Lord Justice Pitchford

We welcome the Home Secretary keeping up the pace on the pending Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing, today making an announcement on its terms of reference.

Today’s statement is too vague to properly appraise, leaving lots of space for what ‘the inquiry chairman shall judge appropriate’.

It is key that Lord Justice Pitchford does not merely hear testimony from people who were targeted. He needs to recognise that every one of these key things was revealed after tenacious work by activists and journalists, not one came from the dozens of official inquiries and panels that have been set up to investigate:

– More than a dozen undercover officers have been exposed and their abuses and actions as agents provocateur documented.

– More than 50 miscarriages of justice have been identified and convictions quashed.

– An illegal construction industry blacklist used by most of the biggest companies to deny work to thousands of politically active people – ably and illegally assisted by police – has been exposed and shut down.

– Dozens of women were psychologically and sexually abused after being deceived into relationships with undercover officers, a practice denounced as ‘grossly unprofessional’ by senior police themselves.

– The tactic of stealing dead children’s identities was mandatory in the Special Demonstration Squad until the mid 1990s and the Home Affairs Select Committee has demanded that all affected families be told, a call echoed this week by Doreen Lawrence. The only ones it has happened to are Rod Richardson and John Barker‘s families after they were traced by activists that the officers had lived with.

NOT JUST A VOICE – AN EYE AS WELL

The fact that victims had to research and reveal the truth themselves mirrors the work of many racial justice campaigns who were spied on, forensically compiling the truth of events.

In this victim/perpetrator situation, the people affected need to be given a formally empowered position at the inquiry, such as an oversight panel of representatives. These same people, responsible for investigations that brought the whole issue to light, should be trusted to help steer us to the truth, rather than the vested interests or the authors of assorted whitewashes at the police and satellite bodies.

Additionally, there has been an invaluable contribution from the whistleblower officer Peter Francis. Dozens of family and racial justice campaigns were spied on and actively undermined. Without Francis’ brave testimony, this would still be unknown. These units tried their best to have their very existence kept secret, documentation is minimal and so we are reliant on those involved stepping forward.

Lord Justice Pitchford should give assurance and encouragement to Francis and others who come forward, and this should begin with immunity from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

HITTING LIMITS?

Worryingly, the government’s terms say Pitchford will ‘inquire into and report on undercover police operations’, only later saying that the scope

will include, but not be limited to, whether and to what purpose, extent and effect undercover police operations have targeted political and social justice campaigners.

When the inquiry was announced a year ago, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary was simultaneously tasked to produce a report on undercover policing. The doorstep-sized result was as useless as it was large. Over 200 pages on undercover policing in the broadest sense, barely touching on the political policing that is the substance of the scandal.

Today’s announcement gives opportunity for the same distraction tactic to be used. The police may talk at length about infiltrating gangs of people traffickers and paedophiles to public acclaim, and use that glow of approval to blind people from seeing the vast, murky expanse of the counter-democratic work and personal abuse that police have been systematically engaged in.

Despite the breadth of space left by the lack of specifics in the announcement, it is also of serious concern that there is a geographical limit that would appear to exclude several issues we mentioned in our draft terms of reference.

The inquiry will not examine undercover or covert operations conducted by any body other than an English or Welsh police force

It is well established that these officers work internationally. Peter Francis did so more than 20 years ago. Mark Kennedy worked in 14 countries. These actions, which involved criminal behaviour and human rights abuses, were integral to his deployment, and presumably that of other officers deployed abroad.

By the same token, foreign spies paid by English and Welsh police, or working with their blessing, should not be excluded.

ALL THE POLITICAL SPIES

Some aspects of the breadth are heartening to see, especially the specification that

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.

Whilst these two units were at the core and must be the focus, there were other allied units such as the corporate assistance National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit who are known to have given high level briefings to the construction industry blacklisters. Additionally, the IPCC has conceded that every constabulary’s Special Branch is likely to have illegally supplied the blacklist, not just the spy units.

Furthermore, it’s unclear if the political spying and intimidation of bereaved justice campaigners such as Janet Alder and the Hillsborough families was done by the named units. It seems more likely that it was their local Special Branch, yet they are as serious as many cases of abuse by the Met’s spies and should be examined accordingly. Additionally, in family justice campaigns, family liaison officers and witness support officers were key to the spying and their involvement needs to be examined.

