As the public inquiry into undercover policing prepares itself, it has designated 200 people and organisations that have a known significant link to the issue as ‘core participants’.

Of these, 21 are police and other state agents or agencies, whilst 179 are those who were targeted.

From those 179, 133 have signed a letter to the Inquiry with three demands:

1- Release the ‘cover names’ of all officers from the Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

2 – Release the names of the groups who were targeted, believed to be over 500

3 – Release the Special Branch files on all core participants

This demand for disclosure echoes Doreen Lawrence’s call for there to be ‘a presumption in favour’ of naming the spycops.

It also attacks the police’s blanket use of “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” to frustrate attempts to find the truth. Last year’s apology from the Met to seven of the women deceived into relationships with undercover officers admitted

these legal proceedings have been painful distressing and intrusive and added to the damage and distress.

The exposure of the officers whose misdeeds the Inquiry takes so seriously has been a matter of chance – with 13 properly documented, there are still well over a hundred that nothing is known about. The only way to get the truth is if those who were targeted can tell their story, and that can only happen if they know they were spied upon.

The letter is a powerful call from the overwhelming majority of those the Inquiry recognises as being seriously affected. One core participant who signed, Stafford Scott, has likened the inquiry as it stands to a blindfolded boxer with their hands tied.

Another signatory is Kate Wilson, who successfully sued the police after being deceived into a long-term relationship by Mark Kennedy. She told the Guardian

It was only by chance that we found out Mark’s real identity. I might just as easily have been one of the hundreds who still don’t know. Everyone abused deserves the truth, not just those who happen to stumble upon it

The full text of the letter:

Dear Lord Justice Pitchford,

As 133 of the Inquiry’s Core Participants, we write to share our collective view that a fundamental requirement for the Inquiry’s success is to instruct police to disclose, as soon as possible, a list of names of all the organisations about whom intelligence was gathered; the cover names (not the real identities) of the individual officers responsible for infiltrating and reporting on activists and campaigns; and the individual Special Branch reports for each Core Participant group or individual.

We are aware that Preliminary Hearings are due to deal with anonymity and disclosure issues, but we feel it is vital to raise this broader point now on our own behalf and for those whose personal lives or political activities may have been profoundly affected by undercover policing but who are in no position to participate in the Inquiry because of the failure to identify the cover names of undercover agents or the groups spied upon.

Without this basic information, it is effectively impossible for the Inquiry to have a full picture of undercover policing. The only Core Participants in any position to give even a partial summary of facts they might eventually rely upon are the limited number who have already themselves researched and revealed, largely by chance, the existence of undercover officers, or those who have been informed by the media they had been subject to covert surveillance. Even then, it is difficult for non-state core participants and witnesses to contribute in any meaningful way while virtually all the documentary evidence remains in the hands of the police.

On top of this, Operation Herne [police self-investigation into the SDS & NPOIU] confirmed in July 2014 that the SDS alone targeted at least 460 groups for surveillance. When added to the unknown number of operations by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, there are hundreds of organisations who still have no idea that they were spied upon. This means the overwhelming majority of individuals and organisations targeted since 1968 have had no opportunity to consider the possible consequences of the actions of undercover officers on their work and cannot currently participate as witnesses.

Core Participants and other current and potential witnesses are likely to struggle to provide testimony as long as there remains inadequate or non-existent information available to them. We are deeply concerned that a unique and historic opportunity may be lost unless the Inquiry is able to provide the vital details we seek.

The terms of reference of your Inquiry are broad: to examine the scope and motivations of undercover police operations in practice and their effect upon individuals in particular and the public in general. We therefore believe the issue of disclosure is absolutely critical. In our view, if the Inquiry is to have any realistic prospect of providing accurate insight into the “purpose, extent and effect of undercover police operations targeting political and social justice campaigners” it must do more than look at the activities of the tiny proportion of officers – less than 10% of the total from the SDS and NPOIU – that have already received publicity and exposure.

By their own admission, police records were patchy and much of what was documented has subsequently been lost or destroyed. Even without the resistance to genuine openness and transparency we are expecting, it is plain the police alone cannot provide an adequate narrative of their actions. The only way to discover a true picture of the impact of their undercover operations is to hear the testimony of those about whom intelligence has been gathered – and this is only possible if they know who spied on them and can reflect on the possible scale, implications and potential disruption caused by undercover officers.

We appreciate that the police will use every possible argument against providing greater openness and transparency, although there is no evidence that the public exposure of any undercover officer to date has either placed them at personal risk or posed any threat to national security. In our view, the police’s ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ policy is less about protecting individuals and far more about blocking exposure of misdeeds.

We believe such a policy is untenable in a transparent public inquiry and that full disclosure is essential to discovering the truth. We urge you to set the tone for the future work of the Inquiry by insisting police disclose the information we need to fully participate.

