Home Secretary Announces Terms of Undercover Police Inquiry

We welcome the Home Secretary keeping up the pace on the pending Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing, today making an announcement on its terms of reference.

Today’s statement is too vague to properly appraise, leaving lots of space for what ‘the inquiry chairman shall judge appropriate’.

It is key that Lord Justice Pitchford does not merely hear testimony from people who were targeted. He needs to recognise that every one of these key things was revealed after tenacious work by activists and journalists, not one came from the dozens of official inquiries and panels that have been set up to investigate:

– More than a dozen undercover officers have been exposed and their abuses and actions as agents provocateur documented.

– More than 50 miscarriages of justice have been identified and convictions quashed.

– An illegal construction industry blacklist used by most of the biggest companies to deny work to thousands of politically active people – ably and illegally assisted by police – has been exposed and shut down.

– Dozens of women were psychologically and sexually abused after being deceived into relationships with undercover officers, a practice denounced as ‘grossly unprofessional’ by senior police themselves.

– The tactic of stealing dead children’s identities was mandatory in the Special Demonstration Squad until the mid 1990s and the Home Affairs Select Committee has demanded that all affected families be told, a call echoed this week by Doreen Lawrence. The only ones it has happened to are Rod Richardson and John Barker‘s families after they were traced by activists that the officers had lived with.

NOT JUST A VOICE – AN EYE AS WELL

The fact that victims had to research and reveal the truth themselves mirrors the work of many racial justice campaigns who were spied on, forensically compiling the truth of events.

In this victim/perpetrator situation, the people affected need to be given a formally empowered position at the inquiry, such as an oversight panel of representatives. These same people, responsible for investigations that brought the whole issue to light, should be trusted to help steer us to the truth, rather than the vested interests or the authors of assorted whitewashes at the police and satellite bodies.

Additionally, there has been an invaluable contribution from the whistleblower officer Peter Francis. Dozens of family and racial justice campaigns were spied on and actively undermined. Without Francis’ brave testimony, this would still be unknown. These units tried their best to have their very existence kept secret, documentation is minimal and so we are reliant on those involved stepping forward.

Lord Justice Pitchford should give assurance and encouragement to Francis and others who come forward, and this should begin with immunity from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

HITTING LIMITS?

Worryingly, the government’s terms say Pitchford will ‘inquire into and report on undercover police operations’, only later saying that the scope

 

will include, but not be limited to, whether and to what purpose, extent and effect undercover police operations have targeted political and social justice campaigners.

 

When the inquiry was announced a year ago, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary was simultaneously tasked to produce a report on undercover policing. The doorstep-sized result was as useless as it was large. Over 200 pages on undercover policing in the broadest sense, barely touching on the political policing that is the substance of the scandal.

Today’s announcement gives opportunity for the same distraction tactic to be used. The police may talk at length about infiltrating gangs of people traffickers and paedophiles to public acclaim, and use that glow of approval to blind people from seeing the vast, murky expanse of the counter-democratic work and personal abuse that police have been systematically engaged in.

Despite the breadth of space left by the lack of specifics in the announcement, it is also of serious concern that there is a geographical limit that would appear to exclude several issues we mentioned in our draft terms of reference.

 

The inquiry will not examine undercover or covert operations conducted by any body other than an English or Welsh police force

 

It is well established that these officers work internationally. Peter Francis did so more than 20 years ago. Mark Kennedy worked in 14 countries. These actions, which involved criminal behaviour and human rights abuses, were integral to his deployment, and presumably that of other officers deployed abroad.

By the same token, foreign spies paid by English and Welsh police, or working with their blessing, should not be excluded.

ALL THE POLITICAL SPIES

Some aspects of the breadth are heartening to see, especially the specification that

 

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.

 

Whilst these two units were at the core and must be the focus, there were other allied units such as the corporate assistance National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit who are known to have given high level briefings to the construction industry blacklisters. Additionally, the IPCC has conceded that every constabulary’s Special Branch is likely to have illegally supplied the blacklist, not just the spy units.

Furthermore, it’s unclear if the political spying and intimidation of bereaved justice campaigners such as Janet Alder and the Hillsborough families was done by the named units. It seems more likely that it was their local Special Branch, yet they are as serious as many cases of abuse by the Met’s spies and should be examined accordingly. Additionally, in family justice campaigns, family liaison officers and witness support officers were key to the spying and their involvement needs to be examined.

Beyond that, it’s clear that the same political and personal abuses occur in corporate spying, an industry largely populated by former police officers and utterly – often illegally – reliant on contacts within the force. Conversely, police use public resources (again, often illegally) to assist companies targeted by campaigners. To only look at what was done under the auspices of the police is to ignore a sizeable, essential part of the role of political policing. Pitchford must examine it all.

It it to be hoped that when Lord Justice Pitchford fleshes out his terms of reference we will see these issues addressed and his inquiry will deliver the answers that justice demands.

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FURTHER RESPONSES

The Monitoring Group has supported over 100 family and community justice campaigns, mostly for people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, including several that were spied on and undermined by police. Their response to the announcement is here.

Police Spies Out of Lives speaks for eight women bringing legal cases after having relationships with undercover officers from the SDS and NPOIU. Their response is here.

Our draft terms for the public enquiry, drawn up in consultation with numerous people and groups who were spied on as well as legal representatives, are here.