Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 14, part two

11 May 2021

Evidence from witness:
‘Vince Miller’ (HN354, 1976-79)

Anti-racist protesters, Lewisham, 13 August 1977 [Pic: Syd Shelton]

The first post focused on his joining the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad and his deceiving women into relationships.

This one covers the political activity he was involved in during his deployment, which centred on the Wlathamstow branch of the Socialist Workers Party.

THE BATTLE OF LEWISHAM

Battle of Lewisham plaque, erected on the corner of New Cross Road & Clifton Rise in 2017

The anti-fascist protest of 13^th August 1977 known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham‘ has come up at the Inquiry several times already, but Miller’s material sheds more light on events.

The fascist National Front (NF) were planning another of their marches through areas with ethnically diverse populations, and a wide range of anti-racist groups were mobilising to stop it. As it turned out, the NF were stopped on the day, and it is now celebrated as a turning point that began their decline.

The Inquiry showed a ‘minute sheet’ [MPS-0733365] circulated two days before the protest.

This was attached to an internal Special Branch report about the tactics the police expected left-wing counter-demonstrators, including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) that Miller infiltrated, to use in Lewisham.

The document says it:

‘shows that the SWP are determined to provoke a violent confrontation with the National Front.’

Miller agreed with this description of the SWP’s aims.

Inquiry counsel explained they think this report was sent from the Commander of Operations in Special Branch to the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Public Order division (‘A.8’). Miller wasn’t certain whether any of this intelligence came from him:

‘I can’t say definitely, but I would expect it would have contributed.’

Miller says that his SWP comrades had asked him to steward the anti-fascist demo, and so he was up late the night before. He does not remember if the SWP squatted a house in Clifton Rise or not, nor the names of the roads the march was due to move along.

According to the report, the SWP set up ‘protection squads’ (two from each branch) to keep an eye on railway stations and other key locations in the area. These were to be made up of six ‘heavies’, according to the report. Another, ‘specially selected’, squad would be mobile, on the look-out for fascist sympathisers to attack in the streets.

It says that the SWP’s plan was to:

‘attack, harass and intimidate the National Front, with the ultimate aim of creating a riot situation, and attempt to isolate the rear section of the NF column between Clifton Rise and Malpas Road SE4, using buildings and shoppers as protection against police action’.

There was talk of blocking the NF march with a vehicle if it tried going via Amersham Road, and of the anti-fascists regrouping near Lewisham station if the NF got past Malpas Road.

Miller remembers that everyone who opposed the NF agreed that the far-right had to be stopped from marching through New Cross, and that they all organised and planned to stop it. However, he doesn’t remember much of the detail involved in the various tactics listed above, though aspects were not unfamiliar.

Asked if this determination to stop the march was the result of the NF’s ‘swaggering’ (a descriptor that anti-racist campaigner Peter Hain used in his testimony) through the streets and their intimidation of local communities, he said the NF were ‘deliberately confrontational’, adding:

‘I don’t think these situations would be allowed to take place now.’

Miller recalled how the NF was headed by a ‘full colour party’ carrying Union flags and drums. There was ‘taunting and unpleasantness’ between the two groups.

He says he attended the stewards’ meeting the night before. There were probably a handful of others from his SWP branch there, perhaps half a dozen.

The Bishop of Southwark leads the ALCARAF banner, 13 August 1977

After the briefing, Miller went for a wander when he claims he saw ‘certain elements’ (none of whom he recognised) placing caches of bricks and other debris in gardens along the likely route, to be used as ammunition the next day.

Miller says he phoned this information into his police superiors, and would also have told them what he knew about the numbers expected from across London.

Some of the counter-protest was organised by the All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (ALCARAF), a broad coalition of local groups including local politicians, church groups and other organisations. Miller does not think he joined their rally in the morning as he was up very late the night before.

Rather, he believes he joined the main demo later on, in the afternoon. He wasn’t there when the police cleared the main road. Instead, when he arrived the NF demonstrators were trying to emerge from a side road. He described ‘missiles flying’ towards the NF’s flag-wavers, but said the group he was with didn’t throw any missiles.

Despite the Met deploying 4,000 uniformed officers, Miller explained that ‘following the march’ was impossible; ‘it was chaos’. The police had no protective gear in those days. In his words:

‘the mounted branch took a complete hammering’.

There were running confrontations all over the area for the rest of the day. Miller described how, after the march was over, members of the far-right were poised to attack the protestors.

Miller said he was ‘too close for my own comfort’ to the confrontations, and that he avoided getting involved in any ‘direct physical violence’ himself. He got separated from his ‘comrades’ and made ‘my lonely way home’ at the end of the day.

Referring to a post-protest report submitted 13 August 1977 by a Chief Inspector [MPS-0733367], Miller says the events of that day caused a lot of ‘concern and investigation and review’ within the Metropolitan Police.

He said he imagines the intelligence he provided (about the bricks, etc) would have been included, but doesn’t seem to have read this report yet. The Inquiry pointed out that they have not found any reference to it, but this may be because it was written immediately after the clashes.

We learned from a report dated 23 August 1977 [MPS-0733369] that Special Branch held a special debriefing for eighteen of its officers. Miller says he was not one of them. He explained that it’s likely that the SDS’s views would have been represented by one or two officers, ‘at a high level’.

He notes the SDS undercovers were disappointed that their pre-intelligence had been ignored, resulting in severe violence. He believes this was the first time riot shields were used by police in Great Britain. Despite that, in the SDS Annual Report for 1977, the Lewisham event is described as a triumph for the unit.

Further down in the report is a section entitled ‘hooliganism’, saying that while parts of the borough were left unpoliced:

‘a large number of coloured hooligans were enjoying the chance to indulge themselves’

Later on he suggested that the SDS were less likely to use words like ‘coloured’ in their reports by this time, and would use other words, eg ‘locals’. He refused to be drawn on what exactly was said in the safe-house about ‘locals, coming out and joining in the general chaos and mayhem’.

With the typical police dismissal of genuine political motivations on the part of demonstrators, Miller commented about how there are young people ‘who enjoy the violence’ and ‘there is an element of youth that enjoyed getting involved in confrontation’.

Police detain a man, Lewisham, 13 August1977

He remembers phoning up other spycops after the event, to check they had got home safely. A large number of them were present that day, because they were infiltrating many of the other groups who attended that day, not just the SWP.

They definitely discussed it in the safe-house, he confirmed. He recalled that they were ‘amazed’ that their recommendations – for example, changing the route of the march, to bypass and minimise some of the planned confrontation – were ‘completely ignored’ by the uniformed police.

Once again, it’s notable that police infiltrating the groups at an anti-fascist counter-protest admit they were there in numbers and discussed it. This makes it all the more clear that they are lying when they claim that they were absent from the April 1979 demonstration where police killed Blair Peach, and that none of them remember discussing it afterwards.

According to a report of a meeting at The Crown pub on 17 August 1977 authored by Miller [UCPI0000011196], some members of his SWP group talked about arming themselves with catapults and ball bearings for self-defence. They were preparing ‘for the backlash’ in the aftermath of Lewisham. He does not remember anyone actually doing this, and dismisses it as another example of ‘rhetoric’ that wasn’t necessarily followed up with action.

NATIONAL FRONT ATTACKS

The Inquiry next moved to look at ongoing attacks by the National Front on minority groups and also the SWP. They asked if the Anti-Nazi League’s defence work against racist activity – flyposting, removing racist graffiti, recruiting anti-racists – ever spilled over into vigilantism

‘No, I think that would be a shade too far.’

Miller noted the depth of fear that people had if the NF gained any greater power, and were prepared to oppose them. The Inquiry pressed: do you think your reporting on the SWP protected the public from attacks by the far right?

His answer was that, in the broad sense, his work in the SWP did achieve that – even though he was only doing that work to undermine the group:

‘not, I suppose, if you’re talking about random attacks on individual people… but I suppose, to some degree, my involvement… would have generated more enthusiasm for the general combating the extreme right.’

POSITIONS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Miller was treasurer for the Walthamstow branch of the SWP, and also district treasurer. This gave him access to the membership list, home addresses, contact phone numbers and a few bank accounts.

‘And of course it gave you justification on knocking on a door at any time to talk to anyone if you wanted to find anything out.’

Being district treasurer as opposed to just branch gave him justification for going further afield. He visited about three quarters of the Leyton / Leytonstone branch addresses. This included helping to recruit new members and reporting if they were disaffected members from other groups.

Why would all this information be wanted? According to Miller, knowing the size of the group was critical, it indicated the ‘virility’ of the organisation.

‘We were at the rawest end of just grabbing information and things like that. When it got entered into the machine… that turned around and gave it some assessment. We were just harvesting whatever we could and letting others analyse.’

Later he agrees that the Security Service (MI5) was interested in the sort of material he could provide, such as the lists of names of SWP members.

He resigned as district treasurer because there were internal issues in the group. Miller appears to have aligned with a faction in the SWP, though it is unclear what the political issue was, even to him at the time:

‘I resigned on the grounds that whoever it was resigned with me told me that I was going to have to resign because we were forming a different view.’

He wasn’t upset about losing his position because it was good to move on and because a ‘pretty fair picture had been gained.’

Miller was also on the social committee of the SWP’s Outer East London District, though he says that apparently involved ‘virtually nothing’ and he never arranged anything.

He also chaired branch meetings but claims this did not amount to much as so much of the agenda was centrally controlled. His managers were relaxed about him assuming these positions of responsibility. They didn’t directly instruct to do it, but said it was a good thing to do if he had the opportunity and thought it would work. Generally, he paints a picture of managers not being too fussed how he did the job as long as they got the information.

Miller accepts that he had some influence as a result of these positions, but says it was not huge and he could not have changed their perspectives on issues.

REVOLUTION

Asked about the SWP’s aim to have revolutionary change to create a socialist society, Miller said that nobody expected it to be any time soon.

‘They were far more interested in building the working class movement, in order to generate an attitude whereby a new society could be formed.’

He said, while there was talk of violence being likely in some eventual mass overthrowing of the current system, individual acts of violence were discouraged by the SWP.

As with other undercover officers, personal details were reported by Miller simply because they were available. The longer term view was that things like personal bank details may serve a policing purpose further down the line.

‘These individuals had been identified by Security Services as people who were worthy of watching and therefore “worthy of watching” means knowing where they are and how to get hold of them.’

Miller reported on a woman in the SWP, Madeleine, who he later deceived into a realtionship, initially updating the file which had already been opened on her.

