UCPI Daily Report, 4 Nov 2025: ‘L3’ evidence

Tranche 3 Phase 1, Day 8
4 November 2025

INTRODUCTION

On the afternoon of Tuesday 4 November 2025, the Undercover Policing Inquiry heard evidence from an unexpected witness who was only recently added to the hearings schedule.

Known by the Inquiry only as ‘L3’, he was an active member of Croydon Hunt Saboteurs during the time when the group was infiltrated by undercover officer HN16 James Thomson ‘James Straven’ who was deployed 1997-2002.

Not until the opening statements of the current Inquiry hearings in October did L3 hear that in 2001 Thomson had accused him of attempting to traffic a firearm to the UK from France, as part of a supposed plot to murder a fox hunter.

L3 absolutely rejects the allegations and describes the supposed plot as:

‘the biggest event of my life that I am not aware of, up until about a fortnight ago.’

He was hastily added to the hearings schedule and also made a 24-page written statement [UCPI0000039400], which was only submitted the previous Tuesday (28 October).

The Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) is an independent, judge-led inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales. Its main focus is the activity of two units who deployed long-term undercover officers into a variety of political groups: the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS, 1968-2008) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU, 1999-2011). Spycops from these units lived as activists for years at a time, spying on more than 1,000 groups.

L3 was questioned by Don Ramble, Junior Counsel to the Inquiry. The Inquiry’s page for the day has audio and a transcript of the live session.

BACKGROUND – HUNT SABBING AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

L3 explained that he has been involved in low level animal rights campaigning since the early 1990s.

‘Very specifically it was targeted towards public outreach events. We did High Street stalls, we did leafleting. We did village fetes, this kind of thing. Anything in which we could get exposure. We did public meetings…

Some of the people I was conducting the outreach events with were also part of the local hunt sab group and I was introduced that way.’

In the mid 1990s he went abroad and worked for an animal rights organisation where he learned how to run a campaign and do media work.

Bizarrely, when the time came for Thomson’s lawyers to pose questions for L3, they appeared more interested in this media training than in L3’s account of the trip to France. The only reason we can see for this is that L3 was a very convincing and credible witness and they wished to try to undermine that by implying that he had been trained.

This is an odd approach, given that police officers could be expected to have training and experience in interview techniques and cross examination, yet the evidence given by ex-undercover officers has been consistently appalling and unconvincing. It seems far more likely that L3 is simply an intelligent, articulate man who was telling the truth.

At the end of 1997, L3 returned to the UK. He moved into a communal house where the person known as ‘L1’ in the Inquiry, and L3’s brother (known as ‘L2’), were living. Both L1 and L2 knew James Thomson from Croydon Hunt Sabs.

L3 first met Thomson in early 1998. Thomson would visit the house, but L3 thinks they first met out hunt sabbing.

‘He was already very much a part of that sab group and if anything I was the new boy. But I came with some credence, because L1 and L2 were already very much a part of it and would have introduced me. So that would have given me some kind of grandfather’s rights, as it were.’

L3 became part of what has been referred to as the core group of Croydon Hunt Sabs, alongside L1, L2, L4 and ‘Wendy’, who he describes as:

‘one of the finest humans I’ve ever met… She’s honest, trustworthy, dependable, wants to do the right thing. Wouldn’t cross you. She is just a very decent human being.’

James Thomson was also a part of the core group, in that he would go out sabbing very frequently, sometimes twice a week.

L3 was asked about equipment provided by Thomson, specifically some night vision equipment.

‘It was specifically given to those of us that were living at the house… rather than the group as a whole…

It was quite a sophisticated piece of equipment for the time. It certainly wasn’t something you would have been able to buy. It was a battery-operated device that illuminated the view in front of you to one degree. It wasn’t binocular is what I mean. You would see it in normal vision…

The garden at the back of L4’s house had a large badger sett running around the back of it, and he would take many of us to come and watch the badgers. And this piece of equipment was excellent for that purpose. That was how it was used initially.

And later, in order for us to gain our own information in what was an increasingly difficult environment to obtain information on the hunt, I used that equipment in my own intelligence gathering.’

L3 made clear that the device was not used for anything that broke the law, or to commit crime. However, he thought that might have been Thomson’s intention in giving it to them.

‘It was quite obvious that we didn’t have the capacity to obtain this level of equipment and so perhaps as a way to provide himself with some kudos, he provided us with the equipment. Or perhaps it was indeed meant for us to facilitate even further acts, that that might enable us to be able to do that we weren’t able to do so beforehand.’

Thomson told L3 he was from Scotland. He mentioned that he had an ex-wife and children, that he worked for a film company as a location finder, and lived in a small flat in the Oval area of London.

Thomson didn’t talk to L3 much about the film work he did, but others spoke to him about it often. It gave him a lot of flexibility.

‘And being in the film world I think we just assumed there was some money there that wouldn’t necessarily be aware to us, and that would explain the nice vehicle that he drove.’