Yours sincerely,

The following Core Participants

(numbers from the inquiry list of core participants v2. An updated PDF, v3, is here)

1 Advisory Service for Squatters

3 AJA

4 Albert Beale

5 Alice Cutler

6 Alice Jelinek

7 Alison (RAB)

8 Alex Beth Stratford

9 Alistair Alexander

10 Amelia Gregory

14 ARB

15 Barbara Shaw

17 Belinda Harvey

19 Ben Stewart

21 Blacklist Support Group

23 Brendan Mee

24 Brian Farrelly

25 Brian Healy

26 Brian Higgins

28 C

29 Cardiff Anarchist Network

30 Celia Stubbs

31 Chris Dutton

32 Claire Fauset

33 Claire Hildreth

34 Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

35 Climate Camp Legal Team

36 Colin Roach Centre

38 Dan Gilman

39 Dan Glass

40 Danny Chivers

41 Dave Smith

43 Debbie Vincent

44 Defend the Right to Protest

46 Dónal O’Driscol

47 Duwayne Brooks OBE

48 Ellen Potts

49 Emily Apple

51 Frances Wright

52 Frank Smith

53 Gabrielle Bosely

54 Genetic Engineering Network

55 Geoff Sheppard

56 Gerrah Selby

57 Graham Smith

58 Gráinne Gannon

60 Hackney Community Defence Association

61 Hannah Dee

62 Hannah Lewis

63 Hannah Sell

64 Harry Halpin

65 Helen Steel

66 HJM

67 Hunt Saboteurs Association

68 Indra Donfrancesco

69 Ippy Gray

70 Jacqueline Sheedy

71 Jacqui

72 Jane Laporte

73 Jason Kirkpatrick

75 Jennifer Verson

76 Jesse Schust

77 John Jones

78 John Jordan

79 Juliet McBride

80 Kate Allen

82 Kate Wilson

84 Kim Bryan

85 Kirk Jackson

86 Kirsty Wright

87 Kristina Bonnie Jones (aka Tina Miller)

89 Leila Deen

90 Lisa (AKJ)

91 Lisa Teuscher

92 Lois Austin

93 London Greenpeace

95 Marc Wadsworth

96 Mark Metcalf

97 Martin Shaw

98 Martyn Lowe

99 Matt Salusbury

100 Megan Donfrancesco

101 Melanie Evans

102 Merrick Cork

103 Michael Dooley

105 Michael Zeitlin

106 Morgana Donfrancesco Reddy

110 Naomi (SUR)

112 Newham Monitoring Project

113 Nicola Benge

115 Norman Blair

117 Olaf Bayer

118 Oliver Knowles

119 Oliver Rodker

120 Paddy Gillett

121 Patricia Armani da Silva

122 Paul Chatterton

123 Paul Gravett

124 Paul Morrozzo

126 Piers Corbyn

127 Rhythms of Resistance Samba Band

128 Robbin Gillett

129 Robert Banbury

130 Roger Geffen

131 Rosa (Dil)

133 Ruth (TEB)

125 Sarah Shoraka

136 Shane Collins (aka William Shane Collins)

138 Sian Jones

139 Simon Chapman

140 Simon Lewis

141 Simon Taylor

142 South Wales Anarchists

143 Spencer Cooke

144 Stafford Scott

145 Steve Acheson

146 Steve Hedley

148 Suresh Grover

149 Suzan Keen

151 Terence Evans

152 The Monitoring Group

153 Thomas Fowler

154 Thomas Harris

155 Tim Byrne

157 Tomas Remiarz

158 Trapese

159 Trevor Houghton

160 VSP

161 William Frugal

163 Youth Against Racism in Europe

163 Zoe Young

Additional people made Core Participants since v2 list:

“Andrea”

Ceri Gibbons

Smash EDO

The Pitchford public inquiry into undercover policing is still limbering up and defining its terms, so it’s unclear how trustworthy it will be. One of the major sticking points is that it is limited to deeds done by officers of English and Welsh forces whilst in England and Wales.

The 13 known officers – less than 10% of the true total – worked in 17 other countries. Most of them worked in Scotland. When we say “worked”, we mean doing what the Metropolitan Police themselves describe as being

a violation of human rights, an abuse of police power… abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong.

If this is what we know already, we can be sure there is more to come. To underline that point, the officer newly exposed last week, Carlo Neri, was also active in Scotland.

Earlier this month the Scottish Parliament held a debate on undercover policing and there was cross-party support for the Scottish government’s official demand to be included in the Pitchford Inquiry.

On 17 January it was reported that the Home Office is arranging to have talks with the Scottish government about their country’s inclusion.

But only four days earlier the Home Office told COPS they had no plans to include Scotland.

At this stage the Inquiry is receiving evidence from as wide a range of persons who can assist with its terms of reference as possible. The inquiry team are interested in the whole story and are bound to encourage those coming forward to provide a complete picture when submitting their evidence.

The terms of reference as drafted are, we are advised, already eliciting a significant volume of material for consideration.

The Home Secretary is not minded to expand the terms of reference at this time.

Lindsay Davies from COPS responded in today’s Sunday Mail

Nonetheless, the Home Office reiterated their resistance to the Sunday Herald this week.

But with a range of politicians from numerous parties and none, joined this week by trade union officials, all committed to securing the truth for Scotland the pressure is only going to increase. The Scottish government should have the confidence to be robust and insistent at the forthcoming talks.