SPYING ON CHILDREN

Some of Miller’s reports refer to children. There was no prohibition on this; it was ‘just more colour to the picture of the main target’. Asked if he would initiate opening a file on a child, Miller replied:

‘It depends on the age of the child… Certainly when you’re getting to 15 and 16-year olds, some of those would be considered if they were being sufficiently active to be worthy of a bit more attention.’

Pressed on this issue, he conceded that giving a child ‘a bit more attention’ did indeed mean opening a Special Branch file on them. Despite having just told us that people were watched because they’d been watched in the past, he tried to brush off spying on children as a harmless activity that was only done due to the inefficiencies of the filing system:

‘this was a hugely paper-driven system, and the fact that you opened a file actually reduced hugely the amount of paperwork that was involved. I mean, I won’t go into the huge filing processes, but it actually made everything a lot quicker and structures and that. So if somebody was constantly being referred to in all sorts of purposes, then they’d probably get a file number, purely and simply because it structured everything better.’

SUPPORT FROM MANAGEMENT

Miller is of the view that more professional advice could have been available to him. However, he recognises that he would have been determined to go his own path, and did not take advantage of what might have been available in any case.

After the deployment Miller left Special Branch to go into other forms of policing.

ALAN BOND – ANOTHER CHILD?

At the very end of the day’s questioning, Miller was asked about another officer, ‘Alan Bond‘ (HN67, 1981-86) and whether he had heard if Bond had relationships while undercover.

Miller and Bond’s wives were friends but it is only recently that Miller came to know that Bond had admitted to his wife he had a relationship while undercover. Miller did not confirm whether a child had been fathered out of this.

Written supplemented witness statement of Vince Miller

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 14, part one

11 May 2021

Evidence from witness:
‘Vince Miller’ (HN354, 1976-79)

Special Demonstration Squad officer ‘Vince Miller’ while undercover in the late 1970s

The 11 May hearing of the Undercover Policing Inquiry focused on a single police witness: Officer HN354 who, as ‘Vince Miller‘, infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) from 1976-1979.

Miller has submitted two written statements, one written on 18 November 2018 and a second (supplementary and consolidated) statement written on 10 March 2021.

During his deployment, he had sexual relations with four women that we know of, including ‘Madeleine’ (a member of the Walthamstow branch of the SWP) whose compelling evidence we heard yesterday. Madeleine’s written statement is also available.

Miller disputes some of Madeleine’s account of their relationship.

Miller was questioned by David Barr QC, Counsel to the Inquiry, whose performance was notably focused and sustained, keeping the pressure on highly significant issues. Though we have been critical in the past, it is just as important to note when he shows himself the right person for the job.

The day was particularly long by Inquiry standards and covered a vast amount of ground; so much so that this report will focus on the earlier part about his joining the Special Demonstration Squad and abuse of women. We will publish part two, covering the political activity he was involved in and end of his deployment, separately.

TESTIMONY BEGINS

Asked whether he was interviewed before joining the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), Miller it was nothing more formal than a casual discussion about what would be involved.

He remembered that one of the first things they asked about was his marital status. Miller explained he was the first unmarried undercover to be deployed. He was in a relationship at the time, but not cohabiting. He thought being married was preferred, because having a wife meant some form of support whilst enduring the stress of an undercover deployment.

BACK OFFICE & REPORT WRITING

There were only a certain number of officers in the field at a time, so he worked in the unit’s back office until there was a ‘vacancy’.

He would take calls from undercovers and pass on messages. He said that reading undercovers’ reports provided him with ‘snapshots’ of information, and the content and style expected in the SDS.

Miller provided some new insights into the reporting process. As SDS reports were based on intelligence from undercover, they were given a higher security classification than standard Special Branch ones. He said the Registry File references which appear in the reports attached to names and groups were added by back office staff like himself. Sometimes information from various officers would be merged into one report, or split; this was done by management, who would also check the reports.

A document [UCPI0000010718] from July 1976 refers to a photograph of a Revolutionary Communist Group member being shown to informants at the request of the Security Service (MI5), and the individual being ‘positively identified’ as a result.

Miller added:

‘I would say that almost every report that was submitted on the groups we were working with would be copied across to the Security Service.’

He says that Superintendent Derek Kneale would visit the SDS back office every hour, and sometimes visit to the safe house. Kneale knew the squad ‘very well’.

LEARNING THE TRADECRAFT

Asked how he learned his tradecraft, Miller said the spycops shared tips amongst themselves, such as what vehicle to get. He came to know all his contemporaries during his time in the squad.

Together, they attended meetings at the safe houses twice a week. Occasionally, officers would talk to the managers in private – ‘managers always made themselves available’.

However, they also gave the deployed officers leeway, as there was no communication once in the field.

SWEATING

The next question was a crucial one: whether he received any guidance on personal relationships with activists. Miller says he cannot remember any discussion about this.

Barr then read from the ‘gisted’ (summarised and censored) statement that Miller had previously submitted to the Inquiry [UCPI0000034356], which noted an individual was keen to start a relationship with him.

It said:

‘[Miller] did not reciprocate for the very reason that this was contrary to SDS directions, morally questionable and could have compromised his deployment.’

Contradicting what he had said earlier, this was just the first of various inconsistencies in Miller’s testimony. It was from this point that his demeanour changed from the relatively relaxed to more nervous. Eventually, he could be seen sweating.

Miller said this woman’s approach to him was half way into his deployment and confirmed she was not one of the four he admits having sex with. He says he had no physical sexual relationship with this woman, but she ‘very much gave the impression’ of wanting one.

He also confirmed a private conversation between him and the SDS head, CI Geoff Craft (HN34), about it:

‘I said I thought it was becoming an issue, and… asked what his opinion would be if such situations developed. He then said that he didn’t think it was a very good idea.’

He clarified that this advice referred to both a relationship and sex. He also admitted it was good advice, which he should have followed.

Barr probed what Miller had meant by ‘morally questionable’:

‘Because we were not being totally honest with the other persons involved in the relationship.’

Barr steadily drew Miller out through his questioning, and got him to admit:

‘If it’s sexual extending over a long period of time, I’d have definitely said that was wrong, yes.’

And whether a one-night stand in his cover name was also morally questionable?

‘I now have to accept that was an incorrect act.’

COMMITTING CRIME

Miller was asked about guidance on undercover officers committing crime. He said that they were told to avoid carrying heavy wooden banner poles at demos in case ‘an enthusiastic police officer’ thought they constituted offensive weapons.

He also admitted to drink-driving during his deployment, explaining it was:

‘considerably more common then than now.’

On ‘legal professional privilege’ – confidnetiality between lawyer and client, which was breached by officers who were arrested when undercover – Miller said he was aware of the concept but not the term.

SUBVERSION – IT’S WHAT MI5 SAYS IT IS!

Ask about his understanding of ‘subversion’, Miller said that ‘to be brutally honest’, he was not ‘really concerned’ about the definition of it – it was whatever the Security Service defined it to be. If they said an organisation was subversive, it was good enough for him.

Pressed further he said:

‘I think the subversive would seek to change things without going through the parliamentary system.’

Although asked if there was any guidance on what he should and shouldn’t report, he instead gave an answer on who was and wasn’t to be reported on. He said that MPs shouldn’t be and ‘you had to be very careful with reporting journalists’.

Miller made the point he ‘was essentially a foot soldier’, and if some information seemed sensitive would seek authority or permission from his managers.

IDENTITY THEFT

He was also asked more about how he created his false identity, ‘Vince Miller’. It was standard practice for SDS officers to steal the identity of a dead child as the basis for their undercover persona. He thought it unlikely that the deceased children’s family would find out, so did not worry about this. Nor had he given consideration as to how they might feel if the identity theft ever came to light.

Asked how he felt, upon reflection, so many years later, his response was neither to apologise or express regret. Instead he spoke of how current technology has made the practice obsolete.

This is another theme of Miller’s evidence; despite clearly being distressed by some of his actions, or at least being made to acknowledge their consequences, he never steps up to take this opportunity to make amends, nor offer any apparently genuine contrition.

Miller did several things to make it harder for anyone to delve into his identity, for instance choosing a child with no father listed. He also picked a different first name to use, ‘Vincent’ being neither his or the dead child’s real first name.

He had a fake job with a firm installing Portakabins, partitions and suspended ceilings. This was a real firm, and he set things up with them so if anyone called for him, they would say was out and about, the job supposedly taking him to different work sites. This was, he said:

‘a good buffer to keep the communications under some kind of control’.

FEAR OF BEING FOUND OUT

Though there was ‘constant concern’ about being identified as a police officer, Miller had no contingency plan. Officers were told to contact the SDS office immediately if anything happened.

Miller relates how he was once recognised by a uniformed officer at a demonstration. To his good fortune, the officer didn’t approach him at the time, but he did report Miller’s involvement in this activist group to New Scotland Yard.

He seems to have made up some elements of his ‘legend’ on the spur of the moment to deal with questions as they arose. Some stand out as they have been used by various other spycops. In response to a question about what he was doing at Christmas, he said his parents had died, effectively ending that line of conversation.

He made up a story about a previous ‘toxic’ relationship to explain his lack of a record collection and other belongings. He says it was ‘purely and simply to explain the circumstances under which I was living’, adding that his bedsit was the sort of place that nobody would want to stay for long.

Despite these similarities to the cover stories of colleagues, Miller says he has no idea what other spycops officers’ legends were. Rather, he was able to draw on his personal experience of a break-up to inspire his cover story.

WALTHAMSTOW SWP

He was told to find a group in Walthamstow to spy on. He chose the local branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Asked why they were a suitable target, he said the SWP were:

‘defined as subversive by those who are more expert in that field’

He added that the Waltham Forest branch ‘was an active group’.

Miller says the Walthamstow SWP was the only group he joined. In another of his inconsistencies, he then played the need to target the Socialist Workers, saying the SDS regarded the party as a ‘feeder organisation’ from which they could move to other groups:

‘One from which you could be disaffected and join a less populist, more idealistic line.’

Rock Against Racism carnival poster, 30 April 1978

Later he said he used his position in the SWP to meet more people, to cast his net wider, though little evidence of that has been provided in terms of his reporting.

It was easy to infiltrate the group – he just approached local paper sellers and they invited him to their public meetings at the local pub, the Rose and Crown.

Asked whether he influenced the direction of the group, Miller says he deliberately chose not to read up on left-wing theory before joining the party. Instead he presented as ‘politically naïve’, waiting for the party to educate him about politics.

Once Miller joined, he attended pickets and other demos, as well as birthday parties, socials and fundraisers. He was even on the social committee of the Outer East London District.

