. It applied to everything from education, employment and housing to which bench to sit on or which beach people could visit. Most of the population was denied the right to vote. Sexual relationships and marriages between people of different racial groups were illegal.

 

Asked about the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), Hain explained that, though apartheid is universally regarded as immoral today, it wasn’t so in the past:

‘For 50 years or so it was a bitter long hard struggle, and people take it for granted that everybody was against apartheid, because it was such a detestable institution of racism like the world has never seen… You have quite correctly depicted it as a movement that was in a minority, albeit with a large reservoir of public sympathy’

The South African apartheid state presented itself as a bulwark against communism, and it suited its purposes to be seen as part of the ‘democratic West’. Of course, it went against all the principles of democracy as the vast majority of the population was denied the right to vote. It was one of the most vicious tyrannies that the world has ever seen where a minority, less than 10% of the population, oppressed the great majority on grounds of race.

‘We were on the side of justice and equality and human rights, and the apartheid regime was on the wrong side of all those issues.’

The Western governments supported the regime by supplying it with arms, continuing to invest in and trade with it, opposing sanctions, and more.

SOUTH AFRICAN EXILE

Hain had grown up in apartheid South Africa. His parents were from conventional white South African families but ‘very unusually took a stand against the apartheid system’ and were forced into exile as a result. They moved to Britain in 1966 and lived in Putney, south London.

In documents produced by the Metropolitan police, his parents are described as communists. Hain says this is not true, his parents were members of the South African Liberal Party, never the Communist Party.

Hain said the Met files on his family contain details that could only have come from South African sources. Dismissing opponents of apartheid as communists was standard practice for them, and this distortion is typical of both the South African security services and the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) reports.

Hain recalled the case of South African-born ‘cape-coloured’ cricketer Basil D’Oliveira. As he was ‘Cape Coloured’ (a South African ethnic group with diverse ancestral heritage), he was not allowed to play in his own country, but started playing for the England team while living here in exile. He was then excluded from taking part in the England team’s 1968 tour of South Africa to appease the apartheid regime.

Just before the team was to leave, however, he was asked to replace another player who was injured, prompting accusations from then Prime Minister Vorster and other South African politicians that the selection was politically motivated. Attempts to find a compromise followed, but these led nowhere. The English subsequently cancelled the tour.

This had made it clear to young Hain that the English cricket authorities were on the side of apartheid, and supported the racist form of cricket operating in South Africa.

The Inquiry moved on to discuss the ‘Wilf Isaacs Eleven tour’. Isaacs was a businessman – and South African Army officer – who sponsored a cricket tour of Britain in 1969. Such sporting tours by all-white teams were regarded as promotion of apartheid, and they also provided a tangible target for anti-apartheid campaigners in Britain.

Hain was 19 at the time. He said he is proud to recall the pitch invasion he organised in Basildon on 5 July 1969. As far as he knows, this was the first non-violent direct action that took place against a South African cricket team.

STOP THE SEVENTY TOUR

This led to advance planning for similar future tours. They formed Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) to oppose a planned visit from the South African cricket team in 1970. In the run up to that, the campaign started protesting against the South African Springboks rugby team in the winter of 1969/70.

The Hain family’s small flat became the headquarters for the STST campaign. Meetings were held there, their phone number became the national campaign contact, and his mother the group’s unofficial secretary.

Hain explained:

‘this was a campaign which came out of nowhere – it suddenly became massive; it was spontaneous and decentralised, with autonomous groups in different places.’

The Inquiry put it to Hain that there was a ‘potential for violence’ in the STST campaign because emotions must have been ‘running high on both sides’.

Hain refuted this, reconnecting various incidents where he and others used purely non-violent tactics.

‘Don’t scrum with a racist bum’ became a much-loved slogan following protests at the Springboks’ arrival at Heathrow Airport in October 1969. The team’s first training session, which they found out took place near the Hain family home, became the target of protest by STST. The AAM organised a demo at the South African embassy, where the team was due to attend an evening reception.

STST’s Ad Hoc Committee met at the Hain family’s flat on 5 December 1969. Hain recollects that it consisted of ‘people I trusted’, planning the upcoming protests at the Springboks’ match at Twickenham. He believes that this group was never infiltrated.

However, there is a detailed report of this meeting [UCPI0000008656], which records six people attending, signed by the SDS’ Sergeant Mike Ferguson (HN135).

In their suggestive line of questioning, the Inquiry stated that there was an element of deliberately misleading fellow activists by suggesting that all their protests would be outside the cricket ground, when in fact the main event – the pitch invasion – was inside. Hain said that there was a good reason for not mentioning it, to keep it secret from the police; had the police known about the pitch plan, it would have scuppered chances of success.

Hain told the story of one activist dressed in a suit, who managed to drive the team’s coach for a short time, until he was forced to a halt by members of the rugby team and assaulted by them.

Asked about tin tacks sprinkled on a pitch at a protest in Bristol, Hain made it clear that he was opposed to this tactic, and that it was a one-off action by one person.

He said that claims in reports by SDS officer Mike Ferguson that this was to be an ongoing tactic, and that STST would supply the tacks, are outright lies. And, indeed, they were just part of a pattern of lies and exaggerations in the reports.

At the previous day’s Inquiry hearing, Hain’s fellow anti-apartheid campaigner Jonathan Rosenhead had also noted the ‘creative’ tendencies’ in Ferguson’s reporting. This might be a special concern as Ferguson went in to head the SDS in 1978.

Hain was emphatic, and turned the question from one asking him to justify his actions, to the spycops justifying theirs:

‘I don’t remember any instance of a planned violent act, although obviously this tin tacks one could have led to that. But if you’re making the point that this was a massive movement and there were lots of people organising spontaneously, yes, there were.

‘But does that justify Mike Ferguson deploying special, extraordinary police resources to take part in meetings in my living room or my parents’ living room? And in Young Liberal meetings, another undercover officer going by the name of ‘Mike Scott’, who I again don’t recognise?…

‘Why were they not targeting the agents of apartheid bombing and killing and acting illegally and violently in London at the time?…

‘I mean, this was a completely disproportionate waste of police resources, and it was on the wrong side of history. What the Mike Fergusons and the Mike Scotts actually should have been doing was helping bring down the apartheid system and deploying British security and policing resources to track down apartheid agents acting illegally in London. Instead of that they were spying on us.’

INSINUATIONS OF VIOLENCE

Asked if it was understandable that police ‘faced with these novel, rather effective tactics’ should seek to gather all the information on secret plans, Hain cut in:

‘I know what you’re trying to insinuate, but… we were transparently public, some might say unwisely honest, about what our intentions were, which was to stop the tour by non-violent direct action.

‘And that leads me to where I think you’re taking me. Why was an undercover officer in virtually every meeting that I attended when they could have found out what I was planning to do by what I’d publicly stated?’

Hain set his actions among the noble company of campaigns that were also vilified at the time, but are now celebrated:

‘I see non-violent direct action of the kind that I advocated and participated in through the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign, as having a long lineage going back to the Suffragettes, to early trade unionists, to the Chartists protesting for the vote, to Mahatma Gandhi in India protesting against British colonial rule for Indian independence. It’s in a long line of non-violent direct action that’s also carried out by Extinction Rebellion and other environmental protests today.’

They were not even doing anything unlawful, he said, pointing out that trespassing on the pitch was not even a criminal offence:

‘I’m still proud that I did non-violent direct action to change the course of history, and we did change the course of history.

‘That Stop The Seventy Tour campaign was fundamental, as Nelson Mandela subsequently told me, having seen it or heard about it from [the prison on] Robben Island where he was at the time, it was fundamental in changing the nature of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, in galvanizing it and in ultimately bringing about the downfall of apartheid’.

ARE YOU, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, A COMMUNIST?

As during the interrogations of Jonathan Rosenhead and Christabel Gurney earlier in the week, the Inquiry opted for a line of questioning reminiscent of the McCarthy Un-American Hearings of the 1950s, in which guilt by association with radical groups or ideas is seemingly used to justify the State’s spying.

Hain was asked about the various radical groups listed as affiliated to the STST; the AAM, the National Union of Students, the National League of Young Liberals, the Student Christian Movement, the International Socialists and the Young Communist League. Hain made a point of adding the United Nations Youth Student Association to this list, and explained that his philosophy:

‘has always been – you bring in the broadest spectrum of opinion that you can that share in common a single objective… who can rally together, even though they may disagree about everything else.’

The Inquiry quoted from another SDS report by Mike Ferguson [UCPI0000008606] on an STST National Committee meeting held towards the end of the group’s activities in May 1970, which read:

‘There could be no doubt that the next two weeks would be crucial as far as getting the tour cancelled was concerned, and the trump cards which STST had to play in connection with the Commonwealth Games and racial disorder which would occur in the event of the tour taking place’

The Inquiry asked:

‘Was racial disorder one of your trump cards, Lord Hain?’

Hain refuted the insinuation that STST would somehow incite and organise racial disorder, explaining that the disorder mentioned was from the potential of pro-tour and pro-apartheid groups banding with the National Front and other racists. He had meant that this might get the tour cancelled if other methods failed.

RUGBY TOUR

Turning to the South African Springboks’ rugby tour of 1969, the Inquiry read a passage from Hain’s memoir, Outside In:

‘Suddenly the campaign exploded into action and into prominence. It was announced on 23 October that weedkiller had been sprayed on Oxford University’s rugby ground just a week before the team was due to arrive. The words “Oxford rejects apartheid” appeared in five-foot letters on the pitch.

‘The next day the university rugby club officials called off the match. They said that they had taken this decision after consultations with the Thames Valley Police “because of the risk of violence”.’

Asked if this was a fair summary of the events, Hain once again deftly cut down the implications of the question:

‘What doesn’t summarise it fairly is the risk of violence. The Oxford anti-apartheid group, which organised this quite independently of me, I might add, though with my general approval, though I was never a fan of spraying weedkiller anywhere.

‘But the Oxford Anti-Apartheid Movement was not intending violence; it was intending to adopt the same non-violent direct action tactics that it had adopted during the Wilf Isaacs tour, except on a much, much bigger scale, and that was why the game was cancelled and the venue was transferred.’

Hain made the point that the Anti-Apartheid Movement suffered extreme violence from agents of the South African State. This included the bombing and arson attacks on their offices, letter bombs being sent to their homes. Hain himself was sent one – it was opened by his teenage sister, and the matter was never fully investigated by the police. Hain demanded to know why this was.

He described the brutal response to a pitch invasion at the Springboks’ match in Swansea in November 1969.

‘They ran on, they sat down, they interrupted play for, as I recall, over ten minutes, as it was intended. They were then carried off by the police and thrown to rugby stewards, rugby vigilantes, if you like, recruited for these purposes, and thoroughly beaten up. A friend of mine had his jaw broken, a young woman demonstrator nearly lost an eye…

‘They could have been carried out of St Helens, but there was clearly a pre-planned attempt to beat the hell out of the protesters, and that’s what happened.’

After outrage in the mainstream media and a delegation, led by Hain, to the Home Office, such policing did not recur.

Hain described the protests that followed the Springboks to Dublin. 10,000 people marched, led by Bernadette Devlin MP (whose name appears in many Special Branch reports). This was the biggest demo of the entire tour, organised by two South African exiles, and the largest demonstration of any kind in Dublin for decades.

TRUE SPIES – OR TRUE LIES?

In 2002, the BBC broadcast a three-part series called True Spies that, for the first time, revealed the SDS to a wide audience.

In what was clearly an effort to paint the secret police in a positive light, journalist Peter Taylor interviewed several spycops and their cover officers, and introduced former Special Branch officer, Wilf Knight, the handler of the late Mike Ferguson.

Because Ferguson was identified in True Spies, it made no sense for the Inquiry to restrict his real name, but it did indeed grant anonymity for his cover name (for most former spycops this is the other way round, either that or both their real and cover name are restricted).

Today we learned that the Inquiry has told Hain the cover name in case it jogged his memory, but it did not. It is frankly bizarre for the Inquiry to be protecting the fake name used 50 years ago by a spycop who is now dead.

True Spies episode 1: ‘Subversive My Arse’, 27 October 2002

The Inquiry quoted a section from the True Spies transcript (page 12), where Knight proudly says:

‘I don’t think Peter Hain ever realised that he had a police officer as his number two.’

Hain refuted this, saying he never had a ‘number two’ at all. He thinks the undercovers routinely lied in their reports.

In True Spies, Knight described how Mike Ferguson’s SDS reports helped thwart the protestors plans:

‘The intention was for demonstrators, just prior to half time, to throw flare bombs, smoke bombs and metal tacks onto the pitch. Mike passed that information on, it was passed on to the uniform, and at the appointed time officers were there with sand buckets and metal magnets and although they threw as many as they could onto the pitch they were snuffed out, taken away and the players didn’t know that it had taken place and when they came out after half time the game carried on.’

Hain said it was:

‘a very clear example of a lie by Mike, a straight lie’

There was no throwing of tacks at Twickenham, let alone police clearing them with magnets. Asked by Counsel to the Inquiry, David Barr QC, if it was possible that Wilf Knight wasn’t lying, merely suffering from some confusion 30 years after the events he described, Hain said:

’“Some confusion” would be a very charitable description of it, if I may say so, Mr Barr, because it was typical of the behaviour of undercover officers, as I’ve seen in the documentation provided to me by the Inquiry, that they very rarely told the truth about what was going on.’

The Inquiry then cited another section from True Spies – the story of how Mike Ferguson diverted attention away from himself by accusing a genuine member of the group of being an infiltrator, who Hain then threw out of the meeting. Hain is pretty sure this is yet another fabrication. He remembers one person being disinvited from attending meetings of the group, but not in the way described.

The Inquiry turned to an SDS report [UCPI0000008660], the STST National Conference in March 1970. Mike Brearley, a British first-class cricketer speaking at the conference, asked STST activists to refrain from violence.

Hain said he applauded Brearley for this, and added that he was a courageous man, the only cricketer to make a public stand in support of the STST campaign. John Taylor was the only rugby international player to do the same.

THE ‘C’ WORD

The report also quoted Hain as saying that, after the Springboks’ tour, STST supporters should move to oppose the broader underlying issues of racism and the capitalist system that nurtures it.

Questioned on whether this meant there was an ulterior motive to the campaign, Hain retorted that the undercovers were trying to push a false narrative about a secretive second strand of the campaign – who wanted to use more violent tactics – which just did not exist.

As for opposing capitalism, he met that point head on:

‘I think that capitalism run in its more extreme way is designed to create a rich elite at the top and great impoverishment down below, instead of to spread wealth and ownership more widely and to allow people to participate more equitably in the running of their economy.

‘So I want a fairer, more just economic system, and I make no bones about that. I was a socialist at the time I was in the Young Liberals and I remain one, and if that’s the discussion we want to have, I’m very happy to have it.

‘But the point I was making at the time was that the British capitalist system was more interested in profits and in trade, than in decency and human rights and justice and non-racism because, actually, its trade of arms and its supplying of arms was perpetuating apartheid, entrenching it and strengthening it.’

SUCCESS

Hain mentioned his belief that South African intelligence operatives infiltrated and secretly recorded meetings, and that they collaborated with the Met’s Special Branch.

Nevertheless, eventually the 1970 cricket tour was called off, just weeks before it was due to start. The STST campaign had been successful. Asked if the planned protests would have gone ahead if it hadn’t been cancelled, Hain enthusiastically confirmed they would. He gave examples of the kinds of exciting tactics the activists had come up with.

Hain emphasised that it came at a crucial time for the campaign against apartheid. Within South Africa the resistance was suffering severe repression, the leaders imprisoned, campaigners who were driven into exile were attacked, arrested and tortured.

‘So this campaign came at a time and achieved a victory which was very, very important for the momentum of the international anti-apartheid movement.’

YOUNG LIBERALS

Moving on to Hain’s involvement with the Young Liberals, the Inquiry noted that it was unusual for the youth wing of a mainstream political party to be prepared to commit minor criminal acts in order to advance its aims.

Hain asked for clarification on what type of minor crime was being invoked:

‘You mean like occurred at the Sarah Everard demonstration at Clapham Common? Would you describe that as a minor…’

He was interrupted and told that he wasn’t there to ask questions.

Hain was presented with the example of his sitting down on a zebra crossing. Hain was happy to admit that he had done this:

‘it did cause a lot of tension within the Liberal Party, though I don’t think that that’s the focus of this Inquiry’

It was pointed out that, according to the SDS reports, the Young Liberals were discussing issues such as pensions, pollution, and homelessness. But did they also discuss non-violent direct action?

Hain pulled the insinuation up into the light:

‘But what’s wrong with it? What is wrong with non-violent direct action?’

He was told there was no specific objection, to which he pointed out they’d labelled it ‘criminal’ and, when pressed, downgraded that to ‘minor criminal’.

‘What I object to about this line of questioning, is when it comes to progressive radical movements, whether it’s environmentalists today, whether it’s anti-racists, Black Lives Matter, whether it’s Greenpeace or Extinction Rebellion or the Anti-Apartheid Movement of its era, we are all presented as somehow subversive or semi-criminal or objectionable or disrupting England’s green and pleasant land.

‘Actually, that pejorative prism through which radical politics is presented is, in my view, completely unacceptable, reprehensible and partisan. That is the sort of perspective of undercover policing and ideology that was driving it. That’s my major concern, and I think, you know, I’m not accusing you personally, but I think you’re reflecting that state of mind’

Hain then talked about how this undercover political policing got to the point where instead of catching the racists responsible for Stephen Lawrence’s death, they infiltrated the Stephen Lawrence campaign that was seeking justice.

REPORTING ON HAIN’S FAMILY

Attention turned to a January 1972 SDS report [UCPI 0000008240] on a Putney Young Liberals, meeting at Hain’s family home. According to the report, spycop ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76) was elected as Membership Secretary. Hain does not recall this person, so thinks he may have operated under another name then.