The Scottish Parliament saw an hour’s debate on Britain’s political secret police last week. Though sparsely attended, its content was extraordinary. One MSP after another expressed real outrage and disgust at what these officers have done and the paucity of accountability and justice.

The forthcoming public inquiry is limited to events in England and Wales. This is absurd, given that half the known officers worked in Scotland, with Mark Kennedy being authorised to go there 14 times in his seven years. These operations included, by the Met’s own admission, human rights violations and other abuses of police power.

A few weeks ago the Scottish government formally asked the Home Secretary to alter the terms of the inquiry and include events in Scotland.

The debate had been called by Labour’s Neil Findlay MSP. In a barnstorming speech that mentioned officers by name, he asked

Do we have a policing system and justice system… that picks out individuals and groups for special treatment because they challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, the established order or threaten, even in a tiny way, the grip that those in positions of power have on our economy and our society?…

Vested interests in the media, big business, government, the police and the courts have worked together to quash dissent, control people’s behaviour and prevent any challenge to their grip on power…

Police officers operating in our country under the identity of a dead child to victimise people whose only crime is to want a fairer, cleaner and more just society… I find that nauseating and utterly corrupt.

Elaine Smith, also for Labour, expanded on the point.

The demand for the Pitchford inquiry to be extended to Scotland, that should never have been a controversial demand. The Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance – a group investigating the role of undercover police – has documented numerous instances where officers who have been proven to have committed acts of abuse were operating and active in Scotland. There can be no doubt about that.

If we look at the frequent pattern of male officers abusing their position to exploit women and start sexual relationships, and the implied approval that this would require from senior officers, then there is the question of whether or not the police, in this regard, are institutionally sexist…

While the victims have stated that no apology or compensation can make up for the abuse they’ve suffered, we owe it to them to fully investigate and expose these horrific practices. The Pitchford inquiry should be extended to cover Scotland but if that is not agreed the Scottish government has a moral duty to undertake its own inquiry.

For the Liberal Democrats, Alison McInnes OBE insisted that there be an inquiry into spycops in Scotland come what may.

It is the kind of behaviour that transgresses professional and moral boundaries and flies in the face of common decency…

Even if the officers were from police forces in England and Wales, it appears that authorisation to work in Scotland came from senior Scottish officers and that’s why I support the call for the Scottish government to hold a similar inquiry…

Unless the SNP government is arguing that unearthing what has gone on in Scotland – both in terms of English officers operating here and of undercover policing within Scottish forces – is of no importance, there needs to be an inquiry here…

We too deserve to know the scale of the operations carried out and the lines of accountability and authorisation.

Roderick Campbell, of the governing SNP, affirmed the call for the Home Secretary to expand Pitchford’s scope.

If Metropolitan Police officers, or their divisions, were operating in Scotland it seems sensible to extend that remit to Scotland.

He said that there is a strong regulatory framework in place, which is of no comfort as the Met have specifically said that tightening rules in 2000 did nothing whatsoever to affect the function of these units.

John Finnie, formerly of the SNP but now an Independent, said

As many will know, I was a police officer for 30 years. Officers I served with were appalled by that sickening behaviour. The worrying thing is that it’s not a rogue individual; it must have been known to supervisory officers. They either ignored it or they were unaware of it, either way they were negligent.

I won’t go into the G8 protests, but to assume that the monitoring that went on across Europe stopped at Gretna is naïve.

Hugh Henry (Labour) was unequivocal in his condemnation of

a horrific catalogue of abuse by the state in this country. It’s unacceptable, and frankly if we in our complacency tolerate it or refuse to properly investigate then we are complicit with it…

I welcome the belated action by the Scottish government to write to ask for the inquiry to be extended but unless we get a guarantee that it will be comprehensive, it will be all encompassing and that the terms of reference will also include things which have gone on in Scotland over the years, to make it a genuine UK inquiry, that unless that’s done we are being short changed and therefore we will need our own inquiry…

This is not about national security, this about protecting the interests of big business or the interests of certain political views… this is the one opportunity we have to put things right.

We know that wrong has been done over many years in Scotland as well as the rest of the UK, and if we fail to take the opportunity now to get to the bottom of what was done and put things right then we are letting Scotland down, we are letting future generations down, but frankly we are also letting ourselves down as individuals.

Speaking for the government, the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Paul Wheelhouse, responded

If officers in those units were active in Scotland, and the inquiry has been set up to look at related activity, then the inquiry should, we strongly believe, be able to consider that activity irrespective of where it took place.

That is why the Cabinet Secretary for Justice wrote to the Home Secretary on 10 December last year, asking her to confirm that the inquiry would be able to take account of any activity by the Metropolitan Police units that took place in Scotland.

He was, however, a tad circumspect about what should be done if the UK government refuses to include Scotland in the inquiry.

Two parallel inquiries runs the obvious risk of duplication of resources. They may also embarrass each other if one produces vital details the other has missed.

The decision rests with the Home Secretary. We await her reply.

[The full debate is on our Youtube channel, and a full transcript can be found here].

Jenny Jones

A new spycops whistleblower has come forward testifying that his unit destroys files that may embarrass them.

