What We’ve Learnt from Spycop HN1 ‘Matt Rayner’

Special Demonstration Squad officer HN1 ‘Matt Rayner’ gave evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry for three days in January. Tomorrow he returns for a further two days. As a prelude to that, here are some key points from his January testimony.

Spycops weren’t always tasked to infiltrate groups but instead given the names of individual activists and told to befriend them and report on their activities, whatever they were.

People were often the subject of spycops’ reports because of what they thought, rather than what they actually did. HN1 believed that having a certain ‘ideology’ or way of thinking was an indication that you might be drawn into taking more serious action at some later date, and so it was worth watching you.

HN1 admitted that the police were selective in who they targeted, betraying their prejudice and political allegiances. They didn’t bother recording information about some groups who regularly committed violent criminal acts – e.g. hunt supporters – but instead focused their energy and resources on the non-violent people who were opposed to hunting, even when they committed no crime.

POSH HUNT SAB – AN UPPER CRUSTY

HN1 was very unwilling to be drawn into any criticism of either hunt supporters or the police, suggesting that he likely has links with the Establishment and people who take part in hunting.

He displayed an ‘upper class’ accent, especially on the first day of his evidence, and words you’d expect to hear from a public-school boy.

Was this as example of him ‘mirroring’ the Inquiry’s Chair or trying to establish his credentials as someone with a certain type of influential friend? He sounded noticeably less posh as the days wore on.

HN1’s conduct during the hearings annoyed everyone. This included his repeated references to the Inquiry’s barrister of 20 years’ experience, Emma Gargitter, as ‘Emma’. It was in marked contrast to him unfailingly addressing the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, as ‘Sir’.

He has been afforded an extraordinary level of privacy, and ‘special measures’ designed to prevent anyone from identifying him and his current role. This has led to a great deal of speculation but, contrary to the bare-faced lies of the police’s ‘designated lawyer’ Oliver Sanders, nobody has gone as far as creating an AI image to show what he might look like nowadays.

DEFENDING DECEIT

HN1 deceived activist Liz Fuller into a relationship. We don’t even know if he is still married to the same woman he was with when he cheated on her with Fuller. He continues to claim that what he had with Liz was both ‘genuine’ and ‘monogamous’, and often spoke about how ‘Matt Rayner’ and his real persona were two separate men.

When Gargitter read out the words of the Met Police’s official apology to the women affected by these deceitful relationships – not just those they deceived in their cover identities but also these police officers’ wives – he insisted that his wife didn’t need this apology, and suggested that they had reached a private understanding of their own.

Despite the Met’s use of the word to describe what he did, he refused to accept his actions had been ‘manipulative’ in any way.

‘RAYNER’ AND COLES SIMILARITIES

He seems to have had a lot in common with HN2 Andy Coles ‘Andy Davey’, who was deployed at the same time as him into many of the same groups, although there is obviously no love lost between these two.

They both appear to have over-inflated opinions of their own abilities and intelligence. Both seem convinced that anyone who hears them will be convinced that they did a great job, instead of viewing them as responsible for abhorrent human rights abuses.

They both use long words to say very little (HN1’s favourites included ‘intellectual’ and ‘cerebral’).

They both lie (a lot – as you’d expect from professional liars, who were paid and trained to do this by the Met).

They both over-state their achievements.

Like Coles, HN1 had obviously rehearsed some answers before his appearance, and was ready and willing to reel off obvious lies about those he spied on.

Though he had a lot to say at times, he noticeably clammed up whenever Gargitter pointed out contradictions and discrepancies between what he was saying and what he had put in his various earlier statements to the Inquiry, its risk assessors, the Herne inquiry which preceded it, and his the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) reports of the time. His verbose manner suddenly deflated to ‘I can’t explain’ or ‘I can’t help’.

TACTICAL IGNORANCE

He often claimed ‘I didn’t write that’ – especially in regards to reports that were found on an SDS hard-drive in a file bearing his name – and sought to blame his managers for their contents.

There was general ridicule of many of his excuses, and his references to some mythical ‘grey area’ when it came to the morality and ethics of his operations.

Despite portraying himself as a pro-active, motivated and highly effective spy, he insisted that he knew nothing at all about Helen Steel, the McLibel case or her intimate long-term relationship with his colleague, HN5 John Dines ‘John Barker’.

He kept saying that he had ‘no interest’ in Steel, or the groups she was part of, including London Greenpeace (LGP), even though there was lots of overlap between her life and many of the activists he deliberately befriended.

For example, Paul Gravett, who was a friend of Steel’s for many years, visited her home and was part of LGP too. Liz Fuller lived next door to Dave Morris who was an LGP activist and the other half of ‘the McLibel Two’. She regularly looked after his young son, and as a result HN1 spent many hours in Morris’s home while he was out.

We also heard evidence about his influencing HN14 Jim Boyling, who was recruited to the SDS after him and was mentored by him. Boyling went on to form a number of abusive relationships with female activists, and went so far as to marry one and have children with her.

LOWER THAN THE LOWEST

Each time another of these men gives evidence, we think he can’t be any worse than the last one. However it’s fair to say that HN1 managed to hit new lows, even for a discredited squad that contained the likes of Andy Coles, Bob Lambert and Trevor Morris.

One of the most glaring concerns is that each one of these abusive men paved the way for those that followed them, often mentoring and/or holding management roles.

Through the years of its existence, the culture of the SDS can be seen to have become more depraved – the inevitable result of their misconduct going unchecked and the impunity they enjoyed as part of a secret, extra-special, ‘elite’ unit within Special Branch.

HN1 has been given a set of ‘special measures’ to protect his anonymity – implying that he currently holds some significant role that would be adversely affected if people knew the truth about who he was.

We will publish a more in-depth report of HN1’s evidence once he has finished giving it and the Inquiry has uploaded transcripts of all three days.