The report mentions Hain’s sisters, 15 year old Jo-Ann, and 13 year old Sally. Hain condemned the ‘disproportionate, politically biased policing’, adding:

‘I really don’t understand why “Mike Scott” was in this meeting at all, how it could be justified by his superiors and what he was doing with particularly two young women teenagers.’

Whether or not we agree with the aims of campaign groups, why should the police be sent to spy on them? Hain noted that ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348) told the Inquiry in November that she could have been doing much more valuable things with her time.

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting intervened, explaining to Hain that some of the questions he’s been asked would have been the result of input from the various police lawyers. Although this was meant to reassure Hain that the line of questioning around the legitimacy of his campaigning was not the Inquiry’s viewpoint, it did reveal that the police, nearly 50 years, later are still seeking to justify their actions.

TELEPHONE TAPPED?

Hain was asked if his family’s phone number was used by other groups, and he confirmed that it was. They suspected that their telephone was tapped, so were cautious about what they said on the phone. Hain’s mother had experienced surveillance in South Africa, so was particularly security-conscious.

In his witness statement [UCPI0000034091], Hain refers to a phone call between his mother and undercover officer ‘Mike Scott‘. In his report, ‘Scott’ claimed that she told him to go to a private meeting at Ernest Rodker’s house. Hain rejected this:

‘I find that so unlikely as to be inconceivable. My mother was incredibly careful about what she said on the phone, and since both my parents and us as a family had lived under apartheid and under constant surveillance by the apartheid police, with Special Branch cars parked at the bottom of our drive following us wherever we went, including me to school, occasionally, on my bike, she was ultra careful, to the point of almost being too careful.’

Hain wondered what this undercover is concealing and why he is not telling the truth here.

INDEFENSIBLE

Hain highlighted three more points about the anti-apartheid campaign.

A police report from 1993 – as the apartheid regime was collapsing and Nelson Mandela, three years out of prison, was poised to become president – refers to the Anti -Apartheid Movement as ‘Stalinist-controlled’.

If that is the type of thinking of these units, Hain said:

‘we have a particular ideology of undercover policing which frankly cannot be defended.’

He has also learnt recently, from a document revealed in Kate Wilson’s case in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, that in November 2003 he was described as a ‘South African terrorist’ by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. Kennedy was in the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, a parallel unit to the SDS, and deceived Kate (and other environmental campaigners) into a relationship.

At the time this spycop was calling Hain a terrorist, Hain was was a member of the British Cabinet, Secretary of State for Wales, the leader of the House of Commons and the Lord Privy Seal.

‘What is it in the DNA of undercover policing that allows its officers to get such a biased and reactionary view of the world, that they make these kind of biased and completely unrepresentative and libellous and defamatory statements?’

ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE

After the racist National Front (NF) had overtaken the Liberal Party in the Greater London Council elections of May 1970, there was a great deal of concern amongst those opposed to fascism and racism about the rise in racist attacks. People felt the need to tackle the problem, and the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) was formed in 1977.

The Inquiry showed an AP News report about the ‘Battle of Lewisham’ in 1977, with the Inquiry pointing out the distressing view of violence against the police.

Hain told the Inquiry about the kind of violence that the far-right used. They physically attacked, and sometimes killed, people. He describes them as ‘swaggering’ through predominantly Black areas, threatening and committing violence. The NF attacked Jewish, Muslim and Black citizens. The ANL sought to stand in their way and block this violence.

Hain did not understand why the police protected these racist thugs, a group ‘whose avowed purpose is to stir up and promote racial hatred’. He notes that such behaviour was criminalised by a later Labour government (that he served in).

He repeated that the ANL was set up as part of a deliberate strategy to do things differently.
There were local groups – no central membership list – and lots of groups based in specific communities and professions such as ‘Nurses Against the Nazis’, ‘Skateboarders Against the Nazis’ etc. The ANL put out leaflets, and campaigned against the NF’s electioneering. They mobilised to stop them openly demonstrating in the street.

Rock Against Racism organised music festivals, so the public could hear anti-racist messages from a range of punk and reggae bands.

He calls it an ‘innovative campaign’ and went on to explain the concern about the far-right influencing youth culture, especially skinhead culture. Punk bands were invited to play at Rock Against Racism. Hain is proud of a formerly racist skinhead who said he had had been convinced by the arguments of the ANL.

Hain was questioned about physical resistance being used by anti-fascists. He responded with some questions of his own:

‘What should be done? Should the National Front just be allowed to continue to march unchecked or should somebody try to do something about it, as we did, and was done in 1936? Now, in 1936, Mosley’s Blackshirts were attacking Jewish communities very predominant in that part of East London. In the modern age, it’s been Black or Muslim communities that the National Front have targeted. Who else was protecting them?’

When it was suggested that these demonstrations and counter-demonstrations caused a ‘public order challenge’ for the police, Hain was unequivocal about the police’s public safety remit:

‘Their purpose should have been combatting racism and Nazism and its menacing rise at that time’.

A report from 1978 [UCPI0000011673] shows that the ANL was aware of NF’s plans to hold at rally at Islington Town Hall on 27 April. The report says the group, including Hain, were ‘drawing up plans for disruption’. Hain disagrees with their aims being mischaracterised in this way – they actually wanted the event not to take place at all:

‘It’s seen through a prism where we are the bad guys, and the racist and Nazis are not. The NF targeted areas with Black/ Muslim/ Jewish populations for their demos. They attacked mosques and synagogues. I think the police should have been on our side in opposing them’

The Inquiry was shown an SDS report [UCPI 0000016579] of the ANL’s national conference March 1981. A section headed ‘Violence’ was read out, which makes it clear that the ANL explicitly opposed the use of ‘tit for tat’ violence, and did promote a wide range of ways of non-violently supporting the victims of racist violence. Hain said he is grateful that the Inquiry has included these documents.

The next SDS report [MPS-0726913] was about Rock Against Racism, which – as mentioned above – held a giant carnival in Victoria Park in East London, in 1978.

Many thousands of people (the police report says more than 30,000) marched to the park from central London that day to see a host of punk and reggae bands, including Tom Robinson Band, X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots and the Clash.

Asked if he would accept that there is a value in the police collecting such intelligence, Hain replied that  the spycops could just have asked them, or the Met officers who were liaising with the organisers of such an open, non-confrontational event, what their intentions were.

30 April 1978 from Asya Gefter on Vimeo.

From the report it becomes clear that the police were mainly worried about the amount of people that would stay over in London, and how that would affect police protection of a planned NF march the next day.

The BBC’s True Spies documentary featured an anecdote from a spycop called ‘Geoff‘ (HN21) about people ‘sitting on sacks of money’. Hain remembers that occasion, it was simply that the money had been collected in donations from people who attended the gig in the park.

Jumping forward nearly 20 years, the Inquiry produced an SDS report [MPS-0742234] on a large ANL meeting that took place at the Camden Centre on 11 June 1994. It was attended by 320 delegates from over 200 separate organisations. By then, as well as being on the ANL Steering Committee, he was a Labour MP.

Hain cited the ‘Wilson doctrine’, an established principle that there must be disclosure of any surveillance of MPs, and said:

‘I think it’s wholly wrong, and I suspect close to being illegal, that undercover officers were reporting on me.’

BACK TO THE EIGHTIES

The Inquiry then produced an SDS report from March 1980 [UCPI0000013868] about a meeting at Westminster Central Hall. This debate, entitled ‘The crisis and the future of the Left’, was chaired by Hain. Tariq Ali and Paul Foot spoke, alongside three MPs; Audrey Wise, Stuart Holland and Tony Benn.

‘For the life of me, I don’t know why they were there except that they were obsessed with spying on left wing events, and it comes back to my concern that the progressive radical side of British politics seemed to be their targets.

‘And when I look back over the years, 50-plus years in politics and bring it up to date, it seems that the constant targeting of progressive radicals of various descriptions, from those explicitly on the left or on the so-called far left, or those on the centre-left, seems to be the focus of attention rather than the right and the far-right’

Hain was told the Inquiry will be hearing about the infiltration of the far-right too. But due to the supposed ‘risks’ to those spycops who were deployed against these groups, this evidence may be heard in secret.

In 2018, The Guardian together with the Undercover Research Group, published a list of groups known to be targeted – as disclosed by the Inquiry – predominantly left wing groups. In stark contrast, the far-right was barely infiltrated by the spycops at all.

As we heard earlier in the week, in the period currently being examined by the Inquiry, they only had one officer infiltrating a far right group and that was by accident. ‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77), infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party. Not knowing he was a spy, they asked him, in turn, to infiltrate a breakaway group of the far-right National Front.

The Inquiry was shown several SDS reports from innocuous meetings that Hain is named as attending. One from June 1980 [UCPI0000014020] covered a special conference of the Labour Party at the Wembley Conference Centre.

From July 1980 we saw a report [UCPI0000014080] on British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.

In February 1982 Hain and others spoke at a meeting at Borough Community Centre, about the Right to Work march against unemployment. For reasons that are unclear, the SDS reported on it [UCPI 0000017175].

As well as the pointlessness from a public safety or national security standpoint, Hain was concerned not just about how long these files are retained, but about what they indicate about MI5. He said the Director General of MI5 came to him in July 2000 and said the Security Service files on him had been destroyed. It is obvious that they have not, as these were retrieved from somewhere. The SDS files released by the Inquiry that start with a ‘UCPI00000…’ reference numbers are largely copies from MI5 archives.

Hain became a Minister in 1997, and would have been security-vetted at this time, before being privy to sensitive intelligence.

TAKING SIDES

He said that he is no ‘starry eyed romantic’, that he supports the rule of law and wants to see effective policing. He believes that there is legitimate undercover policing as well as illegitimate undercover policing. He knows that some undercover officers have done important anti-terrorist work, for example. However he would like to see proper boundaries drawn for undercover operations.

He pointed out that if the police adopt an approach of spying on everyone in the hope that this throws up useful intelligence, that leads to the kind of approach that encourages spying on the entire Muslim communities:

‘In case you might catch the odd Jihadi, who are in a tiny minority… a lot of this went wrong from the very beginning. There seemed to be open season on progressive or left wing ideas and movements’

Hain ended with a clear message to the Inquiry about what he thinks they need to do. Referring again to the Stephen Lawrence family being spied on, he would like the Inquiry to address the issue of proportionality and right and wrong:

‘I’d like also you to address what was right and wrong about history. Was it right to infiltrate women’s rights groups in the early 1970s? Was it correct to infiltrate the Anti-Apartheid Movement, which had the objective of stopping apartheid? I know it’s not the Inquiry’s purposes to get involved in politics, but you can’t avoid making a choice here.’

That said he hopes that the Chair’s final recommendations will help to ensure that this kind of intrusion does not happen again.

Full written statement of Peter Hain

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 7

29 April 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76)

Introduction of associated documents:
‘Ian Cameron’ (HN344, 1971-72)

Evidence from witnesses:
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
Christabel Gurney OBE

 

The Undercover Policing Inquiry read out summaries of the activities of two spycops, before hearing from two anti-apartheid activists.

‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76)

Summary of evidence

The morning started with a summary of evidence from the undercover ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76).

He reported on the International Marxist Group (IMG) throughout his deployment, on groups linked to them, as well as Irish support organisations. Though he has provided a witness statement, he is not being called by the Inquiry to give evidence. Instead, someone from the Inquiry summarised it for us.

Hughes joined Special Branch in 1964. He had grown a beard, which lead him to being spotted by a senior officer when visiting Scotland Yard, and was called into his office for a job in early 1968. This was before the foundation of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). He was asked to cover the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC), who were planning demonstrations in London, and a march from Aldermaston atomic research facility.

Hughes agreed, adopting casual clothes and a fake name, and attended VSC meetings in the weekend. According to him, he submitted around six or seven reports, which were well received by management and he received a commendation.

A particular success, according to him, was learning of several activists were planning to throw stones at the Daily Mirror building due to a German sister paper having reported negatively on anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. The protest was met with a ‘substantial police presence’ and the group wondered how they knew. He felt that the success of his reporting contributed to the idea of founding the Special Demonstration Squad.

‘NO IDEA WHAT BEING UNDERCOVER INVOLVED’

Hughes returned to normal Special Branch duties not long after. In 1971, he was approached by the head of the SDS, Chief Inspector Phil Saunders – probably aware of his earlier work on the VSC – to join. Recruitment and training were fairly informal:

‘People who did undercover work either sank or swam’

He thought the unit was still feeling its way at that point. In particular, management without experience in the field did not have much of an idea what being undercover involved. He notes that when one undercover, ‘Ian Cameron’ (HN344, 1971-72), discovered that he was being investigated by his target group, the SDS office did not really know what to do – and Cameron was withdrawn shortly after.

Guidance on a variety of subjects was non-existent, but as Special Branch officers:

‘they knew, or should have known, how appropriately to conduct themselves once deployed.’

Management tried to select people ‘who could be trusted to exercise common sense and good judgment’.

‘My SDS managers were all quite “hands off” and let me conduct my deployment as as I felt more appropriate.’

TRADECRAFT

He made up the name David Hughes for himself and a cover story that he was from Glasgow and had come to London to look for work. Initially he said he was unemployed, but later got a cover job as a van driver. He had a driving licence in his cover name with the approval of management. Once he had a van (a Bedford), he kept rolls of carpet in the back in case it was ever checked.

In unusual tradecraft, he visited prominent Glasgow-based activist Tony Southall, who was involved with the Committee of 100, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the International Marxist Group. He was a labour movement activist in Glasgow at the time Hughes knocked on his door, introducing himself as someone interested in left wing politics who wanted to become more involved.

‘Once I went into the field in London, I told people that I was friends with Tony Southall. Tony would come down to London occasionally to attend meetings or demonstrations and I would see him at those. It was useful to have someone like that who you could speak to and be seen with. It bolstered your cover background. He had no idea I was a Special Branch officer.’

He does not recall this trip being ‘specifically authorised’ by SDS managers.

He had a number of flats during his time undercover, moving around as his target groups changed meeting locations. He would stay there occasionally, but most nights he returned to his family.

REPORTING

Hughes’ first report is on a meeting in November 1971, but he believes he had been reporting back from meetings prior to that, probably August or September. He was not tasked to infiltrate specific groups; however, sometimes he’d be asked if he could go to a particular meeting or demonstration.

In the main, he was left to his own devices and just told to attend meetings which he learned about from the ‘Agit Prop’ section of the then-radical Time Out magazine. Once at public meetings, he met others and became more involved.

As a result, he fell in with people from the International Marxist Group (IMG) and stayed with them for the duration of his deployment. They were the group most likely to have considered him as a member, of all those he reported on. Them, and perhaps the North London Claimants Union, who he was with for several years and attend conferences in London, Oxford and Birmingham.

Hughes was very active while an undercover, saying he attended between one and six meetings a week as well as weekend demonstrations. He notes that his witness pack has fewer than 200 reports attributed to him, when he would have submitted many more.

Also missing were telephone messages, where he would have called in details, something he says he would have done regularly. Among those he singled out as missing were reports on the North London Claimants Union and a Marxist class held in Streatham. After these events he often went to the pub with the groups.

He believes his reporting helped uniformed police effectively deploy numbers at protests, especially where he was able to identify splinter groups. Likewise, they helped the Security Services in their work on subversion.

NATURE OF REPORTS

Hughes reported whatever information he came across, understanding it would feed into a broader assessment of issues by Special Branch. The sort of issues he understood his bosses were interested in was

i) information on upcoming protests, or public order issues;

ii) identities of those going to meetings or protests, particularly individuals who could be be considered ‘active’ in groups;

iii) major changes within groups – people becoming more prominent or if someone was leaving, who was replacing them;

iv) who was organising things within a group, or who decided policy.

The manner in which he had reported in his previous Special Branch work was continued in his SDS reports. For instance, he reported on IMG interest in organising in factories, as he understood both Special Branch and the Security Services had a role in reporting on subversion. (Weirdly enough, this issue and the relating file [UCPI0000015678], have been mentioned in the Opening Statement of Counsel to the Inquiry as well, but the file is nowhere to be found). ‘Hughes’ notes he was not asked specifically to report on subversion, but he always did if he became aware of it.

‘Sometimes my personal views crept into my reporting. The SDS office never told me this was inappropriate or not permitted.’

He included names of new people, in case they came to prominence later. Sometimes he requested files from Special Branch, to get to know more on someone who was active. The file would then be brought to the SDS safehouse.

Hughes regularly went to the SDS flat for meetings and discussed issues with fellow undercovers – sometimes they’d end up going to the same events. Though he had no welfare issues while undercover, if he had he would have spoken to management privately when there.

At the flat, it could be quite sociable and sometimes someone would cook a meal and they’d hang around chatting – mostly about things unrelated to undercover work. Sometimes he would have a drink with another undercover.

DETAILS REPORTED

Details standing out in his reports, including a note that someone in the Spartacus League (an IMG offshoot) had been a bank robber [MPS-0732356], and that people in one meeting had been selected for a ‘special task’ during a protest which involved breaking the law [UCPI0000007940].

Hughes justified reporting on a film showing Italian activists confronting fascists by the group Fight On, because he believed the showing of such films prior to demonstrations stirred up people and meant they were more likely to become violent [UCPI0000016222].

He was asked why, at a Marxist study group [UCPI0000008823], he reports one person saying that in the event of a revolution about two million people would have to be liquidated. Hughes says that this was particularly extreme and not everyone in the class shared that view:

‘The majority of people I encountered during my deployment were not that extreme.’

One point of concern for Hughes was that the IMG had a policy of entryism into the Labour Party [UCPI0000007598], which they thought would bring them national prominence. He believed this was of interest, as it was subversive in nature. The infiltration was unsuccessful, but he added that many people involved did not engage in subversive activity.

