‘Alison’ lived with her partner Mark Cassidy for five years. He was integrated into her wider family, and they planned for their lives together.

Mark Cassidy was a member of construction union UCATT and was invovled in trade union activities. He also took an active role in a number of groups, including anti-fascists, justice campaigns for people whose loved ones were killed by police.

Alison had no idea that amiable joiner Mark Cassidy was in fact Mark Jenner of the political secret police unit the Special Demonstration Squad. The only reason he was in her life was to undermine her values and actions. He was being paid every moment he was with her.

As she describes:

‘He stands next to me in my mother’s wedding photo that sits on her mantelpiece, he teases me in the family videos of my nephew’s and niece’s birthdays and he lies about his family to my now deceased grandmother in the last video footage I took of her before she died. He is not only engrained in the memories in my head but features in so much of our family memorabilia from those years.

‘I was deeply in love with Mark and he knew this. I do not believe it is a coincidence that all of us involved in this case describe a deep, loving, intimate bond with our ex-partners. In normal relationships, problems can occur when people’s egos clash; in our relationships the men were presenting us only with their state sponsored, easy-going alter egos.

‘That I loved a police officer is a reality that still confuses me all these years later. I had been active in the Colin Roach Centre, an independent group that had exposed police corruption in the early 1990s and promoted trade union, anti-fascist politics. To love someone who, with hindsight, embodied the very institution much of my political energy was channeled into challenging has gone to the core of my own identity and has shaken the foundations of my judgements about many things.

‘Of one thing, however, I remain sure: the state intrusion into my most personal life over a period of five years was unethical, immoral and, I hope we can prove, unlawful.’

On Thursday 23rd May at 7pm, Alison will be at the Pen & Wig in Newport to tell the public about her relationship with Jenner, about how his behaviour matches that of so many other officers, about the institutional sexism of the Met and its responsibility for these officers, and about the pursuit of justice by the women and other activists who were targeted.

Spread the word with the Facebook event.

This public meeting is organised by Wales Morning Star Cymru.

The Undercover Research Group have produced a detailed profile of Mark Jenner.

Activists Jason Kirkpatrick & Kate Wilson, Belfast High Court, 7 February 2017

An undercover officer from a disgraced political policing unit infiltrated Northern Irish civil rights groups, including the Bloody Sunday march organisers.

Under the name ‘Sean Lynch’, the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer infiltrated several organisations from 1968-74.

These included the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign and Sinn Féin (London). NICRA was the organiser of the Bloody Sunday march in 1972 when the British army shot dead 14 unarmed demonstrators.

The revelation came last week from the Undercover Policing Inquiry, which is examining the ‘spycops’ units that targeted political campaigns for 50 years from 1968. Officers lived for years at a time as activists; many were arrested and went to court under their fake identities. The majority of profiled officers had sexual relationships with women they spied on.

SPYING CROSSED BORDERS, SO MUST THE INQUIRY

Though spycops were mostly Metropolitan Police officers, some travelled throughout the UK and beyond. The public inquiry attracted criticism in 2015 when then-Home Secretary Theresa May limited it to events in England & Wales.

Former Northern Irish justice ministers Claire Sugden and David Ford have both backed the call to extend it to the whole UK, but to no avail. This week’s shock announcement may change that.

The fact of the SDS’ involvement in NICRA was not revealed to the Saville Inquiry of 2000-2010 that was supposed to fully examine Bloody Sunday. This mirrors the SDS’ spying on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence but failing to tell the subsequent Macpherson Inquiry.

Officers have already been known to spy beyond the borders of England and Wales, but the fresh information about ‘Sean Lynch’, who is now deceased, shows the Met unit had an involved interest in the politics of Northern Ireland.

The Home Office has rebuffed repeated requests from the Scottish Government for Scotland to be included in the Inquiry. In March, Amnesty called for it to extend to Northern Ireland:

‘Activities of undercover police were not limited to England and Wales, so nor should the inquiry… The need for full transparency and accountability of policing in Northern Ireland must not be compromised.’

At that time only one spycops officer, Mark Jenner, was known to have been involved in Irish politics.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland say local forces were ‘completely blind’ to the SDS officers’ presence, and do not appear to have been given any information for use afterwards. PSNI’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said deploying undercover officers without local forces’ risk assessments would be ‘an act of madness’.

Eamonn McCann was a member of both the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association & Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign, and later went on to have a seat in Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly.

Responding to the admission that his groups had been targeted by ‘Sean Lynch,’ McCann told Irish News:

‘It’s now obvious that undercover police officers, intelligence and security officers were infiltrating everything.’

ACTIVIST’S ACTION FOR ANSWERS

Environmental activist Jason Kirkpatrick has been granted core participant status at the Undercover Policing Inquiry due to being spied on by officer Mark Kennedy – in Northern Ireland as well as England.

In 2005 Kennedy took Kirkpatrick and fellow campaigner Kim Bryan on a speaking tour in Northern Ireland, with the officer paying the bills and driving them around. They held public events at Belfast City Church as well as a public ‘environmental pub quiz’ at Menagerie Bar in the Belfast Holy Lands.

Kirkpatrick has launched a judicial review of the decision to exclude Northern Ireland from the Inquiry. He feels his 16 month wait for the case to come to court is extreme, and this week’s announcement adds great weight to his case:

‘With these fresh revelations, it is clear that an arbitrarily limited inquiry that fails to take account of operations by their undercover police in Northern Ireland is nothing short of a whitewash. The wait caused by Home Office delays to my current Northern Irish Judicial Review case is becoming absolutely unbearable.’

Kim Bryan said there can be no excuse for keeping the details hidden any longer:

‘Discovering the spycops infiltrated civil rights campaigns changes everything. Bloody Sunday was a pivotal event and yet the Met hid their involvement from the Inquiry. This might be the tip of the iceberg. The truth is long overdue. The Undercover Policing Inquiry must be extended to Northern Ireland.’

The public inquiry into political undercover policing is in crisis, but has it ever been functional? It is as if they want to technically publish information whilst keeping it effectively secret.

Despite being set up more than three years ago with a projected finishing date of 2018, the Undercover Policing Inquiry is still in its preliminary stages. This waiting period has been so long that we have seen key figures die, including two former Home Secretaries, a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, core participant victims of spycops and the Chair of the Inquiry itself, Lord Pitchford.

MITTING THE POINT

Pitchford promised to have ‘a presumption for openness’. There was alarm that the new choice of Chair, Sir John Mitting, would incline the opposite way due to his background in secret courts that almost invariably comply with government surveillance agencies.

The fears were well-founded, and a majority of the victims given core participant status at the Inquiry appealed for change in November 2017.