Thomson had a Land Rover Discovery that he would often use to drive people around in. After going hunt sabbing the group would often go for a social in a local pub. Thomson would often drive them in his Land Rover. He also offered use of the vehicle to L3 and L2, and left it with them when he went travelling.

In addition to hunt sabbing, Thomson attended other animal rights demonstrations, like the ones against Shamrock Farm, a notorious breeder of primates for vivisection.

L3 says that he and Thomson also took an active role in destroying badger traps.

‘That campaign was generated by a Government initiative to eradicate badgers because of a concern of TB amongst cattle. The argument was highly contested… But nonetheless, the Government went ahead with their plan at that time and there was large-scale actions against it…

It was quite a sizeable, heavy steel constructed cage in which it was baited with foodstuff to attract the animal… it would release a spring-loaded trap which would close the door behind, trapping the animal inside…

We visited the area and essentially the desire was to release live badgers from traps, but actually we very seldom found badgers in the traps. But we found the traps themselves quite easily and, yes, they were destroyed by us when we found them. It took quite a bit of effort. They are quite solid, as I have just explained. You could squash them if you stood on them and bounced up and down.’

THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF L4

As the 1990s drew on, the hunters became increasingly violent towards the sabs:

‘By the end of the 1990s it was at an unprecedented level and quite frankly we could expect the possibility of an attack on any given day that we were out with them… Saturdays were always more at risk of that than mid-week, because it attracted more people.

But at that time, every other week there may well have been something at some level, at some degree, somebody got hurt.’

There were rarely more than 20 or 30 sabs out at any one time. The hunt and its supporters would have numbered hundreds.

Q. You refer to being hit. With fists?

A. Yes, with fists, yes, but it was also whatever they had to hand. The members of what they call the field, which is the riders, they would use their crops, bone-handled crops, and the terrier men of course had any number of tools on their vehicles. Shovels, spades, spikes, you name it. All of which they used in an attempt to dig out and kill the fox, but it could also be employed to attack us with.

L3 says that sometimes the hunt sabs had to defend themselves from attack:

‘We never brought weapons with us. That would have been counter-productive. It would have been stupid of us to do so, even if we had wanted to. The vehicle was regularly searched by the police. Those would have been confiscated and doubtless us arrested. So, no, we did not bring weapons to our hunt sabs.

I will not deny that it is entirely possible that in our attempt to defend ourselves that we picked up whatever we found on the ground near us. I am not saying that we didn’t pick up a stick when we needed to. I am sure that we did… [Thomson] would have been very much a part of that.’

On 1 September 2000, the activist known as ‘L4’ was airlifted to intensive care after a supporter of the Surrey and Burstow Hunt ran him over in a Land Rover. We were shown an intelligence report filed by Thomson [MPS-0003867] that same day, which states:

‘Not surprisingly there is a great anger amongst the sabs at this incident as it was felt to be a deliberate act. There has been immediate talk of reprisals, but no definite plan has yet been formulated.’

L3 wasn’t present when the incident happened, but he went to visit L4 in hospital that evening. He rejects Thomson’s claim that there was any talk of reprisals.

L4 was on a life support machine and it was touch and go whether he would live. If he had succumbed to his injuries he would have been the third hunt sab to have died. The mood was not one of revenge.

‘My abiding memory of that event was just – I think it just simply washing over you just how serious it had become, that L4 was anything but out of the woods. I mean he wasn’t conscious at this point in the bed. He wasn’t aware of who we were. It was that serious for him.

And it’s just the prevailing mood that evening was just one of shock and horror at what had happened… But at that moment, absolutely no talk of reprisals at all. It was completely the opposite.

And in any case, L4’s partner was present. She was not a member of our sab group and it would have been wholly inappropriate for anybody to want to talk like that. But it just wasn’t what was on people’s minds. People were just completely deflated by what they saw.’

The day after the incident the sabs held a protest at the Burstow Hunt kennels. People of all ages and backgrounds came from far afield to express their support. L3 became very emotional as he explained to the Inquiry that they expected L4 to die at that point.

Thomson did not attend the demonstration and L3 says he was very surprised by that. It was very odd behaviour for a supposed friend and comrade.

During the protest at the kennels, a leading member of the hunt came out with his servant. They were carrying a riding crop and a spade, and they confronted the protestors.

L3 is clear that the protest at the kennels was not some sort of revenge attack. The trouble started when hunters attacked the protesters with weapons, and it ended as quickly as it had begun. Protestors were injured. A number of them were arrested in the days and weeks that followed. No hunters were ever arrested.

A further report, dated 6 September 2000 [MPS-0003897], four days after the protest, states:

‘Following the incident last week where L4 was run over and badly injured during a fracas between hunt saboteurs and hunt supporters, there is to be another demonstration this evening by members of the Hunt Saboteurs Association against members of the Surrey and Burstow Hunt.

The demonstrators will meet at East Grinstead BR station at 6 pm and from there make ‘home visits’ to a number of prominent members of the hunt.’