He also reported on IMG activities in relation to the Troops Out Movement (TOM), which he says the IMG tried to take over [UCPI0000006903 – a file not yet disclosed to the Inquiry website]. This was of concern, he said, because some TOM members advocated violence – and an IMG-controlled TOM would be a threat to public order.

Hughes focused on Irish support groups as a matter of interest to Special Branch. However, he thought that much of the support offered by groups such as the IMG was limited to public statements, and that over half were opposed to lethal violence.

Among the other groups reported on were the Irish Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and at least one individual from People’s Democracy – over their decision to resign [UCPI0000008158]).

Hughes knew of Piers Corbyn at the time, but only in passing. He was also involved in a Marxist Study group organised by Richard Chessum (who will be a later witness at these hearings).

TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP

Hughes joined the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) in his false name to bolster his cover identity. He did not become involved in union affairs but would go to big meetings to report back on speakers and discussions.

However, he would not have submitted reports as they would generally have been covered by ordinary Special Branch officers. His main interest was seeing if ‘members of extreme political groups’ were involved or trying to reach a position of prominence – an issue Special Branch were ‘very concerned about’.

OTHER ISSUES

Hughes did not witness or participate in any public disorder.

His exit strategy was to slowly stop going to meetings, saying he was going back to Glasgow.

He recalled that the then-Commission of the Metropolitan Police, Robert Mark, visited the unit:

‘It was obvious to me that he had concerns about the SDS. I remember words to the effect that “you realise that you could cause me tremendous problems under certain circumstances”.’

Full witness statement of ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342)

‘Ian Cameron’ (HN344, 1971-72)

Introduction of associated documents

The Inquiry announced it was releasing materials relating to ‘Ian Cameron‘ (HN344, 1971-72). He infiltrated or reported on multiple Irish groups, including the Northern Minorities Defence Committee (where he was elected to the executive committee), Anti-Internment League, and London Branches of Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and Sinn Féin.

This undercover officer lives abroad and has not provided the Inquiry with a witness statement. Some 22 intelligence reports have been attributed to him between September 1970 and June 1972. Information on him comes directly from the Counsel to the Tribunal’s opening statement (page 90).

Those before March 1972 pre-date his time with the SDS and, according to the Inquiry, he engaged in some unspecified ‘Specialist Operations’. In March 1972, Commander Rodger, head of Special Branch, had him transferred to the SDS.

All bar one report relate to Irish political groups, including the Northern Minorities Defence Force (NMDF), Anti-Internment League (AIL), and London branches of Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and Sinn Fein, and some of the figures therein. His reporting included reporting on criminal proceedings relating to arrests at demonstrations.

From early 1972, he became focused on the Northern Minorities Defence Force, having been invited to join by the group’s chairman. Little is currently known of this group outside of Special Branch reports, who cite it as believing civil war in Northern Ireland was imminent and they were preparing to assist in this. To this end, they organised a ‘military wing’ and sought training. There is no evidence from Cameron of it engaging in violence, though members apparently had ties to the Provisional IRA.

He quickly reached a senior level within the small organisation, including being part of ‘Headquarters Staff’ and part of its National Executive Committee – where his responsibility was for security [MPS-0734416], and commanding the North West Section.

When the NMDF became affiliated with the Anti-Internment League (AIL), Cameron was selected as its delegate to the AIL. However, he was not part of the Officers Committee.

In May 1972 he was invited to travel to Derry with the NMDF, but senior management appears to have blocked this as too dangerous. After this, there is no further reporting on the group.

He also reports on AIL demonstrations, the reports [UCPI0000008651; UCPI0000007970] hyping the intended violent nature of protests, with notes such as:

‘participants will then rampage down Whitehall and the surrounding area, smashing windows’

However, the only report in which actual violence was reported was a Bristol AIL protest against a march of the Gloucester Regiment (which had been deployed to Northern Ireland), which led to AIL protestors being attacked [MPS-0728828].

There was some support within the AIL for the Provisional IRA [MPS-0728841]. His role in the AIL was sufficient that he was able to attend at least one executive meeting [UCPI0000007950].

‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76) recalled in his statement that Cameron ‘faced detailed inquiries by members of the groups he was infiltrating into his background’ and that he left the field shortly afterward as management did not know how to deal with the situation.

Finally, we note something not covered by the Inquiry in its summary of Cameron’s evidence. We leave you to make of it what you will, but note it was put forward when police were initially arguing Cameron’s real name should be restricted:

‘HN344 is now in his 70s and lives abroad… He has told the risk assessor that he remembers his cover name but refuses to disclose it. Nothing reliable is known about his deployment. He does not consider himself at risk of physical attack from members of his target group or groups. He advances no reason in support of the application for a restriction order in respect of his real name, beyond his understanding that his deployment would be kept confidential and his wish not to be the subject of publicity.

‘He resigned from the Metropolitan Police Service in the early 1980s. Subsequently, he was arrested for the unauthorised possession of official documents. He was not prosecuted on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Thereafter, he undertook work in the private security sector in Asia.’

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

Jonathan Rosenhead was involved in Stop the Seventy Tour, an anti-apartheid group formed in September 1969 to oppose a British tour by an all-white South African cricket team. It was just one element of isolating apartheid South Africa in an attempt to bring pressure to end apartheid.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. It categorised people into a hierarchy of racial groups, with whites at the top.

The laws segregated all areas of life, reserving the best for whites. It applied to everything from education, employment and housing to which bench to sit on or beach people could visit. Most of the population was denied the right to vote. Sexual relationships and marriages between people of different racial groups were illegal.

 

Rosenhead explained that they had originally targeted the South African cricket team that planned to come to Britain, but then realised there was a planned rugby team tour as well, so expanded their activities.

He said they drew on the non-violent direct action approach of 1960s anti-nuclear campaigners like the Committee of 100:

‘we had the same philosophy or actually in a sense offering ourselves up as a sacrifice to the law, to demonstrate that there were things we thought were outrageous and this was one way we could do it’.

Rosenhead confirmed that many thousands of people took part in these actions across the UK and Ireland, but he was not central to the planning of these demos. By that stage, he was more involved in ‘what we called the Special Action Group’ of anti-apartheid activists seeking to disrupt matches and sometimes invade pitches during games.

Rosenhead ruefully recalled finally reaching the pitch at a rugby match in the barracks town of Aldershot:

‘I tried several but I’m not very good at climbing fences, but I did succeed in Aldershot. The spectators there were very significantly drawn from the armed forces. So it was not just the people on the pitch who were a bit threatening, so were the spectators’

Rosenhead next explained more about the Special Action Group. He refuted the suggestion of being ‘the covert arm’ of the Stop the Seventy Tour, saying they just wanted the element of surprise. The phrasing of this question from the Inquiry seemed to suggest that there is a justification in covert surveillance if organisers have meetings in private.

The Stop The Seventy Tour campaigners felt that it was important to hold as many demonstrations as possible, at sports grounds all over the country, to show the strength of public feeling and to educate people about the apartheid regime in South Africa.

MIKE BREARLEY, ANTI-RACIST

They held a conference in London on the 7 March 1970, which was reported on [UCPI0000008660] by spycop Mike Ferguson (HN135).

One of the people who made a speech was future England cricket captain Michael Brearley, according to the report warning the delegates for the use of violence for violence sake in their demonstrations.

Once again, the Inquiry picked up on the mention of the idea of violence, as if eager to find a way to use it to discredit protesters. But Rosenhead retorted:

‘Based on that paragraph and on other documents, I think it would be unwise to take these reports as a neutral and objective statement of what was going in the meeting. I think there’s an element of self-justification here for police involvement.’

Brearley was one of the few professional cricketers to vote against playing against a whites-only South African team. It’s also likely that he is the only England cricket captain to appear in a Special Branch report.

Asked about a phrase in this report, ‘a hardcore of militants’, Rosenhead said ‘a small number of committed individuals’ would be a more accurate description. He saw it as another example of the spycops’ hyperbolic language.

In reality, Rosenhead explained:

‘Stop The Seventy Tour was a nice floppy liberal alternative organisation, which many people could join who had maybe different activities outside but agreed on this one thing.’

There was no party line and no ‘militancy’ as such, and the only thing everyone agreed on was the need to end apartheid.

There was something both incongruous as well as slightly offensive in the line of questioning pursued by the inquiry throughout this session, repeatedly pushing for any reason to imply STST activists were violent and attempting to demonise their actions.

This is especially galling given the murderous racist violence of the South African apartheid regime they were protesting against. Adding to this, that within the UK it was STST protesters who were routinely assaulted by the police, stewards and some rugby supporters, as detailed in Rosenhead’s contemporary Ernest Rodker’s statement.

SOUPED-UP

A ‘special planning group’ meeting took place at the London School of Economics on 7 May 1970. According to the report [UCPI0000008607] it was attended by Rosenhead and eight others (whose names are all redacted).

He remembers how small the room was and has serious doubts that a meeting of nine people could have fitted into it.

More seriously, Rosenhead complained about the ‘hyperbolic language’ used in the reports, and said things had been misrepresented and made to sound more serious than they were.

There was a militaristic turn of phrase to the report which says mentions how Lord’s cricket ground is ‘defended’ and how an ‘attack can be launched’ against it:

‘I think it’s been souped-up for the eyes and ears of the senior officers.’

It’s noteworthy that this report was signed-off by Mike Ferguson (HN135), whose daughter, Clare Carson, wrote a trilogy of novels around a character loosely based on her father. Perhaps she inherited her talent for creative writing from her dad.

The report goes on to list a whole range of tactics that demonstrators might use at the demo being planned for 6 June 1970.

Asked what was meant by the advice that demonstrators should ‘do their own thing once they had made it on to the pitch, Rosenhead said that in his one experience of once making it on to a pitch, he did not have anything to do except hang around and wait to be arrested. There was nothing sinister intended by this phrase, despite the insinuations of both Ferguson in 1970 and the Inquiry today.

FIREWORKS

Rosenhead noted that the report only says that things like fireworks were ‘advocated’. It means it was mentioned during a discussion, not that it actually happened. Rosenhead said that this sounded like someone who was ‘a little bit more ardent than us’.

Rosenhead remembers being forced to discuss what to do next, once the campaign had been unusually successful and the cricket tour was cancelled as a result of their actions. A Special Branch report of this meeting [UCPI0000008635] based on Mike Ferguson’s intelligence (and perhaps imagination) says they felt they should remain as ‘a latent power’ in case of future tours.

Another SDS report [MPS-0736368] is about a meeting in May 1970 which discussed taking action at the airport when the sports teams disembarked. The violent terminology recurs, with references to a ‘commando group’ of activists who could throw fireworks.

The report also refers to the idea of smoke bombs being used at ‘some form of ‘happening’, and explicitly says that these would be ‘spectacular’. Other tactics brought up, included releasing ticker tape from a weather balloon, and jamming police radios.

The Inquiry asked if this was the plan, to cause fear among people at the airport.

Rosenhead dismissed it out of hand:

‘The whole thing is littered with wishful thinking and wild speculations’

The fact that there is no record of anything like this happening shows the fanciful nature of the report. It’s risible that the Inquiry persisted in taking it seriously.

PERSONAL SMEARS

There was a bizarre report [MPS-0736399] from June 1970 on something called the ‘Keep Politics Out Of Cricket Committee’. The report says it was a front set up by Rosenhead to gather those who opposed his political position in order to invite them to cricket matches and have a confrontation. An advert for this organisation was placed in the Daily Telegraph.

Rosenhead said it was done by someone who wanted to undermine his credibility, and he is surprised that the secret police took such a weird idea at face value.

The Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, for the second time today, said this is not thought to be an SDS document, suggesting that it comes from Special Branch more widely. However, a cursory glance at the end of the report shows that is signed off by SDS officer Detective Sergeant Mike Ferguson. Another case of the Inquiry not doing its homework properly.

MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE AT THE STAR & GARTER HOTEL

On 12 May 1972, protesters blockaded the Star & Garter Hotel, Richmond, in order to prevent the British Lions rugby team leaving for the airport to go on a tour of apartheid South Africa. Fourteen people were arrested and thirteen convicted, including Rosenhead and SDS officer ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76).

The protesters were in the car park, which is on private land. However, the police lied and said they were on the public highway, and so the group was convicted of obstruction of the highway. The evidence of the undercover police officer, Mike Scott, should have been given to the defence and heard in court. A police officer should not have infiltrated the defence in a public prosecution. It all adds up to a miscarriage of justice.

Scott would have been privy to discussions between the defendants and their lawyers and would have known what the defence case would be. Rosenhead is clear:

‘All of that.. seems to be a complete miscarriage of justice and speaks very badly for the police ethics of that time or of that place’

It’s unclear how Scott knew about the protest. Rosenhead strongly refutes the story that the guy was invited to it by the mother of one of the others, Peter Hain. She had come to the UK having been politically active in South Africa and was extremely security-conscious. There is no way that she would have invited some random stranger on the phone to attend a private political meeting.

The Inquiry showed a report [MPS-0526782] dated 17 May 1972 about the arrests of Rosenhead and Rodker. Rosenhead agreed that roles were discussed and decided at a planning meeting at Rodker’s house before the action.

Rodker arranged for a skip to be delivered to the hotel car park at 4pm that day in the hope of blocking the exit:

‘I think it was rather impressive – remember we were doing all this without mobile phones’

The Inquiry persisted in trying to make the non-violent direct action look more dangerous than it was, picking up on a word in the report and asking if it was accurate to call the situation ‘a melee’.

Directly refuting that, Rosenhead said:

‘There were no fisticuffs, and there was nobody was trying to restrain us in any way.’

The report stated:

‘Rosenhead volunteered the use of three flares which he had with him… later, at the car park, he lit and threw a flare’.

Rosenhead thinks this may be a case of mistaken identity – and from his memory said that it was a ‘beautiful sunny day,’ and did not remember any smoke.

For himself, he says:

‘I have no recollection of ever owning a flare in my life.’

LEGAL PRIVILEGE BREACHED

In May, after the first court appearance, there was a meeting attended by 13 defendants, which was also reported on [MPS-0737109]. Spycop ‘Mike Scott’ was present, as were Rodker and Gurney. They agreed to meet with ‘highly-esteemed human rights lawyer’ Ben Birnberg, with a view to him representing them in this case, and to prepare some notes about what had happened.

This document, and most certainly a second one [MPS-0737108] (a report of a second meeting of the defendants held shortly before their second court appearance on 11th June) contains legally privileged information.

That a report by a police officer contains such a great deal of such information should have raised concerns to any senior police officer reading it at the time. Legal privilege is a long-standing concept in English law, this is not a new concept and would have been salient at the time.

The court case took place on 14 June 1972. ‘Mike Scott’ was found guilty and given a conditional discharge, as was Christabel Gurney. Rosenhead has no idea why his case and Ernest as well as five others were adjourned until a later date.

It appears from the documents [MPS-0526782, MPS-0737126] as if these seven pushed for their cases to be heard in a higher court, and so were postponed until that next date.

THE POLICE LIE

Rosenhead then interjected and said that his mother was a magistrate at the time of his unsafe conviction and found it difficult to believe that the police had lied about so blatantly about where Rosenhead was in the car park.

Unfortunately, Sir John Mitting appears to take the same uncritical view of police testimony. At the end of Tuesday’s hearing he thanked ‘Alex Sloan‘ (HN347, 1971) for the ‘honesty’ of his evidence.

Rosenhead ended by speaking about the way his case relates to the CHIS Bill:

‘I am concerned, in terms of the behaviour of my very own undercover officer, about the current legislation changing the legal basis for covert human intelligence sources activities. I hope that this Inquiry will perhaps retrospectively get those powers reconsidered.

‘The general picture that’s going on at the moment of reinforcing police powers is worrying given the evidence that we have in this case. And there is a continuing police culture, if you like, of the abuse of power.’

This culture seems to exist, he explained, just because the Establishment gets uncomfortable with people campaigning, instead of seeing them as people essentially performing the valuable community service of political activism.

Full witness statement of Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

Christabel Gurney OBE

In the afternoon, the Inquiry heard evidence from Christabel Gurney OBE.

Gurney was an activist in the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) from 1969 until 1994.

The AAM supported people in South Africa struggling against its racist apartheid system. As a British organisation, AAM focused on the ways UK companies, banks and Government supported the apartheid regime. The AAM did what they could to discourage or prevent it.

Gurney was a member of the AAM Executive Committee and the editor of its monthly newspaper, Anti-Apartheid News, from 1970 to 1980. As a result of this work she was awarded an OBE ‘for political service, particularly to human rights’ in 2014.

Membership of the AAM was open to anyone. People paid a fee and were issued with a card. The intention was to have as large a membership as possible, with broad support from those in every political party and from those in none.

Special Branch’s remit, and by extension the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), was subversion (opposition to the UK’s parliamentary democracy), and threats to public order, However, AAM was clearly neither. In fact, Gurney pointed out, the AAM’s sole aim was to extend parliamentary democracy to southern African nations that were subject to rule by white minorities.

It is now clear that both Special Branch and the SDS spycops have always had a broader remit which extended to threats to police credibility, corporate profit, and the convenience of the government of the day.

By opposing British government policy and businesses supporting and arming the apartheid South African government, the AAM became a target despite being open, democratic and law-abiding.

MAINSTREAM METHODS

Central to the AAM’s approach was to try avoidance of doing anything which would distract the press from the real issue – the violence of the South African apartheid regime. As such it eschewed violence or heated confrontation. Rather, it concerned itself with common campaign tactics such as organising petitions, public meetings, pickets, vigils, cultural events, and mass rallies.

The AAM held many demonstrations and marches, which were agreed with the police in advance.

One example was an 8,000-strong rally in Trafalgar Square on 25 October 1970. The 10-page Special Branch report [MPS-0742860] on it records the presence of a broad range of groups including GLC Labour Party Young Socialists, India Workers Association, Catford Young Communist League, and Putney Young Liberals – all of whom are noted in the report as having their own Special Branch files.