‘We are rapidly losing confidence in the Inquiry and in the abilities of John Mitting. He is rowing back on commitments made by the previous Chair, Christopher Pitchford, who stated the inquiry’s priority is to discover the truth and recognised the importance of hearing from both officers and their victims along with the need for this to be done in public as far as possible.’

It was ignored.

Mitting has shown himself to be gullible, taking police assertions at face value despite the fact that the Inquiry is into wrongdoing by trained police liars.

Last month victims and their lawyers walked out of a preliminary hearing on granting officers anonymity, saying:

‘We are not prepared actively to participate in a process where the presence of our clients is pure window dressing, lacking all substance, lacking all meaning and which would achieve absolutely nothing other than lending this process the legitimacy that it doesn’t have and doesn’t deserve.’

Victims are desperate for the Inquiry to fulfil its purpose. Keenly aware that the Met would like nothing more than a boycott that let them protect their secrets, the walkout was not a permanent move. Rather, it is an act of desperation as the victims’ good faith has been eroded by a process that goes out of its way to ignore them.

We want to tell our stories of being spied upon, but we cannot do it until we all know which of our friends and comrades was actually a police spy. We come eager to participate but the Inquiry’s acquiescence to police demands for secrecy means we are blindfolded and hogtied.

Stephen Lawrence’s father Neville has declared his loss of faith in Mitting and the Inquiry, and Doreen Lawrence has threatened to boycott the entire process if Mitting stays in charge.

PROTECTING THE GUILTY

Mitting grants anonymity to undercover officers even when the ‘independent risk assessor’ (a fellow police officer) says the risk of harm if they are named is low.

A few days ago we learned that officer HN15 – whose risk assessor said the danger of harm is high – is in fact Mark Jenner. He has had his real and cover names in the mainstream media along with his photo for over five years without, as far as we know, coming to any harm.

How can other officers’ risk assessments still be taken seriously? How can we trust in a Chair who believes such twaddle and then acts to shield abusers from accountability?

Last week, thirteen women deceived into relationships by spycops have demanded change from the Home Secretary.

‘Andrea‘ explained:

‘the Chair holds the rights of perpetrators in higher regard than the rights of victims. He clearly sees the officers’ human rights as sacrosanct, withholding the names of the spycops who invaded our homes, our families and our intimate lives…

‘Secrecy pervades this so-called ‘public’ inquiry, where officers who abused our rights are granted private hearings with the Chair to convince him to protect their privacy.’

But the Inquiry’s bunker attitude pre-dates Mitting’s appointment and goes beyond what he makes rulings on.

PUBLIC HEARINGS TURNING THE PUBLIC AWAY

The hearings have been held in the Royal Courts of Justice, with a public gallery that can’t quite squeeze 100 people in. With 200 significantly affected victims designated as core participants, most of them are physically prevented from attending the hearings, even before any of the wider public want to attend.

So far, only one preliminary hearing has had to turn people away – perhaps because the Inquiry won’t cover travel costs for victims who want to attend – but that will surely increase as the Inquiry moves towards hearing evidence.

Last month’s hearing took place on the same day as one for the Grenfell Tower inquiry. The Grenfell one was livestreamed, but the spycops Inquiry chooses not to let the world see what it is doing. The best it does is issue a transcript a day or two later in a bizarrely formatted PDF.

PUBLICATION UNSEEN

Much of the Undercover Policing Inquiry website is pages with links to dozens of PDFs bearing uninformative titles like ‘Detailed consultation document,’ ‘Chairman’s note on risk assessments,’ and ‘Ruling on undertakings’.

When scrolling through the list – one page is already at 66 different PDFs, some with the same name as each other – bear in mind that the Inquiry process hasn’t properly begun and the site is a small fraction of the size that it will end up.

A huge proportion of the PDFs on the site are ‘flat’, ie made of pictures of documents rather than text, which means they can’t be wordsearched and the contents won’t appear in websearches.

The search function on the website doesn’t assist. It claims there is nothing on the site about undercover officer Mark Kennedy.

A search of the site via Google turns up 56 results.

NAMING THE OFFICERS, A BIT

There was some hope of relief when they published a page listing undercover officers. However, that only lists four items of information about each officer:

• Cover name
• Herne nominal (without explaining what the term means)
• Groups they infiltrated
• Years of deployment

As ‘Alison‘, who was deceived into a relationship by a man she knew as Mark Cassidy said:

‘There is no restriction order on his real name: Mark Jenner. Yet his real name – and the real names of other confirmed officers – are not listed on this table, making it hard for the public to keep track of who’s who. It feels as if they’re always trying to keep as much hidden as possible.’

There is no link to an officer’s statements, independent assessments or anything else that is buried elsewhere on the site.

For the officers as yet unnamed, there is a link to one document that includes a ruling about them. Once the officer is named, they remove that one link and leave the reader with nothing but the four categories.

Page from undercover officer Mark Jenner’s 1996 diary, showing his attendance at a UCATT meeting

Even within that, the information is incomplete. Looking at the groups they infiltrated, they average less than two per officer. The Inquiry has previously admitted that more than 1,000 groups were spied on which, divided by the number of officers, means it must average as at least seven each. Every infiltrated group has a right to know. Why can’t we see the full list?

With the named officers, we can even name some of the other unmentioned groups they infiltrated, yet the Inquiry won’t admit it.

Whistleblower officer Peter Francis has publicly said his list is incomplete, as it omits Kingsway College Anti Fascist Group, which became Movement for Justice whilst he was infiltrating it.

Mark Jenner’s list doesn’t mention anything to do with trade unions, yet he was known to be a member of construction union UCATT and targeted other unions including the RMT, Unison, CPSA and TGWU. He was also a regular at meetings and on picket lines.

NO RESPONSE

The list of officers is incomplete in other ways. The section on those whose cover names won’t be published (‘Table Three : Where The Cover Name is Restricted’) only has has three officers, code-numbered HN7, HN123 and HN333.

It does not include others who belong in it, for example, HN23, HN40, HN58 and HN241 who were decided upon on 20 February 2018.

This is not a matter of the page not being updated, as ‘Table Two: Where the cover name is not known’ includes officers who were decided on in the same ruling (HN322 and HN348).

We emailed the Inquiry about this on 18 March. They have ignored it.

Trying to contact them on social media would be equally futile as their Twitter bio specifically says:

‘Tweets will not be responded to.’

END THE CULTURE OF SECRECY

The Undercover Policing Inquiry has already cost over £9m and despite its glacial pace, exclusion and secrecy, it insists it does not need extra staff. If it believes it is competent, that implies it is this way by design.