Beyond that, it’s clear that the same political and personal abuses occur in corporate spying, an industry largely populated by former police officers and utterly – often illegally – reliant on contacts within the force. Conversely, police use public resources (again, often illegally) to assist companies targeted by campaigners. To only look at what was done under the auspices of the police is to ignore a sizeable, essential part of the role of political policing. Pitchford must examine it all.

It it to be hoped that when Lord Justice Pitchford fleshes out his terms of reference we will see these issues addressed and his inquiry will deliver the answers that justice demands.

——

FURTHER RESPONSES

The Monitoring Group has supported over 100 family and community justice campaigns, mostly for people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, including several that were spied on and undermined by police. Their response to the announcement is here.

Police Spies Out of Lives speaks for eight women bringing legal cases after having relationships with undercover officers from the SDS and NPOIU. Their response is here.

Our draft terms for the public enquiry, drawn up in consultation with numerous people and groups who were spied on as well as legal representatives, are here.

Formed in late 2013, the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS) is a campaign in its own right and also something of an umbrella group for people targeted by the political undercover police units.

Participants include:

– Members of environmental groups who were spied on, including people who exposed officers

– Members of justice campaigns for those who died at the hands of police who were spied on

– Members of anti-racist groups who were spied on

– Members of political parties who were spied on, including the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party (formerly Militant Labour)

– People who were on the Consulting Association’s construction industry blacklist, including workers and ‘greenlist’ environmentalists whose files contained details that are likely to have come from police

– Lawyers representing what is, as far as we know, everyone bringing a case for personal relationships with undercover officers

– Lawyers representing a large number of people whose convictions were a miscarriage of justice due to the undisclosed evidence of undercover officers

– Lawyers representing individuals, families and organisations involved in justice campaigns surrounding deaths in custody and/or police misconduct

– Lawyers representing a family whose dead child’s identity was stolen by an undercover officer

– Lawyers representing people on the construction industry blacklist

DRAFT TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR INQUIRY UNDER THE INQUIRIES ACT

To inquire into, and make recommendations about, the practices, ethics, governance and impact of undercover policing in the UK between 1968 and 2014, and the Human Rights implications of the same, with special reference to the oversight, governance and conduct of undercover officers in the Special Demonstration Squad, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) and other political policing units, in particular:

1. The activities of undercover officers and informants in political/social justice campaigns, including:
a) The forming of intimate and sexual relationships with people in or associated with target campaign groups and the effects of those relationships on those involved and their families and close friends;
b) The fathering of children as a consequence of forming such relationships and the long term implications for the mother, children and others.
c) The disproportionate effect on women of the tactics used and the extent to which this reflects individual and/or institutionalised sexism.
d) Issues raised by undercover officers living in the homes of political activists.
e) The spying on and disruption of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other activists involved in political campaigns, including the use of informants.
f) The potential impact of undercover officers shaping, disrupting or undermining political activity, including acting as agent provocateurs.
g) The sharing of information between police and private investigators or other companies.
h) The role of undercover officers in the exchange of information about construction workers and political and Trade Union activists with private companies including the Consulting Association, and the creation of databases about individuals.
i) The role of UK undercover officers in political protests or meetings abroad.
j) The use of the identities of dead children by undercover officers.
k) The ongoing risks to members of the public during and after the deployment ends, arising from.
i) the psychological damage caused to undercover officers by lengthy periods of deployment and living with dual identities.
ii) the officers influence on and intimate knowledge of those they have been monitoring.

2. The activities of undercover officers, informants and victim/family liaison/witness support and protection officers in relation to:
a) the investigations into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the attack on Duwayne Brooks and subsequent related inquiries.
b) those bereaved at the hands of the police and family support campaigns.
c) those challenging the efficacy of police investigations eg. in relation to the deaths or assaults of loved ones.

3. Implications for the Justice system of the activities of undercover officers including:
a) failures to disclose evidence about undercover work to prosecution, Courts or parties; disclosure failures in civil cases; failure to disclose to the Macpherson and other Inquiries.
b) undercover officers and informants committing criminal offences or inciting others to do so.
c) undercover officers participating in the criminal justice system (as person arrested, defendant or witness) using a false identity.
d) breaches of legal professional privilege by undercover officers, and the improper collection and retention of information about lawyers acting for protestors or campaigners.
e) decision making and role of the Crown Prosecution Service in respect of the activities of undercover officers.