The report shows it was an entirely peaceable affair, although the spycops – always on the lookout for the oxymoronic ‘anarchist leaders’ – say they saw:

‘small contingents of anarchists, obviously intent on “trouble” but lacking the necessary leadership’

SUBVERSIVE BISHOPS

The next report shown by the Inquiry [MPS-0742861] covered the AAM’s 1970 Annual General Meeting, held at the National Liberal Club in London.

Though 200 members were present, it was essentially private as part of its internal democracy. Yet the spycops were there. It’s astonishing that the political secret police were spying on a democratic group electing top level of officials of a decidedly establishment bent.

President was the Rt Rev Ambrose Reeves, an Anglican bishop.

Vice presidents were:

• Sir Dingle Foot QC MP
• Rt Rev Trevor Huddleston, another Anglican bishop
• Rt Hon Jeremy Thorpe MP, then-leader of the Liberal Party
• Basil Davidson, a historian who had worked for MI6 behind enemy lines in the Second World War and been awarded the Military Cross

Gurney was elected to the 30-strong National Committee at the meeting.

SOUTH AFRICAN EMBASSY

A report [MPS-0737006] on the AAM’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March 1972 said:

‘the organisers are anxious that picketing should be peaceful so as to avoid adverse publicity’

Gurney agreed that this was the case with all AAM demos.

The AAM was a frequent visitor to the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square, but usually in the form of small, solemn vigils outside, such as when the regime executed anti-apartheid activists.

The Inquiry then displayed a report [UCPI0000008442] by spycops HN332 and Jill Mosdell (HN346, 1970-73) about a meeting on 8 November 1971 on a planned sit-in at the South African embassy. Fifteen people attended, one of whom was a spycop.

Gurney explained that the meeting came in the immediate aftermath of the South African police’s torture and murder of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol. He had been a good friend of many South African exiles who had made their home in London, so they were extremely distressed about his death.

They wanted to do ‘something more’ than usual, explained Gurney:

‘These were exceptional circumstances.’

The report warned:

‘the sit-in would be quite militant and it would be necessary for the security guards to use force to eject the demonstrators.’

Gurney says ‘militant’ is the officer’s choice of word. She explained that they feared violence from guards and didn’t want to provoke them. They knew knew there was a real possibility of arrest.

On the day, they sat down and refused to move. Staff tipped water on them from a balcony above. The protesters passively resisted, going limp and having to be carried out.

This appears to be about as rowdy an action as the police and Inquiry can pin on Gurney or the AAM. The Inquiry, like the spycop’s report itself, paid little attention to the fact that the reason for the protests was the murder of a man thrown out of a window of a police station.

THE MET: AN EXCESSIVE FORCE

She said that the AAM knew that they, like other groups trying to bring about change in society, were likely to be the subject to police surveillance, they heard clicks on their phone lines that indicated they were being tapped, but they never imagined the other forms it took:

‘I am surprised now at the extent of it.’

The next report [MPS-0737656] was of a fundraising Christmas party at Gurney’s home on 9 December 1972. Around 40 people attended, including an undercover police officer, paying 75p for a ticket, and drinks were 12p.

Gurney was aghast that this purely social event had been attended by a spycop:

‘there was absolutely nothing subversive in any way about it.’

STOP THE SEVENTY TOUR

Gurney was involved with the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign which aimed to prevent or disrupt the planned tour by the all-white South African Springboks rugby team.

A Special Branch report [UCPI0000034318] on the AAM’s 1969 Annual General Meeting records campaigner Paul Hodges explaining to the meeting that:

‘detailed plans had already been made to harass the Springboks Rugby Tour that was due to start at Oxford on November 5. He said he appreciated that the Anti-Apartheid Movement could not be linked officially with the protestors because of the possibility of its leaders being charged with conspiracy to commit a public disorder.’

The chair is recorded as saying it was important that no publicity on the issue came from the meeting. The AAM did not ally itself with non-violent direct action, let alone organise it.

However, many individuals would have been involved with both campaign groups. Gurney said there were some tensions, but it was understood that both organisations were ultimately working towards the same aims.

Her name is listed in the report as part of the ‘core of the coming protest movement’, but she disagreed with the description. She was an activist in the campaign, but not an integral organiser. She did not attend the kind of special planning group meetings that we heard about during Jonathan Rosenhead’s evidence earlier in the day.

The AAM organised protests outside the sports grounds on the day of matches. There were demonstrations at all 24 games in the 1969/70 Springboks tour of Britain and Ireland.

The match intended to be played at Oxford was moved to Twickenham, and on the day Gurney was there trying to get on to pitch.

NOT JUST SOUTH AFRICA

The AAM also supported efforts to end white minority rule in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, and the British colony of Rhodesia, which bordered both South Africa and Mozambique. Rhodesia had unilaterally declared itself independent under white minority rule in 1965.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 202 asked member states not to recognise Rhodesia as independent, and for the UK to work toward an equitable constitution and for the independence with majority-rule. The AAM sought to encourage this. Again, this is hardly undermining democracy or posing a risk of disorder.

DAMBUSTERS MOBILISING COMMITTEE

Gurney was also asked about the Dambusters Mobilising Committee (DMC), a coalition of groups including the AAM, that opposed the construction of the vast Cabora Bassa dam project in Mozambique.

The dam was a collaboration between South Africa, Rhodesia and Mozambique’s colonial ruler Portugal. It displaced local people without compensation in order to supply electricity to apartheid South Africa, and undermined United Nations sanctions.

The DMC campaigned to dissuade British (and other European) companies from financing or otherwise becoming involved in the Cabora Bassa project.

Reports show DMC meetings were small, attended only by representatives of the organisations in the coalition. Spycop Douglas Edwards (HN326, 1968-70) is among those named, apparently as the delegate from the Action Committee Against NATO.

We’ve been told that spycops often infiltrated a relatively innocuous organisation as a stepping stone to getting into their real target. This appears to be an instance of a spycop infiltrating one organisation that isn’t a threat to public order in order to get in another that is equally unthreatening.

Gurney recounted how they spent a lot of time researching companies involved in the dam. Some campaigners bought shares so they could attend AGMs of companies, such as that of Barclay’s Bank who were guarantors of some of the dam’s financing, and pose pertinent questions to the meeting. These were very successful protests, gaining coverage in the Financial Times, etc.

One report on a December 1970 DMC meeting [UCPI 0000008114] talks of four places suggested as targets for sit-in protests, including Barclay’s Bank and ICI’s offices. The report itself says that they would expect them to be small affairs. Gurney said that she had no memory of this, and was confident she would remember if she had actually taken part in such events.

THE STAR & GARTER INCIDENT

Gurney was one of those arrested at an incident described in detail in yesterday’s evidence from one of the other arrestees, Ernest Rodker. As we heard in Jonathan Rosenhead’s evidence earlier in the day, on 12 May 1972, protesters blockaded the Star & Garter Hotel, Richmond, in order to prevent the British Lions rugby team leaving for the airport to go on a tour of apartheid South Africa. Fourteen people were arrested and convicted, including Gurney and SDS officer ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76).

For years, she had a vague memory of going to court for this, and being fined, and solicitor Ben Birnberg being involved. However, it wasn’t until she conducted some oral history interviews with Ernest Rodker in 2013 that she saw some press clippings with name in that she more clearly remembered being a defendant in this case.

She cannot recall the trial itself. She was convicted of obstruction (of the police and the highway), and was fined £2.

The fact that one of the defendants was a police officer – spying on the defence while working for the prosecution – is only part of the scandal. The prosecution have a duty to give the defence any relevant evidence, but clearly they were told nothing about the secret police reports which may have exonerated them. Either way, it was an unfair trial as not only was legal privilege breached by Scott’s involvement, but it should have been disclosed to the other campaigners that he was a police officer

Gurney says it is a matter of concern that we have seen no documents about whether the prosecutors or court were aware of the undercover officer’s involvement.

Mitting cut in to ask some questions. Does she remember if she was represented by Birnberg, or someone else from his firm? Does she remember if she had to pay for legal representation? Does she remember if they applied for legal aid or not? Gurney drew a blank on them all.

The Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, then indicated that he will be referring the Star & Garter case to a panel with a view to overturning the convictions.

It is also worth noting that Scott was convicted under a false name as well, so lied to the court unless the magistrates were told secretly. It is unknown if he claimed legal aid in that name as well. He will be giving evidence to the Inquiry on 4th May.

ANTI-DEMOCRATIC POLICING

With the questioning over, she made some points of her own:

‘First of all I feel that it was wholly inappropriate for police officers to be spying on members of the Anti Apartheid Movement. Its only rationale was to call for democracy in South Africa, and it was not in any way a subversive organisation’

The AAM’s sole aim was to accelerate the coming of democracy in southern African nations. It was the opposite of subversive. Spying on it was a misuse of time and funds.

More to the point, those who were trying to prevent democracy were active on the streets of London and were very much a threat to public safety. She expressed disappointment that:

‘there has been no investigation into the activities of the undercover operations that were coming out of the SA Embassy.’

This included much more serious criminality, like the ‘burglaries’ suffered by anti-apartheid campaigners. In March 1982, the African National Congress office in Penton Street was bombed while in 1985 the AAM office suffered a serious arson attack.

A former head of the South African security police, General Johann Coetzee, later admitted responsibility for the ANC office bombing at an amnesty hearing of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Why weren’t the UK police investigating these incidents, rather than wasting time and money spying on the anti-apartheid campaigns?

Mitting says we don’t know why the AAM was first infiltrated because one of the spycops involved, Jill Mosdell, has now died.

WHY THE EXCLUSION?

The Inquiry noted Gurney’s concerns about the wider investigations that needed to be made, but repeated this new assertion that this Inquiry had to limit itself just to ‘the Special Demonstration Squad in its various incarnations’, which is simply not true.

The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference limit is investigations to English and Welsh police forces since 1968, but:

‘The inquiry’s investigation will include, but not be limited to, the undercover operations of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.’

Watching Gurney give evidence today, another question on people’s lips was why did Mitting refuse her core participant status at the Inquiry? She was a leading figure in many groups the were spied on, is named in numerous spycops’ reports, and was set up for a wrongful conviction by spycops.

Being denied core particpancy prevents her from getting proper disclosure of documents or asking questions of her own, something made all the more unfair now it is clear she is the subject of a miscarriage of justice.

Full witness statement of Christabel Gurney OBE

Chrsitabel Gurney is involved in running the Anti-Apartheid Movement archives.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (28 Apr 2021)<<
>>Next UCPI Daily Report (30 Apr 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 6

28 April 2021

Evidence from witnesses:

Piers Corbyn
Ernest Rodker

The Inquiry hearings of 28 April 2021 heard from witnesses targeted by undercover officers in 1970s London. First up was International Marxist Group (IMG) member and squatting activist Piers Corbyn, followed by anarchist and anti-apartheid activist Ernest Rodker.

Piers Corbyn

Piers Corbyn was an engaged witness, who had the measure of ‘Sir John’, as he referred to the Chair multiple times. There was a sense that he got something out of been taken back to memories of his activities in the 1970s. At times he complimented the Inquiry on bringing so much of the material on him together, calling it a useful diary of his activities.

Corbyn moved to London in 1965 to study and the first demonstration he can remember attending was for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He participated in many other campaigns and movements, and confirmed that he attended both of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in 1968.

VIETNAM WAR CAMPAIGNING

Corbyn was not a member of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) as such. However, he did mobilise people and banners for demos, and maybe even did some stewarding. He said that the war in Vietnam was:

‘a formative crisis for tens of thousands of young people at the time and I was one of them.’

He was asked if he remembered seeing any violence at these demos – to which he responded:

‘I wouldn’t say any violence was initiated by demonstrators.’

The Inquiry was interested in the make up of the VSC. Corbyn described the IMG as ‘one of the most influential’ groups involved in the VSC. He said the IMG’s role, historically, was to mobilise people and make them aware of the issues.

SPARTACUS LEAGUE & THE IMG

Corbyn became president of the Imperial College Students Union, and then the editor of a London student newspaper, The Senate, around 1970.

He also joined the Spartacus League, which he confirmed was part of the IMG, though it could be joined without being in the IMG – people would be invited to join the IMG if they ‘proved their worth’.

The Inquiry took him to a report on the Spartacus League, dated January 1972 [MPS-0732360]. As with similar meetings, this took place at Corbyn’s home in Rendle Street. The meeting had been attended by officer HN338 (cover name unknown) who Corbyn was unaware of.

On page two of the report, the author detailed a discussion about the ‘Red Defence Group’, and how the IMG could ‘take over, run and use the organisation’ in order to recruit into the IMG. Corbyn pointed out that this report was authored by a spycop, and most likely reflected his assumptions, and the police’s prejudices, rather than reflecting the IMG’s actual intentions.

Corbyn said that he was ‘always interested in getting people to join in and stay active and make propaganda’.

He said if these reports were less redacted, or he was supplied with photos, he might find it easier to recall the people and events of 50 years ago.

MERGER

A report from June 1972 [UCPI0000015694] covered a conference that took place in May that year to merge the Spartacus League into the IMG. Corbyn was asked which category of attendee he would have fallen into – a delegate, a consultative delegate, an observer, or a visitor? Corbyn thinks he may have been a delegate. The Inquiry noted that ‘visitors’ could not take part in any votes and asked if this meant the conference was open to the public. Corbyn said effectively no, you had to be invited – either via a branch or someone else.

He was then directed to look at section that covered a speech made by ‘Surgitt’ – the party name (see more below) of a female member critical of male chauvinism in the group and which got various reactions. Corbyn was asked if this was an accurate description of the speech and the atmosphere at the time. He said ‘maybe that description is a bit over the top’ but ‘those types of things were said’ – not remarking on the sexist nature of the police’s report which described it as being unconstructive and amounting to an attack on men.

DEFINING REVOLUTION

Elsewhere in the report there was a mention of ‘fraternal greetings’ from a Peruvian member of the Fourth International, a revolutionary socialist international organisation of Trotskyists seeking an international revolution to overthrow global capitalism and establish world socialism. The speaker gave a rousing speech on revolution which included the phrase ‘the Revolution will not be won until Marxist blood is spilled in the street’.

Asked about how much this reflected the IMGs own position, Corbyn replied:

‘the IMG would say – as a not very funny internal joke – “if you care to struggle, we will ‘solidimise’ with you”. This meant that they would support, which is not always the same as endorse, all kinds of people engaged in the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle.’

Corbyn said that at the time, capitalism was in crisis, so a transition to a more socialist and more democratic society was needed. He pointed out that ‘revolution’ need not mean violence but could also be taken to mean a ‘fundamental change in the way that society was organised’. The IMG was a small group of a few hundred people and knew that they could not make this kind of fundamental change in society without wider support.

Corbyn wondered aloud if he was an ‘armchair socialist’ like many others of the time, but added that he was also very keen on talking to people about all sorts of issues (citing Ireland, workers’ struggles, tenants’ and housing campaigns, etc).

SUPPORT AND SOLIDARITY

He was asked, in reference to report [UCPI000008948] to explain what ‘Red Circles’ were. These were public meetings, held in places like pubs, with a variety of speakers on all sorts of issues, and some ‘lively discussions’.

The IMG did support many groups and campaigns and did not always try to control them, he explained. Sometimes they would set up a ‘Support Committee’. From the same document, Corbyn noted they were supportive of the Claimants Union, which worked to make sure people got the benefits they were entitled to.

The report mentions a ‘perspectives’ document produced by Corbyn, ahead of a discussion about merging branches. The IMG used coded initials in case these internal documents fell into the hands of Special Branch, but the spycop submitting this report included a key to this code as an appendix.

A discussion followed about the IMG’s use of ‘party names’ – ie false names when undertaking political activity. In this context, Corbyn noted that he was under surveillance for a decade, an endeavour which was probably a waste of police time:

‘I didn’t do anything dangerous, nor did anybody to my knowledge in the IMG.’

Corbyn was next asked about the relationship between the IMG and trade unions. He explained that the IMG wanted to develop into a wider field and move away from being student-focused. When asked if the IMG tried to gain control of any trade unions, Corbyn repeated his point about the IMG offering support, rather than seeking to take control of campaigns or other organisations.

One of the common themes running through many Special Branch reports – and other related documents – is the interpretation of any involvement from the ‘extreme left’ in a movement is rarely entirely genuine but in fact was fuelled by ulterior, sinister motives.

The next report [UCPI00007940] returned to the IMG/Spartacus League in 1972 in relation to the miners’ strike. It noted Corbyn was among one of those who advocating a strong militant approach, involving the occupation of the National Coal Board headquarters. He laughed at this, and told us about his part in organising a march from Trafalgar Square to the Coal Board, and had no recollection of trying to occupy the Coal Board.

There was mention in the report of a call-out for ‘three volunteers to take part in a special task during the demonstration which would involve breaking the law’, so he was asked about the IMG’s attitude towards illegality.

Corbyn responded that he still believes that there are just laws and unjust laws, mentioning the CHIS Bill currently going through Parliament which would give yet more powers to the police. In those days, the Government was trying to limit the powers of trade unions and the right to strike, and unjust laws such as these should be challenged and broken, he explained.

NON-COOPERATION

The next document referred to is a June 1972 report and a leaflet attached [UCPI0000008798] on the subject of the Metro Youth demonstration. This was produced by Corbyn, so the Inquiry asked why he had advocated a policy of not engaging with the police in the future.

He said the police did not have demonstrators’ interests at heart, but wanted them to take a route that took them down empty streets. The group had been right, in his opinion, to disregard the police on this occasion and instead go down Portobello Road.

Developing his position, he said there were times when it was necessary to talk to the police such as times when squatting. However, as far as he was concerned, ‘we were running our own show’, they would listen to what the police had to say but we ‘had to maintain that we had the right to protest and demonstrate where we wanted’, subject to not endangering anyone.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN

He was next directed to a report from March 1977 [UCPI000017814] which noted that Corbyn was being put forward as the IMG candidate for Lambeth Central in the forthcoming Greater London Council elections. He replied he was proud to be a candidate, querying why Special Branch were interested in a local election campaign.