This is not just an overpaid underskilled worker making a bad website. The Inquiry site, the one-way social media and the refusal to livestream hearings are all online symptoms of a wider fundamental belief that the Inquiry does not have to properly engage with the public. The only substantial information it has given has been about officers already exposed by the people who were spied on.

Mitting has had more secret hearings than public. He not only refuses to answer key questions but rebuffs requests to explain his refusal, saying ‘I know more than you do’.

It is all an extension of his and the Inquiry’s belief in themselves as establishment overseers, which gives the process an inflated trust in the police whose wrongdoing the Inquiry is supposed to expose.

Enough is enough. The clue is in the name – it is a public inquiry. It takes the public’s money, it exists to make public the truth about the abuses of Britain’s political secret police. Nothing less will do.

Amnesty International has joined the struggle for justice in the spycops scandal, backing a legal case by victims to get the public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police extended to cover Northern Ireland.

When the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s remit was announced three years ago, campaigners were shocked to see it was limited to:

‘undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces in England and Wales since 1968’

Though the Inquiry will cover operations starting in 1968, when the Special Demonstration Squad was formed, it will nonetheless ignore much of the spycops’ activity. A large proportion of the known undercover officers went beyond England and Wales – most of the independently profiled officers were in Scotland and several in Northern Ireland (as well as 15 other countries beyond the UK government’s jurisdiction).

The German government formally requested inclusion in the UK inquiry in 2016. In September 2017, Irish MEP Lynn Boylan hosted an event at the European Parliament which not only covered British spycops abroad but also the array of unaccountable political police officers crossing borders. It is possible that these efforts could be building towards future cases coming to the European Court of Justice.

Whilst in all these places, the spycops engaged in many of the shocking activities that the inquiry is supposed to examine. There are many officers who were there whilst deceiving women into intimate relationships, something the Metropolitan Police has conceded is an abuse of police power and a violation of human rights.

SPYCOPS AROUND THE UK

Though the complaints from Germany and other places outside the UK lie beyond the power of the Undercover Policing Inquiry to rule on, there is no excuse for excluding Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Spycops didn’t just extend their abuses from England and Wales into these places, they also got involved in some specific local issues. In Northern Ireland at least one Special Demonstration Squad officer, Mark Jenner, visited to get in to Irish politics and was involved in a confrontation with police officers in 1995.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland says it appears police there were unaware of Jenner’s presence, and that the Met sent him in without any co-ordination of briefing from local officers.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has described the SDS decision to do this as:

‘an act of madness’

Given the Special Demonstration Squad had an officer, Rick Gibson, taking active organisational roles in the Troops Out Movement twenty years earlier in the 1970s, it seems likely that Jenner wasn’t the first of their spycops to be involved in Irish politics.

The public inquiry cannot fulfil its purpose by only looking at part of the facts. It cannot be right that human rights abuses in England and Wales warrant a full public inquiry while the same acts by the same officers in Scotland and Northern Ireland get no answers or redress.

FIGHTING FOR INCLUSION IN SCOTLAND

The pressure for inclusion has been strong in Scotland, where Neil Findlay MSP has initiated two parliamentary debates on the subject. This culminated in repeated formal requests by the Scottish government – supported by every party in the parliament – for the Home Office to include the country in the Inquiry.

After the initial refusal from the Home Office, the Scottish government ordered a review of spycops in Scotland by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. This body of career police officers is not independent which, coupled with the review having a narrow remit, meant that spycops’ victims boycotted the whole process.

The HMICS report was published in February 2018 and, as expected, it was a whitewash. On the basis of its conclusions, the Scottish government has decided not to have its own spycops inquiry. This makes it all the more import to get Scotland included in the main public inquiry process. Without this, we will never know the truth about political undercover policing in Scotland.

Two spied-upon activists have launched legal challenges to the imbalance, separately securing the right to a judicial review of then-Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision to exclude Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, Tilly Gifford was initially denied legal aid because the case supposedly ‘had no merit’.

She crowdfunded the costs and won the right to a judicial review yet was still refused legal aid until persistent campaiging forced the Scottish Legal Aid Board to grant it last month.

FIGHTING FOR INCLUSION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

In Northern Ireland, Jason Kirkpatrick has brought a case for a judicial review in Belfast. He had an easier time than Gifford in getting to court but since then – as with other spycops victims in every legal process on their issue – he has been faced with governmental delay tactics.

In February 2017 the Belfast High Court ruled that a call to extend the UCPI to Northern Ireland should go to full Judicial Review within the next few months, but delays by the NI Secretary of State office and the Home Office have dragged the process out.

After a year with no action in the case, last week Amnesty publicly called on the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to act now and extend the public inquiry.

‘Northern Ireland must not be left behind due to the ongoing absence of government ministers advocating in our interests.

‘Activities of undercover police were not limited to England and Wales, so nor should the inquiry. Two previous Justice Ministers have called for the extension of the Inquiry which we believe must now happen urgently.’

Kirkpatrick told Radio Foyle about the counter-democratic policing he’d been subjected to:

‘In 2005 I met this undercover officer, Mark Kennedy, in Dublin. He travelled around with me and others, he paid for the trip. We drove from Dublin to the west of the Republic and then on up to Belfast, giving lectures about environmental issues and so forth. In Belfast we were at the City Church, a cross-community church. I became his friend, we were very close friends I thought, for five years.’

Kirkpatrick told the Belfast Telegraph:

‘The operations and depth of the deception by the police who spied on me was not limited to England and Wales and so neither should the investigation. Our rights must be upheld. I’ve been fighting for what’s right on this case since 2010 and it’s time the Government stop doing everything in its power to prevent justice.’

Amnesty’s Northern Ireland Campaigns Manager, Grainne Teggart, added:

‘Victims, such as Jason, should not have to take to the courts to have their rights realised. Those affected deserve nothing less than the truth around covert operations that violated trust, privacy and intimacy.’

Dates for the judicial reviews in Northern Ireland and Scotland have yet to be set. But given that the Undercover Policing Inquiry is still working through its preliminary issues, there is still time for the Home Office to extend the geographical boundaries of its remit.

Britain’s political secret police didn’t stop at national borders, so neither can a credible, thorough inquiry into their deeds.

Shortly after the truth about undercover officer Mark Kennedy hit the headlines in January 2011, officials from many of the 11 countries he visited wanted answers. In Ireland, the Minister of Justice asked the police to write a report on his visits.

They refused to make it public but last week, following tenacious work by Ellen Coyne at the Times, it was released under Freedom of Information and The Canary published it in full.

