Unlawful, Unjustifiable & Useless: Inquiry Condemns Spycops

As the public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police ends its first phase, what has been achieved so far?

February 2023 saw the Undercover Policing Inquiry finally concluding its first phase, known as Tranche 1, which looked at undercover political policing from the formation of the Special Demonstration Squad in 1968 until 1982.

The Inquiry, now in its eighth year, is expected to publish an interim report at the end of June this year.

After that, the Inquiry will return in 2024 to examine spying from 1983 onwards.

Thanks in no small part to hard work from victims of spycops and campaigners there has been some pretty damning media coverage of the actions of the Metropolitan Police.

Headlines outing endemic sexism, the widespread failings of the spycops, successive Prime Ministers knowing about the spy unit, and officers’ involvement in illegal activity have no doubt left the Metropolitan Police and the state reeling.

While media coverage does not even begin to deliver justice to the victims of the spycops, it does raise awareness of their actions. With little indication that the culture of the Metropolitan Police is changing, forewarned is forearmed for today’s political activists.

It has also been gratifying that more convictions of activists have been overturned after interference from undercover political policing was revealed at the Inquiry, adding to the 50 convictions already quashed.

MILESTONES OF TRUTH

There’s a long way to go in the fight for justice and transparency. But while we await the interim report from Judge Mitting, it’s important to recognise the milestones reached so far.

These include:

– The Ellison Review in 2013 into the ‘seriously flawed’ police investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The Review made a range of devastating findings against the Met, and the shocking role of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in targeting the Lawrence family campaign.

– Home Secretary Theresa May’s statement to Parliament on 6th March 2014, saying she was ‘profoundly shocked’ by some of the Ellison Review revelations about the Met and the SDS, and that therefore she was initiating this public inquiry and calling for a ‘change in culture’ in the police.

– The Metropolitan Police’s 2015 apology and payment of compensation to seven women deceived into sexual relationships by SDS officers. In an unprecedented statement, the Met admitted the relationships were ‘a gross violation of personal dignity and integrity’ and ‘abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong’.

– The Investigatory Powers Tribunal’s powerful legal judgment in 2021 in favour of Kate Wilson and against the Metropolitan Police spying operations. They found that spycops had breached ‘a formidable list’ of five of the 14 articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and condemned their ‘disturbing and lamentable failings at the most fundamental levels’. The Tribunal ruled that the undercover policing units did not meet a pressing social need and were not necessary in a democratic society.

– The Inquiry’s own legal team’s finding, in January 2023, that the Metropolitan Police and government had failed to consider the legality and justification of the SDS activities during the 1970’s, and that if they had done so they would have been likely to conclude it should have been closed down.

Instead, the Inquiry asserted, the unit continued despite the fact that it had no tangible achievement in its supposed purpose of preventing public disorder.

UNJUSTIFIABLE

This devastating statement was backed up by the Metropolitan Police’s own admission that none of the SDS deployments looked at in Tranche 1 were justified ‘by modern standards’.

As the Inquiry’s legal team responded, why were these deployments allowed to continue unabated after the introduction of ‘modern standards’ in 2000? We will no doubt find out more about that in the next phase of the Inquiry!

We look forward to seeing and hearing the evidence relevant to Tranche 2 (1983-1992) next year, and the other Tranches after that. For the schedule and other information on the Undercover Policing Inquiry, check out our UCPI FAQ.

The Metropolitan Police can be sure that we, and the thousands of others affected by this unjustifiable and invasive political policing, are not going away.