At that point L3 intervened to make a comment about ‘home visits’:

‘I understand that it can be taken as a controversial area, that protesters would turn up outside somebody’s own front door and make them aware in a very personal way that what we felt they were doing was objectionable…

I don’t think it’s been mentioned so far and it’s not in the interests of people like Thomson to have made this aware to you in his statement, but we really did consider what we were doing before it was done…

We knew who we were going to and we knew the risk that we were taking in so doing and how it may come across…

I can assure you that there were one or two people who we became aware of who were metaphorically crossed off the list for home visits, because others they lived with were considered too vulnerable and we wouldn’t wish to upset them. So these were considered actions is what I want you to understand.’

He points out that ‘home visits’ were demonstrations, there were no sinister overtones and they did not masquerade as an opportunity to cause damage.

Asked about Thomson’s reporting, L3 vehemently responded:

‘Again, it is florid writing. This is supposed to be a dispassionate document. If you are supplying information it should be very objective and not subjective, and the moment it starts adding opinion – and it is opinion that has been written there – it is steering the reader immediately to form an impression that is not their own. So, no, I refute it. We were not in a volatile mood at all.’

Appropriately, that damning critique of Thomson’s ‘florid writing’ brought us to the real matter L3 was called to give evidence about: Operation Lime.

OPERATION LIME

On 8 January 2001, L3 and Thomson travelled to France in his Land Rover Discovery. They were heading to Marseille, where L3 understood that Thomson had a meeting with someone about a business venture, importing golf carts into the UK. L3 went along for the ride.

Ramble began his questioning on Operation Lime by showing us a Special Branch note of 8 February 2001 [MPS-0005282]. This was written a month after the trip to France.

It claimed:

‘In the immediate aftermath of the incident [in which L4 was injured] and in the ensuing months there have been a number of revenge attacks against members/associates of the hunt. All members and supporters of the hunt concerned are now considered to be at risk, although the driver of the vehicle would be a particularly attractive target.’

L3 says that he is not aware of any such revenge attacks, only the protests that took place in the days immediately after the incident.

The report goes on to claim that those most angered by what happened are L4’s personal friends, and singles out L3’s brother, L2. The report claims L2 made a connection with a French national with a view to buying a quantity of black powder and a firearm, and says:

‘MT’s [Thomson’s code name, Magenta Triangle] credibility within the group was such that he was asked to use his vehicle to drive to France to collect the items.’

L3 was asked about his reaction to that.

‘My reaction to that is that I was utterly aghast when I first saw it. And I simply didn’t recognise what I was reading. This is fantasy, sir. It did not happen.’

Thomson’s account is that there was a ‘dry run’ to France in November 2000 to check out the route.

‘It was during this trip that MT became aware that the collection would take place in the Marseille area, although he was not told the identity of the French contact. The plan was to spend a few days in France, ostensibly as tourists, collect the weaponry, secrete it in his vehicle and return to the UK where L2 would take possession of it.’

L3 points out that this so-called ‘dry run’ was probably a day trip to Calais that Thomson, L1 and L1’s girlfriend took, on a ‘booze cruise’. L3 wasn’t on that trip, and he doesn’t know much about it.

Ramble points out that the reporting suggests there was a lot of discussion after the trip because they got searched by customs on the way home. L3 has no memory of such conversations:

‘They went across to Calais, they had a day out and brought back a load of cheap beer is what I understood happened.’

Ramble then showed a series of documents that demonstrated extensive involvement of Special Demonstration Squad management in Operation Lime. In a document from 13 November 2000 [MPS-0009484] Bernard Greaney and Noel Warr describe visiting Thomson the day after the supposed ‘dry run’:

‘He had just returned from an exhausting day in Calais with L1 and his girlfriend on 9/11 [2000]. They had gone out on the 1100 Eurotunnel train and been pulled by the internal security. No obvious reason for this – another car had also been singled out and subject to a search, including a sweep with some kind of machine which was look for explosives! (Presumably this is part of the Xmas anti-RIRA [Real Irish Republican Army] campaign).

Not surprisingly this rattled L1 somewhat, but MT managed to point out the random nature of this and will work on reassuring the group over the next few days.’

If this were true, there needs to be some examination of why Thomson would have wanted to ‘reassure the group’ and encourage them to go ahead with this supposed arms trafficking and murder plot rather than just be put off by a random customs search. Instead, inside the SDS, the absurdity continued.

ONE HOLIDAY AMONG MANY

We see another manager, HN58, supporting the proposal that Thomson take a week-long trip to Istanbul with L4 [MPS-0004441]. In this memo, HN58 also refers to the supposed murder plot:

‘At present there is a plan to obtain black powder and a gun from France through a French animal rights activist. While the target is unknown, it is very probable that the driver of the vehicle remains the most likely recipient. Magenta Triangle is well placed to report on this enterprise…

L4 is employed by [privacy] and had been working in Turkey earlier in the year… He was shortly after receiving his current injury scheduled to return to Istanbul to complete his contract.

Clearly he has not been able to fulfil his work commitments but he is now well enough to travel and intends to go to Istanbul to collect some belongs and ‘tie up’ some loose ends. Due to his condition he requires someone to accompany him. Magenta Triangle has been asked whether he can help.’

