Spycops Victims Stand Behind the Hillsborough Law

Statement from Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, an alliance of people spied on by Britain’s political secret police:

We wish to express our utmost solidarity with the campaign for the Hillsborough Law, and stand with those insisting the law should not be weakened to the point that it is ineffective. We are angry that the Government is seeking to exempt from the duty of candour the very agencies to whom it should most apply.

The Hillsborough Law must apply to every arm of the state, particularly the police and security services. There can be no justice or accountability without this – anything else simply perpetuates the very problem this law should address.

Through our own experience of seeking justice, we the victims of spycops understand all too well how state agencies do everything in their power to hinder and obstruct legitimate struggles for justice. Hillsborough families are still grieving for their lost loved ones. We are not, but other than that, the experience of the Hillsborough campaigners bears many similarities to our own battle.

It was us, the victims, who exposed the spycops scandal, who campaigned and forced the authorities to implement a public inquiry, just as it is the victims who have led in the Hillsborough Justice Campaign.

Justice delayed is justice denied

The police and government have spent over £150m between them trying to cover up and downplay the activities of two undercover policing units, and the Undercover Policing Inquiry is now entering its twelfth year. Time and resources have been squandered by police trying to hide their gross negligence from the public who paid their wages.

However, in the last two years, as the truth about spycops came to light, the police have issued numerous apologies.

Apologies that should have been and clearly could have been issued over a decade ago. Their own documents show they knew of these issues even before the scandal broke in 2011.

Had the duty of candour been in place, there would have been much more accountability, at an earlier stage so fewer delays and less expense. And and less ongoing re-traumatisiation of those who suffered, not least from the racist and sexual abuse by many of these officers.

The lesson is clear, if you grant the police and the security services these exemptions, they will continue to hide their abuses. Police forces across the country, as well as MI5, continue to obfuscate and hide behind policies, drag their heels, and cite national security in relation to absolutely everything to protect their own failures.

We remind people of the recent case of ‘Witness A’, a senior MI5 official who was found to have lied to the court in the case of an agent accused of domestic violence.

It is clear that state security agencies have limited accountability at present. Much is taken on trust – and clearly it should not be. A duty of candour with legal consequences for breaches, is thus an essential tool in curbing this disturbing pattern of dishonesty and abuse.

Security agencies will not change unless they are forced to publicly account for their failures. The government needs to address the fact that it is state secrecy itself that is the problem that needs solving.

In seeking to protect such state agencies’ abilities to mislead and obstruct, the government is centring the needs of abusers over those of their victims. It is the antithesis of democracy.

The Hillsborough Law must be as set out by the campaigners seeking answers for that terrible event. It is not just the tragedy that must not happen again, but also the painful decades-long fight for basic justice for the victims of 1989.

The Hillsborough fight is our fight, and the fight of everyone who travels down the same path of holding accountable the agents of the state, because the duty of candour affects every single one of us who steps on that difficult road to justice. Our own personal experiences with spycops attests to that.

There is only one Hillsborough Law and Starmer must fulfil his election promise to enact it. Anything less is a betrayal.