However, he only remembers attending one music event – the Anti Nazi League’s large Rock Against Racism concert in Hackney on 30 April 1978.

He would also help members of the group move house, and go to the pub with them during and after meetings and other events. He would go back to their houses, where drinking would continue.

OFFICIAL: NAZIS ARE NOT SUBVERSIVE

Barr asked Miller if he considered infiltrating the far right, to which Miller gave the curious reply:

‘I don’t think I should talk about the far-right deployments at this stage.’

Throughout the hearings, it is clear that the SDS had a political bias against the left and were seemingly wilfully ignorant (at best) of the dangers the far-right posed.

Miller followed this line no uncertain terms:

‘I’m not sure at that time [the far right] was classified as subversive, and therefore would not have been within our remit.’

He did not mention the public order part of their remit, or the general policing requirement to stop murders, violent assaults, arson, harassment and property damage being perpetrated against Black and minority communities.

BOOZY AFTERNOONS AT SDS SAFE HOUSES

The meetings at the SDS safe houses were attended by the undercovers, the managers, office staff, any new recruits, and occasionally more senior officers. The safe house he recalled was a large flat, with two or three bedrooms, and a living room where the group met.

Miller would submit his diaries and written reports – usually hand-written, although he thinks typewriters were issued later. They would sometimes get feedback if these reports were not at the desired standard. He had several corrections on compliance with Special Branch’s house style.

Asked about the topic of conversations at the safe house, he said they would discuss likely attendance numbers at demonstrations. They would work together to identify individuals (e.g., from an album of photos which was passed around).

Miller went on to explain the value of the peer support – there was nobody else these officers could discuss issues with, as they could not talk to their families about their work:

‘And of course, because this was a rolling group, there was almost every likelihood that what you were finding difficult as a new field officer had been met by somebody else, who had said, “look, I tried this and it did work,” or, “it didn’t work”. It was very much a laid-back thing as the afternoon went on. Which is where you’d got a sort of informal exchange of information, but also a release so that you could actually talk about things somewhere.’

He said these afternoons were ‘relaxed’ and ‘laid back’, and suggested that they got more so, especially if the spycops were drinking. The managers would leave at some point and the undercovers stayed until it was time to go to their political meetings in the evening.

‘We were doing a job that not many people could or would do, and it was valuable’

He says that there were always opportunities for SDS officers to discuss welfare issues with their managers, but:

‘we’d probably have turned it down even if we needed their help.’

Such discussions also included the demands of being deployed in the different groups. For instance, those spying on the Maoists complained about how much reading they had to do.

However, Miller noted they couldn’t just ‘sit on the outside and take the Mickey’ out of their targets – they had to take them seriously and have some respect for their political beliefs in order to be effective.

‘I think police officers have to deal with what they have to deal with, and you just have to accept that people have strange views and our views that don’t chime with yours, and cope with that.’

NO BANTER

Asked about the kind of ‘jokes’ that were told, Miller spoke of the need for ‘stress relief’. However, he claimed they were more likely to joke about other police officers than about their targets.

Unlike the account in the witness statement of his colleague, ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79), he does not recall any banter about individual undercovers or any ‘sexual jokes’:

‘It was not like the stereotypical rugby club atmosphere after the match type atmosphere.’

In particular, he denied hearing any banter like, ‘he’ll have made her bite the blankets again last night’ (a cringingly unforgettable piece of evidence from Coates’ evidence a few days previously).

Asked if any of the jokes might have been considered offensive by feminists at the time he said:

‘Someone may well say “did you hear the Jim Davidson joke of last night?” His humour would no longer be acceptable, but that might be going round and you’d be told that.’

Later he insisted he didn’t remember any racist joking or opinions, ever, by anyone, and says he is ‘absolutely certain’ of this. He added that he was only referring to the SDS, not the entire police service, when he said this.

Did the managers join in with banter? His response to this question was about people ‘having different personalities and ways of interacting’.

REPUTATIONS OF OTHER SPYCOPS

Next, Barr turned to asking questions about other SDS officers’ reputations with women.

He began with Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76), who had sexual relationships with four women including an activist called Mary. Miller confirmed Gibson’s reputation as a ‘ladies man’, but says he only knew of this after the officer had moved on from the SDS. They remained friends after their deployments.

What about ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76)?

‘He probably crossed the line.’

Miller said that Pickford never spoke to him about sexual relationships, or about falling in love (not just with activists but with anyone):

‘I think I heard stories when he was getting married for the second or third time.’

Next, he was asked about ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83). He said that that officer was ‘somebody who enjoyed the company of women’, but that he didn’t try to seduce any in Miller’s presence.

Miller says his deployment didn’t overlap with that of ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155, 1979-83) but recalled that he ‘got into all sorts of scrapes’ – mentioning ‘women, drinks and all sorts of things’. He doesn’t remember any rumours about Cooper having sex while undercover, but:

‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’

BANTER?

Barr tested the consistency of the day’s witness evidence, by returning to ask again about the jokes and banter – did he hear any on the subject of the spycops having sexual relationships?

Miller insisted that it:

‘was never a subject of banter in my presence.’

Barr then followed up on evidence from previous days about manager turning a blind eye. Miller said he isn’t sure if they were even aware of the relationships:

‘It was certainly never openly said, “yeah, get on with it” or anything like that.’

Last week we heard ‘Graham Coates’ describe how he was granted permission to transfer his attention from the SWP to anarchists, at his own request (because he says he personally found anarchism more ‘fascinating’).

How important was officer retention to the unit’s managers? Did this mean that undercovers’ requests were accommodated wherever possible?

‘They were generally tolerant of our requests. I don’t know if there’s a particular line here, but yes, they were very supportive and understood that you would make requests at certain times.’

HEAVY DRINKER

Asked about his alcohol consumption, Miller said he would drink every day and would have, on average, three pints, while the other SWP members sipped on a half a pint.

In her evidence, Madeleine said he was ‘always first to the bar’. Miller quickly agreed with this, seemingly proud of his reputation as a heavy drinker. Pausing for thought, he then said this was part of his tradecraft.

In particular, he claimed, he got into the habit of going into the pub ahead of the others in order to check who else was there, and ensure there was nobody who would recognise him in his real identity. He says even nowadays he still does this, and tends to position himself with his back to the wall in pubs.

BACK TO WALTHAMSTOW SWP

Miller says he got to know Wlathamstow SWP branch members well, however, wasn’t ‘an expert on their private lives’. He didn’t spend as much time with the married members of the branch, who had their own personal and professional lives going on.

However, he kept a distance between himself and the activists generally, and kept communication under control. He didn’t invite them round to his cover flat, he didn’t make himself easily available. He chose when to spend time with them.

Barr asked about him spending time at SWP members’ homes. He recalled the house-share where ‘Madeleine’ and other members lived. What did he know about her?

‘I believe I knew that she had been married and was no longer with her husband, and pretty much that was it.’

He was reminded that he filed a report in July 1978 [UCPI0000011289] about Madeleine’s wedding, which had taken place in 1976. Was this usual practice?

His excuse is that there was already a Special Branch file open on Madeleine, and he was simply making sure it was kept up to date. He says he didn’t attend the wedding, and doesn’t remember meeting Madeleine’s husband (also a SWP member).

However Madeleine’s evidence contradicts this – she says he visited the couple’s flat.

WHITE SHIRT

There followed an unusual line of questioning – about whether he wore a white shirt during his deployment. In his statement, Miller denied doing so. However Madeleine has provided the Inquiry with photographs taken of him back in those days, and he can clearly be seen in what looks like a white shirt.

Miller quibbled about the photograph – how could they tell what colour the shirt was, given it was a black and white image? When pressed, he did concede he wore white shirts on occasion, but couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that his original statement was, as Barr charitably put it, ‘mistaken’.

Though these sort of exchanges appear trivial or odd, there are generally solid legal reasons to this strategy, which was particularly highlighted by the evidence of both Madeleine and Miller. In this there was a dispute of fact around the relationships, so in asking these questions Barr was starting to test the veracity of Miller’s account.

It is a problem that it is not being done properly by the Inquiry in other cases, such as when undercover ‘Dave Robertson‘ (HN45, 1970-73) disputed Diane Langford’s account of his exposure. However, it is heartening to see the Inquiry do it properly in this particular instance.

RELATIONSHIP WITH MADELEINE

After the lunch break, David Barr QC zoomed in on Miller’s relationship with Madeleine, in what became the most intense set of questioning at the Inquiry to date.

Unlike other sessions, Barr did not let incomplete answers simply stand and move on. If he wasn’t satisfied with the answer he would rephrase the question, and then once again if he thought it necessary.

Barr also compared what Miller said now, to what he had said in his first witness statement three years ago, and in his supplementary statement of this year, and inquired what had caused him to change his mind or brought back memories. Barr additionally picked up on when Miller said something different to what he had stated earlier.

What did not come over in the transcript was Barr’s use of pauses. Miller would often take time before answering, and Barr would let the response linger a bit before moving to the next question. This added to the tension, you could hear the proverbial pin drop in the hearing room as people collectively waited for the next move. Sometimes the questions were just devastating.

Miller squirmed, his quite red face flushing as his body language gave him away. He seemed to want to disappear under the table, looking down, becoming smaller. Only when the topic of Madeleine was finished did he straighten up again.

It’s difficult to capture that tension in this report without having to include too many extensive quotes.

THE RELATIONSHIP BEGINS

Barr started a question to introduce the topic of Miller’s relationship with Madeleine, asking him what Madeleine’s attitude to the police was.

Miller claimed not to remember, but said SWP members generally distrusted the police, as they were more likely to be right-wing. They believed the State would not hesitate to tap their telephones or intercept their mail. The police would often protect the fascists’ demonstrations, and were seen as the ‘repressive arm of the State’.

Miller said his relationship with Madeleine was ‘quite marginal’ before it became sexual in late summer of 1979. They would have met at the weekly meetings, and socially, but always as part of a larger group of people.

He says he has no memory at all of the location when they first got together. Madeleine told us it was a house party in Ilford, and he has no reason to doubt her memory on that.

Indeed, whilst he was wary of admitting much, Miller did not dispute much of Madeleine’s detailed recollection of the start of their relationship; that he was in a chair and she sat on his lap, that they spent the evening chatting and flirting, that neither of them had an excessive amount to drink, and that he drove them back to Madeleine’s flat. What he did question was whether he actually pulled her on his lap.