4. To inquire into the efficacy of systems for supervising, authorising, debriefing and decision-making in relation to undercover policing, including those operated by the MPS, ACPO, the Home Office, and international cooperation between states, and the extent to which governance systems and policies caused, obfuscated or failed to prevent any abuses.

5. To inquire into the extent to which the current legal framework and policies governing authorisation of, oversight of and complaints about undercover police operations has failed, including how the use of “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” prevents scrutiny of abusive and / or potentially unlawful police activity and of accountability relating to the same.

6. And to make recommendations regarding:
a) The appropriateness of undercover policing in social justice and political campaign groups.
b) The conduct of, oversight of and ethical framework for any future undercover police work to safeguard the rights of individuals and ensure the highest professional and ethical standards and compliance with equalities legislation.
c) Changes to the legal and policy framework governing undercover policing, particularly the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the operation of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
d) Changes to the official status and accountability of international policing networks such as the European Co-operation Group on Undercover Activities.

Jeremy Corbyn, MP spied on by the SDS

And still they come. The tide of revelations about the extent of spying by Britain’s political secret police is still flooding in.

When the scandal first broke four years ago, the breadth of groups spied on astonished us. It appeared that the units regarded any political activity outside the sliver of the spectrum represented in parliament as a threat. But we now know it was even broader than that.

In June last year we learned that the Green Party’s Jenny Jones had a file opened on her after she was elected to the Greater London Assembly, and it ran for at least eleven years. A fellow Green, councillor Ian Driver, was also spied on, with his file noting his support for such subversive terrorist causes as equal marriage.

Two weeks ago it went further with whistleblower Special Demonstration Squad officer Peter Francis naming ten MPs who he saw files on, including three that he personally spied on.

The list includes Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Dennis Skinner, Joan Ruddock, Peter Hain, Diane Abbott, Bernie Grant and Labour’s current deputy leader Harriet Harman.

The two other targets have particular resonance. One is Jack Straw who, as Home Secretary, was ultimately in charge of the police. The other is Jeremy Corbyn who was spied on by Francis in the 1990s. Francis was deployed by his manager at the Special Demonstration Squad, Bob Lambert.

Protest against Bob Lambert’s employment at London Metropolitan University, March 2015

Ten years later Lambert was running the Muslim Contact Unit (quite why the intelligence-gathering Special Branch would send its most experienced infiltrators and spies into an outreach project is a question for another time).

Shortly after leaving the police he published a book on police efforts to deal with Muslim extremism in London. His parliamentary booklaunch was hosted by Jeremy Corbyn MP, the man Lambert had sent spies to watch, in September 2011, a month before Lambert was exposed by activists.

In a further twist, Lambert is now controversially employed as a lecturer at London Metropolitan University in Corbyn’s constituency of Islington North.

A furious Corbyn told this week’s Islington Tribune

I was interested in his book at the time and I was involved in the launch. But for all I know he could have had me under surveillance.

Like so many corrupt state officials around the world who’ve been caught and are facing an inquiry, Lambert’s memory has become conveniently selective. He does not deny tasking Francis to spy on Corbyn but says he can’t remember.

The MPs attended parliament the day after the revelations and had a forty minute debate (full transcript here). The Home Secretary wasn’t there, so the government spoke in the form of the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, Mike Penning.

The one bit of positive new information was the assurance that Peter Francis, and any other whistleblowers, will be given immunity under the Official Secrets Act at the public inquiry. It’s notable that the inquiry was singled out – the long standing threat against Francis and, by extension, others who speak elsewhere still stands, apparently.

Challenged on the sexual relationships that officers deceived women into, Penning said that

the Met police apologised

Perhaps he knows a different Met to the rest of us. The Met who deployed all the spies have only admitted that three out of an estimated 200 were actually police officers.

They are still spending huge amounts of public money resisting the plain, established truth in court. The partner of John Dines, Helen Steel, is back in court next month trying to get the Met to drop their absurd, insulting obstruction tactics.