Sgt David Williams is one of the officers who maintains the database of ‘domestic extremists’ for the clunkily-named National Domestic Extremist and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU).

He has written a personal letter to Jenny Jones – Green Party member of the Greater London Assembly and House of Lords – describing how several of his colleagues destroyed records to sanitise her file before it was released.

As a democratically elected public figure, and a member of the Met’s scrutiny body the Metropolitan Police Authority, Jones is about as indefensible a target as can be. Yet their file on her only began after she was elected, and ran for at least eleven years, probably to the present day.

Three years ago she applied for a copy of anything held on her under data protection laws, and found out she was indeed one of the 9,000 people on the domestic extremist database.

In June 2013, after having paid £10 and filled out a very long form, a copy of my police file arrived in the post. I don’t know what I expected to find, but the three pages can only be described as pathetic. Quite honestly, I want my money back.

She commented at the time about its superficiality.

it was three pages of essentially gossip and reporting on speeches I had made or tweets that I had made.

On 12 June 2014 Jones met managers of the unit who were unable to tell her whether she was still on the database. She said she would apply once more for a copy of her file, if it existed.

Sgt Williams describes a scene six days later, with five officers being involved in the destruction of more than 30 records from Jones’ file. Williams said that – also in a ‘highly irregular manner’ – the records were deleted immediately without being retained on the unit’s back-up database, an act which would thwart any freedom of information request within a 28-day period from the deletion.

RE-EXTREMED

Even in this diluted form, Jones was shocked to find that her file had been reinstated at all, including an entry from before the supposed expunging of the previous year. That particular item reported on her attendance at a protest outside the Daily Mail in 2013.

Action like that was enough to get her back on the domestic extremist list. If they do this to the vice-chair of the Greater London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee for attending a stand-around demonstration, who else are they doing it to?

Sgt Williams complained to the Met’s internal Department of Professional Standards (DPS) but they found no wrongdoing. He complained again and this time they found that the records had indeed been deleted. Senior officers then held a meeting with one of the officers responsible, seemingly to tip them off. The DPS sent a report to the commissioner saying there was nothing to worry about, merely ‘poor communication’.

Whilst the revelations are shocking, to those familiar with the continually expanding spycops scandal and its abuse of citizens, they aren’t surprising, as Jones herself wearily tweeted.

I’m trying to be angry/outraged/disbelieving of Met police activities, but almost all used up on them already.

But her outrage returned when considering the common practices that are implied. Later that day, Jones wrote

If my files were deleted legitimately after I challenged them, how did they later find a “deleted” copy to check that I had previously received all the information requested? When the Met sent me my file in August 2013 it had 17 items on it, but Williams claims that Met officers deleted about 30 items later in June 2014.

Does this mean that the Met can resurrect all deleted files on innocent people, despite it being decided that they should not legitimately be holding such information?

IT’S NOT JUST JENNY JONES

Having previously pushed for clarity from the Met on the definition of ‘domestic extremism’, Jones took some comfort from the addition of the words ‘serious crime’.

However, ‘serious’ is an even more fuzzy term. Not only that, but the spycops already applied it to the activists they spy on. A report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary into Mark Kennedy and the political policing units said the activists targeted

were not individuals engaging in peaceful protest, or even people who were found to be guilty of lesser public order offences. They were individuals intent on perpetrating acts of a serious and violent nature against citizens going about their everyday lives.

This is desperate stuff, clearly false allegations made in attempt to prop up the collapsing credibility of the spycops units.

It reflects the culture of the Met that we have seen throughout the spycops scandal, with the resistance to releasing details and the legion of obstructions they threw in the path of abused women seeking redress, even refusing to admit that the likes of Mark Kennedy and Bob Lambert were police officers for years, until forced to do so by a court.

Writing to Jones, Sgt Williams recognises this commitment to brand value rather than justice.

This letter to you may not be in my best interests but not sending it would be unconscionable for me. I fear it may initiate a series of escalating actions against me designed to discredit me or lead to my suspension from duty or my dismissal.

He also describes the abrupt removal of an officer who had complained about racism, drunken behaviour, faking time records and apparent fraud.

The Met has responded, saying that there is either insufficient evidence to support the claims, or else they are false. They also report an allegation of bullying by Sgt Williams against a senior officer in the unit, and a counter-claim of misconduct.

Assuming Williams is telling the truth – and it’s difficult to see his motivation for doing anything else here – it means that the Met’s line ‘disgraced rogue units, lessons learned, and it’s all in the past’ is in tatters.

As the Undercover Research Group noted last week, this has much wider and even more serious implications. It is part of a pattern of the Met destroying incriminating records in order to frustrate inquiries into their wrongdoing. The forthcoming public inquiry is reliant on these records. As such, the kind of collective destruction of records as reported by Sgt Williams

is a direct attack on the ability of the Pitchford Inquiry to do its work. This is why we are calling on the Inquiry to themselves take action to stop further destruction of records. We have also written to [Met Assistant Commissioner] Martin Hewitt to take action to deal with this outrageous matter. The NDEDIU needs to be shut down immediately and all the officers involved stripped off all access.