A further report from around the same time [UCPI0000017335] included reference to flyposting. Corbyn was asked if this meant illegal fly-posting. He said it depends, and pointed out that there was lots of corrugated iron around, and people would fly-post on it.

Given their focus on flyposting, the Inquiry seem to be considering it amounts to a serious crime, possibly justifying the undercover policing. If that is their view, then it is a transparently desperate and partisan position, especially given that spycops themselves did it while undercover.

THE BATTLE OF WOOD GREEN

There was then a discussion about the IMG’s participation in an anti-fascist demo on 23 April 1977 on Ducketts Common, which became known as ‘The Battle of Wood Green‘. This was a significant counter-Nazi mobilisation which Corbyn did not recall at first, though he subsequently remembered Tariq Ali and others ‘speaking from the back of a truck’ somewhere in Haringey.

FARE FIGHT

The next topic up was the Fare Fight campaign, referring to document [UCPI0000021485] from October 1976.

This was a campaign to not only stop the Greater London Council implementing unjust fare rises on London Transport but to reduce fare prices. It gave Corbyn an opportunity to educate the Inquiry on the campaign, which had wide support among the public.

The campaign was passive in nature and part of its tactic was to jam the legal system around fares. He was incredulous that it had been spied on, given its peaceful nature.

THE IMG ON IRISH REPUBLICANISM

The Inquiry then went back to April 1972 and a report [UCPI0000008129] about a meeting of London IMG members. In relation to this, Corbyn was asked about the IMG stance on the situation in Northern Ireland, in particular their apparent support for the Provisional IRA.

He averred that it depended on what you meant by ‘support’. He said the IMG supported the idea of a united Ireland but there were things the IRA did that they did not support. Then again, there were other things which they did agree with, such as building community groups to help the unemployed:

‘It covered a broad front of activities’.

In this context, support meant solidarity with the IRA, through solidarity with the struggle of Sinn Fein, which was the political angle of the struggle.

He was subsequently asked about his involvement in Irish support groups such as the Irish Solidarity Campaign and Anti-Internment League. Corbyn said he had supported them but not been particularly involved. He noted that republican in those days did not necessarily mean being active in the IRA but referred to people who supported there being a republic of all Ireland in general. The word had to be read in that context.

SQUATTING

We finally moved on to the topic of squatting for which Corbyn was best known for many years. He explained that he rented a place in Rendle Street but ended up taking the landlord to a rent tribunal. After this, he and his older brother Andrew took up squatting in the same area as a solution to their housing needs. Originally he thought of squatting as a hippy thing to do, but had eventually realised that it could be immensely useful. They set up an IMG ‘squatting faction’.

He was then asked about a January 1976 report which contained the Easy 111 news sheet of Maida Hill Squatters and Tenants Association [UCPI0000009509]. This led to a long discussion on the nature of the squatting struggle that Corbyn was involved with, in particular that of the Elgin Avenue squats. The campaigners there were in a struggle with the Greater London Council for housing.

However, Corbyn noted that squatting campaigns at the time often had a successful outcome in that people were rehoused rather than left homeless, particularly when it became clear that there would be resistance to eviction. It is in this sense that the following extract the Inquiry had focused on should be read:

‘Our collective organised strength and support meant that we could physically resist and in a confrontation, human justice would be on our side. So, whatever happened the Greater London Council had to lose and we had to win.’

Corbyn was asked for his views on eviction resistance. He explained that the barricades were both physical and symbolic/ political. The squatters were fighting for housing for everyone, and against properties being left empty.

The Inquiry read more of Corbyn’ comments from the newsletter and asked him about violence. Corbyn went to some lengths to explain the kind of eviction resistance that took place. Many squatters in the area would turn up and join in.

When directed to someone who was threatening to use sand and rubbish to resist and meet ‘violence with violence’, he replied that he was simply recording what people involved were saying, nothing more. It does not necessarily mean the squatters were adopting such tactics as a body.

Corbyn said he was surprised by the strength of feeling in Elgin Avenue, and how many people stayed put through that last weekend, despite the fear of eviction, and as a result they were rehoused.

He noted that he had begun squatting as a self-help housing solution and that the squatters of London were successful in that so many of them were eventually given more secure housing by councils.

ANARCHISTS – GUILT BY ASSOCIATION?

Following on from squatters, Corbyn was next questioned on his association with anarchists.
A report from April 1979 [UCPI0000021215] describes a meeting at Conway Hall on a ‘People’s Commission’.

There was a speaker from the ‘Persons Unknown’ trial (the support group which was spied upon by ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1976-79) who is due to give evidence to the Inquiry all day on Friday 7 May).

Corbyn was asked if he shared aims and objectives with anarchists, to which he replied:

‘I don’t come and go to meetings based on who’s there. I come and go to meetings based on what needs to be said.’

Corbyn regarded the anarchists as part of the myriad other groups which existed at the time, including religious ones:

‘I just regarded them as people who were operating and hoped they would cooperate when we needed numbers to make a make a point, like getting someone’s gas reconnected if the gas company had disconnected them, for example.’

SPYCOP HN80 ‘COLIN CLARK’

Corbyn was questioned about his recollection of undercover officer ‘Colin Clark’ (HN80, 1977-82), who had infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party.

Corbyn admits he might have been confused when he said in his written statement about him selling the IMG publication Red Mole, and given that he did not recognise the photograph he had been shown, it might have been a case of mistaken identity. He did confirm that he remembered the name, however.

Thus, two and half hours in, the Inquiry had finally asked Corbyn about undercover policing, and that was the extent of it.

HUNTLEY STREET SQUAT

Corbyn, unprompted, brought up the issue of undercovers in the 1978 Huntley Street Squat.

In this case, two squatters, ‘Nigel’ and ‘Mary’ had come under scrutiny. During the eviction case the Under-sheriff of London admitted that the pair had worked for him, causing the judge in the case to get angry – not least because police agents had been helping build illegal barricades.

As a result, Corbyn invited ‘Sir John’ to extend the remit of the inquiry to the Under-sheriff of London. Mitting declined the invitation.

FINAL QUESTIONS

After another break, the hearing recommenced with the Inquiry asking Corbyn which other groups operated similarly to the IMG – in trying to ‘take over’ or control other campaigns.

The only example Corbyn gave was the International Socialists (later called the Socialist Workers Party) though added that, in comparison, the IMG was less controlling. He remembered anarchist groups were ‘very self-contained and wouldn’t want anyone interfering with them’ but then again:

‘the anarchist groups, to be fair, would just turn up at meetings and join into anything, so there wouldn’t be a consistent pattern with them.’

Rajiv Menon QC, Corbyn’s barrister, then took his turn, asking he had ever – during his 50 years of activism – taken part in:

‘any political activity that you consider was subversive in that it threatened the safety or well-being of the State and was intended to undermine or overthrow parliamentary by political or industrial means.’

Corbyn was categorical that he had not.

Menon next asked about the accuracy of an August 1976 Special Branch report [UCPI0000010850] into squatting.

Corbyn said in reply that many of the details are correct, but the report over-simplifies things and betrays the bias of its unknown author. Corbyn emphasised that the squatters movement was much more diverse than this document suggests.

Particularly, it implied anarchism was far more prevalent than he thought it was:

‘Although squatters became political, you know, people squatted through desperation.’

The document claimed that 80% of squatters did not want council housing, but Corbyn disagreed with this. He doesn’t know who wrote this, but thought the author had a particular anarchistic perspective. He also disagreed with the report’s statement that:

‘the general attitude towards the police is one of complete non-cooperation.’

Corbyn said it was common for squatters to deal with the police as a practical matter.

Finally, Menon noted that Corbyn is surprised by the dearth of material about the squatting movement from that era among what was provided to him.

Corbyn replied that he thought that undercovers would have visited, or even moved into, the squats. He wondered why there were no reports about these places included?

Corbyn concluded his evidence by questioning why he was spied-on for all these years.

Full witness statement of Piers Corbyn

Ernest Rodker

Ernest Rodker is now 83 years old and in ill health, so an edited version of his full statement was read by his son Oli Rodker.

The Inquiry asked Rodker for evidence concerning his campaigning activities over three decades from 1968, when the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was founded.

The Inquiry has told him he was spied on by:

• Mike Ferguson (HN135, late 1960s-early 1970s)
• ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76)
• ‘Jim Pickford’ (HN300, 1974-76)
• ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155, 1979-83)
• Jim Boyling (‘Jim Sutton’ HN14, 1995-2000)
• Andy Coles (‘Andy Davey’ HN2, 1991-95)

The Inquiry has given Rodker a bundle of about 53 vintage police documents relating to him. His first response is that it isn’t complete. He has been an activist since 1958, and it’s clear that his early arrests and monitoring fed into the SDS’ interest in him.

He has seen other, largely Special Branch, material which is in the public domain, which refers to him and his activism. He wants to see all the secret police files on him.

ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVISM

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. It categorised people into a hierarchy of racial groups, with whites at the top.

The laws segregated all areas of life, reserving the best for whites. It affected everything from education, employment and housing to which bench to sit on or beach people could visit. Most of the population was denied the right to vote. Sexual relationships and marriages between people of different racial groups were illegal.

Rodker was a committed campaigner against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. He was active in the Stop The Seventy Tour (STST).

STST’s immediate and principal aim was to stop the white-only South African cricket team from touring in the UK in 1970. More broadly, its aim was to make a very strong political point that people representing apartheid were not welcome in the UK.

He was active in STST throughout its existence, from 1969 until it was disbanded in May 1970 after the cancellation of the tour.

The main tactic of STST and was to run onto cricket and rugby pitches to disrupt play.

He explained:

‘We sought to impress on the South African teams the fact that as an all-white team effectively promoting the apartheid regime they were not welcome. We wanted them to know the level of opposition there was to what they stood for and for them to reflect on whether it was the right thing, practically and ethically, to tour the UK.

‘We used all classic forms of non-violent direct action (NVDA), pitch invasions being the most prominent. We understood and sought to follow the well known principles of NVDA and civil disobedience learned from recent history such as the struggles for Indian independence by Mahatma Ghandi and for Black civil rights by Dr Martin Luther King.’

He refuted spycop Mike Ferguson’s March 1970 SDS report [UCPI0000008660] which describes STST as ‘militant’, especially given the connotations of that word in that era. STST’s campaign was avowedly opposed to committing violence against people, and only in favour of minor damage to property.

Rodker ran on to cricket pitches and sat down. He remembers being carried out by security or police and being kicked by spectators. He painted slogans on the walls outside Lords cricket ground, and even these were things like ‘stop the tour’ and ‘go home’ rather than anything more profane or aggressive.

DIRECT ACTION GROUP

Rodker was also part of a smaller anti-apartheid direct action group. This was not concerned with publicity but was a small, secret group directly inhibiting South African sporting tours. He can no longer remember what name the group had, but was clear about what it did:

‘These activities included things like going to a team hotel to carry out demonstrations there. For example, in the campaign against the white-only South African rugby team in 1969 I booked into a hotel, in an affluent part of central London, overnight where the team were staying. I sat among the players in the lounge eavesdropping on them and getting their room numbers.

‘While they were still in the lounge or having supper, I may myself have glued their door locks and certainly shared the room numbers with other campaigners, who did so…

‘On other occasions we waited outside the team’s hotels, for them to get on their coaches. We then got on the coaches as well and refused to leave. We had to be carried out.’

Rodker stressed the relative restraint of the campaign and, not for the first time at the Inquiry, we heard an activist turn the inquiry’s question about violence around:

‘We were not even carrying out wanton acts like going into the South Africans’ rooms and trashing their belongings. We were doing nothing on the scale of what the South African State regime was doing to its majority black citizenship under apartheid, systematically and repeatedly, under cover of the law…

‘We did not want our principled message to be confused by adverse publicity about violence. One factor in our thinking was that we wanted to set ourselves apart from the extreme of violence which the apartheid South African regime was showing to its Black citizens.’

Campaigning against sports connections with South Africa continued beyond the 1970s, in other forms, and he remained involved in those campaigns.

‘It is worth underlining that we were effective in the sense that, in the short term, the rugby team was, we learned, keen to stop the tour and wanted to go home, as a result of our actions. In the medium term we contributed towards the decision to abandon the 1970 cricket tour plans. And in the long term we contributed to the isolation of apartheid South African from international sport, a factor in its eventual downfall.’

ANTI-NUCLEAR CAMPAIGNING

Before his anti-apartheid campaigning, Rodker had been active in campaigning against nuclear weapons. Although it’s not mentioned in his testimony, Rodker was also a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

He was involved in publicising, and took part in, the first of the famous Aldermaston marches which, from 1958 onwards, opposed nuclear weapons, particularly those stored at AWE Aldermaston military. He was a member of the Committee of 100, a British anti-nuclear group of the 1960s.

It had come to the attention not only of the media, but also the police, prosecutors and the courts as a result of its high profile campaign and campaigning methods, involving NVDA.

Rodker and many others in the Committee, including the philosopher Bertrand Russell, had been jailed for planning disruptive demonstrations and civil disobedience against US military bases in the UK. Some of the evidence used against them in court had come from covert police surveillance.

As the Inquiry is limited to events from 1968 onwards, it cannot examine anything from this era, no matter how relevant it may be.

MEMORIES OF SPYCOPS

In saying that he can’t remember the spycop Mike Ferguson, Rodker once again highlighted the unforthcoming attitude of the Inquiry. If he were told the name Ferguson used undercover, shown a contemporaneous photo or told about his interactions with him, his memory may well be jogged. But the Inquiry refuses to do any of these things and thus prevents itself from fulfilling its remit of getting to the truth about spycops.

Rodker said the movement was aware that it was likely to be spied on by both British and South African state agents, using infiltrators, phone taps and more, but they would not let this deter them.

Asked about three other officers – Phil Cooper who reported on him in May 1980 [UCPI0000013986], Jim Boyling who reported on him in 1997 [MPS-0742877], and Andy Coles who ‘authored some of these reports’ the Inquiry has released, Rodker drew a blank but once again highlighted that the Inquiry’s reluctance to give him (and other witnesses) photos of officers and other information that might jog his memory.

PAVEMENT COLLECTIVE

The Pavement Collective was a grassroots community initiative, based mainly around its publication ‘Pavement’ in South West London in the 1970s. It supported and encouraged campaigns by local communities on issues like housing, race, and employment. It challenged the council on issues of housing and redevelopment, which brought it into conflict with developers. It held demonstrations at Wandsworth Town Hall on the evenings of council meetings, and asked questions in the meetings.

The Pavement newspaper was sold in local newsagents and on streets. It was a very open group with public support from the likes of Michael Foot MP (former Labour party leader), Donald Trelford (editor of the Observer). It ran for about 20 years, and Rodker was on the editorial committee throughout.

The committee was about ten strong, and not secretive. A couple of members were in the International Marxist Group, who were of particular interest to the SDS, but Rodker says of the IMG as an organisation:

‘we were wary of them and I think it was clear to everyone that our politics and interests were not the same as theirs’

Rodker notes that spycop ‘Jim Pickford’ (HN300, 1974-76) infiltrated the Pavement Collective. He is listed as one of the 13 people present in the minutes of the editorial meeting of 18 November 1976 [UCPI0000033629].

Similarly – again, without mention from the Inquiry – there’s a document [UCPI0000033631], that shows another spycop, ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76), was involved with Pavement sales at the time he was infiltrating the Young Liberals (the youth wing of the Liberal Party, now the Liberal Democrats).

Why were spycops infiltrating the Pavement Collective? What exactly did they do there? Was Scott’s involvement connected with his infiltration of STST and arrest at the hotel demonstration on 12 May 1972?

BATTERSEA REDEVELOPMENT ACTION GROUP

Battersea Redevelopment Action Group (BRAG) was purely concerned with development of Battersea Power Station and surrounding area.

Rodker was active in setting up BRAG in about 1972 and remained active until it disbanded more than ten years later. The core group was no more than 10 in number, and there was no formal structure.

They wanted to ensure that it wasn’t just turned into luxury flats but included affordable housing and community projects. They also opposed the council’s sell-off of social housing, believing that council developments and initiatives should be public and for the community, rather than private and for commercial interests. They leafleted, knocked on doors, and held public meetings.

And yet, for all this community-minded activity, there’s an SDS report on a BRAG meeting in December 1974 [UCPI0000015040], listing five members as extremists, including ‘Ernest Rodker (Anarchist)’, and other reports from 1975-77 [UCPI0000012093, UCPI0000012094, UCPI0000009594, UCPI0000011156] all of which were copied to MI5.

Rodker remembers suspicions in BRAG concerning one person did lead to a confrontation at a committee meeting and that person was excluded. Rodker wants the Inquiry to say if that person was a spycop. The Inquiry says Pickford also infiltrated this group.

Beyond that, he wants the Inquiry to tell him if any other undercover police officer, beyond those already named to him, were in the campaigns he was involved in. What information did spycops get from those campaigns? What was done with that information? Did any spycops attempt to disrupt campaigns? Did any spycops seek to have a genuine campaigner ejected from a campaign? What excuse is there for spycops being involved in the decision-making of small voluntary groups where every voice is significant?

VIOLENCE

Asked about violence in his campaigning, Rodker affirmed that there was a lot of it throughout his activist career, though perhaps not in the way that the Inquiry was driving at:

‘there was police violence against the Committee of 100. When there were demonstrations at the American embassy or a nuclear base, we were knocked about by the police when we were arrested or even moved from the base. Sometimes their physicality was quite severe. They dragged people by the hair, ‘accidentally’ stamping on people when trying to move them.

‘As to STST and the direct action group, I also experienced or witnessed violence. When I was involved in a demonstration in the centre of Lords cricket ground, I remember the stewards (or even members of the public) roughed us up unnecessarily when dragging us off the pitch’.