L3 describes this report as utterly staggering. He says it’s plausible that Thomson would have been asked to help L4, and he has a vague memory of the two of them making the trip to Istanbul. He emphasises that L4 had recently suffered extreme trauma.

‘This would have been him mining L4 for information… this is terrible really because L4 was in a very delicate position here. At this stage he was still in recuperation. He was not a well man. And vulnerable.

And who knows where his mind would have been at that point, and what he could have been engaged in, or get a couple of drinks in him as well, and who knows what he might have been saying at the time. He wasn’t in his right mind after what had happened to him.’

Yet another manager, HN53, filed a report on 13 November 2000 about the Istanbul trip [MPS-0527650]:

‘In the context of the Marseille operation, the importance of Magenta Triangle’s participation in the trip to Istanbul with L4 should not be understated. In the first instance, there is the probable intelligence dividend to be gained from L4 about the longer-term intentions of L1, L2 or L3.

More particularly, however, the cementing of the relationship between Magenta Triangle and the most high-profile animal rights “martyr” will greatly enhance his credibility and standing amongst those who are driving the procurement.’

L3 criticises the language used, and insists on how inappropriate it was to be getting close to L4:

‘It seems deliberately inflammatory. I mean, by very definition he wasn’t a martyr. But no. They are attempting to propel L4 to be something that he wasn’t. What he was, was a very vulnerable man who had nearly died and was desperately in need of friends to help him.’

The trip to Istanbul was authorised by Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Black. It seems most of SDS management were aware of what was happening, yet no one took any issue with the cynical targeting of the vulnerable victim of a serious assault who had suffered life-changing injuries.

On his return from Istanbul, Thomson filed a report [MPS-0004762] in which he claims a meeting took place with L3 on 30 November. It contained a detailed itinerary of the planned trip to France, travelling to Calais, on to Bordeaux, then to Marseille, and from there back to Calais.

L3 says that he doesn’t remember the trip being planned so far in advance. L3’s understanding was that Thomson was going to Marseille for a meeting about a business venture importing golf buggies.

‘I described it as having “fallen into my lap” and that suggests that it wasn’t planned sort of six weeks in advance, so I don’t think that’s correct…

It came to my attention that Thomson had a reason to be in the South of France relating to business, totally unconnected to our animal rights activity.

And it was mentioned to me, possibly even in just passing, and I saw an opportunity at a time where things were not great in a relationship I was having, and I thought, “I wonder if he would want somebody to help drive on a trip like that? It is a bit of a distance and there is an opportunity for me to get away and have a little break, effectively, without having planned it”.’

L3 went along for the ride, and his main motivation was the opportunity to visit Bordeaux and sample wines.

‘If the itinerary had been purely mine to create, we would have never gone anywhere near Provence, we would have gone straight to Bordeaux. I was not part of any planning to go to Marseille. That was something I had to accept on the grounds that this is where his business meeting was due to take place.’

L3 says the ‘business meeting’ in Marseille was always going to happen first, and that this business venture was plausible coming from Thomson.

‘To be perfectly honest, if anyone else in our sab group had mentioned this, I would have probably had 101 questions for them. But not so much with him, because he always displayed a degree of wealth that the rest of us did not have, and therefore I didn’t question it quite so much, because it wasn’t so implausible that he might have seen a little opportunity for a business venture.’

Thomson also reported that L3 had ‘sheepishly’ asked if his girlfriend could come along. L3 says this is nonsense.

‘The whole idea was to have a bit of time away so I wouldn’t have asked for her to accompany us…

At some point during the trip we were to liaise with “Sara” [who Thomson had deceived into a relationship], which I understood to still be a bit of a grey area as to whether they were still a couple or not… if anyone’s girlfriend was to accompany us, it was going to be his.’

In fact, Sara did meet up with them in Bordeaux and she gave evidence about the holiday to the Inquiry on 17 October 2025. Like L3, she had no inkling whatsoever that there was supposedly arms trafficking involved.

The fact that she met them in Bordeaux is significant because Thomson had told his managers that the itinerary was to travel to Bordeaux first, then Marseille, then back to Calais.

He claimed that the plan was only changed at the last minute, affording him no time to warn them that he would be in Marseille first. As a result, his handlers were in the wrong city when the supposed arms deal took place.

Yet Sara had booked a flight to be in Bordeaux at the correct time, suggesting Thomson had told her well in advance where he would be and when.

L3 and Thomson met up at Sara’s house before setting off to drive to France. It was just the two of them and they took the car ferry to Calais and drove south, staying in Lyon overnight.

‘So this is the beginning of what I now understand to be Operation Lime. And totally beyond my level of awareness, this has clearly been possibly the biggest event of my life that I am not aware of up until about a fortnight ago.

So I have put much thought to this and have a fairly well-constructed timeline of events, of what really took place as opposed to what you are going to ask me in terms of what Thomson believes took place. And the two could not be further apart…

I was to share the driving and the trip was to begin across the Dover-Calais ferry route and we were to drive down the eastern side of France towards Marseille, with a stop en route…

There was very much a holiday atmosphere to it. We were laughing and joking. It was very clear that we were away from life at home, and there was a fairly carefree feel to it.

