On Monday 2 November, the Undercover Policing Inquiry begins after five years of preliminary work.

The opening session will be a three week set of hearings, divided into two parts. The first half will be the presentation of Opening Statements from the core participants. The second will be the start of the actual hearing of evidence, which we will cover in a later post. For now, we will just look at the Opening Statements and why they are important.

A core participant is a person or organisation which has been accepted as such by the Inquiry. This is because the Chair has agreed that they have a particular interest in the proceedings, in that they are particularly affected by any outcome, or potentially facing criticism.

One of the benefits of being a core participant is that they are consulted on matters and make representations. In theory at least. Many of the Non-Police/ State Core Participants (NPSCPs) feel they are being ignored in favour of the police, something that has caused considerable bitterness (which the Opening Statements will refer to in many places).

One benefit of being a core participant is the right to make an opening statement to the Inquiry prior to the beginning of evidential hearings. The purpose of this statement is to set out your case – your expectations and hopes for the Inquiry, or to challenge where it is going wrong. It is also a place where you can make admissions or defend your position if you are expecting criticisms. As such, they are considered to have considerable importance and watched carefully by all involved.

However, making an opening statement is not a requirement and some NPSCPs have chosen not to do so, as has spycop Mark Kennedy. A number have not made written submissions but will be making oral ones.

Over the next few days we will hear from the barristers representing the Inquiry itself, state agencies, undercovers, other parties such as whistleblower Peter Francis, and the families of undercovers.

Finally, several days will be given over to the NPSCPs, with different days focusing on different classes within them, such as women targeted, family justice campaigns, etc. Several NPSCPs who are representing themselves without lawyers will also be speaking.

The proceedings will be entirely online, live-streamed by the Inquiry, and placed on the UCPI YouTube channel.

As each speaker goes live the text of their written opening statement (if they have made one) will be made public by the Inquiry. However, opening statements will at times be responding to what others have said, so they may differ from the prepared written versions that are published.

TIMETABLE FOR THE UCPI OPENING STATEMENTS

Here is a timetable for Opening Statements.

As things go live, we will add the appropriate links so you can find them easily.

Day 1 (Mon 2 Nov)
10:00 AM: David Barr QC (Counsel to the Inquiry)
2:00 PM: David Barr QC (Counsel to the Inquiry)

Day 2 (Tues 3 Nov)
10:00 AM: Peter Skelton QC (Metropolitan Police Service)
11:30 AM: Gerry Boyle QC (National Police Chiefs’ Council)
12:00 Noon: Richard O’Brien QC (National Crime Agency)
12:30 PM: Nicholas Griffin QC (Home Office)
2:00 PM: Oliver Sanders QC (Designated Lawyer Officers representing undercover officers)

Day 3 (Wed 4 Nov)
10:00 AM: Oliver Sanders QC (Designated Lawyer Officers)
2:00 PM: Richard Whittam QC (Slater & Gordon Clients representing individual undercover officers)
2:30 PM: David Lock QC (Peter Francis)
3:45 PM: Angus McCullough QC (Category M Core Participants)

Day 4 (Thus 5 Nov)
10:00 AM: Rajiv Menon QC (Core Participants represented by Richard Parry & Jane Deighton)
12:15 PM: Matthew Ryder QC (Core Participants represented by Mike Schwarz, Simon Creighton, Tamsin Allen and Jules Carey)
2:00 PM: Mathhew Ryder QC (Core Participants represented by Mike Schwarz, Simon Creighton, Tamsin Allen and Jules Carey)
5:45 PM: Donal O’Driscoll (Category L Core Participant [appearing in person])

Day 5 (Fri 6 Nov)
10:00 AM: James Scobie QC (Core Participants represented by Paul Heron)
12:15 PM: Ruth Brander (Non-Police, Non-State Core Participant Group)
2:00 PM: Lord Hendy QC (Fire Brigades Union and Unite [Category E Core Participants])
3:45 PM: Gareth Pierce (National Union of Mineworkers [Category E Core Participant])
4:15 PM: Dave Smith (Blacklist Support Group [Category E Core Participant])

Day 6 (Mon 9 Nov)
10:00 AM: Phillippa Kaufmann QC (Category H Core Participants represented by Birnberg Peirce, Hickman & Rose and Hodge Jones & Allen)
11:45 AM: Helen Steel (Category H and L Core Participant [appearing in person])
2:00 PM: Heather Williams QC (Category H Core Participants represented by Bindmans)
3:15 PM: Heather Williams QC (Category F Core Participants)
4:30 PM: Phillipa Kaufmann QC (Category H and J Core Participants instructed by Harriet Wistrich [excluding Newham Monitoring Project])

Day 7 (Tue 10 Nov)
10:00 AM: Imran Khan QC (Baroness Doreen Lawrence [Category G Core Participant])
10:30 AM: Heather Williams QC (Neville Lawrence OBE [Category G Core Participant])
12:00 Noon: Imran Khan QC (Mike Mansfield QC [Category G Core Participant])
12:30 AM: Andrew Trollope QC (Azhar Khan [Category I Core Participant])
2:00 PM: Andrew Trollope QC (Azhar Khan [Category I Core Participant])
2:30 PM: Dave Morris (Category L Core Participant [appearing in person])
3:00 PM: Imran Khan QC (The Monitoring Group [Category J Core Participant])
3:45 PM: Pete Weatherby QC (Category J Core Participant [Newham Monitoring Project] and Category K and L Core Participants)

UCPI CORE PARTICIPANT CATEGORIES

Categories are the groups into which the Inquiry divides core participants. Many NPSCPs would argue they are members of more than one category. For instance, many of the women deceived into relationships also consider themselves first and foremost political campaigners. For ease of use, we set them out below:

A: Police
B: Government
C: Police officers
D: Political organisations and politicians
E: Trade unions / Blacklist Support Group
F: Relatives of deceased individuals
G: Family of Stephen Lawrence, Duwayne Brooks & Michael Mansfield, QC
H: Individuals in relationships with undercover officers
I: Miscarriages of justice
J: Justice campaigns
K: Political activists
L: Social and environmental activists
M: Families of police officers

The Inquiry’s website has a list of core participants.

The Inquiry has published its own introduction to the hearings.

The public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police is, at long last, about to start.

Nearly seven years after the Home Secretary promised it, the first phase of Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings will take place over three weeks, starting on Monday 2 November.

The Inquiry will examine the actions of around 140 officers lived deep undercover as activists in political groups since 1968. These first hearings cover the earliest period, from 1968-72.

Because of measures to restrict the spread of Covid-19, the hearings will not be held in an open venue, but will instead be happening virtually.

The first few days will be spent hearing opening statements from the various parties involved. These will be live-streamed by the Inquiry. It’s presumed it will be linked from their evidence and hearings page, possibly on their YouTube channel.

After that, from Wednesday 11 November, the hearings will be taking evidence from witnesses. These hearings will not be live-streamed. Instead, there will be a live transcription with a ten-minute time delay.

From that point on, the Inquiry is hiring a venue – the Amba Hotel in Marble Arch, central London – where up to 60 people can watch a video stream, with a ten-minute time delay on what they’re allowed to mention to the outside world. In order to be present, people had to register their interest with the Inquiry before 23 October, going through the whole process for each day they want to attend, and even then registration does not guarantee entry. It’s just another of the Inquiry’s needless obstructions that we’ve grown used to over the years of preparation.

You can see the detailed schedule of the hearings, listing who’s speaking when, on the Inquiry website and on the COPS events calendar.

HOW CAN I FOLLOW THE UNDERCOVER POLICING INQUIRY?

The Inquiry intends to post full transcriptions and audio files as soon as possible after a hearing has finished. At preliminary hearings, transcriptions have been published either the same evening or next morning, so we can expect something similar for the evidential hearings.

In addition to the official channels, COPS and others who represent victims of spycops will be providing coverage. On our Twitter account we will be live-tweeting the hearings (using the hashtag #SpyCopsInquiry), and providing background information and sources for topics under discussion.

We’ll also be posting daily summaries of the hearings on our Facebook page and here on our blog. We will also do a weekly update on the blog, or you can get them direct by subscribing to our email newsletter in the box at the bottom of the sidebar on this page.

There will be a socially distanced demonstration outside the Amba Hotel on the first day of the Inquiry’s restricted hearings, Wednesday 11 November, from 8-9am.

Before that, join us on Monday 2 November, the opening day of the hearings, for an online protest to make your voice heard. Take to social media, share your placards and pictures, your memories of campaigns and the spycops who infiltrated them, your hopes and fears for the Inquiry.

Show the Inquiry and the abusers it’s examining that we are watching and that we demand truth and justice.

HOW ARE THE SPYCOPS INQUIRY HEARINGS ORGANISED?