In the report – little more than a fob-off letter – the Gardai don’t deny authorising Kennedy’s visits, and they defend their decision to keep it secret from their own government. Kennedy visited the country many times, committing human rights abuses, inciting action and getting arrested under a false identity.

The release of the report raises more questions than it answers. Who authorised his visits? What remit was he given? What oversight did they have on what he actually did? What did other British spycops do in Ireland?

MARK KENNEDY IN IRELAND

Mark Kennedy made at least five undercover visits to Ireland, taking on many different roles. In spring 2004 he was part of an info-tour raising awareness of the upcoming G8 meeting in Scotland and visited the Shell To Sea gas pipeline protest in Co Mayo. On Mayday 2004 he was part of a Dublin black bloc demo against an EU summit where he was attacked by police and needed hospital treatment. He was arrested, held for five hours and released.

In June 2004 he participated in the demonstration against George Bush’s visit to Dromoland Castle. He made at least two other visits to Ireland over the next two years, including acting as a trainer on a programme for anarchist activists later in 2004 on civil disobedience.

Mark Kennedy (left) and Sarah Hampton (right) in Dublin 2005

Kennedy was at the European Youth for Action’s April 2005 meeting in Co Clare to establish a European network of anti-war and peace activists.

He drove to Dublin in March 2006 to attend the Anarchist Bookfair. UK activists gave him publications to take which he reported as confiscated by UK border officials. He later went back to the Shell to Sea protest.

A second report – also a police self-investigation for the Ministry of Justice – was commissioned last year yet, despite demands from Irish parliamentarians, they are still keeping that one secret. Having hidden the truth from the government for so long, the Gardai are still keeping it from the public. Does it contain any answers about Kennedy’s activities? What are they hiding?

Even then, the two reports are focussed on Mark Kennedy’s visits to Ireland. There are even bigger questions. Which other British spycops came to Ireland to undermine campaigns and abuse citizens? Did any come from other countries? What exactly were they there for, and what did they end up doing?

NOT JUST KENNEDY

Although we only know about 18 officers of Britain’s political secret police – around 10% of the total – it’s already established that other officers visited the Republic; Mark Jenner, John Dines and Jim Boyling were also there, the four of them covering a period of 15 years.

Mark Jenner drove activists to Belfast and Derry in August 1995, and took part in street fighting when nationalists clashed with the loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry march on 12 August. The Police Service of Northern Ireland say that police there were ‘completely blind’ to the presence of Met spycops, and that deploying them without training or oversight was ‘an act of madness’. Whilst in the North, Jenner also visited the Republic. It would be astonishing if, as the Gardai imply was the case with Kennedy, the Met informed them and got the visit authorised yet kept police in the North in the dark.

Jim Boyling visited Ireland in 1997 and is reported to have participated in the destruction of an experimental genetically modified crop. John Dines went to Ireland in late 1991/early 1992 during the final stages of his deployment.

HOW MUCH MORE?

Like Kennedy, Jenner, Boyling and Dines were the subjects of legal action by women they abused through relationships, something which the Met themselves have conceded was ‘a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma’. All but Boyling committed these abuses in Ireland, and Kennedy did so with several women.

This week, four of the women affected wrote to the Irish government asking

• Who authorised these undercover operations in Ireland?

• Do Irish police hold files on us, and when will we be given access to those files?

• How does the Irish state justify foreign police officers having deceptive intimate relationships with women, in violation of our human rights and bodily integrity?

• How many more UK police officers operated in Ireland and how many more women were abused by the police on Irish soil?

Did the Gardai know about this aspect of the British spycops’ activities? If so, they were complicit in human rights abuses. If not, it shows that their oversight was grossly incompetent and therefore warrants proper independent investigation.

Other questions should be answered to. When did it start? Is it still going on? Which Irish campaigns were targeted and stymied? Which citizens were abused?

Their cavalier approach to transparency and legality raises other questions. In the UK, spycops including Kennedy and Boyling engineered dozens of wrongful convictions for the people they spied on. Did the same thing happen in Ireland?

Even with the handful of officers exposed, it is clear there was long-term, systematic abuse. Most of the known officers went abroad. We can be sure that there are many, many more similar outrages and abuses committed by the as-yet unknown officers. The forthcoming British public inquiry will only look at actions in England and Wales.

NO EXCUSES, NO MORE DELAYS

We already know that the Gardai authorised foreign secret police to come to Ireland and spy on people, including inciting them to action, whilst there they committed human rights abuses, and it was kept secret from the government. The Gardai used their power in sinister and disturbing ways, facilitating numerous abusive officers. It beggars belief that anyone would dare to suggest a self-investigation into one officer would be sufficient, let alone accept it and fend off calls for anything more rigorous, yet this is what the Justice Minister is doing.

It shouldn’t take legal action by journalists to force admission of what’s already known. We shouldn’t rely on victims to do their own research into what was done to them and have pleas for answers go unanswered. If officials in government and police believed in justice they would be revealing the truth rather than hiding it.

As children in school we are taught that the best way to organise a nation in the interest of its citizens is with a democratic system, and that this system can’t be flawed because of its checks and balances. Yet recently the Irish government has been proving that the opposite is true, it is operating to protect itself and its security apparatus against the best interests of the people.

This situation has arisen after British police admitted human rights abuses done by their undercover police officers who violated human rights of a number of women by having intimate relations with them during operations.

Four of these officers so far have also been exposed as having operated in Ireland, and victims now demand answers about who was responsible for such international political policing. Yet despite being confronted on the topic by oppositional MPs, Irish government representatives repeatedly say that the issue of exposing the truth and having a transparent inquiry into the abuse ‘does not arise’. Such a position made by any elected official can only serve to chip away at faith in the system they represent.

The continually growing secret policing scandal led then-UK Home Secretary Theresa May to create the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) to look into two political undercover policing units, but with a remit limited to England and Wales. It had also been revealed that most outed undercover officers had operated abroad in a total of at least 17 countries, including the officers who were in Ireland: Mark Kennedy, John Dines, Jim Boyling and Mark Jenner.

Among targeted Irish groups were those opposed to genetically engineered crop testing and Shell to Sea, a group concerned with protecting fisheries and the environment in County Mayo.

Despite the fact that most known officers went abroad, due to its remit the UCPI refuses to properly examine activity outside England and Wales. Civil rights campaigners and parliamentarians outside England and Wales have responded with demands for answers.

On 8 February 2017 the Irish Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald replied to a Parliamentary Question by answering

‘should anything emerge from the findings of the UK’s Undercover Policing Inquiry that would be relevant to policing in this jurisdiction I will consider it fully and take any action that may be required’.