‘During the anti-nuclear campaign, in the late 1960s onwards, we occupied Grosvenor Square, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and other sites in central London on various occasions. These were mass demonstrations, peaceful sit-downs with some campaigners linking arms and others using padlocks and chains to attach themselves to each other. It was clear to me that the police, frustrated by the task of having to remove us, lost control and used unnecessary force towards us. They punched, often surreptitiously; dragged people violently out of the way; stamped on people who were in the way of another person they sought to remove. This happened to me…’

Rodker said the police never took action against people who were violent to activists. Undercover officers have confirmed they were assaulted by uniformed police while undercover. They saw violence against genuine activists and yet they didn’t bother to report it or, if they did, nothing was done.

‘Looking back, on the basis of what we know now, it seems logical to conclude that there was a policy of allowing aggressive and violent behaviour towards activists to go unchecked.’

FOR SPYCOPS, THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL

Attention turned to two 1976 Special Branch reports containing very personal information about the birth of his son [UCPI0000012246] and a health condition of his [UCPI0000010719].

Rodker confirmed that, whilst not secret, these details would only have been known to personal friends and family. He said it was not only sinister that the reports were made, but also that we are able to see these reports at the Inquiry because they are still held in MI5’s files nearly 50 years later.

Rodker said that it underlined his desire to have the Inquiry obtain and hand over all information all spycops have recorded and stored about him, at any point in his life. Which officers did this? What did they do to get the information? What was the information used for?

THE STAR & GARTER ARRESTS

On 12 May 1972, Rodker took part in action at the Star & Garter Hotel, Richmond, to prevent the British Lions rugby team leaving for the airport to go on a tour of apartheid South Africa.

Though his memory has faded, Rodker accepts that he was the main organiser, and that the descriptions in the police reports are broadly accurate [MPS-0526782, MPS-0737087, MPS-0737109, MPS-0737108].

Spycop Michael Scott was part of the group, including the planning meeting at Rodker’s house on the day. He disputes Scott’s claim to have found out because Peter Hain’s mother told him on the phone. Rodker knew Mrs Hain well, she was security conscious and highly unlikely to have disclosed such sensitive information. It’s more likely that he found out another way and is lying in his report.

The objective was to make the players miss their flight. Skips were ordered to the hotel, cars were parked in the way, and individuals blocked the coach.

Rodker submitted a letter to the Inquiry that had been written to him a month later by a friend, attached to which was what his friend calls ‘my rather uninformative account of the events at the hotel’ [UCPI0000033628]. However, it is now vital evidence from our perspective as describes the incident, his role in it and he also describes what spycop ‘Mike Scott’ did.

THE TRIAL

Fourteen protesters were arrested and prosecuted for obstruction of the highway – including Scott. They were convicted. Scott had stolen the identity of a living person for his fake identity, so received a conviction for that real person.

It’s almost certain that Scott was party to the defendants’ discussions of how to defend their case, and what their lawyers thought. This breaches lawyer-client privilege.

More to the point, it meant that the trial was unfair. In a criminal case, the prosecution must give the defence all relevant evidence. Not only were Scott’s reports withheld, but the court was not given his testimony. Coming from a police officer, it would have been very credible indeed. It could have cleared up the disputed issue of whether the protest was blocking the public highway as alleged, or whether it was on the hotel’s private land.

Scott’s managers told him to go ahead with the trial under his false identity. Right from the first question in court, when he was asked his name, he was lying.

The police reports show no concern at all about deceiving the court and orchestrating a miscarriage of justice, only for ‘potential embarrassment to police’ if it became known that a spycop was involved.

Rodker sees this as part of a pattern that would repeat:

‘The failure to view activists as individuals with their own legitimate rights and interests and the decision to place those second to the unfettered gathering of information on them may be a precursor to some of the more gross abuses of activists that, I note, happened in later periods of undercover policing of campaigners.’

RELEASE THE FILES

Concluding, Rodker returned to the fact that he was spied on and demonised long before the SDS was founded in 1968, as the SDS themselves describe in a May 1972 report [MPS-0526782]. It describes the 14 people arrested on the Star & Garter action as:

‘anarchist-orientated extremists under the control of Ernest RODKER’. This man has been a thorn in the flesh for several years now, having had no fewer than 14 court appearances prior to 1963 for offences involving public disorder. He was considered to be a menace at the time of the protest demonstrations taking place in this country concerning the Springboks rugby tour in 1969 and the Stop The Seventy Tour in 1970.’

Rodker called for the release of all his secret police files, not only for his own benefit but also to correct false information and allow him to comment and contribute fully to the Inquiry.

The Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, said that the Inquiry had done its best to give Rodker all relevant documents, but it doesn’t cover all of Special Branch, just the SDS. This contradicts the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference which state:

‘The inquiry’s investigation will include, but not be limited to, the undercover operations of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.’

Mitting then indicated that he would be referring the Star & Garter incident to the Inquiry’s panel that is reviewing likely miscarriages of justice.

Full written statement of Ernest Rodker

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (27 Apr 2021)<<
>>Next UCPI Daily Report (29 Apr 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 5

27 April 2021

Evidence from police witnesses:

‘Dave Robertson’ (HN45, 1970-73)
‘Alex Sloan‘ (HN347, 1971)

The Undercover Policing Inquiry‘s current hearings (Tranche 1 Phase 2, covering the Special Demonstration Squad 1973-82) had their first day of police witnesses.

‘Dave Robertson’

(HN45, 1970-73)

‘Dave Robertson‘ (HN45, 1970-73) was questioned by Kate Wilkinson on behalf of the Inquiry.

Robertson told the Inquiry was deployed undercover by the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in 1971, infiltrating Maoist groups.

He spied on Diane Langford who gave evidence in yesterday’s hearing. He was ‘compromised’ – ie, his true role revealed to those he spied on, as Langford described – and withdrawn in 1973.

PREPARATION

Asked why did he not steal the identity of a deceased child, he merely said ‘I just didn’t’, and that he was not aware of what other officers chose to do.

As was common with the early spycops, Robertson joined the SDS after working in Special Branch. He hadn’t done undercover work before. He was invited by serving member Detective Helen Crampton but has no idea why she approached him.

He said he didn’t know much about the unit before joining it, but:

‘Special Branch was quite a small knit community and people knew what might have been happening or not happening… everybody in Special Branch knew to some degree what was happening’

Robertson was vague about many points, even one the approximate number of officers in the SDS when he was serving. He admitted being ‘kind of aware’ of the SDS’s mission, and that it had been formed after disorder at a demonstration against the Vietnam War in March 1968.

He said the anti-war protestors ‘created mayhem’ on the day, and this was due to a lack of police intelligence. This is a familiar narrative, repeated by many of the officers who testified in the November 2020 Inquiry hearings, for instance, ‘Doug Edwards’ (HN326, 1968-71). Robertson embellished the tale, adding that he saw some demonstrators running around with scaffold poles.

According to him, Special Branch:

‘was a secret organisation anyway, and everyone in it was “positively vetted” so by definition it was a secret department.’

Pressed on how much chat there was in Special Branch about the SDS, he said ‘you wouldn’t really talk about the specifics’.

He said that he received no training as such, but does remember spending some time in the SDS ‘back office’ (recalling ‘an old police house’ at the back of a police station) before going out in the field.

This was the headquarters, where the admin was done, completely separate from the undercovers’ various ‘safe houses’.

‘Most of the people who went into that job… they just got on with the job and picked it up very quickly.’

DEPLOYED

He says he recalls Jill Mosdell (HN346) but is not sure about ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348) – even though some reports indicate he attended meetings alongside her, and they appear to have worked so closely together that managers withdrew both women when Robertson’s cover was blown.

Robertson confirmed that he did not type up his reports himself, he would write it up and it was taken away to be typed up by someone else in the SDS ‘back office’. He often saw these reports after they had been typed up, and knew they were routinely copied to the Security Services, aka MI5.

The first document looked at was a report [UCPI0000010254] of a Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF) meeting at the Union Tavern in October 1970. Long-term SDS boss Phil Saunders signed off on it.

At this point in the Inquiry hearing, proceedings came to a halt Robertson mentioned the real name of an officer whose name is restricted by the Inquiry. Those following the Inquiry’s online audio (which has a ten minute time lag precisely to prevent these sort of slips going out publicly) had no clue what was happening and assumed it was a technical glitch.

SUPPLYING INFORMATION

Attention turned to a March 1972 Special Branch report [MPS-0739241] in which MI5 had requested details about someone’s occupation. Robertson confirmed that MI5 asking for such things was ‘obviously pretty routine’.

When he joined the SDS, Robertson said he was given no idea how long his deployment would be. He says he was not in the field for three years because, as things turned out, ‘in my case, it came to an abrupt end very quickly’.

The unit’s meetings took place at its ‘safe houses’. These were described as ‘diary days’ by Robertson. Most of the SDS officers would turn up, clutching their expense claims. He sometimes went there on other days too, but there were few people around then.

He had a cover accommodation, known in the unit as a ‘duff flat’, for which he paid approximately £4 week in cash. He would usually travel to and fro after political meetings and events. He was not trained to do this; it is an example of him using his initiative. As we’d hear later on, his cover accommodation has become a point of some confusion.

He would communicate by phone (from a phone box) with the back officer, but did not have any other, personal numbers or direct lines for the SDS managers.

NO MEMORY

He was asked if his colleagues would have spoken about things like relationships and events that occurred during their time undercover? He does not remember this happening. According to Robertson ‘Special Branch officers are renowned as ‘zip-mouths’.

Mike Ferguson (HN135) was deployed to spy on anti-apartheid activists, reporting back on the Stop The Seventy Tour campaign. Asked if he ever discussed this with Ferguson, Robertson replied ‘not to my knowledge’. By this stage, it was becoming clear that Robertson is certainly very zipped-mouthed himself.

Robertson had ‘cover employment’ as well as a ‘duff flat’ – he knew someone who ran a garage so pretended to work there.

IDENTITY CRISIS

Like many of his colleagues, Robertson let his hair grow long after joining the SDS (the Squad was nicknamed ‘the Hairies’). He was not provided with any fake identity documents, and didn’t know of any other spycops being given any either. He now says that it would have been better ‘more professional’ to have these.

He remembered one occasion when a group of activists questioned him about his identity, describing it as ‘a very personal face-to-face grilling’:

‘They didn’t know who I was, and in those days it wasn’t just the police doing that, there were lots of other organisations doing the same thing… Most of the people that I met were paranoid about infiltrators’.

Asked how he convinced them of his innocence, Robertson, once again, said he couldn’t remember specifics. He clarified that they had fear of infiltration from beyond state agencies, such as rival groups; ‘everyone,’ he said.

CAR TROUBLE

Being ‘the man with a van’ was later a standard tactic of spycops, as it made them useful to the group and offered opportunities to talk to members individually.

Asked if he did anything like that Robertson didn’t remember ever doing it. He said there were no SDS cars at the time. He thinks the office may have had some hire cars but has no idea who drove them and what they were used for.

This contradicts the account of one of the people he spied on, Diane Langford, who wrote in 2015 that her group’s suspicions about Robertson were initially raised by the fact that he kept having different hire cars.

Robertson was adamant that spycops could never ever have gone out in public in a car as, if they were stopped, they would have no proper license and identity documents in their fake name. We know that one of his contemporaries, ‘Peter Fredericks‘ (HN345, 1971) did just that – and was involved in a car accident.

MAOIST STUDIES

Next, Robertson was shown his application form [UCPI0000034339] for ‘Studies in Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought (Spring 1971), in which he listed a number of revolutionary texts that he had supposedly read.

Given his answers up to this point, it surprised nobody that he said he does not remember much about the study group or the form.

Similarly, Robertson also cannot recall any guidance about what might constitute ‘extremism’ or ‘subversion’. He said vaguely ‘it was just part and parcel of the whole’.

‘FAIR GAME’

He confirmed that small attendance was the norm at many of these groups’ meetings. He would include everything that he thought was worth reporting – including details of flowers given to speakers. He said that ‘everything was fair game for reporting’ and it was someone else’s job to decide what to do with the intelligence he collected.

Robertson insisted:

‘I never went to anybody’s home unless I was invited’

He was shown a report he had made on the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League in December 1970 and asked why he thinks he was invited to attend. He said he did not know.

Robertson was asked how often he visited this home, where Diane Langford and Abhimanyu Manchanda lived. He claims that, despite Langford’s certain and vehement dismissal of the very idea, he definitely did babysit for the couple’s infant child. He said he was asked to by Manchanda and ‘couldn’t get out of it’ but never saw the baby. However, he said he could not even remember seeing the child and thinks they were in a different room from him, and that the couple was not away for an exceptionally long time.

BANNER BOOKS

Next, a February 1972 memorandum [MPS-0730516] written by an SDS manager, Chief Inspector HN332, concerning London radical bookshop Banner Books. Robertson had infiltrated Maoist groups to such an extent that he was asked to take over running the shop when a enw branch was opened.

The memo specifies the advantages to Special Branch, including access to records and mailing lists, and being able to provide a plan of the shop and a set of keys.

Robertson played all this down, claiming that he was never alone in the shop and had no access to any records (the ostensible reason for this intrusion), and doesn’t think he ever had keys to the shop.

He has no memory of the 1975 fire at Banner bookshop (two years after his employment ended), even though someone died in it.

YOU CAN’T CALL HIM AL

Robertson claimed:

‘I never really went in and analysed things to any great depth’

But it was pointed out that he reported lots of detail about Manchanda, including some very critical comments about the man and his ‘insufferable anecdotes’.

Asked why his reports refer to Abhimanyu Manchanda as ‘Al’ or ‘Albert’ Manchanda, Robertson said that it was the name used by those around him. Langford flatly denies this – he was known as Manu. It is hard to imagine someone whose life was based on opposing to imperialism acquiescing to the practice of taking a common English name in place of their real name.

Yesterday, Diane Langford referred to a long and painful-sounding meeting in which an alleged attempted rape was brought up. She queried why, in Robertson’s report on this meeting, it was misdescribed as a ‘very personal attack on private morals’. Robertson characteristically claimed no recollection of any of this.

The report had ended with his overview ‘that the damage to the RMLL is irreparable’. He said he did not remember any of that either, despite it being a major event in the life of one of the main groups he infiltrated.

WON’T VOTE, CAN’T VOTE

Robertson did speak with certainty on one issue:

‘I didn’t vote on anything.’

Speaking for the Inquiry, Wilkinson patiently questioned him about this comment. How had he managed to never vote on anything, in such small groups? Did he really abstain from absolutely every vote? As with other officers such as Doug Edwards, a straight denial on this subject is issued without any explanation of how he managed to abstain from voting without raising suspicion.

He repeated the line about how he had never really got involved in the groups ‘because it wasn’t my place to do that’, despite his numerous highly detailed reports over a period of years.

Robertson was also questioned about parts of his witness statement.

In paragraph 53 he says:

‘I am not sure that the group posed a threat of subversion or revolution under either xxxxxx or Manchanda’s leadership given how low the membership was, but I suspect this may not have been appreciated at the time.’

Does this mean that he was not entirely convinced that these groups needed to be reported on so much? Did he feel as if he was wasting his time by spying on them? Did he ever go to his managers and suggest that he infiltrate another group instead?

‘I continued doing it until I was told to stop.’

This is inconsistent with an earlier statement that he was using his initiative.

NO PREJUDICE

Racist and sexist attitudes are common in the SDS reports of the era being examined, 1973-82. Robertson’s reports are no exception.

One of the instances was in February 1971 when he reported [MPS-0739236] that it was Manchanda that had decided he would be a stay-at-home Dad and his partner, Diane Langford, should go out to work. Robertson denied that it demonstrates sexist thinking by denying her agency in the decision-making.

Robertson had no recollection of being asked to include details of people’s race or colour in his reports. When shown examples in a report [UCPI0000021998] on a February 1971 meeting of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), he justified it by saying that he had never come across ‘coloured’ trade unionists at the Post Office before. He then makes the startling observation that:

‘race was not a problem in those days…that is my personal opinion.’

EXPOSURE

Moving on to February 1973, the Inquiry asked Robertson about an incident at a meeting at the London School of Economics which ended his deployment.

His report [UCPI0000016247] appears to be the last one he made. Although it’s dated February 1973, he dates it from memory as December of that year.

According to him, he came face to face with a neighbour, Ethel, who recognised him and said ‘here’s Scotland Yard, come to take us away’.

Robertson said he had only met Ethel once and did not know her surname and cannot remember her being Irish (or otherwise).

This conflicts with the account of Diane Langford, who was sitting with Ethel, and says that she recognised him from living close to her in known police accommodation, and that she already knew him by name.

He said he did not panic but just ‘took steps to ameliorate the situation’, specifically ‘pretended to give her a hug’ and whispered in her ear to say nothing.

‘I turned around, went out, down the stairs, and walked away at high speed for about ten minutes.’

According to Langford’s statement, Robertson was significantly more violent and threatening – grabbing Ethel’s wrist and leading her out, then threatening that ‘something nasty’ would happen to her family in Ireland if she told anyone he was a police officer.

DEPARTURE

It seems that Robertson then phoned one of his bosses, then Chief Superintendent Phil Saunders, at home to report this. (He said earlier that he did not have the managers’ home numbers though). He says he was visited the next day by some very senior officers, including Vic Gilbert, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met and in charge of Special Branch at the time, as well as Rollo Watts.

Robertson’s written statement has more details of this SDS deployment-ending meeting. He says that Phil Saunders was a ‘gentleman and he would have dealt with it appropriately,’ but was not present, and suggests that Gilbert and Watts were only concerned with any damage the incident would do to their own careers.

Robertson knew he could not stay in the SDS after this incident. In all of the annual SDS reports and accompanying letters to the Home Office, the dangers presented by exposure of the work of the unit are repeatedly emphasised.