The first ‘tranche’ of hearings is taking evidence about the activities of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) from its formation in 1968 to 1982. The tranche has, in turn, been broken into three phases.

Phase 1 evidence will cover 1968-72. These are the hearings in the upcoming session from 2-19 November.

Phase 2 will examine the SDS from 1973 to 1982. These evidence hearings are expected to start on 25 January 2021.

In Phase 3, the Inquiry will hear from SDS managers 1968-1982. Dates for phase 3 haven’t been suggested yet.

The subsequent tranches will examine:

• Tranche 2 – Special Demonstration Squad officers and managers and those affected by deployments (1983-1992)

• Tranche 3 – Special Demonstration Squad officers and managers and those affected by deployments (1993-2007)

• Tranche 4 – National Public Order Intelligence Unit officers and managers and those affected by deployments

• Tranche 5 – Other undercover policing officers and managers and those affected by deployments

• Tranche 6 – Management and oversight (including of intelligence dissemination) by mid and senior rank officers, other agencies and government departments

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

For further information about the Undercover Policing Inquiry, see our UCPI FAQ.

Ahead of the Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings beginning next week, many people are dismayed by the Inquiry’s prioritising of the protection of perpetrators’ privacy above the right of victims and the public to know the truth. There seems to be little hope of the Inquiry providing the level of transparency and accountability that we all deserve.

A significant proportion of the 200 victims designated as core participants have signed this general statement on the issue of undercover political policing, calling attention back on to the key issues:

1. In 1968, following huge demonstrations in London’s Grosvenor Square (and around the world) against the widely-condemned Vietnam War, British police set up a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) to monitor and undermine such street protests.

Since that time, over 1,000 groups campaigning in the UK for a better society and better world have been systematically spied upon, infiltrated, or otherwise targeted by secret and unaccountable political police units.

2. This targeting has included over 140 highly paid police spies living long term as ‘activists’ engaging in the everyday activities of groups and campaigns for equality and justice, for environmental protection, for community and trade union empowerment, and for international solidarity; for rights for women, black and ethnic minorities, workers, LGBTQ people, and for animals; and also targeting those campaigning against war, racism, sexism, corporate power, legal repression, and police oppression and brutality.

Such groups and movements have comprised many millions of people throughout the UK who want to make the world better, fairer and more sustainable for everyone. Thanks to their efforts, many of the ideas spread by such groups have now become mainstream opinion and some campaigns and rights sought eventually resulted in legal and other formal recognition by society.

3. Yet it appears that almost any group that stood up to make a positive difference in questioning or challenging the establishment has been or could have potentially been considered a legitimate target by the UK’s secret political policing units. Any claims that the UK police are a non-political institution are therefore clearly incorrect.

4. These secret policing activities went far beyond investigating what was said in meetings. Individuals within or associated with those campaign groups – most of which had an open membership and active involvement based on trust and co-operation – were subjected to intrusions into their personal lives. Thousands of fake ‘friendships’ were developed, exploited and abused by secret police who continuously lied for their own political ends. Many people, especially women, were deceived into intimate and abusive relationships.

Children have been fathered then abandoned, and the identities of deceased children stolen to provide ‘cover’ names. Police spies took part in and actively influenced groups and activities, and there have been very many arrests and victims of miscarriages of justice as a result. Family campaigns, people seeking justice for loved ones killed by police, were deliberately undermined by these units.

5. To bug a phone is recognised as a controversial breach of someone’s human rights and so police have to apply for a warrant. We’re generally opposed to that and note the public outrage over the phone-hacking scandal a few years ago. However, to hack people’s LIVES is infinitely worse and should be totally unacceptable to everyone.

6. Much of the State response to public anger over these tactics has been to present the spying and the abuses that came with it as an aberration, a mistake, or the fault of rogue officers. We disagree. Based on the evidence, this spying was established and conducted with the full sanction of the State and supported by its apparatus and taxpayer funding. As stated by one of the women deceived into a relationship with a police spy, it was not just a single undercover policeman in her bed but also all those who put the officer in the field and supported them there.

7. No decision about all this was taken in isolation. The Government, senior managers and the handlers may have tried to turn a blind eye to the abuses, or deemed them politically ‘necessary’, but the reality is they were complicit in all of it. They readily accepted the ‘intelligence’ provided, they funded, tasked and oversaw the spycops units, and they set the agenda and ethos according to which these units operated.

8. This had nothing to do with responding to genuine public concern over any real and imminent serious violent threats to public safety and lives. The groups represented in this Inquiry were not terrorist organisations, but were groups pushing for positive social change in an overwhelmingly public and open way. By targeting these groups the police were demonstrating unacceptable and ongoing institutional discrimination, racism, sexism and anti-democratic action, including industrial-scale breaches of laws and charters that protect basic human rights and the right to protest.

9. Over 100 of the Inquiry’s Core Participants summed up the problem here in a previous Collective Statement on 17th October 2017: ‘For us, this Inquiry is about political policing to undermine groups and organisations campaigning for a better society and world.’

10. This police bias was clearly sanctioned at the highest level. We know of no effort to show ‘balance’ by police infiltration or secret targeting of powerful establishment bodies to investigate their crimes and threats to social peace and society.

Such organisations not targeted include greedy and unethical financial corporations, tax-avoiding hedge funds, military elites and their development of weapons of mass destruction, and power-mad establishment political parties. This is despite their continuous and widespread promotion of systematic institutional violence (such as wars, poverty, exploitation of workers, colonialism and environmental destruction) and discrimination on the grounds of race, sex and class, reinforced by Public Relations and manipulation of society for these institutions’ own power and profit.

11. Following the exposure of this undercover policing scandal in 2010, it took five years of investigation, publicity and campaigning by victims and survivors of police infiltration, reinforced by police whistleblowers, for the Government to decide to act. Even then it took the shocking revelations that the family and surviving victim and close friend of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence had themselves been targeted by undercover policing.

12. In July 2015 following widespread public outrage, then-Home Secretary Theresa May tasked the current Undercover Policing Public Inquiry with getting to the truth about this scandal and who authorised it, and recommending action to prevent future police wrong-doing.

13. Since then we have had to suffer five more years of police delays and obstruction. These tactics have resulted in a refusal to release most of the names of the 1,000 organisations spied and reported on, refusal to release the names and photos of most of the police spies, and refusal to release most of the relevant documentation generated by political policing units.

Throughout these five years we and other core participants, despite an imbalance in resources and almost zero access to the documentation held by the police for decades, have worked hard to get the information and justice that we and the wider public are entitled to. We have worked hard and remain determined to bring the whole murky secret political policing operation and its unethical, unacceptable practices into the public spotlight where it belongs.

14. This is supposed to be a public inquiry, but it seems more like a police damage-limitation exercise or cover-up. The hearings are not yet publicly-accessible and nor will they be live-streamed, which is the only way to ensure that the millions of members and supporters of the targeted groups and movements have the opportunity to follow the proceedings as they happen.

15. We call for the Inquiry to recommend that police units targeting campaigners seeking a better society should never have been set up, and should be disbanded in their entirety. We call for full transparency, and release of all the names of the groups targeted, all the names of the police spies, and the full political files police have amassed on such campaign groups.

Only in a spirit of openness and transparency can the grievous police crimes of the past be acknowledged, those responsible at all levels be held accountable, and the many victims start to move forward with the answers they have consistently called for – and are entitled to.

16. When the SDS was formed they aimed to undermine the movements they were spying on. But despite the disgusting police tactics employed, movements for positive change to benefit the public good are still here and growing, and have had many successes on the way. Such movements are needed more than ever in order to address the cumulative and deepening crises into which humanity is being plunged by the current system and its policies. A better world is possible and it’s up to all of us, whoever we are, to ensure support for – and not the undermining of – such movements for positive change.