However, the minister is either bluffing or is not aware that nothing relating to any events occurring outside England and Wales will be investigated by the UCPI, thus rendering her argument meaningless.

Further problems have arisen from excluding jurisdictions outside England and Wales. High-level German interest in being included in the UCPI stems from scandal around illegal activities by undercover officer Mark Kennedy. On this basis, German MPs Andrej Hunko and Hans-Christian Stroebele moved to have the Home Office include Germany in the UCPI.

The Home Office Minister of State for Policing, Mike Penning, responded on 13 November 2015. He referred to the original terms being limited to England and Wales, and continued,

‘The Inquiry team has confirmed that they would encourage witnesses to provide a complete picture when submitting their evidence, although they will need to consider evidence against the terms of reference’.

This clearly meant evidence of events occurring outside England and Wales could be submitted, but would not be examined fully by the Inquiry. More, it meant that issues around activity abroad cannot be mentioned if they don’t directly connect with actions in England and Wales.

After further scandal about UK undercover operations in Germany were exposed in the press and questioned in Parliament, the German Interior Ministry confirmed that on 31 May 2016 they had formally asked the UK Home Office to extend to the UCPI to include British undercover operations in Germany.

However on 14 September 2016 the German Interior Ministry wrote to MPs Hunko and Stroebele, saying that he had received a communication from Brandon Lewis in the UK Home Office stating that in order to prevent further delay to the UCPI and improve public trust in the work of the police, they refused to include undercover operations in Germany into the remit of the Inquiry.

A legal action was begun in Germany by UCPI witness and Core Participant Jason Kirkpatrick on 20 July 2016, based upon Kirkpatrick’s having been targeted numerous times in Germany by Mark Kennedy. The UK government flatly refused to extend the UCPI to Germany, stating:

‘The particular high profile allegations which prompted the decision to commence an Inquiry were primarily if not exclusively about events said to have originated from English and Welsh police forces, and alleged to have occurred in England and Wales. They were about alleged miscarriages of justice, alleged sexual relationships between male undercover officers and members of the public’.

The sexual relationships are, by the police’s own admission, a violation of human rights and an abuse of police power. The fact that women (British and otherwise) have suffered the same abuse outside of England and Wales appears to be something the Home Secretary hopes to not hear, see or speak of.

Education of the Irish Justice Minister is ongoing, and it is hoped she will also soon request inclusion in the UCPI just as her German, Northern Irish and Scottish counterparts have done.

Despite Irish government intransigence and the UK’s rebuffing of German and Scottish attempts to be included in the UCPI, there is still hope elsewhere. A case brought in Northern Ireland recently has led to judicial review of the British government’s refusal to widen the UCPI. That court date is expected to be towards the end of 2017.

Amidst growing concern about whether the UCPI would ‘follow the evidential trail’ beyond England and Wales, solicitors for the activist Core Participants in the Inquiry recently sought clarification from UCPI staff. On 1 November 2016 the UCPI solicitor Piers Doggert wrote,

‘it is likely that the activities of some of the undercover police who will be examined by the Inquiry will have taken them outside of the jurisdiction of England and Wales during the period in question. They may have travelled with other non-state witnesses and both may wish in due course to give evidence about this. In so far as what occurred during that period forms part of the wider narrative of tasking of the officer, or the relationship under consideration, then that evidence will be received by the Inquiry and may form part of the narrative within the final report.

‘However, the Inquiry will not attempt to form any judgement about the legality or propriety within a jurisdiction outside of England and Wales of the actions of an undercover police officer from England and Wales; the terms of reference preclude it from doing so’.

In other words, no matter what crimes and abuses an officer committed abroad, if it can’t be made to relate to actions in England and Wales the Inquiry won’t even hear it; and even the deeds they do hear about cannot be properly taken into account.

Clearly this situation is absolutely unacceptable. If justice is to be done by the UCPI, then it needs to truly follow the evidential trail wherever these spycops have committed their abuses. To force this to happen, more victims of their spying will have to continue telling their stories to the press, speaking out in public, pushing supportive politicians to fight for us, and bringing forward legal actions.

As the public continues to hear our stories and our voices grow stronger, we can already start to savour a taste of the justice that we can create for ourselves, as we begin to see this corrupt political policing house of cards tumbling down.

Simon Wellings, Special Demonstration Squad officer

Simon Wellings was an undercover police officer in the Special Demonstration Squad, the Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing confirmed today.

It comes as the latest in a flurry of admissions of spycops’ identities in recent weeks. However, it still leaves the majority of the 17 known officers unconfirmed.

They still ‘neither confirm nor deny’ Mark Jenner was in Britain’s political secret police, even though his profile, including photo and real name, have been in the mainstream media for years and the Met have paid damages for his abuses.

PHONE A FRIEND

Simon Wellings infiltrated anti-capitalist group Globalise Resistance from 2001-2005. In a farcical moment that rivals his colleague Carlo Neri instinctively standing for God Save The Queen, Wellings accidentally rang one of his target activists whilst he was in a police meeting.

It went to voicemail and so he was recorded being shown photos of protesters and identifying them. He could be heard giving personal details that were nothing to do with politics such as

‘She’s Hanna’s girlfriend – very overt lesbian – last time I saw her, hair about that long, it was blonde, week before it was black.’

Wellings even took his spying to Glastonbury Festival, as Mark Kennedy would later repeatedly do. One of the people he targeted there was Globalise Resistance’s Guy Taylor who was astonished to find out the truth, saying

‘If they need to know the plans and schemes of anti-capitalists, the worst place to look is Glastonbury as we were rarely in a fit state to plan the downfall of a parish council, let alone the world financial system.’

Though it sounds far removed from the horrific psychological and sexual abuse spycops inflicted on citizens, it’s yet another of the ways in which the spycops went much further than anyone could justify, a result of their impunity and unaccountability.

TELL US SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW

Whilst the ending of state stonewalling is a minor relief, there is nothing welcome in today’s announcement. It merely admits something that was all over the mainstream media six years ago. They are telling us what everyone already knows because the people who were spied on discovered it.

If the Inquiry is to be worth anything it must release the cover names of all the officers from the spycops units, and the names of the groups that were targeted too. Only then can people realise they were spied on and come forward with the truth of what happened.

All the horrors we’ve heard of come from around 10% of the officers, the ones who have, by chance, been unmasked. We can be sure the 100+ others worked in similarly abusive and counter-democratic ways. We need the whole truth.

Mark Kennedy (centre) at Shell to Sea protest in Co Mayo

The Irish government has ordered a report on British undercover officer Mark Kennedy’s activity in the Republic. Any hope that this might be useful is obliterated by the most cursory look at the detail.