And I remember where we stopped in the little rest area there was even a bit of winter sunlight. We were able to sit at a picnic table wearing just a jacket. It was all quite convivial.’

They shared a twin room and the only time L3 spent apart from Thomson before Marseille was when one of them went to the bathroom.

When they got to Marseille, Thomson went to have his meeting and L3 spent a couple of hours exploring the city and window-shopping before reconvening with Thomson to get food.

‘We arrived in the Marseille area around lunchtime. So it is early afternoon by the time we have checked into the hotel and parked up the car…

It had been established that his meeting was going to be at the bank… to be perfectly honest I wasn’t greatly interested. It sounded like a slightly far-fetched venture and I didn’t really see how the world of golf buggies was going to work. It was not really something I was very interested in.

If I am honest, I was just delighted to be somewhere else and was quite happy if he wanted to go off for two or three hours to his meeting, I was going to go off and explore…

He returned after his meeting. I don’t doubt for a moment I asked if it went well. There would have been some small talk over it. But nothing really sticks in my mind.’

L3 has provided a statement in which he recounts all the things he remembers about their time in Marseille. He recalls seeing ten uniformed French police patrolling together:

‘We turned a corner and coming down the street to meet us were ten members of the uniformed French police and, yes, we most certainly commented that, “Oh my God, where have we come to that they need to patrol in these numbers?”.’

He also provided detail about a cat behind a shop window:

‘It is ridiculous, I know, but the cat was engaging with us behind the glass. And I don’t know why I remember it. It just sticks in my memory. I tapped the glass and sort of engaged with the cat back and brought it to Thomson’s attention and, yes, it just sticks in my mind. I have no idea why I remember it.’

He says most of the rest of the evening wasn’t memorable. There was nothing odd about Thomson’s behaviour and they just went to get some food.

THE CAR DISAPPEARS

On the morning of 10 January, L3 woke to find that Thomson had already left.

‘I am either blessed or I suffer from the fact that I am a heavy sleeper. And I did not realise that at that point as I woke that I was alone in the room, and I woke to find that a handwritten note had been left for me… the basic detail of which was to let me know that he had discovered that the car had been stolen and that he was out effectively reporting that fact…

At some point I went out on to the street, probably with him, and I was shown the point at which we had left the car. I was aware that the car was parked very close to the entrance to the hotel. I could see that it wasn’t there.

There was shattered glass on the road, it was pointed out to me. And, well, I mean the vehicle is not there, and there seems to be evidence. What more could I do but accept the fact that the car had indeed been stolen, or so it appeared?…

I have always thought it a bit odd that it was stolen, but at the same time it is still believable.’

L3 explained that he had always felt something about the trip and the car theft wasn’t quite right:

‘No one was ever completely comfortable with the stories he gave. And it has been my thought across the last 25 years that the reason I was selected to help drive on this trip is so that I would be a captive audience for him for about a week and perhaps he would have all the time in the world to engage me in conversation and general intelligence gathering… that the car had in fact been wired for sound, if I can put it that way… and that possibly during the journey down, some of this equipment had malfunctioned and that he then needed a replacement vehicle in order to continue simply gathering evidence.

I have always wondered if I was being a bit paranoid about that, but I have been disabused of that in the last fortnight, haven’t I, because I didn’t even come close.’

L3 says there was some discussion about what to do with the rest of the trip now that they didn’t have a car.

Thomson said he was willing to hire a car, using L3’s driving licence. We are shown the rental agreement, which was attached to Thomson’s expenses claim for the trip [MPS-0527763].

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, interjected to confirm the spelling of L3’s name. As his name is restricted, it was impossible for L3 to answer, creating an awkward situation.

It is not the first time Mitting has asked anonymous witnesses to spell their names out from the witness box during live evidence. It turns out the reason for the question is that his name was spelt incorrectly on the form.

Once the vehicle had been hired, L3 and Thomson left Marseille and drove towards Bordeaux, stopping overnight in Cahors. As already noted, they picked Sara up at the airport in Bordeaux.

We were shown a photo of L3 taken by Thomson during that trip [UCPI0000039401].

‘We did a number of things using Bordeaux as a base. It was a complete holiday atmosphere…

We had a picnic out on the beach, along the peninsula. Again, I can remember the day, I can remember what we did. We visited the city itself and some of its more prominent architecture. And then closer to the end of the trip into Bordeaux itself we visited the historic town of Saint-Emilion.’

After returning Sara to the airport, L3 travelled north with Thomson in the hire car, staying in Dieppe overnight. They went to a memorable little restaurant (finding a vegetarian restaurant in a small town in France 25 years ago was pretty unusual, and they ate well that night). They then returned to Calais and back to the UK.

L3 says this was the only time he and Thomson travelled abroad together. There had been a political gathering in Amsterdam in April 1998 that they both attended, but on that occasion they travelled separately.