We endorse the 13 Recommendations discussed and agreed at the People’s Public Inquiry into Secret Political Policing, Conway Hall, London in July 2018:

1. Full disclosure of all names – both cover and real – of officers from the disgraced political police units, accompanied by contemporaneous photographs

2. Release of the names of all groups suspected to have been spied upon

3. Release of all the police’s personal files on activists

4. Extension of the inquiry to all countries where the British spycops are known to have operated

5. The appointment of a diverse panel with experience relevant to victims to assist the chair in making decisions and judgements

6. Inclusion of children and young people who had contact with spycops as Core Participants in the Inquiry

7. Urgent and immediate review of convictions where spycops had involvement in the cases and who misled courts – 50 wrongful convictions have already been overturned and this is likely to be a fraction of the true total

8. The Inquiry must extend its scope to understand political policing and its impact on democracy. This must include a thorough investigation into racist, sexist, anti-working class, anti-democratic behaviour on behalf of the spycops and those that instructed them to operate in this manner. Such political policing and political policing units must be abolished

9. An urgent review into all undercover police activities to investigate whether the bad practice exposed by this Inquiry has been extended to other areas of undercover operations

10. Make available the necessary resources of the judge to be able to do their job in the available time

11. Equalising of resources, the police are spending millions on stonewalling the inquiry, victims have almost nothing

12. Increase the severity of penalties for [police] non-compliance with the Inquiry

13. Investigation into collusion between police and corporate spies

Statement supported by the following Non-State Core Participants in the Undercover Policing Inquiry:

1. Albert Beale
2. Alice Cutler
3. Alice Jelinek
4. ‘AN’
5. Asa Winstanley
6. Atif Choudhury
7. Ben Leamy (aka ‘Mark Morgan’)
8. Ben Stewart
9. Blacklist Support Group
10. Brian Healy
11. Ceri Gibbons
12. Chris Dutton
13. Claire Fauset
14. Claire Hildreth
15. Cllr Shane Collins
16. Dan Glass
17. Danny Chivers
18. Dave Morris
19. Dave Nellist
20. Dave Smith
21. David Kaplowitz
22. Debbie Vincent
23. Dr Donal O’Driscoll
24. Donna McLean
25. Emily Apple
26. Frank Bennett
27. Frank Smith
28. Gabrielle Bosley
29. Gerrah Selby
30. Grainne Gannon
31. Guy Taylor
32. Dr Harry Halpin
33. Hunt Saboteurs Association
34. Indra Donfrancesco
35. Jane Laporte
36. Jason Kirkpatrick
37. John Jordan
38. Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
39. ‘Jane’
40. ‘Jenny’
41. ‘Jessica’
42. Juliet McBride
43. Kate Wilson
44. Ken Livingstone
45. Kirsty Wright
46. Kristina Goodwin-Jones
47. Leila Deen
48. ‘Lindsey’
49. ‘Lisa’
50. Lois Austin
51. London Animal Action
52. London Greenpeace
53. Martin Shaw
54. Martyn Lowe
55. Matt Salusbury
56. ‘MCD’
57. Mel Evans
58. Merrick Cork
59. Reverend Dr Michael Carroll
60. Michael Zeitlin
61. Michael Zeitlin on behalf of Advisory Service for Squatters
62. ‘Monica’
63. Nagakusala Dharmacharin (aka William Frugal)
64. ‘Naomi’
65. Nicola Benge
66. Nicola Benge on behalf of Rhythms of Resistance
67. Olaf Bayer
68. Patrick Gillett
69. Professor Paul Chatterton
70. Paul Gravett
71. Paul Morozzo
72. Robbin Gillett
73. Robert Banbury
74. Robin Lane
75. ‘Sara’
76. Sarah Shoraka
77. Professor Simon Lewis
78. Simon Taylor
79. Spencer Cooke
80. Terence Evans
81. Tom Fowler
82. Tomas Remiarz
83. Trevor Houghton
84. ‘VSP’
85. The Hon. Zoe Young BSc MSc MFA

Despite grave reservations from civil liberties groups and those who have been targeted by Britain’s political secret police, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons yesterday and will now go to the Lords.

It will allow police and a range of other state agencies to self-authorise their agents to commit any crime at all.

This is not about foiling deadly terrorist plots, as laws and agencies already exist to do that. Instead, it will give carte blanche to the spycops to abuse citizens campaigning for social change. It specifically includes protecting ‘economic wellbeing’, which would make strikes, boycotts, blockades and pickets legitimate targets for the most serious crimes.

Human Rights Defeated in Parliament

Labour introduced a number of amendments to limit the powers of the Bill, including outlawing the infiltration of trade unions, deceiving people into sexual relationships, and the use of children in spying. All amendments were defeated. Nonetheless, Labour whipped MPs to abstain.

All Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Green MPs voted against it, as did most SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs and one Conservative, Adam Afriyie.

Additionally, a total of 34 Labour MPs defied their leadership to vote against the Bill. Seven of them had to resign positions to do so; shadow schools minister Margaret Greenwood, shadow Treasury minister Dan Carden, and Parliamentary private secretaries Navendu Mishra, Kim Johnson, Mary Foy, Rachel Hopkins, and Sarah Owen.

Many of us have been shocked by the failure of Labour to oppose this attack on democratic freedoms, personal security, and the labour movement in particular.

Labour MPs Spied On

In March 2015, whistleblower spycop Peter Francis revealed that he had personally seen ten Labour MPs spied on during his time at the Special Demonstration Squad in the 1990s.

The targeted MPs were from the full width of Labour’s political spectrum. Several of them made outraged statements to parliament at the time, demanding to see their files.

Here are a few excerpts from that afternoon (with transcripts and closed captions for accessibility).

Peter Hain

Peter Hain was an active anti-racist campaigner in the 1970s and 1980s before he became a Labour MP in 1991. He was a minister for more than a decade following Labour’s 1997 election victory. He is a core participant at the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

In March 2015, he listed his fellow Labour MPs known to not only have been spied on as earlier campaigners, but having it continue while they were MPs who were supposedly protected by the ‘Wilson Doctrine’, a convention that prohibits the security services from targeting parliamentarians.

Peter Hain:

‘Would he pass on to the Home Secretary my request that she ensures that the remit of the public inquiry she’s announced into the operations of the Special Demonstration Squad includes surveillance of MPs publicly named by Peter Francis when he was an undercover officer between 1990 and 2001?

Is she aware – and is he aware – that aside from myself he saw a Special Branch file on my Right Honourable friend the member for Blackburn [Jack Straw] who was actually Home Secretary for four of these years, and files on my Right Honourable friends the members for Camberwell and Peckham [Harriet Harman] and Lewisham Deptford [Joan Ruddock] and my Honourable friends the members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington [Diane Abbott], Islington North [Jeremy Corbyn], and Bolsover [Dennis Skinner], as well as former colleagues Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Bernie Grant?

Did this monitoring affect our ability as MPs to speak confidentially with constituents? What, if any, impact did that have on our ability to represent them properly? We know for example that the campaign to get justice for Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered by racists, was infiltrated by the SDS [Special Demonstration Squad], and that the police blocked a proper prosecution.

Did police infiltrators in the Lawrence campaign exploit private information shared by constituents or lawyers with any of us as MPs? Will the Home Office in order the police to disclose all relevant information and to each of the MPs affected our complete individual personal registry files?

It is hardly revelatory that the Special Branch had a file on people like me dating back forty years ago to anti-apartheid or Anti-Nazi League activist days because we were seen through a cold war prism as subversive. Even though we vigorously opposed Stalinism that didn’t stop us being lumped together with Moscow sympathisers. But surely the fact that these files were still active for at least ten years whilst we were MPs raises fundamental questions about parliamentary sovereignty and privilege, principles which are vital to our democracy.

It is one thing to have a police file on an MP suspected of crime, child abuse, or even co-operating with terrorism, but quite another to maintain one deriving from campaigns promoting values of social justice, human rights and equal opportunities which are shared by millions of British people. Surely, Mr Speaker, that means travelling down the road that endangers the liberty of us all.’

Jack Straw

The spycops didn’t just target members of the government who were supposedly their superiors, but they specifically spied on Jack Straw when he was Home Secretary and therefore ultimately in charge of the police.

Straw noted the sinister implication that it may well have been motivated by a desire to prevent police being held to account over the institutional racism that enfeebled their investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Jack Straw:

‘Does the Minister accept that if these allegations are correct then we have an extraordinary situation where I as Home Secretary – and for three years from ’97 to 2000, was the police authority for the Metropolitan Police – not only knew nothing whatever about what appears to have been going on within the Metropolitan Police but may also have been subject to unlawful surveillance myself as Home Secretary? That ought to be looked at.

But the trigger, what appears to be the trigger, which is much more serious ought to be looked at, which was my decision, taken against a lot of reluctance by the Metropolitan Police, to establish a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. And what is completely unacceptable was that it appears that elements of the Metropolitan Police were themselves spying on the bereaved family of Stephen Lawrence.’

Joan Ruddock

Like Peter Hain, Joan Ruddock was spied on earlier campaigning work, in her case the peace movement. She was weeks away from stepping down as an MP and lamented the lack of leverage she had to force answers from the police.

Joan Ruddock:

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. In 1981 I was elected the chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and two years later an MI5 agent, Cathy Massiter, blew the whistle on the surveillance the phone taps and the collection of Special Branch reports had been undertaken on me. She cited political interference in the service. She said what had happened was illegal and she resigned.

Now, in ’87 I became a member of this House. I took the loyal oath. In 1997 I became a minister. I subsequently signed the Official Secrets Act. How is it that surveillance was carried out on me all of that time? I want to know, and get the Minister to understand, who authorised that surveillance? On what grounds was the surveillance authorised?