In a dramatic turn of events, the Scottish government has written to the Home Secretary asking for Scotland to be included in the public inquiry into undercover policing.

Just three weeks ago the Scottish government said it would be happy to wait and see what the Pitchford inquiry concluded – even though that’s several years away and is not due to examine events in Scotland. This week they confirmed to campaigners that they have changed their minds.

The call comes just days after German MPs demanded their government get answers about UK undercover police in Germany.

As it stands, the Inquiry’s terms of reference begin

Purpose: To inquire into and report on undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces in England and Wales since 1968

However, it is clear that activity elsewhere was a significant part of the work of Britain’s political secret police. Eight of the 12 exposed officers worked abroad, covering 17 countries over a period of decades. As the Undercover Research Group have documented, Scotland was a common location for them, with six of the 12 known officers deployed there.

Neil Findlay MSP welcomed his government’s appeal to the Home Secretary, saying

I hope the UK government agree to this request and open up the Pitchford inquiry to examine what went on in Scotland, but if they don’t then there has to be a separate Scottish Inquiry.

Whilst being better than nothing, a separate inquiry would raise the possibility of conflict and competition between the two. There would not only be duplication of resources but raises the possibility of one uncovering information unknown to the other.

These Metropolitan Police officers moved freely between countries in their deployment, so excluding certain events from the inquiry on grounds of geography is arbitrary and prevents any chance of a proper overview.

Activist Jason Kirkpatrick told the Sunday Herald

I would sincerely be outraged if documented and admitted undercover policing scandals in Scotland are not allowed to be looked at in this investigation.

Why should I be asked to tell Lord Pitchford everything that happened to me in England, but be banned from telling him that I suspect undercover police were involved in sabotaging my legally protected journalistic work in Edinburgh?

Mark Kennedy, Lynn Watson and Marco Jacobs – all officers from the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) – were at the anti-G8 protests at Gleneagles in 2005. Kennedy had a major organisational role as transport co-ordinator.

Sarah Hampton, who had a year-long relationship with Kennedy at the time, told the Guardian

He was an amazing activist. He was a full-time activist. He was paid to be an activist. None of us were paid to be activists. He was very efficient. He had a fund to spend on us which came from the state.

The NPOIU officers were joined at the G8 protests by Jason Bishop and another suspected officer from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). A 2012 report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) admitted there were SDS and NPOIU officers were at the G8.

That same HMIC report says that Kennedy defied orders to travel abroad with an activist in 2009. It’s thought this was Harry Halpin, with whom Kennedy travelled to a climate activist meeting in Copenhagen.

Halpin, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, say Kennedy spied on him when he was a student at Edinburgh University. In Copenhagen, he was badly beaten by police.

He told the Scotsman

It was terrifying. I could hardly see or walk by the time they had finished with me. I was never given an explanation by the Danish police on why I was targeted, but I think it was because of information passed to them by Mark Kennedy.

It’s intelligence which is still being used to target people for no clear reason. It’s intelligence which should be removed.

Five women are known to have been in Scotland with undercover officers from both units who deceived them into intimate relationships – a practice the Metropolitan police has admitted was

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.

With this catalogue of abuses stemming from just a handful of the political secret police, it’s clear that there needs to be disclosure about the actions of all officers from these units and which groups they targeted.

Abuse is equally abhorrent wherever it is committed. A personal violation is no better if done in Stirling or Copenhagen than in London.

The Home Secretary should extend the Inquiry’s remit to Scotland – and to all actions of Britain’s disgraced political secret police, wherever they took place.

L-R: Kate Wilson, Helen Steel, Belinda Harvey and their lawyer Harriet Wistrich at their press conference, 20 November 2015
(Pic: Danny Shaw, BBC)

It’s an extraordinary statement by any standards. Even when the police pay large compensation, they usually do so with no admission of culpability for anything. But last Friday they issued a detailed, unreserved apology for the abuse of women who had relationships with undercover police officers.

Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt even made a video of the admission, bluntly stating for the record that the relationships were

abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong. I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma…

Most importantly, relationships like these should never have happened. They were wrong and were a gross violation of personal dignity and integrity.

The outrageousness and severity of how these women were treated is finally an acknowledged, settled fact.

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Some of the harrowing, heart wrenching impacts were spelled out by Lisa Jones – partner of Mark Kennedy for six years and whose discovery of his true identity brought the issue to light – when she gave her first ever interview on Friday.

As “Rosa”, who had children with undercover officer Jim Boyling, said,

This has affected my whole view of the state and it went as deep as my womb

Kate Wilson’s description of what was done to her was similarly powerful, and her highlighting of the continuing lack of transparency – “the police have made no effort whatsoever to provide any kind of answers” – shows that all this is far from over.

It echoes what was said a year ago when the Met settled the first such case. Jacqui, who had a child with Bob Lambert, received £425,000 compensation but said

The legal case is finished but there is no closure for me. There is the money, but there is no admission by the police that what they did was wrong, there is no meaningful apology and most importantly there are no answers.

Although Friday’s apology is a major historic victory, it is only confirming that what the women already know to be true. There is so much more still hidden from view.