In his first witness statement he had sought to excuse the four sexual encounters with his consumption of alcohol. Now Miller was clear that he was not blaming it on alcohol, nor on Madeleine:

‘Whoever made the invitation, I could have declined. It is therefore my responsibility.’

Miller said that back at her place, they sat in the lounge chatting with her house mates, when she invited him up to her room. He claimed he was surprised that she would say this with others present.

Barr noted that, as a serving police officer on duty, this would have been the time to say no. He asked Miller for his reasons to decide otherwise. The answer was sobering:

‘I think the prospect of not driving home and spending a pleasant evening continued and overcame my hesitation.’

Barr bluntly asked him; did you go into the bedroom because you wanted sex – despite the fact you were a serving police officer on duty?

‘I think I’d have to say yes.’

ON TAKING PRECAUTIONS

Miller gave no consideration to what would have happened if Madeleine had got pregnant.

In fact he said that, as she was a feminist, it was her responsibility:

Q. Did you use contraception?
A. Not that I recall.
Q. Did you give any thought to the consequences of fathering a child when you were in fact an undercover police officer?
A. No, I didn’t. I think my perception was that as a full feminist socialist supporter, then if there was any need for protection, then she would have mentioned it. I didn’t see her as some kind of shrinking violet, or something like that. This was a member of the women’s movement, and women had the same right to ask for things and to insist on things as a man. And I would have supported that then. I incidentally still do. So she would have had the right – absolute right to insist, if it was necessary.
Q. But in the absence of any insistence?
A. Then I assumed everything was safe. In contraceptive terms.

Despite knowing she was recently out of an abusive relationship, Miller presumes she would never have felt pressured by him.

He remembers using the bad-breakup story as part of his ‘legend’, but while Madeleine recalls talking about it in bed, Miller has no recollection of sharing more with her about this previous ‘toxic’ relationship. Nor does he remember telling her, or anyone else, that he had been grown up in a children’s home.

Miller is not denying her account of this, he just can’t remember it. This was one of the occasions where Miller seemed really close to admitting more. We can only assume that listening to Madeleine’s account the day before had caused him to shift on what he had been prepared to acknowledge in his own evidence.

‘MORALLY QUESTIONABLE’

Barr returned to the passage from Miller’s gisted witness statement and honed in on the phase ‘morally questionable’.

He asked Miller if he thought it was morally questionable to have a sexual relationship over a period of time. Miller responded:

‘I’d have definitely said that was wrong, yes’.

And what about a one-night stand, was that morally questionable?

‘On reflection, I would say it was.’

And at the time?

‘Well, obviously there was an occasion when my worries about such things were overcome. I have to accept that [it] was an incorrect act.’

Miller said it hadn’t occurred to him that his cover story of past pain and not wanting to be hurt again might evoke feelings of sympathy, intimacy and protectiveness amongst those he told it to.

BETRAYAL

Asked if he thought Madeleine would have had sex with him if she knew who he really was, Miller wavered:

‘Difficult to say. If she knew who I really was then possibly she would have liked me, if she knew that I was a police officer then almost certainly not… But I’m both a police office and a person, so she might have seen the person not the police officer. And therefore I can’t really answer that.’

Despite admitting it was wrong that he had manipulated trust built up over several years of knowing Madeleine, Miller objected to it being described as a betrayal:

‘That’s a very strong word… “betrayal” seems to me a little over the top’

It was in this context that Miller said:

‘I think I would reflect on the fact that my field name was out in the public domain for some time and didn’t generate any reaction. So, I think my feeling was that she wasn’t overly concerned by the situation.’

VINCE THE VAMPIRE

Miller claims that his social contact with Madeleine didn’t increase at all after this – he doesn’t remember sitting at tables with her, or having sex with her at least once a week subsequently, as she remembers.

Instead, he pointed out that they were now in different branches of the SWP so didn’t necessarily meet up regularly.

He says they weren’t a couple:

‘we just bumped into each other, as you would, without arrangement.’

Barr kept pressing, saying ‘but you did sleep with her more than once, didn’t you?’

Miller responded:

‘I slept with her on the first occasion is the only one I remember.’

Madeleine’s relationship with Miller described in a friend’s diary, January 1980

The Inquiry showed an extract of a diary entry from 9 January 1980 [UCPI0000034310], written by a friend of Madeleine’s, describing Miller’s habit of leaving her bed in the dead of night and never staying over until morning. It memorably described him as an ‘over-sexed vampire’.

As Miller agrees he stayed over the first night, this must refer to a number of subsequent occasions, Barr noted.

Miller avoided the point by saying arguing it was not a contemporary document as Barr claimed.

Barr replied unwaveringly: ‘I said near-contemporary..

Miller apologised for being aggressive and, with that, managed to avoid answering the question, though he did not challenge the accuracy of the document.

A RELATIONSHIP

Ask more about Madeleine’s memories of the time, Miller said he didn’t think it was necessarily obvious that she was fond of him, and wanted more of a relationship with him.

He says they remained on friendly terms. He repeatedly stated that he had little or no memory of many events in this time. Particularly, while Madeleine has clear recollections of the last time she saw him – at his leaving do, when he was with another woman – Miller said he has no memory of saying goodbye to her before he ended his deployment.

Asked if having a sexual relationship with Madeleine would enhance his cover, Miller gave an excuse heard from other spycops:

‘If you’ve been out in the field for some time and not had any relationships, people are inclined to wonder why.’

This is flimsy at best. Many people go for long periods without being romantically involved with others. Indeed, the reason officers like Miller tell stories of historic heartbreak is precisely because it is a credible reason to be emotionally distant.

Given a final opportunity by Barr, asked if he had anything to add about Madeleine that had not been covered yet, Miller squirmed:

‘I think with the benefit of more maturity and hindsight, and less stress, then I will say that the night we spent together was inappropriate and unprofessional. There was no intention – sorry, can I say that again?

She was not targeted in any way; it was not any part of any kind of system; it was not something either expected by the management, or indeed expected by my peer group, to show you are one of the boys. It was in fact something that happened at a convivial evening.

And that’s how it happened, how I reviewed it… I never discussed it with anybody, until these events [the Inquiry], where I felt that total openness and honesty would be what was required.’

This is when the Chair, Sir John Mitting, came in with a question of his own.

Mitting stressed that Madeleine had impressed him when giving evidence:

‘As a sincere and essentially truthful person, trying to tell me, as best as she could remember, what happened between you and her.’

Mitting said he could accept people remembering things differently, but could Miller explain:

‘Is it a case, as can happen in life, of two people remembering a series of events differently? Or is it something more than that?

‘My understanding is that you do not say that she is consciously or unconsciously making this up, you accept that her evidence is genuine; your recollection remains different. I’m simply seeking to ask if there is any reason why your accounts are, in significant respects, different. If you could help me, I’d be grateful.’

Miller responded in couched terms, effectively saying that she could be making it up to make spycops look bad, even though he knows it’s not credible to suggest:

‘It would be inappropriate, I think, for me to suggest there was any other motive for her in trying to diminish the reputation of undercover officers, but that thought would cross my mind… I’m sure you’ll correct me, that if there was any other explanation, that’s the only one I could furnish.’

THE SECOND SWP WOMAN

Barr next asked Miller about another SWP member he reported having sex with. The former undercover described her as being less involved in the Party than other members.

He got together with her at the very end of his deployment, after he’d announced his impending move to the USA. They drank together, and he said he spent one night with her, then met her at a few other party events including his leaving meal.

He agreed that she was unlikely to have had sex with him if she’d known he was an undercover police officer.

Again, he didn’t give any thought to that at the time:

‘It just seemed a happy way of finishing the evening.’

Again, he did not use contraception or consider the risk of pregnancy.

Miller says he never told anyone at the SDS about these relationships.

THE OTHER TWO WOMEN

Miller was then asked about two other women he deceived into relationships which he also recalls as one-night stands. Both incidents were in the early days of his deployment.

He claims there were no links between these two women and the SWP, he just met them in the pub when he was getting to know the environment he had to infiltrate.

Since they were not related in any way to his target group, he had not thought it necessary to mention them in his ‘impact statement’ to the Inquiry. Nor did he come clean when his solicitor was sent a letter by the Inquiry specifically asking for details of all sexual relationships.

He says the circumstances around both were similar, but cannot he recall much else other than that neither woman wanted to continue the relationship.

A point not particularly drawn out was that this was while he was undercover and claiming expenses.

Barr then moved to the issue of how this could have been prevented. If Miller had had stricter guidance from the SDS, does he think he would’ve avoided having these sexual encounters, or it would have just ensured he kept quiet about them?

Miller said he would have made ‘different decisions’ if there had been a ‘stricter regime’:

‘We were completely alone out there, making our own decisions; there was no way of getting support or guidance like that… For me, I guess I’d have needed firmer and more rigorous questions about my activities.

Barr picked up on Miller’s earlier statement of official guidance ‘falling on deaf ears’ so, if there had been any extra guidance, would it have been treated seriously by him or fellow spycops?

Miller changed tactics:

‘it may well be a case of the personality saying it – more than the actual message, that may have had the effect.’

He was asked if there were any qualities which would make someone unsuitable for this kind of undercover work?

Besides the need of a ‘strong personality’, Miller jumped back to saying, ‘I would not consider myself an active womaniser’, before adding that there were some people who would be indeed unsuitable for spycops work.

With that, the questioning on Madeleine and Miller’s other relationships came to an end. For the last quarter of the day, the Inquiry moved on to protests and other activities, including his role as a SWP steward at the August 1977 confrontation between fascists and anti-fascists at the ‘Battle of Lewisham’.

We will cover Miller’s illuminating testimony on those things in a separate report.

Written supplemented witness statement of Vince Miller

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 13

10 May 2021

Evidence from witness:
 ‘Madeleine’

‘Battle of Lewisham’, 13 August1977

The 10 May hearing of the Undercover Policing Inquiry was focused on ‘Madeleine’, one of the women deceived into a sexual relationship by undercover ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-1979), one of four women that he has now admitted to having sexual contact with.

She is the first person to give live testimony on her experience of the relationship and undergo questioning on it (another woman, ‘Mary’, had her statement read out by a lawyer last week). She gave a powerful account of her own activism and and time as a political campaigner with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Despite questions from the Inquiry that crossed the line, she gave an open and quietly compelling description of how she was deceived by Miller.

Miller is claiming it was only a one night stand, but Madeleine steadily demolished that, with a detailed account of the night they got together and their subsequent relationship. She went into the conversations where he emotionally manipulating her feelings, then suddenly withdrew as his time in the field came to an end. This included pointing to records of conversations she had with others at the time.