And he needs to answer those questions because this is a political issue, it is his responsibility, the Home Office’s and Home Secretary’s responsibility.

Mr Speaker, I am leaving this house. I can do no more than make these points, put in an FoI [Freedom of Information request] to the commissioner, write to the Home Secretary. But frankly, it is something that affects all MPs, and even though I leave he needs to do something and the future government of this House needs to ensure that there is a proper investigation. This should never ever have happened to members of this House.’

David Davis

From the other side of the chamber, Conservative MP David Davis emphasised the fact that spycops is not only a historic scandal, and insisted that the Undercover Policing Inquiry must examine activity right up to the present.

David Davis:

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the last year there have been a number of revelations about the police improperly hacking into journalists’ telephone calls, improperly breaching legal privilege, and using the information they obtained from breaching legal privilege of suspects, and the government has been very coy about responding to my requests about the current state of the Wilson Doctrine.

If these allegations that have come out now are true, it indicates the Wilson Doctrine was broken in spirit if not in the letter.

Can he make sure that the inquiry actually comes right up to date in terms of what it looks into, and that it is drawn broadly enough to ensure that none of these risks exist today?’

Harriet Harman

Two MPs demanded to see the release of their files; Harriet Harman, then-Duputy Leader of the Labour Party, and a relatively unknown but long-serving backbencher by the name of Jeremy Corbyn.

Harman had been an MP for more than thirty years at the time she spoke in 2015. Not for the first time, she defended the right to political dissent without interference from spycops and demanded to see her full file.

Harriet Harman:

‘I’d like to ask the Minister – it’s more important than just feeding in our views to an inquiry, the question is what he decides – and I would like him to assure me that he, the government, will let me see a full copy of my file.

In the 70s and the 1980s when I was at Brent Law Centre and then at Liberty, I was campaigning for the rights of women, for the rights of workers, and the right to demonstrate. None of that was against the law. None of that was undermining our democracy. On the contrary, it was actually essential for our democracy.

The security services do an important job, and the government of course should support them, but if they overstep the mark the government must hold them to account. So can I repeat a request I made to the previous government that was turned down and make it again to this government in the light of these new revelations.

Will he give me an assurance that this government will release to me a full copy of my file?’

Harriet Harman is still an MP. She voted for several of the amendments to the CHIS Bill but, after they failed, she abstained on the final vote.

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn is the other spied-on Labour MP who is still in the Commons. He defied the leadership to vote against the CHIS Bill last night.

Back in 2015, Corbyn’s outrage at the injustice was palpable as he spoke to the House.

Jeremy Corbyn:

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased that this story has finally come out and as members of parliament we’re in a position to raise questions with the Home Office and demand the truth come out. Unfortunately many, many others unknown to us who were under surveillance do not have that opportunity.

The question is one of accountability of the Metropolitan Police. Who authorised this tapping? Who knew about it? Did the Home Secretary or successive Home Secretaries know about it? If they did, why didn’t they accept the Wilson Doctrine in respect of MPs? Why did they allow this covert operation to go on within the Metropolitan Police?

And I’m very surprised that, in his answer a few moments ago, he said the files might be released to us but they may have to be redacted for security reasons. If I’m under surveillance, or the late Bernie Grant or any of my friends are under surveillance, and whatever meetings we were at they were presumably there, whatever phone calls we made they were presumably recording, I think we have a right to know about that.

We represent constituents. We’re in a position of trust with our constituents. That trust is betrayed by this invasion of our privacy by the Metropolitan Police and I ask the Minister again can we each of us have a full unredacted version of everything that was written about us, every piece of surveillance that was undertaken of us, our families and our friends?’

Still No Answers, What Next?

All their requests to see their files were, like everyone else’s, ignored by the police. Five years later and those MPs, like the rest of us, are still waiting for answers.

The public inquiry into undercover political policing finally starts on 2 November, seven years after it was promised by the Home Secretary. It has granted anonymity to most spycops officers, so even if it does reveal some truth, there is little chance of proper accountability.

A major part of the Inquiry’s remit is to make recommendations for the future. But if the CHIS Bill becomes law, it turns the Inquiry into an academic historic exercise, with the spycops of the future able to commit the most heinous abuses with impunity.

Without warning, a new law is being rushed through parliament to allow police and other state agencies to self-authorise their agents to commit literally any crime. It would also prohibit civil claims by their victims.

The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill would enshrine in law not only the right for spycops to commit the abuses that have caused so much public outrage, but much more besides.

Crimes would be permissable if they protect whatever is meant by ‘the economic wellbeing’ of the country. Authorisations would be given without limit or judicial oversight. The powers would extend well beyond the police and security services to include the likes of the Food Standards Agency, Competition & Markets Authority, and the Gambling Commission.

The pace of this law is breathtaking. It was published on 24th September, it had its second reading in the Commons on 5th October and will probably be in the House of Lords before the end of the month.

At the second reading, Labour and the SNP abstained, though about 20 Labour MPs rebelled to oppose it.

The third reading will be on Thursday 15th October, with amendments that would establish some safeguards to prohibit:

• Some serious serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape;
• Trade union infiltration and blacklisting;
• Agents having sexual relationships whilst in their undercover persona

Labour leader Keir Starmer is reported to be planning to instruct Labour MPs to abstain on the third reading, even if the changes being put forward by the opposition are not adopted.

What You Can Do

Before the third reading on Thursday, please email your MP and ask them to support the amendments and oppose the Bill.

Unite the Union has made an online tool that makes it quick and easy to send the email.

Joint Statement

The general secretaries of 14 trade unions, 20 Labour MPs and a number of campaigning organisations including the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, have signed a joint statement:

We the undersigned have grave concerns about the measures set out in the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill as introduced to the Commons at second reading (5 October 2020).

As many will be aware from the circumstances leading up to the setting up of the Mitting (formerly Pitchford) Inquiry into undercover policing, there has been a documented history of state surveillance of lawful trade union activity and justice campaigns in recent years, including apparent links with the criminal blacklisting of trade union members. We are also alarmed by the conduct of undercover police in pursuing surveillance of legitimate civil society organisations including anti-racist organisations, family justice campaigns and environmental groups.

Whilst the government has assured us that the bill will not apply retrospectively, we remain concerned that passing legislation with undue haste and insufficient scrutiny in Committee – pre-empting the findings of the Mitting Inquiry – risks compromising and undermining legal proceedings through which victims of previous criminal conduct by CHIS operatives are seeking justice.

Aside from the timing of the new licensing of criminal conduct by CHIS operatives, our specific concerns about the bill as it stands include:

• The vague definition of “economic wellbeing” being susceptible to interpretations which would implicate aspects of legitimate trade union activity;
• The failure to expressly rule out the authorisation of murder, torture or sexual violence by a CHIS;
• The lack of any provision to compensate innocent victims of criminal conduct undertaken by a CHIS;
• The unnecessarily broad range of agencies able to authorise unlawful conduct;
• The reliance on the Human Rights Act as limiting the scope of what might be legally authorised, despite the government’s own previous reliance on a legal defence that the State cannot be held responsible under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights for actions undertaken by individual agents, and;
• The lack of prior judicial authorisation or even concurrent judicial oversight.

In light of these concerns, we would ask the government to withdraw the bill to allow for due consideration of the evidence and findings of the Mitting Review, or at the very least to make substantial amendments to the Bill to meet the concerns outlined above.

If sufficient amendments to ensure proper safeguarding in the legislation are not secured, the bill will remain unfit for purpose and cannot be allowed to proceed.

We urge all those who share our concerns to use the tool at this link to email their MP today, to ask them to support the amendments submitted by the Labour frontbench, and to oppose the bill at third reading if the amendments are unsuccessful and the government refuses to withdraw the bill.