The police will investigate this police wrongdoing. They will only look at Kennedy, even though three of the other 16 known officers – John Dines, Jim Boyling and Mark Jenner – were also in Ireland. Who knows how many of the remaining 100+ unknown officers went there too?

This self-investigation mirrors the Scottish government’s recent announcement – get implicated police to investigate, give them a narrow remit that is incapable of seeing the full picture, nobody gets disgraced by their systematic human rights abuses being exposed.

The same pattern was followed in Britain five years ago. A year after Kennedy was exposed in 2010 there were 12 separate inquiries going on, all of them run by police or their satellite bodies such as the Independent Police Complaints Commission. None of them were allowed an overview to see systemic issues, even if they had been that way inclined. It was designed to protect the people in charge and portray Kennedy as a rogue officer.

Ireland’s justice minister Frances Fitzgerald asked the gardai to investigate this month. However, the Department of Justice already have a report. In 2011 they got the gardai to investigate Kennedy’s actions. They’ve had the completed report for over five years but are refusing to publish it.

WHAT WAS KENNEDY DOING THERE?

Ms Fitzgerald gave some detail of the secret report to the Dail last month, responding to questions from Sinn Fein.

Refusing to even name Mark Kennedy, she said

‘The report indicated that An Garda Siochana was aware of the presence of the person in question on a number of occasions between 2004 and 2006. They had established no evidence that while in this jurisdiction the person in question was involved in criminal activities’

The claim is somewhat tenuous. Kennedy was arrested during the 2004 Mayday demonstration in Dublin. In his excruciating 2011 documentary he points himself out in a newspaper clipping of black bloc demonstrators.

‘There’s a photograph of me in one of the Sunday newspapers, the headline says something like “Anarchist Terrorists Come to Dublin”, and there’s like five of us in this picture linking arms.’

Mark Kennedy at Dublin May Day protest, 2004

Kennedy was back in the Republic in June 2004 for protests at George Bush’s presence in the country.

He visited several more times over the following two years, including participating in the Shell to Sea gas pipeline protest in Co Mayo.

Commissioning the new report is proof that the Irish government is under pressure and feels it must respond. But, as with the Scottish investigation, and the heap of earlier ones from the same mould, it is not credible.

BIGGER QUESTIONS

Frances Fitzgerald is meeting British Home Secretary Amber Rudd this month. Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan has asked for Rudd to be questioned about British spycops in the Republic. Specifically:

• Who authorised Mark Kennedy’s trips to Ireland?
• Who sanctioned the list of Irish campaign groups that were to be targeted?
• Were any convictions in Ireland secured by evidence or actions carried out by undercover British police officers?

How much were the gardai involved? They have already admitted they approved Kennedy’s visits in advance (though claim they did not direct him), unlike the Police Service of Northern Ireland who say they were kept unaware of Special Demonstration Squad officers in their jurisdiction.

Did police in the Republic merely rubberstamp all British requests without asking what they were authorising? Or did they – like German police – have a contract and pay for Kennedy to be in their country?

Whose orders was Mark Kennedy acting on? What about the other British spycops? Which Irish citizens were spied on? Which Irish campaigns were stifled? How much Irish taxpayers’ money was spent getting British agents to undermine the work of Irish citizens?

STARTING WITH THE WRONG ANSWER

The Irish government’s decision to keep their 2011 report secret indicates that the new one for public consumption will omit important details. Looking only at Kennedy plays into the myth of him as an isolated figure. The truth is that there’s nothing Mark Kennedy did as a police officer that wasn’t done by others before him. Far from being rogue, he was textbook.

We need to know about the creation of the archtype and the actions of all those who lived it. They were part of a long-term strategy approved from on high. That is now understood as a plain fact. It is why we are having Lord Pitchford’s public inquiry. That only covers events in England and Wales, but the same officers committed the same abuses elsewhere, and it should be taken just as seriously.

We do not need to be insulted by yet another report saying that Kennedy did some bad things but there was no systemic problem. We cannot be placated by more assurances from the abusive organisations that there was nothing malicious in their intent, lessons have been learned and we can all move on. The more they give us decoys and keep secrets, the more guilty they look.

We need to know the names of the groups that were targeted. We need to know who gave the orders and why. Anything less from state agencies is collusion with the counter-democratic deeds of the spycops.

Political spying is not new. The Metropolitan Police founded the first Special Branch in 1883. Initially focusing on Irish republicanism in London, it rapidly expanded its remit to gather intelligence on a range of people deemed subversive. Other constabularies followed suit.

But in 1968, the Met did something different. The government, having been surprised at the vehemence of a London demonstration against the Vietnam War, decided it had to know more about political activism. The Met were given direct government funding to form a political policing unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

About twelve officers at a time would change their identities, grow their hair and live among those they spied on for years at a time. They would ‘become’ activists, each infiltrating a particular group on the far left, far right or in other areas of dissent such as the peace movement and animal rights. They were authorised to be involved in minor crime.

The police and the secret state have always used informers, and even private investigators, as part of their surveillance work. However, the SDS was unique in being a police unit set up to focus on political groups with extended periods of deployment. The model was rolled out nationally in 1999 with the creation of the SDS off-shoot, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU).

The Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance is primarily concerned with these dedicated political secret police – the long-term, deep-cover officers of the SDS, the NPOIU, and the successor units that subsumed them and their roles.

It’s generally accepted that there have been around 150 of these undercover officers since the SDS was formed in 1968. This figure comes from work by the Undercover Research Group and activists, and extrapolation from details in official reports.

Operation Herne, the Met’s self-investigation into the spycops scandal, said in July 2013

‘To date Operation Herne has verified one hundred and six (106) covert names that were used by members of the SDS.’

This is just the SDS. Last year, Mark Ellison’s report into spycops causing miscarriages of justice asked about the NPOIU, which ran from 1999-2011.

‘Operation Herne has identified fewer than 20 NPOIU officers deployed over that period’

However,

‘Operation Herne’s work to investigate the nature and extent of the undercover work of the NPOIU was only able to begin in November 2014 and has barely been able to ‘scrape the surface’ so far’.

There may well be more spycops from either or both units.

Other, similarly hazy, approaches arrive at a similar number. The SDS ran for 40 years and is understood to have had around 12 officers deployed at any given time, usually for periods of four years. This would make a total of 96 undercover officers. However, it’s known that some officers were active for a fraction of the usual time, so the real figure will be somewhat higher.

Assuming the same scale for the NPOIU gives a total of 36 officers. That is a fuzzy guess though – the NPOIU was a new, national unit and may have deployed more officers.