Miller is giving evidence tomorrow, 11 May.

It was forty years before she learned the truth, in 2018, and was able to deal with the knowledge, but the empathy that guided her activism was clearly now extending to all the other women affected – noting how much damage her younger self would have experienced if she had learned of it at the time.

Madeleine provided a witness statement to the Inquiry in February 2021 but, as Inquiry delays meant she had to produce it in a hurry, it didn’t include everything she has to contribute.

BACKGROUND TO AN ACTIVIST

Barricade on Cable Street, 4 October 1936 [Pic: Bishopsgate Institute]

Her father was a committed anti-fascist, at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 when an alliance of antifascists stopped the British Union of Fascists marching through the Jewish area of London’s East End. He then served in the International Brigades fighting fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and after he returned he joined the British Army simply to fight the Nazis.

Madeleine was about 15 when she joined the International Socialists (IS), which later became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

She had a break from activism when she was a student, but rejoined the IS Walthamstow branch in about 1973, and became an active trade unionist. This is the branch spied on by Miller throughout his deployment.

REVOLUTION, VIOLENCE & PLAIN OLD PAPER SELLING

Like with other non-state witnesses, the Inquiry are keen to find out just what was meant by the politics of the SWP, revolutionary politics and talk of violence. And again, like other such witnesses, she calmly dismantled the many (deliberate) misconceptions the police held of the group.

The SWP wanted an end to the constant class conflict of capitalism, seeking a fair and just socialist society, she explained. She rejected the Inquiry’s characterisation of the SWP as trying to overthrow parliamentary democracy:

‘We basically believed that extra-parliamentary activity was essential because we wanted to increase democracy, we felt that people should be active at all levels, not just voting once every five years. Our belief was in broadening participation in democracy…

‘We were not a terrorist group, we were not a violent group, we basically wanted to build a mass movement.’

Madeleine took issue with another mischaracterisation, disputing the implication that SWP members ‘infiltrated’ trade unions, rather they were trade unionists themselves and sought to support others.

They sold their Socialist Worker newspaper, held public meetings, and went on demonstrations:

‘Perfectly legal and legitimate methods.’

In the 1970s the far right were in the ascent with neo-fascists openly attacking minority communities and murdering Black and Asian men. Though the SWP, Madeleine was involved in the movement opposing fascism.

She said the SWP were opposed to active violence as counter-productive, and even expelled Red Action from the party.

WALTHAMSTOW SWP

With a membership of more than 40 people, the Walthamstow branch of the SWP was comparatively large, so split in two in 1977 – one covering Walthamstow & one covering Leyton/ Leystonstone.

This was the period when Miller was infiltrating. He became Walthamstow branch treasurer, and later district treasurer and social committee organiser for the Outer East London District Branch. This latter role would have entailedorganisingfundraising gigs and other socials.

The branches held regular meetings, as well as moresocial events. As people dedicated to the same ideals, their lives were very enmeshed:

‘We had a message to spread; we had a world to build’

All members were involved in selling papers, every week. They had regular pitches in the markets on Saturdays, and on weekdays would often sell papers outside factories, door to door on estates, and of course at any demos.

There were lots of demonstrations, about all sorts of issues, taking place most weekends.

The group were also active fly-posting and leafleting, to let people know about the speaker meetings they organised.

Madeleine lived in a large flat-share, with a huge living room and kitchen, four bedrooms. It was close to two popular pubs, so it was common for friends to come back after the pub closed.

Miller referred to it as ‘a drop in centre for SWP activity’ which Madeleine dismissed as sounding formal and functional, rather than domestic and sociable

BRANCH ACTIVITY – ‘A LITTLE BIT OF EMBROIDERY’

The Inquiry showed some reports on the branch’s activity. At one branch meeting in June 1977, 25 people listened to a talk on revolutionary feminism by a speaker from the SWP’s Newham Teachers Branch [UCPI0000017456].

Madeleine noted the women’s liberation movement was having a big impact on people’s thinking at the time. Women were not just oppressed as workers, but as women too. In essence they had two jobs – one at work to make ends meet and the other domestically:

‘We saw that the personal was very much political.‘

June 1977 saw the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, marked with a one-off Bank holiday. Not enamoured of the deference and imperial overtones of the occasion, Walthamstow SWP organised a family anti-Jubilee picnic in Epping Forest. The Inquiry asked if the picnic was likely to involve any public disorder:

‘Absolutely not, no. It was just a picnic. With children, I might add.’

The branch was also involved in protests at Sainsbury’s, with the Inquiry focusing on a report where mention was made of ‘occupying’ its supermarkets:

‘We felt supermarket prices were kept artificially high to extract profit for shareholders.’

Madeleine’s motivations andher politics shone through, as she spoke of the ongoing need to campaign about povertyin this country, illustrated by the existence of food banks, the estimated four million children living in poverty right now, and the recent campaigning of Marcus Rashford around school meals:

‘And now I’m thinking to myself, we were so right.’

Once again, she had to correct the Inquiry’s exaggerated ideas of their activity, explaining that they didn’t ‘occupy Sainsbury’s at all:what they probably did was stand outside with banners, handing out leaflets and talking to shoppers.

‘I believe that food, like clean water, fresh air, shelter, etc, are basic human rights.’

A July 1977 report [UCPI0000017571] of a meeting of 30 people describes their intention to produce bulletins for particular workplaces. Asked if this was done with the ultimate aim of recruiting, she once again rejected the suggestion of a hidden agenda, saying the aim was to get workers to:

‘build the movement, not necessarily get them to join SWP… we weren’t a secret sect – we were very much community based.’

Other reports showed cooperation with other groups – for instance, Women’s Voice involved a lot of SWP members, but also women who were not.

The July 1977 report claimed that the branch:

‘Restated its support for the Provisional IRA but remained critical of that organisation’s policy of random bombing of working class people.’

Again, Madeleine contradicted the characterisation:

‘We did not support bombing at all. Absolutely not. We supported a united Ireland, and we felt that Irish people had a right to self determination, and we saw British army as basically an occupying force’

Her witness statement refers to support for self-defence against the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. She explained that attacks by those institutions are well documented, and defence doesn’t mean physical violence, but non-cooperation in the form of things like rent strikes, workplace strikes.

She highlighted a practice familiar from spycop reports seen earlier in the hearings, of taking the most extreme or hyperbolic statement at a meeting and portraying it as the whole group’s real basis:

‘There’s a little bit of embroidery going on in many of the reports. There would have been people there who would have expressed opinions that we wouldn’t necessarily agree with, but we would discuss and debate and argue with them.’

REFUGEES FROM TORTURE

An August 1977 report [UCPI0000011129] describes a branch meeting addressed by a refugee from the Chilean dictatorship that had overthrown the democratically elected socialist government in 1973.

He told the meeting that he felt that if the Allende government had armed those prepared to defend it, they may have stood a chance. The report says there was a great deal of discussion about the need to arm the workers in the UK, which Madeleine dismissed out of hand:

‘That’s absolute nonsense. Absolute nonsense.’

But could the SWP envisage a situation where they’d like workers to be armed?

‘We foresaw, as I’ve said, a new society where the vast majority basically organised themselves, took action, and decided things would change…. We weren’t the Red Brigades, or anything like that; we didn’t support that type of activity. We basically believed… the working class would bring about this change, not us.’

Not content with this, the Inquiry highlighted the Chilean speaker’s observation that no people’s militia could directly oppose a trained army, so the only way to defeat it would be infiltration. So, the Inquiry asked, did this mean that the SWP considered infiltrating the Army?

Madeleine scoffed at the suggestion. Walthamstow SWP was selling newspapers and not even occupying Sainsbury’s.

The Inquiry failed to note that the whole issue was about the fascist overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government by the murderous General Pinochet. The refugee was actually speaking about counter-subversion, which was supposedly the SDS’s remit.

The report concluded with a mocking description of a branch member crying, and:

‘Someone threw an epileptic fit which ended my observations.’

Madeleine explained that they knew Chilean refugees who had been tortured in Chile, electrocuted and threatened with death. As compassionate people, they found that emotionally moving. That the spycop found it funny beggars belief.

FASCISTS ON THE RISE

John Tyndall (holding record), National Socialist Movement HQ

Calling the National Front fascist is no exaggeration. Madeleine supplied a photograph [UCPI0000034395] of future NF leader John Tyndall in Nazi uniform in front of a framed portrait of Hitler.

Madeleine described how her generation was dealing with parents traumatised from the Second World War, and yet these avowedly Nazi groups were allowed to organise and demonstrate, seemingly with the approval of the State and the protection of the police. The SDS was not monitoring them at all.

August 1977 saw a key moment in the fight against fascism in Britain. The National Front were organising a march in Lewisham, and there was a huge counter-demonstration. The collision of the two became known as the ‘Battle of Lewisham‘.

Spycop Vince Miller says Walthamstow SWP members went to check out the route of the march the night before, and deposited piles of bricks that could be used the next day. He also claimed they took weapons with them in bags on the day.

Madeleine utterly denies all of this. There is no evidence that anybody ever planted any bricks at all.

Madeleine attended the demonstration of 13 August with comrades from her branch.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Inquiry asked Madeleine about the All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism And Fascism (ALCARAF), which it described as a coalition of the SWP, International Marxist Group and Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist).

National Front ‘Stop the Muggers’ banner, 1977

She explained it was much wider than that, bringing in trade unions, faith groups and church leaders. It’s extraordinary that churches has noticed fascist violence on the streets and took action, yet the SDS officers say there was no problem they were aware of.

Madeleine explained ALCARAF been formed in January 1977 in response to National Front violence and open police racism. This is vital context to understand the Lewisham protests.

Instead of doing anything about the NF’s ongoing street violence in the area (the Sikh Gurdwara had been attacked, as had shops and individuals in the area), police launched an ‘anti-mugging’ crackdown – ‘muggers’ being a racist trope at the time, as evidenced by the NF’s ‘Stop The Muggers’ banner.

In one large operation local police had conducted house raids, smashing in doors, arresting mostly Black people. Madeleine recounted how a white woman arrested in a raid was strip searched by police and subjected to vile comments about how she was catching diseases from living with Black people.

60 people were arrested, 21 were charged. The Lewisham 21 Defence Committee was set up to support them. They held a march that was attacked by the NF. Acid was thrown on a young girl, one person’s jaw was broken, another knocked unconscious. This alone is more public disorder than the SDS has managed to pin on the SWP, and yet nothing was done.

Just before the Lewisham demonstration, the NF’s National Activities Organiser, Martin Webster, held a press conference and announced:

‘We intend to destroy race relations here in Lewisham.’