Signatories:

Len McCluskey, general secretary, Unite the Union

Matt Wrack, general secretary, Fire Brigades Union (FBU)

Sarah Woolley, general Secretary, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU)

Dave Ward, general secretary, Communication Workers Union (CWU)

Manuel Cortes, general secretary, Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA)

Mick Whelan, general secretary, Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF)

Mick Cash, general secretary, Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary, National Education Union (NEU)

Jo Grady, general secretary, University and College Union (UCU)

Mark Serwotka, general secretary, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary, National Union of Journalists (NUJ)

Steve Gillan, general secretary, Prison Officers Association (POA)

Ian Lawrence, general secretary, NAPO

Bob Monks, general secretary, United Road Transport Union

Reprieve

Police Spies Out Of Lives

Momentum

Open Labour

Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance

Pat Finucane Centre

Privacy International

Committee for Administration of Justice (CAJ)

Rights and Security International

Undercover Research Group

Netpol

Blacklist Support Group

Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign

Justice 4 Grenfell

Public Interest Law Centre

Big Brother Watch

Jeremy Corbyn MP

John McDonnell MP

Diane Abbott MP

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

Ian Lavery MP

Jon Trickett MP

Richard Burgon MP

Kate Osborne MP

Ian Byrne MP

Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP

Claudia Webbe MP

Clive Lewis MP

Bethan Winter MP

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP

Mick Whitley MP

Ian Mearns MP

Grahame Morris MP

Apsana Begum MP

Paula Barker MP

Zarah Sultana MP

Michelle Gildernew MP

Órfhlaith Begley MP

Francie Molloy MP

Mickey Brady MP

Paul Maskey MP

Chris Hazzard MP

John Finucane MP

Baroness Shami Chakrabarti

Baroness Christine Blower

Baroness Pauline Bryan

Lord John Hendy QC

Suresh Grover, co-director, The Monitoring Group

Dorothea Jones, co-director, The Monitoring Group

Terry Renshaw

Kate Flannery

Chris Peace

Laura Pidcock

Kate Wilson outside the Royal Courts of Justice

Kate Wilson has received startling admissions from the Metropolitan Police Service and the National Police Chiefs Council – at a hearing before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal at the Royal Courts of Justice being held this week.

These far-reaching admissions highlight the inadequacy of even the current legislation to provide protection to members of the public from dangerous abuses by agents and informers who are the Covert Human Intelligence Sources referred to in the current parliamentary CHIS Bill. This bill is shockingly set to significantly reduce existing levels of protection.

The police have admitted that they breached Kate’s Article 8 ECHR rights – to a private and family life – after conceding that her surveillance by at least six undercover officers over a sustained period, was neither proportionate nor justified. Previously they had only admitted that Article 8 was breached by the undercover officer Mark Kennedy when he deceived her into a long-term intimate and sexual relationship. Now they admit the intrusion was even greater.

Yet the police continue to claim that authorisations for surveillance of Kate and the environmental and social justice movements she was active in were lawful and legitimate; arguments particularly relevant right now with the worryingly hasty passage of the CHIS (Criminal Conduct) Bill through parliament. Kate fiercely contests this claim, and will ask that the court now examine the evidence and circumstances of the human rights breaches, as well as the lawfulness of the operations as a whole.

Kate says

“These admissions have wide reaching significance for the public at large. Over 30 women now know that they were deceived into intimate, sexual relationships with undercover officers. Many more people were subjected to similar infiltration by undercover officers. What happened to me was by no means unique, and hundreds of people will have had their rights violated in this way. These admissions mean it is simply not sustainable to say these operations were legitimate, proportionate, or lawful”

Of course, if the CHIS bill passes, new cases like Kate’s may no longer be able to be heard as the UK government are resistant to setting legal limits on any conduct that undercover operatives may consider to be justified. Other governments, such as Canada and the USA have written into security law that offences such as murder, torture, and sexual violence are not acceptable conduct for any reason.

Kate’s case should broadcast loudly to the public, and our legislators, that setting no limits on intrusions into the lives of citizens by security services and other undercover agents is profoundly dangerous for democracy.

Kate has fought this case for nine years. She has faced repeated attempts to shut down and delay her case, and fears this may be the start of another attempt to close the case down and avoid further scrutiny. The delays so far have been so severe that funding for legal counsel is exhausted and Kate is now a litigant in person – a huge undertaking against the vast resources of the police.

Many aspects of Kate’s case still need answers, such as whether her relationship with Kennedy was conducted with the knowledge and agreement of senior police officers, whether she suffered discrimination at the hands of the police because she was a woman, and whether Mark Kennedy and these other officers interfered with her right to freedom of expression, and freedom of association because of her political beliefs.

Originally published by Police Spies Out of Lives

For background on Kate Wilson’s human rights case against the police, see our post from her hearing in February 2020.

Andy Coles then and now

A Metropolitan Police investigation has upheld a complaint by a woman deceived into a relationship by former undercover officer Andy Coles.

The Met have found Jessica’s claims credible and ruled that Coles would face charges of gross misconduct if he were still a serving officer.

It’s a huge blow to Coles, who has consistently denied Jessica’s account of his abuse as he tries to shore up his crumbling credibility as a city councillor and public figure.

ANDY COLES: LYING THEN

Andy Coles was a member of the Metropolitan Police’s disgraced Special Demonstration Squad. In the 1990s he spent four years undercover as peace and animal rights activist ‘Andy Davey’. Like many other officers in Britain’s political secret police, Coles abused his role to deceive women into sexual relationships. The most significant of these was a woman known as ‘Jessica’.

Jessica was, as Coles knew, a vulnerable teenager at the time. He told her he was a 24 year old who shared her worldview and became her first proper boyfriend. In reality, he was 32 and married, paid to be sent into her life to betray the values she held dear.

The relationship lasted a year. Two other women, Emily and Joy, have also spoken about being the target of his unwanted sexual attentions during his deployment.

Coles went on to have a career in Special Branch, managing and training other officers for the same role as he’d held.

He retired from the police in 2012, about a year after the spycops scandal broke. In Peterborough he became a Conservative member of the City Council for Fletton and Woodston ward, and was appointed to the post of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Cambridgeshire.

When he was exposed in 2017, Coles resigned as Deputy PCC within hours without explanation. However, seemingly believing lower standards apply to councillors than Deputy PCCs, he did not step down as a councillor. Every council meeting since then has seen protests calling for his resignation. His seat will be up for re-election in May this year.

ANDY COLES: LYING NOW

A year later, in 2018, the Undercover Policing Inquiry confirmed that he had indeed been a Special Demonstration Squad officer. Coles released two prepared statements to the press, which only confirmed what the Inquiry had said, and flatly denied what he called the ‘lurid allegations’ made by Jessica:

‘The allegation the ALF activist known as “Jessica” makes that I had a sexual relationship with her for over a year while undercover are [sic] completely untrue’.

The Undercover Policing Inquiry, which has access to secret police files, had already granted Jessica ‘core participant’ status in August 2017. They have only given that designation to around 200 of the most seriously affected victims of spycops. Clearly, they find her account credible too.

Through his lawyer, he told the media yesterday that he still denies having ‘an inappropriate relationship’ with Jessica.

Now that the relationship is officially regarded as credible, he is perhaps trying to insert some room for manoeuvre and suggests that even if he did have a relationship it was somehow ‘appropriate’. That quite plainly cannot be true, as has been repeatedly and unequivocally established by a range of senior officers and official investigations.

NEVER APPROPRIATE

Chief Constable Mick Creedon produced a series of reports on the political secret police under the aegis of Operation Herne, and in 2014 he was clear:

‘There are and never have been any circumstances where it would be appropriate for such covertly deployed officers to engage in intimate sexual relationships with those they are employed to infiltrate and target. Such an activity can only be seen as an abject failure of the deployment, a gross abuse of their role and their position as a police officer and an individual and organisational failing.’

Operation Herne – Report 2: Allegations of Peter Francis (Operation Trinity)

When the Metropolitan Police gave their landmark apology to women deceived into relationships in 2015, two years before Jessica found out the truth about Coles, they said:

‘some officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong… these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma. The forming of a sexual relationship by an undercover officer would never be authorised in advance nor indeed used as a tactic of a deployment’.

Jon Murphy from the Association of Chief Police Officers explained it when the scandal broke in 2011, at a time when Coles was employed by the Association:

‘It is grossly unprofessional. It is a diversion from what they are there to do. It is morally wrong because people have been put there to do a particular task and people have got trust in them. It is never acceptable under any circumstances… for them to engage in sex with any subject they come into contact with.’

When his deployment ended in 1995, Andy Coles updated the Special Demonstration Squad’s Tradecraft Manual to incorporate his experience and methods, including tips on conducting the kinds of relationship he now denies having.

After this, he trained the first undercover officers in the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), a new sister unit to the Special Demonstration Squad, teaching them to steal the identities of dead children. He went on to become Head of Training for the NPOIU’s oversight body ACPO-TAM as they deployed a number of the most notorious spycops who committed the same kind of abuses, such as Mark Kennedy.

WHAT’S HE GOT TO HIDE?

During the Met’s investigation into Jessica’s complaint, Coles was interviewed twice under caution and both times he supplied a prepared statement. He refused to answer questions.

Why did he resign as Deputy PCC? Why did he refuse to answer questions put to him by his old colleagues at the Metropolitan Police? Why does he continually refuse to comment, except to confirm what’s officially concretely established and deny the rest?

These are not the actions of someone who believes they have done nothing wrong. They are more like the response of someone who is desperately trying to hide from the truth.

The fact that his old colleagues at the Met, not known for their bias against themselves, have found Jessica’s report of a relationship credible makes Coles’s desperate denials appear transparently false.