[UPDATE July 2019: There are now known to have been at least 139 undercover officers – see detail at the end of this article]

The Operation Herne report from 2013 said that, of the 106 identified SDS officers, 42 stole the identity of a dead child, 45 used fictitious identities, and 19 are still unknown. The practice of stealing identities was mandatory in the unit for about 20 years until the mid-1990s. The NPOIU, starting in 1999, is only known to have stolen a dead child’s identity for one officer, Rod Richardson.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

There are certainly some more spycops from the successor units.

The Met merged its Special Branch (including subsidiaries like the SDS) with its Anti-Terrorist Branch in October 2006 to form Counter Terrorism Command. They reviewed and shut down the SDS in 2008.

Although the NPOIU used a number of Met Special Branch officers, from 2006 it was overseen by the Association of Chief Police Officers as part of their National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU). In 2012, the NDEU was also absorbed into the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. At the same time, the NDEU changed its name and stopped having any responsibility for undercover officers.

Last November the Met’s Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt issued an abject apology to eight women deceived into relationships with undercover officers. Two months later Carlo Neri, another officer who had similar relationships, was exposed. Assistant Commissioner Hewitt assured the BBC that the Met

‘no longer carries out ‘long-term infiltration deployments’ in these kinds of groups but would accept responsibility for past failings’

That appears to contradict a 2013 report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. It plainly says today’s spycops are deployed by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command and similar regional units.

‘The NDEU restructured in January 2012, and now operates under the umbrella of the MPS Counter Terrorism Command (which is known as SO15). NDEU has also recently been renamed, and is now called the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU)…

‘The NDEU’s remit changed at the same time as its restructure and no longer carries out any undercover operations. All deployments of undercover officers which target the activity of domestic extremists are coordinated either by the SO15 Special Project Team (SPT), or by one of the regional SPTs…

‘The SPTs are in the North West, North East and West Midlands Counter Terrorism Units, and the Counter Terrorism Command in London.’

HOW MANY SPYCOPS ARE KNOWN?

There are 17 [UPDATE September 2019: now 76] spycops who have been named. There are strong suspicions about several more. Fifteen of the seventeen have been exposed by their victims. One has been exposed by journalists, one by the officer himself – Peter Francis, the only whistleblower. None have come from the police.

Journalists – notably Rob Evans and Paul Lewis at the Guardian – have substantially fleshed out the activists’ research. The Met recently claimed to be having trouble even sorting their records into order.  If that is true then perhaps the best bet would be to allow these tenacious activists and journalists, who have done such sterling work despite police obstructions, to come and have a go.

Although the 17 spycops’ identities are properly established, with most of them having extensive details and numerous photos in the public domain, the Met are reluctant to give any further information.

Until the cover names are known, the majority of people targeted don’t even know it happened. Waiting for victims to investigate and gather evidence is a denial of justice. This is why most people granted ‘core participant’ status at the forthcoming public inquiry – mostly activists confirmed as significantly affected – have called for the release of all cover names and the names of the groups who were spied upon.

The Met say they must ‘neither confirm nor deny’ that anybody was ever an undercover officer (for a demolition of their ‘policy’ of Neither Confirm Nor Deny, you cannot do better than Helen Steel’s superb speech to the Pitchford Inquiry into undercover policing). On many occasions they have even refused to refer to Mark Kennedy by name, as if it’s still a secret. This came long after he hired Max Clifford to sell his story for a tabloid front page splash, which is about as unsecret as it’s possible to get.

After three years of legal wrangling, in August 2014 courts forced the Met to admit that Jim Boyling and Bob Lambert were spycops (again, long after both officers had personally talked to the media).

In March 2014 the Met’s Operation Herne produced an 84 page report concerning SDS whistleblower Peter Francis’ revelations about spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence. It said it

‘will not confirm or deny if Peter Francis was an undercover police officer’

As if they might devote all that time and effort to the ramblings of a fantasist.

It’s an insult to those who have been abused. It’s also a double injustice familiar to other victims of state wrongdoing – there’s what the state does, then how it pours resources to smear, lie and obstruct justice for its victims.

This doesn’t bode well for the forthcoming public inquiry.

Today, Kennedy, Lambert and Boyling are still the only three spycops the Met will officially admit to. Here is the list of 17.

WHO ARE THE SPYCOPS?

1. Peter Francis AKA ‘Peter Daley’ or ‘Pete Black’, 1993-97.
   SDS. Self-disclosed. Initial exposure March 2010, real name given June 2013
2. Jim Boyling AKA ‘Jim Sutton’, 1995-2000.
   SDS. Exposed by activists, January 2011
3. ‘Marco Jacobs’, 2004-09.
   NPOIU Exposed by activists, January 2011
4. Mark Jenner AKA ‘Mark Cassidy’, 1995-2000
   SDS. Exposed by activists, January 2011. Real name given March 2013
5. Bob Lambert AKA ‘Bob Robinson’, 1984-89.
   SDS. Exposed by activists, October 2011
6. ‘Lynn Watson’, 2002-08
   NPOIU Exposed by activists, January 2011
7. ‘Simon Wellings’, 2001-07.
8. SDS. Exposed by activists 2005, publicised March 2011
9. ‘Rod Richardson’, 1999-2003.
   NPOIU. Exposed by activists, February 2013
10. John Dines AKA ‘John Barker’, 1987-91.
    SDS. Exposed by activists, February 2013
11. ‘Matt Rayner‘, 1991-96.
    SDS. Exposed by activists, 2013
12. Mike Chitty AKA ‘Mike Blake’, 1983-87.
    SDS. Exposed by journalists, June 2013
13. ‘Jason Bishop’, 1998-2006.
    SDS. Exposed by activists, July 2013
14. ‘Carlo Soracchi’ AKA ‘Carlo Neri’, 2000-06.
    SDS. Exposed by Undercover Research Group in conjunction with activists, January 2016
15. ‘RC’ (full alias withheld), 2002-06.
    NPOIU? Exposed by Undercover Research Group in conjunction with activists, February 2016
16. ‘Gary R’ (full alias withheld), 2006-10.
    NPOIU? Exposed by Undercover Research Group in conjunction with activists, July 2016
17. ‘Abigail L’ (full alias withheld), 2006-08.
    NPOIU? Exposed by Undercover Research Group in conjunction with activists, July 2016

UPDATE March 2017:

18. Roger Pearce AKA ‘Roger Thorley’, 1979-84.
SDS. Self-disclosed under real name 2013, full identity confirmed by UndercoverPolicing Inquiry, March 2017

UPDATE May 2017:

19. Andy Coles AKA ‘Andy Davey’, 1991-95.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Research Group in conjunction with activists, May 2017