HN26 ‘CHRISTINE GREEN’

This led to a brief tangent in the questioning as he also saw a fellow animal rights activist we now know was Thomson’s colleague, undercover officer HN26 ‘Christine Green’, at that event. L3 only knew her by sight.

‘There are several occasions I can bring to mind where I have come into contact with other undercover officers, one of whom I now know to be “Christine Green”. She was associated with a fellow sab group at the time that operated out of the West London/ Reading area. They usually joined forces to sabotage hunts along the M4 corridor, and she was very embedded with them.’

L3 was asked about Green’s association with the hunt sab activist Thomas Frampton (known as Joe Tax or Joe Tex).

‘I can’t recall seeing them being intimate with one another, but there was no question in anybody’s mind that they were a couple.’

Green is understood to have confessed her true identity to Frampton, resigned from the police, left her husband and moved in with Frampton. They were known to be together for a long while after.

AFTER FRANCE

Ramble then returned to Operation Lime. Thomson was debriefed after the trip, on 16 January 2001 [MPS-0005257]. He describes L3 as having phoned a French contact on arrival in France, using a new SIM card.

L3 denies it completely:

‘That is not true. That did not happen. I knew no one in France. I had no contact to phone. I certainly didn’t have a separate sim card. It’s blatantly not true.’

In the report, Thomson goes on to explain the supposed last-minute change of plan, and the decision to drive direct to Marseille. He said it was because the contact was unable to make the meet later in the week, so it was arranged to rendezvous with him in Marseille the following afternoon.

‘I mean it just didn’t happen, so there is no further comment to make. It’s made up. It’s fictitious, there was no arranged rendezvous with anyone else in Marseille.’

We were then read Thomson’s lurid description of a meeting in a cafe next to Marseille station.

‘The contact is described as North African appearance (yellow skinned) spoke with very good English with little or no French accent he has possibly spent time in England. He introduced himself as [privacy]. They were shown the items and then drove with the contact a short way from Marseille to prove the items.’

Again, L3 is flabbergasted:

‘We met no one in Marseille other than in casual form – by which I mean a hotel receptionist or waiter – but under no circumstances did this event happen. I met no French North African. We did not sit in any cafe. This did not happen.’

The debrief goes on:

‘Initially the contact wanted his two mates to travel in the back of the vehicle with him. MT was not happy with this and insisted in sitting in the back seat with the contact, with L3 driving. The other two were left behind to catch a taxi.

MT directed where L3 should drive which was not the direction favoured by the contact. (MT feels he may have shown out a little as until this moment he had been the acquiescing of the two. However he felt decidedly uneasy about being in the vehicle with three strangers who were probably armed).

They stopped the vehicle a short distance away from Marseille and L3 checked the weapon.’

L3 says this is absolute nonsense:

‘I have absolutely no idea how you go about buying an illegal weapon, but if this is how you go about it, then I can’t believe you are going to walk away from this unscathed, it seems insanity.’

It is claimed he paid £700 for the gun. L3 says if he’d had £700 back then he’d have felt he’d won the lottery.

Thomson claimed the items were stashed in a hidden compartment in his Land Rover, and then he told his handlers where the vehicle was parked.

‘The vehicle was located at 1 am … the vehicle was recovered in such a manner as to simulate that it had been stolen. The following items were secreted in the vehicle: one Colt .45 automatic handgun. 18 rounds of ammunition, two small bags of black powder.’

We were shown photographs of the items found in the car [MPS-0004963, MPS-0004969, and MPS-0004959].

L3 was asked what his reaction to those photographs was:

‘I was utterly shocked… it began to dawn on me just how serious a situation I had unwittingly got myself into in offering to drive on a holiday. It had never occurred to me in my wildest dreams that this is what was really going on behind the scenes. And that my concocted little theory of a car being bugged was about as far away from what was really going on behind my back as could be the case.

I had never seen that weapon before. I had no idea it was stashed in the vehicle…

During the time that we were separated for a short while in Marseille, he obviously reacquired the weapon and stowed it in the vehicle along with the ammunition and black powder. All the while, I was doing nothing more than window-shopping my way around Marseille.’

While Thomson’s reporting is clear that the supposed intention for the gun was to seek revenge for the attack on L4, the intended purpose of the black powder is never specified.

We were shown another of Thomson’s reports, from about a year earlier, dated 23 March 1999 [MPS-0001925]. The report is very short and claims that animal rights activists, possibly in the north of England, had acquired some gunpowder.

L3 says he doesn’t know about that, and further wonders how Thomson would have known about it. This report doesn’t specify what the powder would be used for either.

A report filed by Thomson on 13 March 2001 [MPS-0005473] claims that one of the hunt sabs had found out the address of the driver who tried to kill L4.

L3 says this is untrue:

‘We didn’t attempt to locate him. And remember, at this point there is still some hope in that he’s been arrested and the case has been forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service. So we are hopeful at this stage that he is going to face trial for attempting to murder L4. So we would not have wanted to interfere with that process.’

Five weeks later on 20 April, Thomson filed a further report, [MPS-0005752] confirming his earlier information was false, and no one had the address.