He has doubled down, telling today’s Peterborough Telegraph:

‘The Metropolitan Police has taken no further action against me’

That’s an extraordinary response to the Met upholding a complaint against him and announcing that they would bring the most serious disciplinary charges against him if only it were still in their power to do so.

Despite the Met’s investigators having spoken to many people who knew Coles and Jessica at the time, and seen documentary proof such as contemporaneous letters, Coles desperately repeats his lie:

‘I deny the accusations made completely. I denied them when they were first made, I deny them now’

While his current friends and colleagues on the council may forgive his abuse of a woman thirty years ago, if he admits it happened it means he has been lying to them since 2017. They would not look so benevolently on that. So he goes on, as the evidence piles up all around him, lying to his peers and compounding the damage he has done to Jessica.

STALLING AS HIS LIES ARE FALLING

Coles is still refusing to answer, merely saying through his lawyer that ‘it would not be appropriate to respond outside of the Inquiry’.

He talks as if the Inquiry is a court and he might prejudice a fair trial. It’s yet another deceit he is playing on the public. He knows full well that the inquiry process does not restrict him at all and that he is at liberty to say what he wants. Any number of former spycops have given interviews to television and press, made public appearances, one even hired a publicity agent.

Coles knows this is merely a way to kick the can down the road. Though the Inquiry is not a court of any kind, it is as slow as any process in the judicial system. Initiated six years ago and originally scheduled to conclude in summer 2018, it has yet to begin. There are no dates set for officers from Coles’ era to give evidence, and the whole thing is not expected to finish until 2025 at the earliest.

It leaves Coles continuing in his respected public role while Jessica – and the wider public – still wait for the truth about full extent of Britain’s counter-democratic secret police units.

Jessica said:

‘I’m pleased the complaint was upheld however I am disappointed at the lack of accountability. Andy Coles was allowed to retire in 2013 at a time when the revelations about undercover officers having sexual relationships and even children with unsuspecting women had started to come out. I would like to know what his superior officers knew or ought to have known about our relationship. Was he properly supervised?

‘Kate Wilson is in court later this week fighting to find answers to what happened to her. Her relationship with an undercover police officer happened a decade after mine. This is not historic abuse. It’s systematic and institutionalised sexism in the police.’

Men who abuse their public roles to violate women should not be in positions of civic trust. This isn’t just about what he did 30 years ago, appalling as that was. This is also about his unrelenting deviousness and lack of integrity today.

The Sack Andy Coles campaign has protested at every Peterborough Council meeting since the truth was revealed. Join us at the next one on Wednesday 4 March 2020, 5pm at Peterborough Town Hall.

And whether you can be at the protest or not, please sign and share the petition launched by one of Coles’ fellow councillors calling on him to resign.

Originally published by Sack Andy Coles

Kate Wilson outside the Royal Courts of Justice

Join us outside court on 27 February 2020 to support Kate Wilson in the next hearing of her landmark human rights case that could lay bare the inner workings and chain of command of Britain’s political secret police.

Kate was deceived into a long-term, intimate relationship with an undercover Metropolitan police officer, Mark Kennedy. She is bringing a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, Britain’s special court for human rights affected by state surveillance.

Even before the full case is heard, these preliminary hearings have brought significant victories. The Met said they concede Kate’s claim that they violated her fundamental right to freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The Met also admitted that there are many thousands of relevant documents, and the sample seen shows the fine detail in which her relationship with Kenedy was recorded, detailing a dozen visits to stay with her parents, even describing gifts he bought for her. Kennedy’s ‘handler’ officer watched them together.

It’s demolished the Met’s wall of denial, built up over years claiming such relationships were the actions of rogue officers acting without management approval.

Kate is one of eight women whose legal case against the Met elicited the police’s historic apology of 2015 in which we were told:

‘The forming of a sexual relationship by an undercover officer would never be authorised in advance nor indeed used as a tactic of a deployment’

That came a year after another official report into the spycops scandal was equally unquivocal:

‘There are and never have been any circumstances where it would be appropriate for such covertly deployed officers to engage in intimate sexual relationships with those they are employed to infiltrate and target.

‘Such an activity can only be seen as an abject failure of the deployment, a gross abuse of their role and their position as a police officer and an individual and organisational failing.’

– Chief Constable Mick Creedon, ‘Operation Herne – Report 2‘, 2014

We now have proof that those statements are lies. If this comes from a 200 page sample of the 10,000 pages that mention Kate, imagine what there is in the rest.

The demo is outside Kate’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday 27 February, 9.30am. Here’s an event listing for more details on that.

As for the basis of the case itself, here are the specifics:

Spycops Breaching Human Rights

Kate’s asserting that the Metropolitan Police breached five article of the European Convention of Human Rights:

Article 3

Article 3 prohibits torture and “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. This is an absolute right, there are no circumstances that make this treatment acceptable.

“I have experienced  the psychological damage that these operations can cause. It is deep  and it is long lasting, and I think that the intrusiveness and the  psychological violence that is inherent in these tactics, and not just  the sexual relationships, but the intimacy, the abuse of trust, which is  completely inherent to any undercover policing operation could be  seriously underestimated by anyone who has not been subjected to that  tactic.”
– Kate Wilson

In their 2015 apology, the Metropolitan Police admitted the relationships were a “gross violation of personal dignity and integrity,” and said officers “preyed on the women’s good nature and had manipulated their emotions to a gratuitous extent.”

These relationships caused serious long-term harm and psychological trauma to the victims and others close to them. This, and the nature of the deception involved, mean they were violations of Article 3.  If this is upheld in court, a change in the law around the authorisation of intimate relationships by undercover officers might be forced.

“What happened to us has been akin to psychological torture”
– ‘Lisa’

“It turns your life upside down. Everything that you thought you knew suddenly becomes unreal; everything changes. You do not know who you can trust any more. It destroys everything.”
– Helen Steel

Article 8

Article 8 provides a right to respect for one’s private and family life, home and correspondence.

“I have been abused in by an undercover police officer who was sent into my life, into my home, into my parents’ home, and into my bed by the Metropolitan Police.”
– Kate Wilson

Intimate and sexual relationships by undercover officers concealing their real identity from the other person/s in the relationship/s represent a clear violation of the right to respect for private and family life. These relationships involved intrusion into people’s families, with some officers attending family funerals, and helping women through the grieving process. In their Apology, the Met Police admitted it was a “gross violation” of the women’s privacy.

“I met him when I was 29, and he disappeared about three months before I was 35. It was the time when I wanted to have children”
– ‘Alison’

Articles 10 & 11

Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression, and Article 11 protects the right to freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form trade unions.

“I have been the subject of systematic surveillance and violations of my intimacy, my right to privacy, and my bodily integrity, for at least the last 18 years by police forces that are cooperating across European borders. Put simply it is a story of human rights abuse and persecution  by secret political police because of my beliefs and political activities”
– Kate Wilson

Women have been targeted because of their participation in social justice campaigns. Intimate and sexual relationships have been used as a tactic  to infiltrate campaigning and political organisatons. These relationships resulted in real psychological harm, violating the right to freedom of expression, and the right to freedom of assembly and association.

Any “like-minded activist” was considered a valid target for infiltration, and further authorisation was not sought for their inclusion into the operation, regardless of their relevance to any investigation. This approach clearly interferes with the right  to freedom of expression, and the right to freedom of assembly and association.

“There is probably more damage and violence that happens on a regular basis on a Friday night in town centres when people get drunk, but there is not a proposal to infiltrate every pub in the country on the off-chance that you are going to be able to prevent violence and damage. This is about political policing and trying to interfere with what is actually a recognised right to freedom of association and freedom of expression.”
– Helen Steel

“It has had a massive impact on my political activity…I suspected within about a month of his disappearance, and after about 18 months of different searches I came to believe it… I withdrew from political activity.”
– ‘Alison’

Article 14

Article 14 contains a prohibition of discrimination.

The relationships perpetrated by undercover police officers have overwhelomingly been men preying on women. It is institutional sexism. Undercover officers having sexual relationships with female activists plainly has a discriminatory effect on women being able to exercise their human rights under Articles 3, 8, 10 and 11.

“This highlights the sexist mindset that thought that it was acceptable for  the police to abuse women, and derail our lives in order to shore up the fake identities of these undercover policemen so they could undermine political movements and campaign groups.”
– Helen Steel

Qualified Human Rights

Whilst Article 3 – the right to freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment – is an absolute right, Articlethe others in Kate’s claim are qualified rights that can be breached in certain circumstances. But interference is permissible only if there is a legal basis, the interference is necessary in a democratic society, or the interference is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by carrying it out.

There is nothing in law which states that if a police officer suspects an  individual of involvement with a political movement, that officer is entitled to have a sexual relationship with the person to try to find out.