As an aside, Madeleine noted that Durham Police had invited Martin Webster to give a talk on law and order in December 1977.

She asked the Inquiry to show a photograph of the NF on the day [UCPI0000034396], in which one of them could be seen armed with a stick. Madeleine said:

‘We could see where their philosophy ends. My husband Is Jewish, his family have the yellow star of his great grandfather…. Part of the family tree ends in the 1940s at Auschwitz.’

THE BATTLE OF LEWISHAM

The Bishop of Southwark leads the ALCARAF banner, 13 August 1977

Against this backdrop of racism from both police and the NF, the August 1977 Lewisham counter-demonstration was always going to be full of outrage.

Police allowed the fascist march to go ahead, while changing the route of the anti-fascist one at short notice. Madeleine found herself trapped in a ‘kettle’ by Clifton Rise in New Cross. People climbed up the corrugated iron hoardings to escape the crush. There was a line of police blocking one end of the street.

People from the overlooking houses told them that the fascists were frightened by the sheer size of the crowd. The next thing she recounted was police horses charging down the street, right through the crowd of demonstrators.

The police led out the NF’s flag-waving contingent, but the rest of the fascists behind had almost no police protection even though many officers were available. ‘All hell broke loose,’ Madeleine remembered, describing missiles coming overhead from behind her.

She and her comrades wanted to get out of the situation. They were not involved in throwing things. She noted that the majority of people on marches were usually white, but this day saw a large proportion of Black people on the streets, and the police responded with aggression.

She felt that the police ‘just lost control and went wild’ in an outburst of rage vented against the local community. She recalled police vehicles driven into the crowd, indiscriminate arrests, and severe police violence, as they escaped and walked to a train station some distance away in an attempt to make it home safely.

MORE MEETINGS

The Inquiry showed some more reports on the SWP meetings. One from November 1977 [UCPI0000011513] held at a public library, was on the life and works of William Morris, a Victorian son of Walthamstow, known for both his wallpaper/ textile pattern designs and socialist beliefs.

The meeting was addressed by a speaker who ‘delivered a well prepared speech which he illustrated with photographs and slides’. The meeting was apparently that told Morris was a ‘pioneer of English socialism,’ even if his ideas were not entirely consistent with the SWP.’

Morris was pretty mainstream in thought and indeed in wallpaper design. Once again, the SDS was reporting on things that were in no way subversive or a threat to public order, and the documents were copied to MI5 where they are still held nearly 50 years later.

A report of a meeting in July 1978 [UCPI0000011337] shows Miller was involved in the branch’s Industrial Group, which organised sales of Socialist Worker at factories, picket lines and similar settings.

A January 1979 report [UCPI0000013063] says sales of Socialist Worker are going well on a local industrial estate, though they must avoid places with a predominantly Asian workforce as workers say they would be subjected to violence or the sack if they showed support.

Madeleine wonders if Miller had contact information for sympathetic workers at these factories, and if their details were passed on to industrial blacklists.

The report also mentioned School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN) and says it ‘can, with short notice, get large numbers of school students on to the streets, should the need arise’. The Inquiry asked Madeleine if SKAN were able to suddenly create a mob ready for street violence.

Yet again, she had to deflate suggestions of insurrection. She explained that SKAN had been formed when the NF held a demo outside a school in multicultural East London. About 200 pupils had opposed it, with 15 arrests – all but one of them Black kids.

SKAN was a self-organising group of kids responding to the upsurge of racism around them:

‘The idea that we would have somehow had to have planted these ideas in their heads is a bit ludicrous really. It was their own experience.’

SELF DEFENCE IS NO OFFENCE

In her statement, Madeleine notes other reports are deliberately facetious, and often selectively quote a few individuals’ opinions rather than the general view, even just picking up on comments made by members of the public – such as arming themselves with catapults [UCPI0000011196].

Madeleine said this suggestion was more likely made by a member of the public, and would have been ineffective given that a young woman selling the Socialist Worker had her pelvis broken by NF thugs with a sledgehammer. Rather:

‘the collective focus was was on how to stay safe by remaining in groups and avoiding situations where we might come under attack.’

The Inquiry did not address the above in the live evidence, but it did turn to another instance of SWP members protecting themselves against vicious racist violence.

A November 1978 report [UCPI0000012924] of an SWP meeting (of 22 people) details the compiling of a rota of members who would stay at the house of a Black woman with a Jewish boyfriend who needed protection from attacks by the National Front.

The report said that Dagenham police confirmed that bricks had been thrown through the windows at the house, one with an extreme right wing leaflet around it, the other bearing the letters DAK. The report said DAK stood for ‘Dagenham Axe Clan’.

The transliteration of ‘K’ standing for ‘Clan’ is unsettling. It seems like the police were attempting to deflect from the use of the word Klan, and the direct violent racism implied by it.

Again, these attacks are each worse than anything Miller has managed to conclusively attribute to the SWP. It disproves the claims that the SDS didn’t know about any threats from right-wing groups. And yet, there appears to be no record of the DAK being of interest to the SDS.

DISBAND THE POLITICAL POLICE

After SWP member and anti-fascist Blair Peach was killed by police at a demonstration against the NF in April 1979, there was a wave of outrage across the country. There were calls for a public inquiry into his killing, and for the notorious unit responsible, the Special Patrol Group (SPG), to be disbanded.

A July 1979 SDS report [UCPI0000021044] describes a Waltham forest District SWP meeting entitled ‘Police are the Murderers: Disband the Special Patrol Group’.

Madeleine reminded us of the unauthorised weapons and Nazi regalia found in the lockers and homes of SPG officers after they had killed Peach.

The report quotes a speaker as saying dissolution of the SPG is a necessary step on the path to socialist revolution. Madeleine broadly agreed – the SPG were effectively a repressive, paramilitary political unit, the opposite of policing in response to actual community need.

Although the meeting had not been advertised, two strangers arrived, separately, and were presumed to be police. The manner of their dress, their reluctance to divulge any details about themselves, and their leaving early gave them away.

The Inquiry asked if the meeting was private because it was doing something sinister. However, Madeleine explained that, as SWP meetings were being subject to fascist attacks, the party had simply become more security conscious.

PERSONAL DETAILS

The Inquiry then showed a report from November 1977 [UCPI0000011550] detailing Madeleine’s employment at a school, including her salary, start date, and a physical description of her. Another report from 1979 [UCPI0000021299] records her new job working on buses. Why did the spycops record this kind of personal info about her (and others)?

‘I’m outraged really. I find that a gross invasion of my privacy… Why did they need a detailed physical description of me? To what end? What was that used for?… I got a job in a school because I loved kids… and liked working with children very much.’

Even more disturbing was a report on Madeleine’s wedding [UCPI000011289]. She noted that, from her Special Branch Registry File number in the report, her file was opened in 1970, when she was only 16. Part of the details with that report are redacted:

‘I find that really, really sinister’

She demanded that the Inquiry reveal what’s been blacked out, and explain why they don’t want her to see information about herself from 50 years ago.

WELCOMING THE SPYCOP

It appears that Miller joined the Walthamstow branch of the SWP in early 1977. He made contact via a Socialist Worker seller at Walthamstow Market.

The branch was always keen to welcome new members. Madeleine recalls him seeming an ordinary working class guy, in contrast with the largely white-collar membership.

He became very active in the group, selling newspapers papers, fly-posting, joining pickets at the Grunwick strike. In all these things, his ownership of a van made him invaluable. Being the one with the reliable vehicle had rapidly became standard tradecraft for spycops since the early 1970s. It meant they were told of any action that needed transport, they got to chat to people while driving, and drop them home which provided opportunity to get their addresses.

Madeleine remembers Miller as a sociable person, always first to the bar after a meeting, well liked by all:

‘He was very enmeshed in the group, socially and politically.’

An old flatmate of Madeleine’s has located diaries from that time. They show that Miller visited their home as early as May or June 1977.

When Madeleine first knew Miller, she was married, and thinks she was probably less socially active and less friendly with him then, but increasingly regarded him as a friend after her marriage broke up in the autumn of 1978.

ROMANTIC DECEIT

In the summer of 1979 Madeleine was 25 and newly single. She was not actively seeking a relationship after the end of her marriage. She described how shy and quiet she used to be; her husband had been extremely possessive and abusive so it was only after she left him that she felt more confident socialising and talking to other men. She was still feeling vulnerable when she got together with Vince but believed she could trust him:

‘I thought he was lovely. A really nice guy. I thought he was a genuine, lovely, easy going person, I thought he was sensitive, he had this story of heartbreak and all the rest of it. I felt he was looking for genuine relationships with people.’

Madeleine was asked for her account of the house party in Ilford where they became romantically involved. She recalled 40 or 50 people, mostly young people connected with the SWP, there, drinking and dancing.

Miller turned up late and sat down. Madeleine went to try to get him to come and dance, but:

‘He pulled me onto his lap and that’s where I stayed for the rest of the night.’

He said how hard it had been to get to know her, which surprised her as he hadn’t indicated any romantic interest before. She trusted him and was happy to stay there, chatting and flirting.

Some friends came to get her to dance, but Miller put his arms around her and said ‘ ‘no, she’s quite happy here’. She found this funny and laughed.

Later, when the friends were leaving, Miller assured them he would get Madeleine home. He took her back to her flat and they began a sexual relationship. He stayed the night.

‘I was very keen on him. I thought he was lovely, a really attractive guy. I was very keen for it to continue, I was never looking for a one night stand or casual sex with anyone.’

Madeleine says that they saw each other about once a week for a couple of months. They always met at her house, she never visited his.

CYNICAL SYMPATHY

He told her a backstory, of having been in a long-term committed relationship that went toxic in some way, and how he’d had to leave all his possessions behind. The loss of this alleged relationship with someone he’d thought would be a life partner left him devastated and heartbroken, and he said he was too wary of get close to anyone as a result.

He also spoke of a troubled childhood that had damaged his ability to trust, and how he’d always had to rely on himself.

His cynical tale of woe is another piece of spycop tradecraft, one that other women deceived by spycops will recognise all too readily. By telling a story of a damaged upbringing, the officers gave themselves cover for not wanting to tell a full life story. More than that, it made the listener feel that they had been trusted, and so would be likely to reciprocate that trust.

Miller never stayed over after that first night. At some point in the early hours he would suddenly say he had to go home, saying ‘I have to wake up in my own bed because that’s where I feel safe’.