Another report by Thomson, dated 17 April 2001 [MPS-0748499], refers to a proposed trip to Amsterdam with L2, L3 and L4.

L3 says he has no memory of that trip ever being discussed, it certainly never happened, and he doubts that L4 would have been capable of it at the time.

By September 2001, L4 was working in Jakarta. We are shown a note on the authorisation for Thomson to travel there, from 13 September 2001 [MPS-0006714]. It claims that ‘following the failure of their attempt to bring a handgun to the UK, activists were content to allow the courts to deal with the matter,’ but that the collapse of the case against L4’s assailant had led to a ‘desire to kill’.

L3 says that obviously they were not happy with the failure to convict the hunter.

‘To be honest, I think everybody just simply felt depressed and deflated and cynically felt that the justice system was not there for us, and that it protected the powerful and the wealthy.’

He doesn’t believe Thomson was persuaded to go to Jakarta to visit L4, and he became emotional saying how much he regrets not making the trip himself.

‘It was known he was in a low mood at this point. His partner is the one who initiated these thoughts to us and was very worried about him, and wanted someone there with him basically. She was not able to go herself. She had too many commitments. So she looked to someone close to him to offer him that support so that he wasn’t going to be there alone…

It should not have been him [Thomson]. Because his intention was not there to support L4, quite the opposite.’

Asked his reaction to Thomson’s written statement to the Inquiry, L3 says it is all complete fabrication.

‘It’s difficult to separate where the truth is, there is so little of it. Everything that he has supposedly accounted for in what we know as Operation Lime is simply not true. It was made up.

I think there is a variety of reasons why he did this, and we mustn’t forget that in doing so he was equally deceiving his own people as well as us. In fact, everybody but himself was being deceived by this fake operation…

It seems to have been very financially lucrative to him to be in this deployment, that he wanted it to continue as long as possible. I mean, he was having a great time.

He was travelling the world, he was being paid overtime to essentially have a good time with his friends and be with his girlfriend. Why wouldn’t you want that to continue? So he came up with a scheme in order to maintain that deployment and a great lifestyle.’

L3 points out that if you look at the intelligence reports that Thomson was filing and then remove the gossip and tittle-tattle, what you’re left with is so thin that unless he embellished it, he would have been filing blank pieces of paper.

A later report of Thomson’s, dated 5 March 2002 [MPS-0008258] still talks about intentions to target ‘L5’, the hunt supporter who attempted to kill L4, claiming the Animal Liberation Front – the go-to bogeyman name the spycops used for animal rights scare stories – intended to cause him serious harm.

L3 says this is not real and rejects it entirely. It is notable that, despite having a reputation for violence and having attempted to murder a hunt sab more than a year previously, L5 is recorded in this report as having ‘N/T’ in Special Branch records – they had ‘no trace’ of him presumably because they felt he wasn’t worth watching. Given how much time the reports and the Undercover Policing Inquiry spend talking about Special Branch preventing violence and disorder, this is damning.

Ramble then turned to the authorisation document for Thomson’s trip to France [MPS-0526880]. L3 is asked about the way he is characterised in Thomson’s authorisation document. It refers to L3 as an intimidating figure, and implies he had carried out arson attacks.

L3 says it’s not true:

‘This is a deliberate picture being painted to make us appear far more extreme than we actually are. Because if a genuine report about what we were doing went in, there would have been no justification for the deployment.

So it was in his interests to make us appear like some crazed group of individuals hell bent on what he’s discussed here.

But nothing ever comes with detail. It’s just in the scantest, we are just expected to take his word for it. This is not true.’

We were shown other documents which single out L3 as being likely to be involved in ‘terrorism’ and describing him and his friends as a ‘cell’. However, as L3 had already pointed out, there are no specifics.

This is not the first, nor the only instance of vague, unsubstantiated intimations of serious criminality appearing in SDS reports, with seemingly no corresponding investigations or arrests ever taking place.

L3 points out that he and his friends were open and public: they went sabbing and were involved in public campaigns.

‘Virtually everything we were doing was available for scrutiny by local policing units, not some central spycop unit. It would not have necessary…

They didn’t need this. So in order for him to be in place, he would have to have embellished those reports in order to sustain his activity…

In his statements at points 2.18 and 2.34 it even mentions that his own boss described his last two and a half years as a sham and that his intelligence was not worthy, that he was not supplying them with details at all.’

IDENTITY THEFT

Thomson has defended his theft of the identity of a dead child, Kevin Crossland, in order to create an alternate identity for himself, claiming that:

‘Being a party to such ‘dodges’ to avoid police action with close members of the ungodly, whilst not technically necessary were [and are] to my mind essential in providing the depth of character essential for “James Straven” to be accepted through the core of this target group’s criminality.’

He specifically claims that activists, including L3, did the same. L3 says this is also not true:

‘This is just another outrageous attempt to deflect the fact that he took the identity of a dead child for his own benefit.’

L3 says he doesn’t believe he or other activists were ever aware that Thomson used the Kevin Crossland identity.