Back in parliament, Jack Dromey made the bold claim that

Labour has for years pressed for much stronger oversight of undercover policing

This flies in the face of the fact that every one of the political police spy units was set up under Labour who, in the early 2000s, handed control of three of them to the Association of Chief Police Officers, a private company exempt from Freedom of Information legislation.

Peter Hain led the targeted MPs’ charge and was the first of several who demanded to see their full files. Penning steadfastly refused.

Penning did say more than once that there would be a release of whatever wasn’t needed to be redacted for reasons of security. One of the affected MPs, Joan Ruddock, immediately put in a request to the Met for her file. In the days that followed, the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow underlined the seriousness of the scandal. The following week Ruddock was told that the Met would ‘neither confirm nor deny’ that there was any file on her.

The MPs should certainly get to see the information that was collected about them, but they should not have it as a privilege. It is clearly established that the spy units were extraordinarily intrusive, with a paranoid vision of political activism and scant regard for the rights and wellbeing of citizens.

Most of the official reports such as Operation Herne are self-investigations and have thus been self-discrediting. We cannot trust the words of proven liars. Everyone who was spied on by these units should be told and given proper access to their file to judge for themselves what was recorded and why.

Lord Justice Pitchford, who will chair the inquiry

We welcome the announcement of a full public inquiry into political undercover policing, but it must be truly transparent, robust and independent.

It cannot be credible unless the Home Secretary and the Chair of the Inquiry, Lord Justice Pitchford, meet with those affected by the spying before drawing up the inquiry’s Terms of Reference, and they must act on their suggestions and concerns.

Nor can it be parcelled off to particular units or cases. It cannot be merely limited to the Special Demonstration Squad or their era of 1968-2008. The most notorious officer, Mark Kennedy, did not work for the SDS and was spying later than that, and clearly the inquiry must cover him and his unit the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, as well as other allied political policing units such as National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit and the National Domestic Extremism Team.

The family justice campaigns, the women deceived into relationships by officers, the construction workers blacklisted with the help of police, the families whose dead children’s identities were stolen by officers as well as the campaign groups spied on must all have a voice. They need to be there both in the drawing up of the terms of reference and to be afforded proper representation at the inquiry itself.

Nor should the inquiry ignore the ongoing issue of officers selling knowledge and experience acquired while undercover with these units to the private sector, and whose activities have caused ongoing upset and disruption to the lives of individuals being targeted. Partial justice is not justice.

Attempts to uncover the truth in court cases and by journalists have been stymied by the police wilfully preventing justice by asserting a policy of ‘neither confirm nor deny’ when confronted with the wrongdoing of officers. The obstructive, at times farcical, tactic must have no place in the inquiry.

The inquiry should happen without delay rather than waiting for completion of partisan, discredited police self-investigations such as Operation Herne.

Former officers must be encouraged to come forward as whistleblowers and protected from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

Senior police officers past and present, especially former Met Commissioners and Special Branch Commanders since 1968, must be held to account for any wrong doing attributed to the units under their command.

We fully endorse the draft Terms of Reference submitted to the Home Secretary by laywers representing eight women who were deceived into having intimate relationships with undercover officers.

Peter Francis, former Special Demonstration Squad (“SDS”) officer has welcomed the announcement of a judge-led public inquiry into undercover policing

6 March 2014

A former Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer has welcomed the announcement of a judge-led public inquiry into undercover policing.

Theresa May announced the public inquiry, in the wake of Mr Ellison QC’s “profoundly shocking” findings, published today in his review into police corruption and undercover surveillance associated with the original Stephen Lawrence investigation.

Peter Francis, a former SDS officer, said: “I am delighted by the Home Secretary’s announcement to set up a public inquiry into the work of undercover police officers. I have been calling for such an inquiry since October 2011.

“When the full truth comes out about the Police’s work and activities against political campaigns and protests, across the UK since 1968, I think the public will be very shocked.”

“The public inquiry must investigate the work undertaken by police’s Special Demonstration Squad and its undercover surveillance of political campaigns in general.

“It should not be limited in relation to time or particular issues. The truth about the tactics of undercover policing will only be revealed by way of a truly independent, public inquiry, which will require those involved to provide evidence under oath.”

Information was correct at time of publishing.