Although this compromise led to his deployment ending, he says it did not harm his career in the police force. He went to work elsewhere, returning to the SDS to assist with admin in the 1980s.

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, then appeared on-screen with a question of his own. He asked for more details about Robertson’s ‘duff’ accommodation. This appears to be in reference to inconsistency in his account of his SDS accommodation.

Robertson described it as a room in a ‘filthy’ house in West End Lane, run by a ‘large Irish lady’. He said that no, he was not aware of any other police housing nearby at that time.

Quite how this tallies with Ethel’s account is unclear. He says he never saw Ethel again, not that evening or since.

Mitting then returned to the screen to say that he has not received a copy of Diane Langford’s dissertation (which he only requested from her approximately 21 hours ago). It is unclear what this has to do with anything. This Inquiry has been running for years, has had months to avail themselves of her dissertation, or any other useful evidence.

Phillippa Kaufmann QC, representing victims of spycops, then appeared on screen. She got as far as saying that she sought some clarification from the Chair before Mitting rudely shut her down immediately, saying ‘I am not here to answer your questions’.

This is in accordance with the disrespect that he has shown Non-State Core Participants’ legal representatives on other occasions.

Written witness statement of ‘David Robertson’ HN45

‘Alex Sloan’

(HN347, 1971)

We heard from ‘Alex Sloan‘ (HN347, 1971) in the this afternoon. He infiltrated a number of groups, including the Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front (INLSF) that we heard about yesterday. He also submitted a written witness statement.

Sloan says he has no recollection of being recruited to the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) spycops unit. His witness statement says that he had no formal training. Asked how he knew what was expected of him, he asked if this was in ‘moral terms’ or otherwise.

Sloan knew, from his time in Special Branch, that they ‘would be interested in anything that was subversive to the State’.  He said that those who joined the Branch were ‘probably politically aware anyway’.

Asked if he understood what was considered ‘subversive’, he came up with an answer that already starts to sound familiar:

‘It wasn’t for me to judge… I would just listen… and relay the facts to my senior officers.’

He thought Special Branch were quite intelligent, and would make well-considered decisions.

Sloan was quick to add that he never committed any criminal offences and this would have been against his nature. He conceded that some officers might have done something ‘minor’ , but never something that was ‘serious and violent’.

He then volunteered his Thought of the Day:

‘You can remember the truth easily but to remember your lies is very difficult sometimes’

This provoked some laughter in the Inquiry’s hearing room.

NO GUIDANCE, NO ADVICE

Sloan was then asked a series of questions that once again underlined how little guidance and preparation the undercovers could expect.

During his deployment he had a rent book in his fake name, but no pay slips or library card. He told everyone he worked as a mechanic, but nobody ever asked to see his driving license. In fact, he doesn’t recall using any documents to back up his cover story. The use of fake identities was something that evolved further after he left the unit.

He was never asked to write an autobiography for ‘Alex Sloan’. He was not given any guidance about what to do if his cover was blown. He was not told about ‘legal professional privilege’, which means that he should not have been present at any legal discussions between lawyers and their clients. He thought that if an undercover was offered a responsible position of a target group (like treasurer or secretary) they should accept it, but admitted that he didn’t receive any instruction on this from his managers.

He also admitted that he didn’t fully consider the risks at the time, but looking back now, he sees that this work could have been ‘pretty dangerous’.

HOUSING

Looking at a memo on the SDS’ expenditure in 1971 [MPS-0730521], Sloan’s cover accommodation – which he describes as a bedsit – cost £20 every 4 weeks.

He then described the flat where the spycops met – he remembers a large lounge but says he doesn’t remember what other rooms it had or even if it had a kitchen. Attendance at the meetings varied – 6-8 undercovers at the most – plus the two senior officers.

There is some confusion about whether the bedsit of ‘David Robertson’ (HN45, 1971-73), which is listed as costing the same amount, and thus could not have been much larger than Sloan’s room, served as an SDS safe house, but Sloan accepted that he may have been confused about this.

We learnt a little more about the spycops unit’s regular meetings. Sloan says he can’t remember writing stuff down, so may have memorised intelligence before passing it on. He can’t remember who typed the reports. He saw the weekly meetings as a social gathering, a chance for the undercovers to get together and relax.

They obviously didn’t have mobile phones, but in many cases didn’t have landlines either, so would use phone boxes.

This weekly meeting was often the main time when they could communicate directly with their managers.
Sloan confirmed that he felt able to vent about issues at these meetings, and seek advice from his colleagues. He said they were ‘very open meetings’.

Asked if these offered an opportunity to speak privately with managers, he responded:

‘If I remember rightly, you could ask to talk to them privately, take them to one side, and perhaps go in the kitchen…’

At this point it seems to have dawned on HN347 that his memory had magically returned so he ended the sentence with ‘….if it was there’.

Sloan said he was ‘not terribly socially close’ to his colleagues:

‘It may come as a surprise, but being a Scotsman, I wasn’t interested in having a drink. So yes, we just sat there and discussed things.’

They sometimes talked about upcoming demonstrations. Like HN45 told us this morning, they also talked about admin stuff and settled their expenses.

ACTIVE UNDERCOVER

He described his weekly routine. The groups he was infiltrating would often meet/ be active until late at night, so Sloan would sometime sleep at their homes, rather than at his bedsit.

The SDS’s weekly meeting was on Monday, and he has said that he usually spent Tuesday and Wednesday at home and then sold newspapers every Thursday and Friday.

Sloan provided a bit more information about this. He said that they would meet up on a Friday night, and then hawk the papers around Irish pubs and dance-halls, on Saturday nights as well, not just in London but in other cities like Birmingham and Coventry. They would travel up there in minibuses, so he spent a lot of time with other members of the group. They generally sold the paper in pairs.

The Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front (INLSF) met every Sunday afternoon, and Sloan confirmed that these meetings lasted 3-4 hours, ‘probably too long’ in his words.

Asked if he ever tried to influence the direction of the groups he spied on, he said ‘you have to be very careful what you do’ and he explained that he would have checked in with his senior managers first.

When he was in Special Branch, before joining the SDS, he would often attend political meetings at places like Speakers Corner and Red Lion Square. However this was just done in plain clothes, not using any sort of undercover identity. According to his Freudian slip, ‘you garnish a lot more information’ from being inside a group in the way that SDS officers were.

PERSONAL WELFARE

Sloan explained that his wife was ‘very, very supportive’. At the time she worked and they had no children. He understood concerns about welfare – he had colleagues who were deep undercover who may have had more difficulties with their work-life balance – however the spycops’ lifestyle suited him OK.

He was then asked about the Stephen McCarthy campaign – set up after the death of this young man in 1969 (after he’d been arrested and injured by the police). According to a March 1971 report from Sloan [MPS 739483], there were a number of demos about this.

Sloan says he doesn’t remember the name Stephen McCarthy and doesn’t remember the demos, even though relatives of Stephen were arrested at them. He also says he has no recollection of meeting these relatives. Whatever, it is clear that this is an early example of spycops reporting on a family justice campaign.

Another report [MPS739317], from May 1971, includes an update on the McCarthy case. Sloan confirmed that he wasn’t given any advice about reporting on justice cases and campaigns like this that involved complaints against the police. However, he said that he felt he had a duty to give a heads up to the uniformed police if he became aware of any potential public order issues.

Sloan said he doesn’t remember all the demonstrations he attended, but would have gone out on a demonstration if Edward – very much ‘the boss’ of the group – told them to do so. Sloan then made the astonishing assertion that Davoren would have joined the National Front if he thought they would make him leader, ‘because that’s all he was interested in’.

Asked if the INLSF cooperated with the police, Sloan said ‘well, I was there’ <#spycops ‘joke’ alert>.

He agreed that the group had ‘revolutionary aspirations’, but considered it unlikely that these would ever be realised, calling them ‘Mickey Mouse’. He said the demonstrations organised by the group were small. They ‘never had the muscle or the manpower or the will’ for disorder/ riotous behaviour.

When asked if the group would have caused any public order problems for the police if he hadn’t infiltrated them, Sloan said the group ‘would have died a death eventually’, and went on to say that the activists involved ‘were never scary at all’:

‘They never gave off the vibes that they would cause aggravation to anyone, or any person or property.’

He realised that this meant there was little justification for infiltrating them, so was quick to add that it was really important that the police kept an eye on such groups ‘just in case’.

Sloan said he didn’t know much about the INLSF’s relationship with the Black Unity and Freedom Party, or about contact with the Chinese Legation. He didn’t take part in the trip to Ireland (detailed by ‘David Robertson’ earlier in the day), and in fact didn’t even know about it until he recently received the documents as evidence from the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

He was clear that he was never part of the group’s ‘inner core’, so wouldn’t have been present at their discussions. He remembered nothing about any controversy over claims of the INLSF enjoying the support of the Provisional IRA. In his estimation, the IRA would have looked at this group and thought ‘you’re of no interest to us whatsoever’.

ACCUSED OF BEING A SPYCOP

There was an ’emergency conference’ of the INLSF at the end of June 1971. Prior to this, two members of the inner circle had been expelled, and a paper had been circulated within the group. At that emergency meeting, more members walked out.

Sloan’s recollection of that meeting is that Davoren stated that another member of the group, O’Neill, had accused Alex Sloan of ‘being a pig’.

He recalls that he was sitting in the circle when this statement was made, that he feigned anger and raised his fist, and threatened O’Neill verbally, saying something along the lines of ‘don’t you ever say that about me again’.

(He made a comment first about not wishing to incriminate himself, and Barr explained that he didn’t need to fear that, due to an ‘undertaking’ from the Attorney General. He made sure to say ‘I didn’t touch him, I just threatened him’ so it is unclear why he was worried about self-incrimination.)

He says that after the meeting, he went out for some food with some of the group. He said Davoren told him, ‘I never once thought you were a pig, Alistair… or Alex’ which sounded like Sloan making a slip of the tongue, accidentally revealing his real first name.

NO INFLUENCE, NO EXPLANATIONS

Sloan strongly refuted any suggestion that he’d ever tried to influence the politics of the group. Referring to Davoren’s headstrong character, he explained:

‘What could I do to destabilise Ed Davoren?’

He says that he didn’t even realise there was a split of some kind between O’Neill and Davoren until that June 1971 meeting.

He had no explanation as to why there was such a delay between his withdrawal (at the end of June) and the report of the emergency conference (dated 16th July), and this report being produced (in August).

Next report was from August 1971 [UCPI0000007824], submitting the complete mailing list of names and addresses of the INLSF. When asked if he was ever given praise for this, he chuckled:

‘I don’t think I ever had any praise in my police service.’

Faced with a query as to whether he ever felt that he was being asked to report on groups when it wasn’t really necessary, Sloan repeated what we expect to become a returning theme in this Inquiry. He said he just tried to provide a clear picture of the groups that he spied on through his reports, and presumed that his managers would make decisions about which groups needed to be targeted.

The evidence from ‘Alex Sloan’ ended there.

The Chair, Sir John Mitting, thanked ‘Alex’ (or ‘Alistair’) for giving evidence, adding:

‘it is fascinating to me listening to honest witnesses describing unusual events 50 years ago from slightly different points of view. It brings them to light in a way that things on paper don’t.’

It is noticeable that Mitting has never thanked any of the non-State witnesses for their honesty.

Written witness statement of ‘Alex Sloan’ HN347

EMERGENCY BREAK OUTS

During the day, there were several ‘emergency break-outs’, with the transcript and the audio of the hearings suddenly grinding to a halt. Each time, it was entirely unclear what was the matter, for people listening at home and for us in the hearing room as well. Even the Inquiry staff present there had to wait until frantic deliberations behind the scenes had been resolved.

Any party can complain to the Chair when something allegedly breaking restriction orders is being said and broadcasted. The first time it happened was the most serious one. ‘David Robertson’ mentioned the name of HN294, the second manager of the SDS.

After a break of some 20 minutes, Mitting issued a brilliantly worded restriction order, specifying the officer by naming the other half of his leadership team; we were forbidden to mention ‘the name of the manager not being Phil Saunders’.

The second time the police hit the red button was when ‘Robertson’ was asked if he remembered fellow spycop Mike Ferguson (HN135). ‘Oh yes,’ he replied, ‘his nickname was Gimli’ – the name of a character who appears in the Hobbit and in Lord of the Rings, a dwarf with a beard so long he wore his belt over it. We‘re guessing the nickname is perhaps beard-related, rather than due to deadly prowess with an axe.

Mitting did not see a reason to keep this detail from us, or the name ‘Alistair’, so didn’t issue any more restriction orders.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (26 Apr 2021)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (28 Apr 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 4

26 April 2021

Evidence from witnesses:

Diane Langford
Dr Norman Temple

After last week’s opening statements in this new round of Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings examining 1973-82, today was the first day of witnesses giving evidence.

Before it started there were protests outside the Inquiry venue, with blacklisted workers and other spied-on activists demanding their secret police files. It was joined by the roving poster van from Police Spies Out of Lives that had visited the Royal Courts of Justice, the men-only Garrick Club where Inquiry Chair is a member, and New Scotland Yard.

Diane Langford

Diane Langford was questioned by Kate Wilkinson by behalf of the Inquiry.

Born in New Zealand, Langford moved to London in 1963 and got involved in political activity in 1965.

By 1968 she was a volunteer at the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination, and had joined NATSOPA, the print union. By the end of that year, she had played an active part in the protests against the Vietnam War. She was part of a group called the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF).

Langford said that her main focus over the past 50 years has been the liberation of women from all forms of oppression and exploitation. She worked politically with Abhimanyu Manchanda, who she later married.

THE SPYING BEGINS

The Special Demonstration Squad were reporting on her and Manchanda by March 1969 [MPS-0732690]. That early report – a BVSF weekly meeting – calls gives Manchanda’s first name as Al. Other reports call him Albert. He was never known by these names.

As well as personal names, Langford disabused the Inquiry of the name for their politics at the time:

‘We didn’t call ourselves Maoists, we called ourselves Marxist-Leninists.’

Although, with her tongue-in-cheek, she said she was happy with ‘Maoist’ as it was shorter!

She and Manchanda saw a need for (and likelihood of) anti-imperialist revolution elsewhere in the world. They saw the various struggles in different places as the same battle for freedom -from imperialism and oppression. There is a spycop file [MPS-0736447] of a 1969 speech by Manchanda that refers to:

‘the world front of imperialism which must be opposed by a common front of the revolutionary movement in all countries’

Langford said that, while there seems to be some investigation into the propensity for violence for spied-upon groups, it can be seen from the other direction; these are people trying to resist the violence of the State in order to get justice and liberation.

Whilst there were politicians such as Enoch Powell espousing overt racism, they also saw all the parties of the British government as wilfully oppressive, enforcing a racist unjust system that divides the working class and diverts wrath away from the ruling class.

These struggles against injustice continue, as we see in everything from deaths in custody and the campaigns that respond to them, to the continuing struggle for women’s liberation:

‘I still think that the State is a force which is there to act as the enforcer of oppression, yes.’

COLLECTIVE IMPERATIVE

Langford was asked what methods she and her comrades used to achieve these ends. She listed many examples including demonstrations, public meetings, trade union activity, industrial activity, literature, film screenings, rent strikes, boycotts, occupations, street theatre – even parliamentary lobbying.

Recalling the way that her group operated, Langford explained that they believed in taking collective action, not acting as ‘individualist idiots’. They frowned on certain activists’ methods, including ‘anyone who indulged in macho posturing’. She cited one guy taking off his shirt outside the South African embassy and setting fire to it – he was later condemned by the group for this ‘Petit-bourgeois adventurism’.

She explained some of the differences between her group and the Trotskyists, for example the Trotskyists did not see the struggle in Vietnam as sufficiently revolutionary, as these subsistence farmers were technically landowners.

They also rejected the politics of the Soviet Union, which had occupied Czechoslovakia, and appeared to them as another form of imperialist project.

Whilst they subscribed to Lenin’s idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the ‘magic weapon’ to guarantee victory, and adhered to the principle of revolution by violence, smashing the old state and seizing power by force, they saw these were very distant possibilities.

By definition, they required mass support before conditions could approach being right and, citing Lenin’s comments on the British aversion to revolutionary ideas, she said there was no UK mass movement ready for revolution. Manchanda was not convinced that sections of the white working class were ready to give up the privileges they had received as a result of colonialism.

WOMEN’S LIBERATION FRONT

She confirmed that her feminism stemmed from this same global anti-imperialist thinking.

In 1970 she founded the Women’s Liberation Front (WLF).

Some of the groups Langford belonged to in were targeted by ‘David Robertson’ (HN45, 1971-73). One of his earliest reports is dated 16 February 1971 [UCPI0000010570], and includes a leaflet detailing the WLF’s main aims.

Many of the aims including equal pay, equal opportunities, childcare facilities, and birth control are now accepted across the political spectrum (if not always implemented).

SPYING ON SMALL INNER-CIRCLE GROUPS

Langford and Manchanda formed the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League (RMLL), a group of around ten people with a focus on studying deep political theory. They sought to influence and lead the work of groups such as the WLF, BVSF and Friends of China. They regularly met at Langford’s house.

The Inquiry was shown another report by ‘David Robertson’, this time concerning an RMLL meeting in January 1971 [UCPI0000010567]. For the Inquiry, Wilkinson noted that this meeting lasted three and a half hours and asked if this was a standard length of meeting for this group?

With a weary note in her voice, Langford replied, ‘I’m afraid so, yes’.

This particular meeting was attended by 14 people. Three members were applying for jobs at Fords in Dagenham. The WLF, in the meantime, was planning to send its members to get jobs at the Metal Box Company. This was, Langford explained, a deliberate strategy to work at places where they may be industrial action, although their role was not to impose – again, their overarching principle of collective action came first.