TIME TO TAKE CHARGE

The Met’s admission of their officers’ serious abuse must surely mean that the Crown Prosecution Service have to revisit last year’s extraordinary decision not to bring charges against these officers for sexual offences.

As Gayle Newland starts her eight year sentence for creating a false identity to deceive someone into a sexual relationship, it’s pretty clear that if this gang of men weren’t police officers they would already be behind bars. Nobody else would get away with just giving an apology and a cheque from public funds.

The CPS also decided not to prosecute them for other offences, explaining

In order to prosecute misconduct in public office, the prosecution would have to show that an officer knowingly abused their position in order to bring a sexual relationship about

It is hard to see how anyone could say anything else now. The Met have just conceded that the relationships didn’t just happen but

none of the women with whom the undercover officers had a relationship brought it on themselves. They were deceived pure and simple…. [it was] an abuse of police power

STRATEGIC INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM

But even now, the Met can’t quite admit the whole truth. They

accept that it may well have reflected attitudes towards women that should have no part in the culture of the Metropolitan Police

They still can’t bring themselves to use the word ‘sexism’. The Met is institutionally sexist as well as institutionally racist. This cannot ever change if they refuse to fully face the facts, and in this apology they just shied away once again.

Police say relationships were never authorised in advance and were never used tactically. But the overwhelming majority of known officers – all but two – did it. Most had long-term, committed life-partner relationships. One of them, Bob Lambert, lived with a woman and fathered a child before going on to run the unit, overseeing protegee officers who did the same thing, including ones involved in this week’s settlement. He must surely have known.

Sometimes officers were deployed together. Certainly, Lambert, Marco Jacobs and Lynn Watson saw colleagues having relationships. So, did they fail to report this ‘grossly unprofessional, never allowed’ behaviour to their seniors (thereby placing themselves at risk if they were ever found out)? Or did they report it but their bosses didn’t intervene? Or was it, as it appears, an established, accepted tactic?

PULLING BACK THE SHROUD OF SECRECY

Three years ago police lawyers said relationships weren’t authorised, trying to blame individual ‘rogue officers’ and shield managers from responsibility. But then it was pointed out that if this was unauthorised behaviour then it wasn’t covered by the rules governing surveillance in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. If that were so then any case would be heard in open court instead of a secret tribunal where the womens’ side weren’t allowed. So those same lawyers went back to the same court and argued that relationships were actually authorised after all.

That was just one twist in the course of the four years and hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ pounds police spent trying to stop these women bringing the facts to light. The blanket use of “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” to refuse to even admit anyone was a police officer was an additional insulting hurdle to make the path to truth more gruelling.

It’s a pattern familiar from so many other justice campaigns – there’s the injustice of what the police did, then the double injustice of the cover-up, smearing and legal obstacles that follow.

The apology statement rightly mentioned the extra distress caused by the protracted legal case and paid tribute to the tenacity and mettle of the women.

Even now, having just paid compensation and apologised to the women abused by John Dines and Mark Jenner, the police have not actually confirmed they were Special Demonstration Squad officers.

Nonetheless, the apology, like the agreement to be liable for damages paid to people spied on by Marco Jacobs, is effectively an admission that these men were police. It is another hammer blow to the devious, farcical tactic of Neither Conform Nor Deny. With the public inquiry still to come, that is significant.

A GRAIN OF TRUTH – TIME FOR THE HARVEST

All the appalling abuse these women suffered came from just five police officers. Even this isn’t the end of it – there are several other similar cases are still ongoing, including more partners of Mark Kennedy and Marco Jacobs.

We only know of the exposed officers due to the investigations and luck of activists and journalists. These are not necessrily the worst of them, merely what chance has revealed. There is so much more beyond. We have the names of around a dozen officers, less than 10% of those known to have worked undercover in the political secret police units.

How many other women were similarly abused? How many other children searching for their fathers are doomed to failure because it’s a name a police officer made up or stole from a dead child? How many campaigns were stymied? What other outrages have occurred that none of the known officers committed? At least 500 groups and uncountable thousands of individuals were spied on. They all have a right to know.

If these seven women deserve justice, so do the rest. If the public deserves the truth it deserves the whole truth, not somewhere under 10% of it.

Chair of the forthcoming public inquiry, Lord Pitchford, says

The Inquiry’s priority is to discover the truth

The only way we will get the truth is if those who were targeted tell their stories. The only way that can happen is if they know that their former friend and comrade was in fact a police spy. If the Inquiry is to serve its purpose, and if the Met are truly contrite, then they must publish the cover names of all undercover officers from the political policing units.

The public inquiry into undercover policing is in a stage of active preparation, with the hearings expected to start properly next summer.

We’ve already had the inquiry’s Terms of Reference set out by the Home Secretary. It will

inquire into and report on undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces in England and Wales since 1968.

This

will include, but not be limited to, the undercover operations of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

More than half the exposed officers from those units worked outside England and Wales. They spied in at least seventeen different countries over a period of 25 years (the Undercover Research Group has produced a detailed list of dozens of instances). If this is the case with the known officers, it’s safe to presume many of their colleagues did it too.