UPDATE July 2017:

20. ‘Mike Ferguson’
SDS. Exposed in BBC True Spies documentary, 2002 [transcript, video]

UPDATE August 2017:

21. ‘John Graham’, 1968-69.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, August 2017

22. ‘Rick Gibson’, 1974-76.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, August 2017

23. ‘Doug Edwards’, 1968-71.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, August 2017

UPDATE October 2017:

24. ‘William Paul ‘Bill’ Lewis’, 1968-69.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, October 2017

UPDATE February 2018:

25. ‘John Clinton’, 1971-74.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, February 2018

26. ‘Alex Sloan’, 1971-73.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, February 2018

27. ‘Christine Green’, 1994-99.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Research Group in conjunction with activists, February 2018

28. ‘Bob Stubbs’, 1971-76.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, February 2018

29. ‘Dick Epps’, 1969-72.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, February 2018

UPDATE March 2018:

30. ‘Don de Freitas’, 1968.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, March 2018

31. ‘Margaret White’, 1968.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, March 2018

32. ‘Michael Scott’, 1971-76.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, March 2018

UPDATE April 2018:

33. ‘Peter Fredericks’, 1971.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

34. ‘Stewart Goodman’, 1970-71.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

35. ‘David Robertson’, 1970-73.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

36. ‘Bill Biggs’, 1977-82.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

37. ‘Alan ‘Nick’ Nicholson’, 1990-91.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

38. ‘Dave Hagan’, 1996-2001.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

39. ‘Jacqueline Anderson’, 2000-05.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

40. ‘Ross ‘RossCo’ MacInnes’, 2007.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, April 2018

UPDATE May 2018:

41. ‘Barry Morris’, 1968.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2018

42. ‘Gary Roberts’, 1974-78.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2018

43. ‘Tony Williams’, 1978-82.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2018

44. ‘Malcolm Shearing’, 1981-85.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2018

45. ‘Dave Evans’, 1998-2005.
SDS. Exposed by activists, February 2014

46. ‘Mike Hartley’, 1982-85.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2018

UPDATE JUNE 2018:

48. ‘Darren Prowse’ (apparently never deployed), 2007.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

49. ‘Phil Cooper’, 1979/80-83.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

50. ‘Peter Collins’, 1973-77.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

51. ‘Alan Bond’, 1981-86.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

52. ‘Sean Lynch’, 1968-74.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

53. ‘John Kerry’, 1980-84.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

54. ‘Jeff Slater’, 1974-45.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

55. ‘Vince Miller’, 1976-79.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

56. ‘Colin Clark’, 1977-82.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

57. ‘Timothy Spence’, 1983-87.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

58. ‘Mark Kerry’, 1988-92.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

59. ‘Barry Tompkins’, 1979-83.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

60. ‘Alan Nixon’, 1969-72.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, June 2018

UPDATE JULY 2018:

61. ‘Kathryn Lesley (‘Lee’) Bonser’ 1983-87.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2018

62. ‘Michael James’ 1978-83.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2018

62. ‘Graham Coates’ 1976-79.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2018

63. ‘Kevin Douglas’ 1987-91.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2018

64. ‘Roger Harris’ 1974-77.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2018

65. ‘Desmond Loader’ / ‘Barry Loader’ 1977-78.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2018

UPDATE AUGUST 2018:

66. ‘Nicholas Green’ 1982-86.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, August 2018

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2018:

66. ‘Ian Cameron’ 1971-72.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, September 2018

67. ‘James Straven’ / ‘Kevin Crossland’ 1997-2002.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, September 2018

UPDATE DECEMBER 2018:

68. ‘Rob Harrison’ 2004-07
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, December 2018

69. ‘David Hughes’ 1971-76
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, December 2018

UPDATE JANUARY 2019:

70. ‘Edward David Jones’ aka ‘Edge’, ‘Dave’ & ‘Bob the Builder’ 2005-07.
SDS & NPOIU. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, January 2019

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2019:

71. ‘Neil Richardson’ 1989-93
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, February 2019

UPDATE MARCH 2019:

72. ‘Stefan Wesolowski’ 1985-88.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, March 2019

UPDATE MAY 2019:

73. ‘Geoff Wallace’ 1975-78.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2019

74. ‘Paul Gray’ 1977-82.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, May 2019

UPDATE JULY 2019:

75. ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’ 1991-95.
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, July 2019

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2019:

76. ‘Jim Pickford’ 1974-76
SDS. Exposed by Undercover Policing Inquiry, September 2019

UPDATE July 2017: How many spycops have there been?

In February 2017 the National Police Chiefs Council told the Inquiry

The current position is that there are believed to have been 118 undercover officers engaged in the SDS, and a further up to 83 management and ‘backroom’ staff.

In April 2017 the Inquiry said

The Inquiry has written to 54 former members of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit who are believed to have been either undercover police officers or cover officers (26 undercover officers and 28 cover officers).

This makes a total of at least 144 undercover officers in the two units (it should be noted that the Inquiry may not have written to all NPOIU officers).

UPDATE JULY 2019:

The Undercover Policing Inquiry’s Eighth Update Note said there were 117 undercover officers in the SDS, and a further 22 in the NPOIU, making a total of 139.

We’ve just uploaded video on our Youtube channel of four women speaking about their different involvement in the undercover police scandal at a seminar in Manchester earlier this year.

‘Alison’ gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on her experience of having been deceived into a five year relationship by undercover officer Mark Jenner, and previously told her story to Newsnight in 2014. As she emphasises here, the overwhelming majority of Jenner’s time was not spent on political work, but on domestic time with Alison and her family.

Harriet Wistrich, Human Rights Lawyer of the Year 2014, represents numerous women (including Alison and Helen Steel) who had relationships with officers and successfully brought legal cases and obtained an apology from the Metropolitan Police. She also represents others that will be giving evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

Dr Eveline Lubbers is a member of the Undercover Research Group who do a peerless job of researching and exposing Britain’s political secret police, and has published research on the activities of undercover police officers. She is also the author of Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark: Corporate Spying on Activists and Battling Big Business: Countering Greenwash, Front Groups and Other Forms of Corporate Deception.

Helen Steel was deceived into an imtimate relationship by ‘John Barker’, aka Special Demonstration Squad officer John Dines. Her story follows a startlingly similar trajectory to those of Alison and the other women, showing that this was no aberration by rogue officers but a long-term deliberate strategy by an institutionally sexist police force.

Tlks given at Undercover Policing, Democracy and Human Rights seminar, University of Manchester school of law, 14 April 2016. Video by Reel News.