Robertson was said to have attended many such meetings at Langford’s home. She seemed unable to accept he had been invited to these closed meetings despite the level of detail in the reports:

‘I find it very hard to believe that he was actually in the room, as he would not have been a member of that inner group. I should explain that we had a system of candidate membership and so there may have been someone in the room who was a candidate member’

She offers a alternative source for the intelligence – perhaps the room was bugged, or if there were some disgruntled group members (who were being challenged over their misogyny) who might have gossiped to a sympathetic person in the pub.

Robertson filled out a form for Langford [UCPI 00000334339], applying to join group’s Marxist-Leninist Mao Tsetung thought study classes in the spring of 1971.

Robertson was Scottish, and Langford remembers talking with him about the political situation in Scotland and noticing that he seemed quite clueless about past struggles such as the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.

WOMEN’S GROUP GETS A WOMAN SPYCOP

The SDS sent ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348) to infiltrate the WLF. She has told the Inquiry:

‘Women’s liberation was viewed as a worrying trend at the time.’

Despite having the same responsibilities as her male colleagues, because Davies was a woman she was only paid 90% of a male wage, in accordance with police policy at the time. Ironically, she received this partial wage in order to undermine a group campaigning for equal pay for women.

Davies reported on the WLF’s study group in March 1971 [UCPI0000026992]. This was a meeting at someone’s home, attended by Davies and just six other women. Langford pronounced this to be:

‘very very strange indeed… she would have had to do a lot of work to ingratiate herself to get invited to a meeting like that… she went from a public meeting to private meetings in a very short while’

OUSTING MANCHANDA

Another Robertson report [UCPI0000011741], from March 1971, details an extraordinary meeting of the RMLL that went on for 9 hours. It’s a very detailed report. The 17 people attending this meeting were expected to prepare, and write a paper in advance.

The meeting had been called in an attempt to resolve differences which had emerged in the group, but which caused its eventual split. In the report, Roberston characterised it with brazen contempt for Manchanda:

‘The object of the meeting was, in fact, to “cut down to size” the organisation’s leading personality A MANCHANDA whose offensive manner, dogmatic attitude, bullying techniques and general inefficiency have become too much even for his admirers to swallow.’

This was not the first sneering disparagement from Robertson, who’d previously reported on Manchanda’s ‘insufferable anecdotes’ about his baby, and criticised him for doing childcare while Langford went out to work.

There are a lot of details of private matters at a private home. Robertson claimed he babysat the couple’s infant child. Langford was aghast:

‘I find it absolutely outrageous that he would even make such a suggestion… we would never have left a young baby with someone we hardly knew – certainly not!’

Langford condemned his report as highly subjective and was baffled that this sort of thing was shared with MI5:

‘It’s not even about our politics, it’s about our personal lives, and it’s so intrusive, so nasty and so petty… How did these things end up in the reports of a supposedly serious operation?’

Langford said one of the reasons for the meeting was that many women on the left were starting to examine and call out ‘various misdemeanours’ by left-wing men. The report mentions a letter one of the group had sent to Manchanda. Robertson described it as:

‘a very personal attack on the private morals of [name redacted] arising from an incident that had taken place some time previously’

Langford said that it was much more serious than that. It was an accusation of attempted rape against a man in the group. She remembers the man denying it and his exact words, ‘she’s too ugly to rape’ are still ‘burned into my memory’.

More to the point, Roberston was a police officer hearing a report of a serious offence, yet his response was to misreport in such vague terms that none of his police colleagues would be aware of the truth.

Langford was asked if anyone else in the group reported it to the police:

‘Very few women would. We all knew we’d be subjected to further humiliation.’

The meeting had heated exchanges and Manchanda was suspended from the RMLL. It means Robertson, or whoever the informer was, must have contributed to the meeting and had a vote. Robertson noted this probably meant that Friends of China and the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front would be disbanded too.

DEMOLISHING THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION FRONT

Six-months later, in September 1971, there is a report [UCPI0000027021] from a WLF meeting where an emergency resolution was passed to expel Diane Langford from the group that she had set up. The vote was unanimous – so Sandra Davies approved and voted Langford out as well.

According to one of Davies’ reports [UCPI0000010932], the Black Unity and Freedom Party was planning a children’s Christmas party in 1971, and they asked the WLF to contribute home-made sweets and cakes.

Asked why the intention to bake was worthy of reporting by police charged with preventing disorder, Davies seemed to suggest it was a ruse to indoctrinate kids:

‘They were involving themselves with children and the sweets and cakes were an addition. They wanted to get their philosophy across to as many groups as they could. That was their aim’

Another of Davies’ reports [UCPI0000010907] mentions a jumble sale being organised by the WLF. Again, she defended this because:

‘they would have used it as another opportunity for advertising their aims’

Both of these reports were copied to MI5.

In February 1972, a report [UCPI0000010908] shows that spycop Sandra Davies had been elected WLF treasurer. A month later, Davies reported [UCPI0000010911] on an emergency meeting of the Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Women’s Union – as the WLF was now called – that decided to suspend three members from the wider group for ‘disruptive behaviour’.

Six weeks after that, on 4 May 1972, Davies attended another Women’s Revolutionary Union meeting at a member’s home. According to her report [UCPI0000010913], it opened with comments about a general lack of enthusiasm within the group, older members dropping out and not being replaced by new ones. The organisation was finished.

NIXON PROTEST

In January 1973, a report [UCPI0000010247] concerns a private meeting of the Britain-Vietnam Solidarity Front to organise a protest coinciding with the inauguration of US President Richard Nixon. Although much of the world saw Nixon as improving relations with China, the BVSF were keen to protest against Nixon’s extension of the Vietnam War into Cambodia and Laos.

Robertson and Jill Mosdell (HN346) are both shown as contributing to this report. Langford noticed the name Digby Jacks, NUS president at the time, and believes this meeting was about organising the practicalities of the march they were organising. She made the point that they would communicate with the (uniformed) police to agree the route of any marches.

BURNING BANNER BOOKS

Banner Books is mentioned in a report from 1972. It seems that Robertson was working there. In her opening statement last week, Langford pointed out that this meant the SDS had keys for the shop. She remembered that it was later burned down by fascists. This hadn’t appeared in any of the police reports.

For the Inquiry, Wilkinson promised that Robertson will be asked about this when he gives evidence on the morning of Tuesday 27 April.

Ultimately though, Robertson’s cover identity was compromised in 1973 and his deployment ended. If, as Wilkinson suggested, the fire occurred in 1975, this might be the reason he didn’t mention it.

THE MASK SLIPS

In 2015, Langford said that Robertson had long made them uneasy:

‘A moustachioed Scottish man, Dave Robertson, aroused suspicion because he was always driving a different car. When challenged he claimed to be working for a car rental firm. On another occasion he’d told me he worked at a club called the Tatty Bogle. One of the comrades went down to check it out and found this to be untrue.

‘At Manu [Manchanda]’s suggestion, we didn’t confront Dave, but assigned him the most onerous tasks: collecting heavy banners and placards in his car and carrying them on marches. He was always called upon to buy everyone drinks and asked to memorise long passages from James Maxton, an obscure Scottish Marxist.

‘The funny thing was, I quite liked Dave. He was always good-natured and went along with the aggravation. Then all that changed. The sinister nature of his work revealed itself.’

Langford inadvertently played a key role in the blowing of Robertson’s cover. She was working at the Daily Mirror and brought a co-worker, Ethel, along to a meeting of the Indo-China Solidarity Committee about President Nixon’s bombing of Cambodia.

Robertson walked in and Ethel greeted him brightly. He came over very quickly – acting ‘like overbearing men often do’, said Langford – grabbed Ethel by the wrist and said, ‘I want to talk to you outside.’ They didn’t come back.

For about a week, Ethel was awkward with Langford and wouldn’t talk about it. Eventually, she told Langford that she knew him from living in a nearby flat, and it was well known his flat was a police flat.

Ethel explained:

‘Dave works for the Special Branch. He’s threatened that if I tell you or Manchanda, he’ll cause something nasty to happen to my family in Ireland.’

Robertson was never seen again. He and the two officers deployed alongside him, Jill Mosdell and Sandra Davies, were all withdrawn at the same time.

Despite serving in the Met’s elite subversion and public order unit for two years, Davies said in her witness statement to the Inquiry:

‘I did not witness or participate in any public disorder whilst serving with the SDS. I do not even recall going on any marches or demonstrations. I did not witness nor was I involved in any violence.’

It must have been obvious very early on in her deployment what she was involved with. And yet, she was still there, spying full-time on that group, two years later. Looking back, she continued:

‘I do not think my work really yielded any good intelligence, but I eliminated the Women’s Liberation Front from public order concerns’

LEGACY

Langford says the truth has left her feeling guilty for being unknowingly allowing Robertson into their political groups. She feels anxious about the possibility of State reprisals on Ethel, and outraged that a woman she trusted violated her family space when they were just trying to improve the lives of women.

Langford flatly rejects the police lawyers’ exhortations to make allowances for bigotry in the reports as merely ‘the standards of the time’. She sternly asserted that there was no excuse for such sickening racist, sexist and homophobic language and attitudes. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been declared a generation earlier. There were any number of people like Martin Luther King, Claudia Jones, and James Baldwin who were alive and not bigoted and very publicly saying so. Such prejudice and oppression was no more right or acceptable then than it is now.

The Inquiry has uploaded Diane Langford‘s account of her political life, ‘The Manchanda Connection – a political memoir by Diane Langford‘

Witness statement of Diane Langford

Dr Norman Temple

Dr Norman Temple was Zoomed in from Vancouver (where it was 8.30am when he started). He was, as everybody agreed (even Counsel to the Inquiry David Barr QC who we ran into leaving the venue and who did his questioning), ‘quite a character’.

Temple attended university in Liverpool from 1965-67, but didn’t study much. He was a member of the Labour Party. His interest was piqued by a periodical from China and after he moved to London he got involved with Maoists there.

In 1967, the Vietnam war intensified. The civil rights movement, the hippies in San Francisco, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement were all running in parallel. In Britain there was the specific political situation in Northern Ireland, in France there were the événements of 1968.

He pointed out that there was lots of overlap between these different campaigns, and others, including the fight against apartheid.

He saw that these issues were all connected, and that the system was the problem.

He saw three main factions on the Left at the time: those who were pro-Soviet Union, those who were pro-China, and those who were Trotskyists. He was drawn to the pro-China people, the Maoists, and happily described himself as ‘rent a mob’ – ‘a floating revolutionary’ who got involved in lots of things.

Most of the hearing revolved around the politics of the (splinter-)groups he had been involved in, and it turned out Temple still had quite strong opinions about his former comrades.

PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

Palestine ‘burst on the scene’ in 1969 and became an issue internationally, like apartheid and Vietnam. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) was formed at the Egyptian Embassy, near to the old MI5 building in Mayfair. Asked about his membership of the ‘Kensington and Paddington branch of the PSC’, Temple retorted that ‘It would be more accurate to say I was the branch’.

We were shown an SDS report dated 17 June 1970 [MPS-0739227] signed off by a Detective Inspector (HN294, 1968-69), which includes personal details about members of the group, including their addresses, phone numbers, employment, etc.

Temple said he had no idea that the police were taking such an interest in his doings. He guessed that their thinking was ‘we better find out what these people are are up to case they do something a bit naughty’ – a precaution, just like smoke detectors. Which somehow made it sound like he was giving evidence for the police.
There were about 20 branches of the PSC in the UK, and ten affiliated organisations.

These included Arab student groups, the BVSF and CPGML (Maoist), International Socialists (Trotskists), etc. At a joint conference on 6 February 1971, the Maoists tried to take control of the PSC, but weren’t supported by the Arab student groups. The Trots were trying to do much the same thing.

IRISH NATIONAL LIBERATION SOLIDARITY FRONT

Temple then was asked about his involvement in the Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front (INLSF) in September 1970. It was run by an internal organising committee, which Temple was invited to join after 2 or 3 weeks. The group was producing a paper and needed all the help they could get.

Asked how security-conscious the INLSF was, Temple suggested that for a revolutionary organisation, being considered so insignificant by the police that you’re not under surveillance is ‘the ultimate insult’. The main thing the group did was to remove the telephone from the room during meetings, because they assumed all of their phones were tapped.

The principal activity of the INLSF was the production and distribution of the Irish Liberation Press, a newspaper which was sold in Irish pubs and venues around London. The newspaper dominated everything, according to Temple. They spent a lot of time producing it and then distributing it.

Undercover officer ‘Alex Sloan‘ (HN347, 1971), who infiltrated this group, was around for approximately four months at the start of 1971. According to Temple, he would have visited the flat where the paper was made, but he never got to the level of being trusted enough to be invited to meetings of the inner group.

The Inquiry was treated to a picture of an issue of the newspaper, while David Barr QC read the rabble-rousing text out loud.

Temple described the piece in the paper as ‘full of all these cliches’ and ‘very colourful language’, and did not necessarily reflect his views on things: ‘Everything there is written by Davoren’; nobody else was ever invited to write an article, they might be assigned ‘sort of chicken feed’ tasks.

Temple really sounded as if he still had an axe to grind with Davoren. The latter was the ‘Editor’ of the paper, but also ‘the author of everything’, and someone who believed they never made mistakes, says Temple.

Asked to talk about the level of disruption caused by the INLSF, Temple spoke about the Hyde Park demo, which he probably missed (as he and four others had gone to a trip to Ireland over Easter 1971). INLSF demos would attract 200-300 people, and their pickets around ten.

David Barr questioned him about different tactics used by the group – Temple confirmed that these included putting up posters, and what could maybe loosely be classed as ‘political education’. They would focus on the issues pertinent to people in Ireland, rather than providing a traditional Maoist political education.

Davoren, however, had his own personal political ideology. He ‘loved Stalin’ and wrote about him in the paper, but ‘nothing ever on Chairman Mao’, so Temple thinks it would be more accurate to describe him as a ‘Stalinist’ than a ‘Maoist’.

The Black Unity and Freedom Party, a Black organisation based in Finsbury Park and South London, was ‘the only other organisation that we were friendly with’ – there was no ideological disagreement between the two groups as they worked on completely different issues.

A next report [MPS-0739488] mentions a visit that Davoren paid to the ‘Chinese Legation’ in April – Temple was ‘totally unaware of it’ but reckons this is the sort of thing that Davoren may have done.

The trip to Ireland, mentioned above, was aimed at selling lots of papers, but border control noticed the thousands of copies in their van and wouldn’t let them bring their propaganda onto the ferry.

At a meeting of the group afterwards, according to the report that ‘Sloan’ submitted, there was ‘comment and disbelief’ about the statement of support of the Provisional IRA, who allowed the paper to be sold on their territory.

(Before this support was confirmed, there was an incident Belfast, when the INLSF paper-sellers were told ‘you have five minutes to get out’.) The only topic that Temple felt was safe to debate in NI was the Palestinian struggle.

Davoren was very critical of the IRA and its bombing campaign – he denounced them as ‘Catholic nationalists’. He did not think of them as a left-wing organisation, but people with politics different to his. Asked if Temple had met with any Protestant groups, Temple said ‘absolutely not, that would be very bad for the health'(!)

The hearing then moved to details about dates.

The organisation split after that meeting, with roughly half of the group walking out.

Temple stayed on for some time and shortly afterwards, Davoren set up a new organisation: the Communist Workers League. They were sent out in pairs to sell the paper. There must be mistakes in the reports, Temple says, the CWL can’t have been mentioned before the split.

He doesn’t think he was ever paired up with ‘Sloan’ and doesn’t remember having any proper conversation with the guy. He said that there was another member named Jackson who several of them believed to be a spycop. He says there has been nothing from the Inquiry about this man.

Temple said that, in comparison, ‘Jackson’ was a much more talkative figure, whereas Sloan was very quiet, and ‘made no impact on me’. He does not think that Sloan held any positions of responsibility in the group.

EMERGENCY CONFERENCE

The next report [MPS- 0739470] is on an emergency conference that was held during the weekend of 26-27 June 1971. Some members had been expelled from the Communist Workers League (described as the ‘inner caucus of the INLSF’) a few weeks earlier. You couldn’t possibly resign from the group, you were expelled, and more people left at this ’emergency meeting’.

Temple remembers being warned (by Davoren and Joe O’Neill) that ‘Alex Sloan’ was working for the police. However, at a meeting where this was going to be discussed, despite personally believing that Sloan was an undercover, Davoren accused O’Neill of slander for suggesting that Sloan was a ‘pig’.

Being accused made Sloan’s position in the group untenable, so he left. According to Temple, he did so on amicable terms, with no animosity.

Temple doesn’t know where the idea of Sloan being a police spy came from or what evidence there was for this; and after he disappeared, no further research was done either.

He clarified that he continued working alongside Davoren between June and September 1971, but after this he had very little to do with the guy and his new group.

Temple says he was no longer actively or officially involved in much political activity after this; he would occasionally attend events but not organise so much.

Altogether, there was not a lot we learned form Dr Norman Temple. Most of what he said was common knowledge, at least for anyone who had look at some SDS reports on that period.

Witness statement of Dr Norman Temple

INFORMATION ACCESS

Those following proceedings from home, including journalists, found themselves hampered by the continual references to documents that still hadn’t actually been uploaded to the Inquiry website. Some of the exhibits were uploaded earlier on in the day, but not all of them.

The way they were presented on the Inquiry’s pages of the hearing makes it near-impossible to look at them as they’re being discussed. With multiple reports entitled – for example – ‘Special Branch report by HN347 on a private meeting of the INLSF’ there is no way to work out which one is being referred to.

We do need the unique reference number included there, and of course the complete selection of files referred to at the start of the hearing – adding them later on is all too confusing.

ROOFING ROUND-UPS

For those of you who need an even shorter summary of the day and some added comment of your independent experts, have a look at Tom B. Fowler’s roofing round ups, the venerable spycops hearings live tweeter bringing you instant reaction to the hearings given live through the day during the breaks on Facebook.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (23 Apr 2021)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (27 Apr 2021)>>