Some officers are known to have committed crimes whilst working undercover abroad. It’s more than two years since German MP Andrej Hunko told the UK parliament.

Mark Kennedy was accused and found guilty of an arson attack in Berlin. But he was giving evidence in court under his false name to escape legal proceeding under his real name.

This is exactly the sort of thing that is the subject of the inquiry – if it’s in England and Wales. If the British police are farming these activities out on a large scale to dozens of countries it surely warrants proper investigation.

Conversely, Hunko has discovered that German police sent numerous undercover officers to the anti-G8 protests in Scotland in 2005. It is hardly likely to have been a one-off.

If an officer’s actions are an outrage in England and Wales, the same deed is equally an outrage if committed elsewhere. Who is responsible if an English undercover officer commits crimes whilst working abroad? What protects the public from foreign spies here? What deals are done between governments? If these officers aren’t reined in when working in the UK, are they even more cavalier toward citizens, laws and rights when away from their overseers?

As it stands, the Pitchford Inquiry appears uninterested in the answers. Its stated aim is to explore “the motivation for and scope of, undercover policing operations in practice and their effect upon individuals in particular and the public in general”. The geographical blinkers are a barrier to this. If it refuses to look at a significant element of the work of many officers, the inquiry cannot get a thorough overview and so undermines its very purpose.

This restriction in the Terms of Reference was handed to Pitchford and his team by the Home Secretary. It’s time for the inquiry, and others, to insist that she drops this clause.

If it is to be credible, the Pitchford Inquiry must give equal weight to equivalent actions and experiences of undercover officers and their victims, wherever they happened to be. The limit of England and Wales has to go.

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British undercover officers and the countries they worked in

Mark Kennedy

A 2012 report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary refers to Kennedy professionally visiting 11 countries on more than 40 occasions, including 14 visits to Scotland. As with so much else, officialdom has not been forthcoming and the real work has been done by spied-on activists and allied journalists. It appears these countries included:

1. Scotland
2. Northern Ireland
3. Ireland
4. Iceland
5. Spain
6. Germany
7. Denmark
8. Poland
9. USA
10. France
11. Belgium

Mark Jenner
1. Israel
2. Greece
3. Netherlands
4. Thailand
5. Vietnam
6.Ireland
7. Northern Ireland
8. Scotland

In Northern Ireland, Jenner took campaigners on a trip to republican West Belfast and Derry which included meeting Sinn Fein councillors. He also took part in fighting when nationalists clashed with a loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry march.

Marco Jacobs
1. Poland
2. Germany
3. France
4. Scotland

Rod Richardson
1. Italy
2. Netherlands
3. France

Peter Francis
1. Germany
2. Greece

Jim Boyling
1. Ireland
2. Italy

John Dines
1. Scotland
2. Ireland

Lynn Watson
1. Scotland

Jason Bishop
1. Scotland

New on our Youtube channel – a short film made by Reel News, shot outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 7 October, just before the first hearing of the public inquiry. Numerous people who were spied on outline their experiences and what they hope to get out of the inquiry.

The hearing [transcript] was to decide on some cases of ‘core participants’ – those ruled to have been so involved in the political policing scandal that they get greater access and representation at the inquiry. Around 400 people have applied of whom around half have been granted core participant status – mostly activists, some campaigns as bodies, a couple of dozen police officers and some state agencies too.

The Undercover Research Group noted its qualms afterwards.

Lord Justice Pitchford

The Inquiry’s priority is to discover the truth… I wish to encourage all those with material evidence to give to make themselves known to the Inquiry team.

– Lord Justice Pitchford, 28 July 2015

The public inquiry into undercover policing, chaired by Lord Pitchford, is being prepared.

Some people who are particularly involved can be granted the status of ‘core participant’. This means that they are likely to have greater access to documents and that the costs of their legal representation may be covered.

In his opening remarks, Lord Pitchford explained

Rule 5 of The Inquiry Rules, made under section 41 of the 2005 Act, enables me to designate a person, with their consent, a core participant in the Inquiry. That designation can take place at any time during the Inquiry but the sooner it is made the better for the applicant and for the smooth running of the Inquiry. A person for these purposes may be an individual or a body corporate or other institution or organisation.

Before making the designation I am required to have regard in particular to that person’s role in matters the subject of the Inquiry, the nature and extent of the person’s interest in the matters to which the Inquiry relates, and the prospect that the person may be the subject of criticism during the Inquiry proceedings or in its report.

Not everyone who gives evidence or otherwise assists the inquiry needs to be a core participant. If you have a contribution to make, you are encouraged to contact the inquiry and discuss it.

Core participants may have their own lawyers, but where Lord Pichford regards two or more core participants as having similar interests then they must have a single lawyer. Additionally, the Inquiry may cover the costs of legal representation and attendances of witnesses but will not be doing this for lawyers that duplicate one another’s work.

Lord Pitchford has asked that people who want to be core participants make an application in writing to the Inquiry by 4pm on 18 September 2015.