Madeleine accepted that explanation, and hoped it would change. She didn’t consider herself as part of a couple, but she hoped it would become that, and she didn’t see anyone else:

‘He was the focus of my affections, as it were.’

Her feelings for him grew, as he surely knew:

‘I think in the beginning he seemed very keen on me. He became increasingly distant, and I began to become disappointed that it didn’t seem to be going the way I wanted it to go. And, yeah, I kind of became a bit upset about it.’

Her flatmates knew about her relationship. She has a very strong recollection of one asking in the morning ‘is Vince still in bed?’ and commenting on his bad manners in not staying all night.

THE LAST TIME

The last time she saw ‘Vince Miller’ was at a friend’s house. She hadn’t seen him for about a week and saw him sitting on the other side of the room. He was with another woman, and she sensed from their body language that there was something between the two of them. She now thinks this is the other SWP woman he has admitted deceiving into a relationship.

He ignored Madeleine and, when he left, she followed him into the street to ask him why he was being so distant. He said that he’d already told her that he couldn’t get too involved and that he didn’t want to get hurt again.

He said he was going to go to California to ‘find himself’. This is yet another early example of what became standard practice – spycops would cover the end of their deployment by feigning emotional distress and say they were going abroad to sort themselves out.

The depth of emotional turmoil conveyed by some of the later officers had huge impacts on those who loved them. More than one desperately woman deceived into a relationship went searching in the country where her partner was supposedly living, not knowing he was actually back at a desk job in Scotland Yard.

Madeleine and Miller hugged for a long time and parted ways.

THAT’S NOT WHAT HE SAYS

Madeleine’s relationship with Miller described in a friend’s diary, January 1980

In his statement to the Inquiry, Miller describes his relationship with Madeleine as a ‘one night stand’ with no hard feelings and said that the pair remained on good terms thereafter.

In his version, he uses being drunk as an excuse for starting the relationship with her, and for his other ‘one night stands’.

She says that, on the night they got together, he didn’t seem drunk and she certainly wasn’t.

Madeleine then cited a close friend’s diary entry dated 9 January 1980 [UCPI00000034310]

The friend describes Miller as Madeleine’s ‘ex-lover’ and, noting his persistent leaving before dawn, suggests that he may be some kind of vampire who needs to be back in his coffin before sunrise.

Madeleine remembers Miller’s departure damaging her self-esteem, leaving her feeling upset, disappointed and rejected. She saw it as part of a pattern with her marriage and thought:

‘God, have I made another mistake?’

IF SHE KNEW THEN

The Inquiry said that despite everything, the whole affair would have had little impact on her life if she hadn’t latterly found out the truth about spycops.

Asked how she would have felt to discover Miller’s true identity at the time, she said it would have been devastating. She was young and naïve, and would have been profoundly shocked and distraught:

‘I’d made myself very vulnerable to him and I trusted him, and to me it would have been an absolute betrayal… I would have regarded it, as I do regard it now, as rape.’

As it is, she had some fond memories of him, and used to sometimes think about him, hoping he’d come to terms with his troubles and had a happy life. But now:

‘To discover that I didn’t know him at all and that he was a fiction, that’s been quite difficult to get my head around. He doesn’t actually exist, it was all an act, wearing a mask… it’s really chilling and sinister… I just don’t know how people can behave like that.’

Despite promises by the Inquiry to reveal the real names of undercovers to the women deceived into relationships, it has not provided Madeleine his name though she has requested it. The Inquiry are effectively providing cover for a serial sexual abuser – who has admitted to deceiving four women.

‘Like the other officers who deceived women into relationships during their deployments, Vince Miller has lost the right to have his identity protected on privacy grounds. And, like the other women who were deceived into relationships, I should be entitled to know his real name.’

Full written statement of ‘Madeleine’

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (7 May 2021)<<

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This summary covers the third week of the four-week 2021 hearings of the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI), examining the Metropolitan Police’s secret undercover political policing unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, from 1973-82.

Witnesses from the police and the ‘non-State core participants’ gave evidence, and some witness statements from police who were unable, unwilling, or not called upon to appear personally were summarised. This follows the format of last week’s hearings, and many of the same topics were covered.

Rather than unfolding like a fictional courtroom drama, with revelations that suddenly turn the course of the narrative, the hearings of the UCPI are turning the wheel on a microscope to reveal more details about the events it is examining. We already have the big picture: the abusive activities of spycops in England and Wales 1973-–82. This week gave us many more details of those activities.

POLICE ARE ABOVE THE LAW

‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, deployed 1971-1976) gave one of the clearest statements yet that Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) undercovers considered themselves exempt from the laws they were supposed to uphold. In 1972, Scott was accused of being a police officer by Géry Lawless, an activist in several organisations focused on Northern Ireland issues which Scott had infiltrated.

Scott laughingly related how later that day, while driving around randomly, he somehow chanced upon Lawless when the latter was alone in a phone box. He cornered him there and after an exchange of words punched him so hard in the face that Scott chipped a bone in his hand.

When asked to justify his violent crime against a member of the public, Scott replied:

‘It was acceptable to me and I was the one that made the decision. I was the one that was there, and the person that was the so-called victim was Géry Lawless’.

The implication of ‘you deserve what you get because I say so’ is more text than subtext here.

POLITICIANS ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW

Scott attended the Young Liberals’ 1972 annual conference in his capacity of Membership Secretary for their Putney branch. He reported on the presence of MP David Steel, directly contravening the ‘Wilson Doctrine’, which said that MPs should be told if they are subject to state surveillance.

According to Scott, ‘MPs are not above the law’. Spycops are apparently another matter, especially when punching people in the face.

Although Scott didn’t pick up a criminal record for his assault on Géry Lawless, he did for his actions during the Stop The Seventy Tour anti-apartheid campaign. He was convicted of obstructing a public highway under his fake identity, which was stolen from a living person.

SPYCOPS AUTHORISED TO LIE UNDER OATH

Scott’s lying under oath was authorised by his superiors, and he never gave a thought to whether the real Michael Scott now has a criminal record. In fact, he doesn’t even consider it in those terms:

‘What happened to me was not exactly a criminal record, it was really of no consequence, actually.’

In fact, he said, the identity theft, used to set up a bank account, might have been beneficial to the real Michael Scott because ‘my credit record was good.’

The unshakable conviction that whatever he chose to do was the best course of action simply because he chose to do it wass astonishingly clear. The Inquiry is now investigating whether the real Michael Peter Scott has a criminal record for this conviction.

Scott was not alone in being arrested, charged and convicted under a false identity. ‘Barry / Desmond Loader‘ (HN13, 1975-78) infiltrated the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) and was arrested twice while undercover. The first occasion, in late 1977, was for ‘insulting or threatening behaviour’ following a clash with the fascist National Front (NF) outside Barking police station.

Just three days after his court appearance for that, Loader was arrested a second time, again for clashing with the NF. Police records [MPS-0526784] reveal that Superintendent Ken Pryde established contact with a court official during the proceedings, giving them Loader’s cover name and his status as:

‘a valuable informant in the public order field whom we would wish to safeguard from a prison sentence should the occasion arise.’

Loader was found guilty, fined, and given a one-year bind-over of £100. It is noted in an SDS ‘Minute Sheet’ that this sentence was considered ‘very useful’ as it would allow Loader to keep a low profile for the remainder of his deployment [MPS-0526784].

LAWYER-CLIENT PRIVILEGE DIDN’T APPLY TO SPYCOPS

Naturally, the arrests and trials of spycops meant that the undercovers took part in meetings between the genuine activists and their lawyers. ‘Mike Scott’ was one of 14 people arrested in May 1972 for blockading a coach carrying the British Lions rugby team as they were leaving to play in apartheid South Africa.

Scott’s reports include comments from the activists’ lawyers. These have been redacted by the Inquiry as even now, 50 years later, they are subject to legal privilege. And yet, they were put in a report to the prosecution side from a spy among the defendants!

‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78) infiltrated the International Socialists (IS). In April 1976, during their Right to Work Campaign, the IS newspaper Socialist Worker hired solicitors to represent those arrested while campaigning. Wallace reported [UCPI0000012323] on their meetings, likewise ignoring lawyer-client privilege.

This right, long protected in common law, is recognised by the European Convention on Human Rights, and can only be waived by the client. It is also recognised as absolute, in the sense that once privilege is established, it may not be weighed against any other countervailing public interest.

THE SDS MUST BE KEPT SECRET

Apparently, it’s a right that can be easily overridden by secret and secretive police units eager to avoid exposure and embarrassment. Discussion in the above mentioned Special Branch Minute Sheets reveals that Loader’s senior officers prioritised keeping his identity secret over any other consideration. Scott’s superiors did the same thing.

In 1979, spycop ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79) made ‘an error of judgement’ when, during a traffic stop, he gave a uniformed officer his real name but showed the driving license in his cover identity.

SDS boss Mike Ferguson (a former undercover himself) was ‘incandescent’, not just at Coates’ own indiscretion but at the potential revelation of the unit and its methods. Coates was withdrawn from the field on the spot.

In previous years, senior officers attempted to pass off incidents of criminal activity by spycops as ‘a few bad apples’ or used the ever-popular ‘rogue officer’ defence. Now, however, evidence continues to mount up of complete awareness by very senior officers. There was clearly a two-way flow of information between the SDS and MI5 – not only of requests to spy on people and the resulting reports, but also the criminal activity of the officers themselves.

THE MET COMMISSIONER KNEW

Sir Robert Mark, March 1977

Graham Coates, ‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76), ‘Roger Harris’ (HN200, 1974-77), and other spycops described visits to the SDS ‘safe house’ from various Metropolitan Police Commissioners (the highest officer), Assistant Commissioners, Deputy Assistant Commissioners, and the Commander of Special Branch.

Coates recalls managers demanding ‘maximum attendance’ from all deployed spycops for a visit from then-Commissioner Sir Robert Mark – ironically renowned for his drives against police corruption.

This tallies with similar reports by spycops from the 1960s and 1990s. These visits seem an established part of the Met Commissioner’s role; at the very least, they show full awareness of the unit.

Coates also remembered a remark suggesting spycops’ expenses accounts were thoroughly examined by the Commissioner (even if reports might not have been). This shows an astonishing level of attention to detail for individual officers’ activities. Generally though, the purpose of these visits was to praise the undercovers and occasionally present them with bottles of whisky.

NOTHING WAS EVER DISCUSSED

When not entertaining senior police officials, the safe houses were used for meetings between spycops and their managers once or twice weekly. Two very different pictures of activities there emerged this week.