‘Had he spoken to me about such things I think it would have piqued our interest and we would have asked him a great deal more questions. I have no idea how you would go about doing that. We didn’t do it…

No one used that level of intrigue to develop a false identity. The only occasion in which I can remember using an alias, not a false identity, is when dealing with the media. And that was purely to protect myself.’

The Powerbase article on James Thomson (UCPI0000035222 on the Inquiry website) was then shown. It includes reference to an interview L3 gave to the Undercover Research Group, and we were taken through each of the points attributed to him. Most of it referred to things already discussed in evidence, but in less detail, because L3 was working from memory in 2018 without having seen the files disclosed by the Inquiry.

L3 was then asked why he only submitted a statement to the Inquiry last week, having provided evidence to the Undercover Research Group seven years previously. L3 said that, before he knew of being framed for the Operation Lime gun plot, he didn’t think he was especially relevant:

‘I was aware that this Inquiry had been established. Although I wasn’t quite aware of how far you had got. I wasn’t paying that much attention.

If I am perfectly honest, I really up until recently didn’t think I had very much to offer you, beyond what others would have already told you…

It was only as I began to hear testimony by people I actually once knew that it piqued my interest and I began to think, “Hang on, what? That’s not quite right”… I would have come forward much, much earlier had I had any idea of what I was about to read.’

It is put to L3 that Thomson would be giving evidence the following day, sat in the same seat L3 was sat in.

Q. I just want to ask you again… in terms of the timing that you provided your statements. If there was any suggestion that you didn’t come forward to the Inquiry years ago because you were involved to some extent in criminality, what would you say about that?

A. No. No, the complete opposite. I didn’t come forward because I really just didn’t think that what I was up to in terms of hunt sabotage and in terms of public engagement events would be of any interest to you.

I really just thought I was such a minnow that I would have nothing to offer you.
And it only became clear to me what had been going on behind the scenes, unwittingly to my knowledge, very much later and, in fact, at the eleventh hour.

He points out that the material contained in the secret files is very serious and, without him knowing anything about the causes, could have had a huge effect on his life.

‘I can’t imagine what could have potentially befallen me had they taken it to that level and wanted to make an arrest. What would have happened to me exactly? How has this affected me across the last 25 years of my life? Unbeknown to me?…

Would it have led to another massive miscarriage of justice had I been arrested for such crimes that I knew nothing of, and were the figment of a rather twisted imagination of James Thomson?…

I was his fall guy.’

That was the end of Ramble’s questioning.

CROSS-EXAMINATION CROSSED WIRES

There was some confusion at the end of the questioning about what would happen next. Richard Whittam KC, who represents 12 former undercover officers including Thomson, submitted a last-minute application to cross-examine L3 himself.

This would be a significant departure from the Inquiry’s usual process, where all questions are asked through Counsel to the Inquiry. It’s a key principle of a public inquiry being inquisitorial rather than adversarial.

The Inquiry has made clear that in exceptional circumstances, where witness accounts of very significant events are completely at odds, it might allow for this. Because of the seriousness of the allegations about Operation Lime, and the fact that Thomson and L3’s accounts are so fundamentally different, this could have be one of those exceptional occasions.

However, when asked what questions he wished to put to L3, Whittam inexplicably cited the media work L3 referred to right at the start of his evidence, what contact he has had with ‘Wendy’ prior to giving evidence, and the reasons for his late engagement with the Inquiry. Thomson’s counsel seemingly had no questions at all about the events in France.

The Chair, Sir John Mitting, seemingly as surprised and baffled as the rest of us, responded:

‘I had anticipated, wrongly as it now transpires, that you would have wished to question him about the critical issue in the evidence that he has given, Operation Lime. If that is not the case, I am not minded to accede to your application and would suggest that it is dealt with by the ordinary Rule 10 process.’

At the end of his evidence, L3 was therefore asked further questions by Ramble including the ones raised by Thomson’s counsel.

He explained that his media experience involved doing radio interviews for an environmental and animal welfare organisation abroad. As part of that he did some rudimentary media training.

Asked about his relationship with ‘Wendy’, L3 says they have had some communication over the years, although it’s been ten years since they met in person. He made clear that she had told him she had been asked to give a statement to the Inquiry, and that she thought he should contact them as well, but that she did not tell him what was in Thomson’s statement, nor that he was named as being involved in sourcing a firearm in France.

It was then pointed out to him that he sent an email to the Inquiry on 15 October offering to help the Inquiry. He says he would have heard of the firearm in the opening statements on 13 October, rather than in Sara’s evidence on 17 October as he had previously stated.

There was an absurd and petty feel to these questions which all seemed to seek to discredit him personally as a witness, rather than question his account of events.

L3 was then questioned by his own counsel, Hannah Webb, about his reflections on the way Thomson’s actions had affected him. L3 declared:

‘This is the most incredible event that has ever happened to me without me being aware of it.’

Mitting then thanked L3 and apologised for the length of time he is going to have to wait before the Inquiry publishes its determination and conclusions on this issue. Those are anticipated to be in the Inquiry’s interim report on the Special Demonstration Squad, expected in the second half of 2027.