Sexual and intimate relationships cannot be said to be necessary – there are a multitude of reasons why any individual might decline to  become intimate with another person.  Given the level of invasion of privacy and the serious psychological harm caused by such relationships they cannot be thought of as proportionate for getting information on political campaign groups.

‘Collateral Intrusion’ and Human Rights

“He is in my mother’s wedding photograph, and I and my current partner have to see him in that.”
– ‘Alison’

Intrusion into the lives of people associated with the targets of the undercover officers is termed by the police ‘Collateral Intrusion.’ Perversely, its  authorisation appears to require less rigorous tests than intrusion into the lives of “suspects”

The depth of the intrusion into the claimants’ lives also meant a deep  intrusion into the lives of family members and close friends. For example, undercover police officers “infiltrated” deeply emotional family gatherings such as funerals, weddings and birthday celebrations. The psychological harm inflicted, not only on the claimants, but on close members of our family – including infirm, elderly relatives, and forming significant bonds with children – cannot be justified.

“There is no justification for somebody coming to my father’s funeral with me. There was no justification for putting an undercover cop into my family’s life.”
– ‘Lisa’

Collateral Intrusion is, it seems, a euphemism for violating the fundamental human rights of people who are not even the specific subjects of  surveillance, without any real consideration of the psychological damage that such deep deceptions might cause.

In the same way that it is not considered necessary and proportionate for undercover officers to form intimate sexual relationships, it is always wholly inappropriate for a police officer to insert themselves into extended families, in the way that being part of long-term relationships would necessitate.

Instead of being seen as ‘Collateral Intrusion’ that can be easily authorised, every individual whose Article 8 Human Rights may be breached by an operation should be afforded the respect of having the merits of that intrusion specifically considered and recorded, including the specific reasons why it is considered necessary and proportionate.

Join us outside court on 27 February 2020 to demand truth and justice for Kate Wilson and a nation whose political life has been corrupted by spycops.

Originally published by Police Spies Out of Lives.

What is the Undercover Policing Inquiry?

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 undercover units who deployed long-term undercover officers into a variety of political groups: the Special Demonstration Squad (1968-2008) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (1999-2011).

Officers from these units lived as activists for years at a time. More than 1,000 groups were spied on, though the Inquiry has named less than 100. Activist researchers have produced a more complete list of those targeted.

Beyond collecting information personal details about people’s lives, officers often:

• stole the identities of dead children
• took key roles in the organisations they infiltrated
• encouraged and participated in illegal activity
• formed emotional relationships with children of people they spied on
• supplied personal information for illegal blacklists of politically active workers
• orchestrated wrongful convictions of activists
• deceived women they spied on into long-term intimate relationships

After its first round of hearings, the Inquiry issued an interim report in 2023 that was utterly damning. It declared there was no justification for that these officers did and, had the public been aware, they would have been swiftly shut down.

When was the Undercover Policing Inquiry set up?

On 6 March 2014, after more than three years of escalating revelations, the Home Secretary announced in Parliament that there would be a full-scale public inquiry under the terms of the Inquiries Act 2005.

The process began on 28 July 2015, with opening remarks on the purpose, remit and intent from the Chair, Lord Pitchford.

Following Lord Pitchford’s death in October 2017, Sir John Mitting was appointed as Chair. Despite the serious reservations of victims, he remains in the post.

Who is giving evidence at the Undercover Policing Inquiry?

The witnesses will include officers and people that they spied on. The Inquiry will publish a draft list of witnesses giving evidence at least four weeks before the hearing.

In these first hearings, we’ll be hearing from officers deployed in the Special Demonstration Squad, their managers and some of the people they spied on, from the squad’s inception in 1968 until 1982.

We won’t get to see the files that are going to be cited and discussed in the hearings until the day they are mentioned.

How does the Undercover Policing Inquiry take evidence from witnesses?

The Inquiry tries to avoid being an adversarial format with witnesses feeling cross-examined by hostile lawyers. Instead, all the lawyers involved – representing police, victims and the inquiry itself – hand in questions the would like a witness to answer.

A witness is then questioned by one neutral lawyer, the Counsel to the inquiry. At the end of questioning, there is a short break while Counsel checks with the various lawyers if they feel anything has been missed or needs answering in more detail.

How does the Undercover Policing Inquiry organise its investigation?

The Inquiry’s investigations will be broken into three modules:

Module 1: Examination of the deployment of undercover officers in the past, their conduct, and the impact of their activities on themselves and others.

Module 2: Examination of the management and oversight of undercover officers, including their selection, training, supervision, care after deployments, and the legal and regulatory framework within which undercover policing was carried out.

• Module 2a will involve managers and administrators from within undercover policing units.

• Module 2b will involve senior managers higher in the chain of command as well as police personnel who handled intelligence provided by undercover police officers.

• Module 2c will involve other government bodies with a connection to undercover policing, including the Home Office.

Module 3: Examination of current undercover policing practices and of how undercover policing should be conducted in future.

Module 1 has been broken down into six ‘tranches’.

Tranche 1 hearings will be taking evidence about the activities of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) from its formation in 1968 to 1982.

Tranche 1 has, in turn, been broken into three phases:

Phase 1 examined the SDS from 1968 to 1972.

Phase 2 examined the SDS from 1973 to 1982.

Phase 3 examined SDS managers 1968-1982.

The subsequent tranches will examine:

• Tranche 2 – Special Demonstration Squad officers and managers and those affected by deployments (1983-1992). This is to be split into two phases – Phase 2 will cover animal rights-related campaigns, Phase 1 will examine everything else.

• Tranche 3 – Special Demonstration Squad officers and managers and those affected by deployments (1993-2007)

• Tranche 4 – National Public Order Intelligence Unit officers and managers and those affected by deployments

• Tranche 5 – Other undercover policing officers and managers and those affected by deployments

• Tranche 6 – Management and oversight (including of intelligence dissemination) by mid and senior rank officers, other agencies and government departments

What are the dates for the Undercover Policing Inquiry?

The first hearings of Tranche 1 took place between 2 and 19 November 2020.

Tranche 1 (Special Demonstration Squad 1968-82):

Phase 1, 1968-72. These hearings took place in November 2020.

Phase 2, 1973-82. These hearings took place in April and May 2021.

Phase 3, managers 1968-1982. These hearings took place in May 2022.

Tranche 2 (SDS 1983-1992):

Phase 1 (non-animal rights) hearings tookplace in July and August 2024.

Phase 2 (animal rights) hearings began on 14 October 2024, and are expected to run to February 2025.

Tranche 3 (SDS 1993-2007) hearings were scheduled to start in late April 2025 but this has now been postponed to an unspecified date.

Tranche 4 (NPOIU) hearings were expected in October 2025, but as Tranche 2 Phase 2 and Tranche 3 have been delayed it’s quite likely Tranche 4 will be too.

Tranche 6 (higher management and oversight) is being done as the other tranches occur.

There is no set completion date for the Inquiry’s final report, but 2027 seems as good a guess as any.

Why are there such large gaps between hearings at the Undercover Policing Inquiry?

The Inquiry is handling hundreds of thousands of vintage files, collated from police, Security Service and other sources. It takes a long time to analyse these formulate lines of enquiry, and decide which people to call as witnesses. The witnesses then have to have the documents to be discussed. Everyone’s lawyers have to feed into the process of producing questions for witnesses.

Then, after the hearings, the evidence gathered has to be analysed and considered so the Inquiry can draw conclusions in their own right, as well as contributing to the approach of the next round of hearings.

How much will the Undercover Policing Inquiry cost?

Up to the end of June 2024, the Inquiry had already cost £88,687,800. This will increase substantially as time goes on.

How long will the Undercover Policing Inquiry last?

The Inquiry was originally expected to publish its final report in summer 2018.

After a huge amount of deliberate delay from the police, the schedule was drastically revised. In May 2018, the Inquiry announced an ‘ambitious’ timeline that planned to deliver the final report to the Home Secretary in late 2023. A redacted version would have been expected to be published some time in 2024.

The Inquiry had already fallen a year behind this schedule before the Covid-19 pandemic. That postponed the initial hearings by five months. Additional delays set it back further, putting it years behind the ‘ambitious timeline’ of 2024.

When we’ll see the final report is anyone’s guess, but 2026 or 2027 seems plausible.

Where are the Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings held?

Preliminary hearings were held at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Hearings for Tranche 1, phases 1 and 2 were held virtually, with a viewing room at the Amba Hotel Marble Arch in London. Phase 3’s the opening statements were given virtually, and the evidence hearings were held in person at the Amba Hotel Marble Arch.

Tranche 2 hearings are taking place at the International Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC), 1 Paternoster Lane, London, EC4M 7BQ.  

Are the Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings live streamed?

Access to the hearings has varied. Generall, opening statments have been directly live streamed. After that, witness evidence has been live on the Inquiry’s YouTube channel with a ten minute delay so the Inquiry will be able to prevent any unintentionally revealed sensitive information from being published.

