Detective Sergeant Steve Beels & the ‘Revolving Door’

As the public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police continues, we’re given glimpses and reminders that the spycops scandal extends beyond the police into the corporate arena – and that some people straddle both worlds. This guest post from the Undercover Research Group investigates one of them.

Detective Sergeant Steve Beels served with Special Branch for 31 years. His last posting was as a back-office sergeant and cover officer with the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

Since then, he has enjoyed a profitable career in the private sector, utilising the surveillance skills and knowledge he had gained during his police career.

Last week, we discovered he was HN104 Carlo Soracchi’s cover officer, whose evidence the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) heard about over the last fortnight.

​A crucial part of this evidence concerns a 2001 trip to Venice that Soracchi took with ‘Lindsey’ (an alias), whom he deceived into a year-long relationship.

Whilst Lindsey thought at the time this was an extremely romantic weekend away together, Beels both authorised the trip and accompanied Sorrachi and Lindsey to Italy.

​While Sorrachi was showing Lindsey around Venice, Beels was waiting on the phone in Verona to hear any reports and provide backup if necessary. What Sorrachi was telling Beels, and what Beels knew about the trip’s true purpose, is unknown.
The evidence begs further questions about this Metropolitan Police-funded holiday for Soracchi and Beels.

‘Lindsey’ was dismayed to learn that Beels supervised their supposed romantic break. If this was the case, she said, Beels must have known about her sexual relationship with Soracchi. Beels enjoyed a free trip to Verona, raising the question of whether the two police officers colluded to secure a nice trip to Italy – at the taxpayers’ expense.

THE REVOLVING DOOR

Fast forward seven years from that trip to Venice, to January 2008 and the closure of the SDS. By this time, Beels had served 31 years with the Met and had retired. That month, he began to work in the private sector.

​Beels’ LinkedIn profile goes into extensive detail about his post-SDS career. He founded his own company and has held many consultancy roles, including for Praemanitus Ltd, Ann Summers and even the League Against Cruel Sports.

However, Beels’ impressive LinkedIn CV omits his position at C2i International/Lynceus Consulting, the security firm he joined in February 2008 as head of business intelligence.

​C2i International was a ‘special risk-management and ‘investigation company active between 2003 and 2009. Lynceus Consulting was founded in 2007 and concentrated on the defence and ‘homeland’ security market. Both companies had the same chief executive officer, Justin King, and merged in 2007.

​Beels worked with Lynceus from February 2008 until at least 2009 and was not the only former Special Branch officer employed at C2i/Lynceus. Another was Wilf Knight, who worked for Special Branch in the 1970s and went on to work with TV companies as a technical advisor for shows incluing The Bill. Knight is perhaps best known for outing HN135 Mike Ferguson as a spycop in True Spies, the BBC documentary about the Special Demonstration Squad spycops.

One of C2i International’s revenue streams was surveillance of activist groups for corporate clients.

C2i International entered the public domain when the media exposed Toby Kendall, who attempted to infiltrate campaign groups Plane Stupid and Hands-Off Iraqi Oil (HOIO) by posing as ‘Ken Tobias’.

Kendall’s activities became known after campaigners from the two groups exposed them.

Kendall’s line manager at the time, Rebecca Todd, was also later discovered to have infiltrated environmental campaign groups while working for C2i and as an independent contractor through her own company, Vericola.

In late 2017, The Guardian reported that C2i had monitored the calls of relatives of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old activist killed in 2003 while trying to stop the Israeli army bulldozing a Palestinian home in Rafah, Gaza.

The Guardian investigation found that C2i was working for US manufacturer Caterpillar, which supplies construction and demolition equipment to the Israeli military.

Beels was the author of several pitches to potential corporate clients, including German energy firm E.on, car maker Porsche and Canary Wharf plc. The vast majority of Beels’ proposals promised these companies to get ‘real-time’ information about activist and protest groups.

C2i/Lynceus was not the first, or the most successful, company seeking to profit from large, exploitative multinationals worried about their reputations. And Beels was far from the only in the latest Inquiry hearings. HN3 ‘Jason Bishop’ was one of several former undercover officers to mention ‘commercial agents.’ One of Bishop’s targets, Emily Apple, was also spied on by corporate spy Martin Hogbin at the same time.

OVERLAP

Next month, we will finally see reports from HN66/EN327 ‘Dave Jones’, who spied on climate campaign group Rising Tide between 2005 & 2007, while C2i was also surveilling them. The overlap in targets by the state and corporate spies is startling.

C2i prepared reports on other campaign groups targeted by the SDS, including Camp for Climate Action, Cardiff Anarchist Network, Clown Army, Dissent!, and Earth First!, amongst many others.

C2i/Lynceus went out of business in 2012, having failed to capitalise on the corporate world’s interest in the activists who opposed them. Beels’ reason for missing them out may be connected to the organisation’s failure, perhaps partially due to the negative publicity around Toby Kendall.

This summer, the Undercover Policing Inquiry will hear from SDS managers from ‘Tranche 3‘ (the Special Demonstration Squad 1993-2008) and so hopefully we will hear from Beels’ on this and other questions. Including, we hope, how he came to know of C2i in the first place, and them him.