The application should state

(i) what are the matters likely to be raised by the Inquiry in which the applicant is interested,

(ii) what is the nature and degree of the applicant’s interest in those matters,

(iii) what role the applicant played in those matters,

(iv) whether and if so for what reason the applicant may be the subject of criticism in the Inquiry proceedings or in its report, and

(v) such other facts and matters on which applicant relies in support of the application

Confidentiality can be requested and will be respected.

It is worth noting that people may apply at any time during the Inquiry – indeed, some people may only become aware that they are invovled after information is revealed at the Inquiry.

The first batch of core participants will be named at the first preliminary hearing, held in the Royal Courts of Justice on the week commencing 5 October. If participants haven’t agreed on their legal representation, he will make decisions in the second preliminary hearing which is due in November.

The Inquiry may be contacted at info@ucpi.org.uk or press.queries@ucpi.org.uk

By post:

PO BOX 71230
London
NW1W 7QH

By phone:

0203 741 0411

www.ucpi.org.uk

Andrej Hunko’s letter to Theresa May

German MP Andrej Hunko, who has taken great interest in Mark Kennedy’s deployment in Germany, has written to the Home Secretary, Theresa May, insisting that the forthcoming inquiry into undercover police includes UK officers’ actions abroad.

It comes after May’s announcement last week which, whilst scant on detail, did specify that it will cover “operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces in England and Wales”.

It’s known that officers from the political police units have been going abroad for about twenty years. Conversely, their foreign counterparts work over here.

Thanks to Hunko’s tenacious research, it has been established that Berlin police sent five undercover officers to the anti-G8 protests in Scotland in 2005. It’s not clear how many came from elsewhere in Germany or other countries. These were in addition to the UK officers there, which included Mark Kennedy and Lynn Watson.

A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) confirmed that Kennedy worked in 14 countries. This isn’t quite the 22 he claims, but whichever is true, it is hugely significant.

Kennedy had sexual relationships whilst undercover in Germany, which is strictly forbidden in that country. Hunko’s letter continues,

German parliamentarian Hans-Christian Stroebele said in the press that Kennedy is known to have played a part in at least three minor crimes in Germany, something that a German undercover agent is not permitted to do.

German MP Ulla Jelpke further proclaimed, ‘the suspicion that Kennedy was acting as an agent provocateur in these crimes still cannot be ruled out’

The extensive information Hunko has prised from the German authorities (32 page PDF) includes the fact that Kennedy was paid by German police whilst working there.

Hunko has previously revealed that

Foreign police officers must obtain authorisation before entering the territory of a sovereign state. They must not commit any criminal offences during their stay. Kennedy, however, sought to impress activists in Berlin by setting fire to a refuse container. Arrested by the police, he even concealed his true identity from the public prosecutor. This is illegal, as the Federal Government has indicated now.

Kennedy was a serving Met officer, hired out to use the identity and methods the Met trained him in. The idea that this bears no relevance to the subject of the inquiry is absurd.

Theresa May’s announcement clearly said

The inquiry’s investigation will include, but not be limited to, the undercover operations of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit

If it is to do that, it must look at how the whole thing worked, it cannot be geographically selective. If this embarrasses the British establishment in the eyes of other countries, so be it. It may uncover more layers to the structure; this, too, is surely one of the points of having the inquiry in the first place.

Andrej Hunko

Hunko’s questions exposed the hitherto unknown European Co-ordination Group on Undercover Activities that organises and focuses undercover work. Established in the 1980s, it is comprised of all EU member states and other countries such as the USA, Israel, South Africa and New Zealand, plus selected private companies. It meets irregularly and says it doesn’t keep minutes. According to the German government, the UK and Germany are the trailblazers in the group.

Far from the undercover scandal being centred on a rogue officer or a rogue unit, the UK’s tactics increasingly appear to be part of a concerted effort in which governments and corporations act together across borders.

It is notable that the aforementioned 2005 G8 summit is beyond the proposed scope of the remit, as it took place in Scotland. Yet Kennedy worked for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) which a 2003 HMIC report confirmed

performs an intelligence function in relation to politically motivated disorder (not legitimate protests) on behalf of England, Wales and Scotland

If the inquiry excludes Scotland, it excludes part of the NPOIU’s remit.

After his police contract ended, Kennedy stayed in the same community of activists, under the same Met-created identity, using the same methods to spy on them, working for a company set up and run by Rod Leeming, another ex-political police Met officer.

As we’ve previously described, this was not an isolated instance, the entwining of political police and their private counterparts has been going on for decades, and it would be ludicrous to exclude this overlap from the inquiry.

We can presume the German police paid the NPOIU for the use of their officer Mark Kennedy. There can be no claiming that the Met were not responsible, nor that counter-democratic activity and personal abuse by Met officers are somehow insignificant if done elsewhere or with a different institution signing the paycheque.

The dogged persistence of Hunko (assisted by the German government’s more open approach to MPs asking about the subject) means there is a formidable body of evidence about an NPOIU officer’s undercover activity, including the commission of crimes and sexual abuse. This must not be excluded from the inquiry.

Furthermore, if that is what we have about one officer, in one of his 14 countries, what else is there to uncover? For the inquiry to be credible, it must investigate all significant elements of the work of the political policing units.