A transcript of each day’s hearing is usually published on the Inquiry’s website in the evening in weirdly formatted PDFs that are not that easy to read.

For four weeks in autumn 2024, the Inquiry stopped any livestreaming. It promised to upload edited videos 3-5 days after hearings, but did not actually do so.

Where can I find out what’s going on?

We will be live tweeting on the COPS Twitter account, and publishing daily reports and weekly summaries on our blog. We also have Facebook, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and an email list (which you can join at the bottom of the sidebar on this page). Tom Fowler, an activist who was spied on by undercover officer Marco Jacobs, usually does excellent opinionated live-tweeting too.

We also expect coverage from our friends at Police Spies Out of Lives (who represent women deceived into relationships by spycops) and the Undercover Research Group, with incisive comment and analysis.

In the mainstream media, Rob Evans and Paul Lewis at the Guardian, who have covered the scandal since it began and co-wrote the Undercover book, are highly likely to be doing quality reporting too.

A page of symbols deemed extremist by counter-terrorism police

Earlier this month it was revealed that counter-terrorism police had put Extinction Rebellion (XR) on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities.

The booklet, Safeguarding Young People and Adults from Ideological Extremism, had been circulated by Counter Terrorism Policing South East in the south-east of England to a range of ‘statutory partners’.

In the aftermath of negative media coverage, counter-terrorism officials at a national level rapidly conceded that XR were not extremist, and this mistaken publication by local police was being withdrawn. This didn’t stop Home Secretary Priti Patel from continuing to defend the decision that the police had now admitted was wrong.

IT WASN’T A ONE-OFF ERROR

But last week we learned of a 2019 briefing issued by Counter Terrorism Policing across the whole of England listing signs and symbols of extremists. Alongside white supremacists (whose page of logos get a disclaimer explaining that not all symbols are of counter-terrorism interest, and things like runes may be law-abiding paganism), were many symbols of left wing, anti-war, anti-fascist and environmental causes – including XR. These outnumber the far-right symbols 2:1.

Liking or disliking a swastika is extremism, say counter-terrorism police

The swastika and the sign of a swastika crossed out are both listed as symbols of extremism. Caring about fascism at all, whether for or against, is classed as extremist.

Groups that are not only wholly non-violent but whose sole purpose is to decrease violence – such as Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Animal Aid and Stop the Arms Fair – were included.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s symbol is featured even though it has long been a mainstream sign for peace. It can be found as unpolitical print on clothing and consumer items, used in a similar way to the taijitu yin-yang symbol or yellow smiley.

Perhaps the most pertinent inclusion is the clenched fist logo. It has been used by groups as diverse as Kach (an Israeli ultra-nationalist party banned from elections due to racism), Librarians Against DRM (US librarians opposing electronic copyright controls on e-books) and the Tom Robinson Band (late 1970s UK rock band best known for 2468 Motorway).

Left to right: Symbols for Kach, Librarians Against DRM, and the Tom Robinson Band

The clenched fist isn’t indicative of any specific ideology or tactic. It is a salute of solidarity and unity used in many circumstances. It has no fixed meaning beyond the defiance of established power. And it is precisely that which the political secret police regard as the common thread binding all those it brands as extremists.

As Netpol’s Kevin Blowe pointed out in the Guardian:

‘there is no legal definition of what “domestic extremism” even means, leaving the police with complete discretion in deciding what it covers. “Extremism” and “domestic extremism” are used interchangeably by the police to differentiate from terrorism. The current criteria is so broad and ambiguous that David Anderson, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has described it as “manifestly deficient” and last summer, the Home Office finally confirmed it had stopped using such terms. The police, as we have seen, have not.’

IT WASN’T ANYTHING NEW

The recent revelations aren’t news to those familiar with the forerunners of counter-terrorism policing, the political undercover units the Special Demonstration Squad (1968-2008) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (1999-2011).

These units, so beyond the pale that they’re the subject of a full-scale public inquiry set to begin in earnest in the summer, targeted exactly these sorts of ideas and activities. The Undercover Policing Inquiry has admitted that more than 1,000 groups were spied on over the 50 years. Put simply, there aren’t that many groups who can be a threat to public safety and national security.

The Inquiry refuses to publish the full list, and has only named 83 – less than half a group per officer deployed. Even with this paltry figure, it’s clear that – as with the counter-terrorism briefings – they share the same priorities. More officers have been deployed into antifascist groups than fascist (and for long periods).

Anton Setchell, National Co-ordinator Domestic Extremism, approves officer Mark Kennedy’s authorisation, 2008

In the face of stonewalling from the public inquiry that’s supposed to reveal the truth about spycops, the Undercover Research Group compiled a list of groups known to have been spied on by officers from those two units. They include organisations large and small, from open democratic trade unions to local animal welfare groups.

Leaked documents show that in 2008 the head of the spycops units, Anton Setchell, endorsed officer Mark Kennedy’s infiltrations of Climate Camp which was ‘sitting in the priority area for domestic extremism’. Meanwhile in 2011, a leaked email from Adrian Tudway, Setchell’s successor as chief of the political police, explains that the English Defence League are not considered extremists.

COUNTER-DEMOCRATIC POLICING

Public figures such as politicians have been spied on. At least ten Labour MPs had active files and in 2015 stood in the Commons to demand answers. They’ve had none.

Green Party peer Jenny Jones had an extensive file that began after she was elected to the Greater London Assembly in 2000 and continued while she was on a police scrutiny panel, the Metropolitan Police Authority. She was later told that her file had been wiped along with a lot of unnecessary ones but when she checked, a whistleblower reports that the majority of her retained file was hurriedly shredded and a sanitised version presented to her.

It’s not surprising that right wing Conservative Priti Patel defends the political police’s attitudes, it seems most parties left of the Conservatives and right of UKIP have been spied on. The confirmed list includes the Labour Party, Liberal Party, Green Party, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Independent Labour Party, Workers Revolutionary Party, and the British National Party.

ANYONE CAN BE AN EXTREMIST

Around 750,000 UK citizens are members of spied-upon parties. Another 4.5 million are in the kind of environmental groups that are targeted. Any one of these people could become the target for the invasion of their personal life, fitting up with a wrongful conviction, terminating their employment and/or harassment by uniformed police.

As 90 year old peace campaigner John Catt found out, you don’t need a criminal record to be singled out, and he had to endure a nine-year legal battle to get his file deleted.

Belinda Harvey wasn’t even a member of a political organisation but was still one of the women targeted for a relationship by a spycop, something the Metropolitan Police themselves admit is a ‘gross violation that causes significant trauma’.

The family of Stephen Lawrence only wanted the truth about their son’s murder yet they’re one of many groups of grieving loved ones who were left wanting. Police resources that should have been spent catching killers were instead used to secretly obstruct justice in order to protect the police’s reputation.

Page from 2012 Greater Manchester Police briefing conflating activism with terrorism

DISSENT = EXTREMISM = TERRORISM

Despite the uproar surrounding the exposure of spycops, there has been no serious change in political policing. It has actually been made worse. The police’s political and anti-terrorist units have been amalgamated and been rebadged. The same work carries on but with a more active conflation of political dissent with terrorism.

Even this month’s revelations about the counter-terrorism Prevent programme demonising climate protesters only confirms what was already known, rather than revealing anything new.

In 2012, Greater Manchester Police’s Prevent officer circulated a document describing examples of terrorism. The list included, and effectively equated, a neo-Nazi planting nail-bombs and climate protesters blockading an airport runway.

REPRESSION IS THE PURPOSE

The Safeguarding Young People and Adults from Ideological Extremism briefing says ‘adopting health-conscious and environmentally sustainable lifestyles’ can be an indicator of extremism. Counter-terrorism police say it’s extreme to try to ensure other people are able to have the basic essentials of life. Only by living unsustainably can you avoid being extremist. How has it come to this?

The political police exist to prevent and quell organised threats to the current power structures. They don’t differentiate between a threat to life and limb, a threat to the political status quo, a threat to corporate profit, and a threat to police credibility. They hold no regard for democracy or legality. Groups are targeted irrespective of whether they’re open or clandestine, their methods violent or peaceful, legal or illegal.

By the same token, the political police do not care whether their work is legal and democratic or not. They have orchestrated large numbers of miscarriages of justice over a long period. They have psychologically and sexually abused women they spied on. They have illegally supplied information on politically active people to an equally illegal construction industry blacklist to prevent those people from getting work.

They have no regard for whether the groups and people targeted are trying to make a better world not. They do this because they represent the vested interests threatened by activism. Though their repression is an outrage, it mustn’t be a discouragement. They see our power, even when we can’t see it ourselves. To defend democracy, we must end political policing.