One is of a ‘social’ environment that somehow fails to include any discussion of what the people there spent most of their time doing. According to Scott, the twelve or so spycops never talked about their undercover work, the groups they infiltrated (even between spycops in the same group!), the activists they spied on, or the tactics used to get close to them.

This is the period during which the practice of stealing dead children’s identities as the basis for undercover personae begins and solidifies as required practice. There was some reluctance from a handful of spycops, but the idea, seemingly initially used by Scott, became management policy and was effectively enforced.

Other tradecraft also took shape in this era. Enough spycops have reported a lack of formal training, hands-off management, and the absence of a manual or even guidelines, making it unclear how tradecraft was developed and passed on if the undercovers themselves did not talk about it either.

In this picture presented by amnesiac officers, there were no spycops with (memorable) reputations as womanisers. Likewise, there was supposedly no way that management could have been aware of spycops having intimate relationships with female activists because this was never mentioned. In the hundreds of meetings that Scott attended, he has no memory of these things ever being spoken of. (He does remember chatting about toy soldiers though.)

SAFE HOUSE ‘BANTER’

The alternative picture is of a group of men letting off steam, comparing notes and exchanging ‘banter’. Coates and Harris both described officers who spoke so frequently and crudely about the women they had calculatedly deceived that managers would have been in no doubt about the nature of those relationships. Rather than being unaware of what was being discussed, managers participated in the ‘low-level communal humour’ that characterised the conversations.

Coates states that Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) had a reputation for having sexual relationships. He also recalls that ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) was widely known as a philanderer. This matches what’s known of these officers’ activities. A third officer, whose details he did not recall, also behaved in this way.

Asked about the kind of things being said, Coates reluctantly shared one example:

‘he’ll have made her bite the blankets again last night.’

The Inquiry also asked him an anecdote about a female activist who could lactate on demand. Although Coates has no recollection of this, the fact the Inquiry raised it also shows the type of conversation known to have taken place.

WHY THE LEFT BUT NOT THE RIGHT?

The spycops did not choose targets randomly. In the period under examination in the current Inquiry hearings, 1973-82, all groups spied on were left-wing. Officers were allowed to switch groups if they wanted to (Coates left the International Socialists because he was getting bored and thought the anarchist movement might bring more spark to his life). So why didn’t they do so when it became obvious the groups were mostly harmless?

This week’s evidence only consolidates the emerging picture of spycops infiltrating small groups with either completely peaceful and democratic methods and aims, or no capacity to carry out any really disruptive or violent action – even if it was suggested.

Again and again, the spycops demonstrate the ability to believe they reported nothing of real use from spying on groups that were harmless, whilst simultaneously also believing they contributed significantly to preserving the safety of the realm, that the money enabling them to do so well-spent and their actions were completely justified. It’s a positive symphony of cognitive dissonance.

As mentioned in our previous weekly report, during this period the right wing were on the rise. Openly fascist and racist groups were using tactics such as firebombing, burning down businesses owned by Black and Asian people, and holding meetings in diverse areas to deliberately bait the residents. Yet these groups were never – with one exception – infiltrated.

That exception came about by accident. The Workers Revolutionary Party was so concerned about the National Front that they asked one of their members to infiltrate it. Ironically, that member was SDS undercover ‘Peter Collins’ (HN303, 1973-77).

Had the NF realised that they had been deceived, it is likely that they would have responded with violence; the question of whether being exposed as a spycop or being exposed as an activist would be more dangerous is an interesting one.

UNDERMINING GROUPS WORKING FOR EQUALITY

Although the left-wing were very aware of the problems caused by the right-wing, which was a genuine threat to public order with subversive intentions, the police were apparently oblivious.

Scott claims that:

‘There weren’t any right-wing groups who were demonstrating, or causing any problems as far as I can recall, at the time.’

He and almost all of his colleagues infiltrated anti-fascist groups – why were these so prolific if right-wing groups were not a problem?

They clearly were, and the spycops unquestionably had the freedom and the remit – preserving public order – to infiltrate them, if they chose to. The fact that they didn’t indicates that the SDS was a unit dedicated to undermining and spying on groups working for a more, rather than less, equal society.

We know there was systemic sexism permeating the SDS, which, according to Coates, viewed the women’s liberation movement as:

‘a bunch of angry women that could be ignored.’

It is not much of a stretch to speculate that systemic racism went along with it. It is very disturbing that these attitudes are still present today.

Worryingly, an isolated incident of International Socialists reported as attacking people at the NF offices with stones and bricks was seized upon by the Inquiry:

‘We note that, if the report is accurate, this was an occasion on which the violence was started by left-wing activists from the infiltrated group.’

This is not the first time that the Inquiry has used reports of ‘violent’ anti-fascist protests as a justification for many of the deployments.

In contrast, an SDS report dated 7 March 1977 [UCPI0000017776] describes a single coach of members of the Socialist Workers Party (as the International Socialists had become) being attacked by five coaches of National Front supporters at Watford Gap Service station.

For some reason, the Inquiry glosses this incident in neutral terms:

‘The SWP contingent from NW London and West Middlesex districts appears to have been involved in an encounter with the National Front in a service station en route to Birmingham’

This gives a misleading impression of this serious and unprovoked attack by the NF on SWP members.

UNWILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT CULPABILITY

Blair Peach

A deeply upsetting example of State unwillingness to accept culpability for its role on the wrong side of history came directly from the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting.

During the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s hearing on 23 April 2021, which was the 42nd anniversary of Blair Peach’s death at the hands of police as established by the Met’s own report, a minute’s silence was held for the murdered teacher. In his introductory remarks for the Mitting referred merely to Peach being killed by ‘a blow to the head’. He did not mention the police at all.

Celia Stubbs, who was Blair Peach’s partner at the time of his death, spelled out how the rise of the right wing was a growing problem during the years covered by this phase of the Inquiry. She and Peach were members of the Anti-Nazi League from its formation in 1977. Two years later, when a call went out from the multicultural community of Southall for support against the NF, they responded.

The NF were ‘campaigning’ in Southall in April 1979 in the run-up to the general election, despite their candidate not living there. Holding rallies in areas with large Black and Asian populations was a common NF tactic. They were met with counter-demonstrations by exactly the kind of groups – including undercovers – that the SDS had been focused on infiltrating for the last decade.

For example, at one such event in 1977, which became known as the Battle of Lewisham, at least 18 spycops were present and over 50 pages of reports were produced. Nobody died at the Battle of Lewisham. In contrast, the 1979 counter-demonstration that Blair Peach was killed at in Southall was supposedly only attended by one spycop.

A BLENDED, ‘GISTED’ DOCUMENT

Celia Stubbs knows that one of the spycops attended the demo in Southall that day. The Inquiry has taken evidence in secret from officers who it does not want to identify. It has then blended their testimony into a single ‘gisted’ document. In it, an officer says they were at the demonstration in Southall, saw violence and being horrified left before Peach was killed.

Celia Stubbs, 2021

Stubbs is offended by all of this. Firstly, the total secrecy around the officer – we aren’t given their name, cover name, or any other details at all. Secondly, the idea that there was only one spycop at the demo is ridiculous.

There was a large presence from the Socialist Workers Party, the most infiltrated group in the history of the SDS. Following the call-out from Southall residents, it is unthinkable that spycops eager to maintain their cover would not have been there in large numbers.

Not only that, but the demonstration was a left-wing response to obvious baiting by the right-wing NF. It was blatantly going to turn into a public order issue. This was finally something that legitimately fell within the remit of the SDS. Yet they maintain that only one officer was present, and he left early – precisely because there was public disorder!

The killing of Blair Peach is heart-breaking, and also terrifying in that it could happen to anyone, on any demonstration, not just against fascism. His final hours, the cover-up of the cause of death, and the subsequent fight for justice, are covered in more detail elsewhere.

Celia Stubbs talked calmly, but with obvious strong emotion, about Blair’s death and the events that followed, including the banding-together of groups campaigning for justice for those killed by police.

Simultaneously, it was the beginning of spying on those groups. The solidarity of grieving families was considered a subversive act.

Stubbs said:

‘It’s obvious that when someone is killed, the police don’t want to be associated with it. This looks like yet another cover-up. It makes us feel like we’re not being heard…

‘I mean, Blair was killed by police officers and our feelings and campaigns were criminalised. The police, I think, wanted to keep ahead of our campaign so that Blair’s killers… we were never able to hold them to account.’

Stubbs said that, despite having seen so many secret police reports, she is left with as many questions as she had before. One of these reports [MPS-0001219] was from decades later. It was written in the summer of 1998, regarding plans to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Blair Peach’s killing.

Stubbs told the Inquiry that an officer referred to in the report was Mark Jenner (‘Mark Cassidy’ HN15, 1995-2000) who infiltrated the Hackney Community Defence Association and the Colin Roach Centre (also in Hackney). Whilst undercover he deceived an activist, ‘Alison‘, into a long-term relationship.

Cassidy reported that:

‘local trade unions are organising a large rally and demonstration, which will be presented with a strong anti-racist/anti-police flavour… the event will inevitably attract a large left wing presence with particular accent on anti-police type groups and the potential for disorder will be significant.’

Stubbs was indignant at this:

‘we’d had remembrance demonstrations after five years, after ten years, and this was twenty years. There’d never been any disorder. I don’t know why he put that. I think it’s pretty unpleasant.’

This continues a long-running tradition of spycops exaggerating the potential for disorder when making reports on groups and why they had to be reported on.

NO THREAT TOO SMALL, NO GROUP TOO HARMLESS

The spycops were trusted to use their intelligence to discern threat levels, yet were apparently unable to tell the difference between fanciful ideas (e.g. the Workers Revolutionary Party finding enough people to infiltrate and subvert every single branch of the Labour Party Young Socialists) and genuinely executable plans (like having a skip delivered to a hotel).

An SDS report dated 26 May 1977 [UCPI0000017437] describes a member of the SWP announcing that he was mobilising local trades union branches to support an anti-Jubilee demonstration during the visit of Princess Anne to Kensington Town Hall on 31 May, and of 1,500 expected demonstrators, 1,000 of whom were likely to be trade unionists ‘violently opposed’ to Jubilee celebrations. This seems wildly and obviously far-fetched.

Additionally, the small groups most often spied on usually didn’t manage to carry off their most outrageous genuine plans, such as painting lines on small roads to show the path of a new motorway.

Some groups, such as the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Socialist Workers Party, regarded by the SDS as ‘subversive’ – that is, wanting to overthrow parliamentary democracy – entered candidates in elections. If they were seeking to overturn Parliament, then legitimately being elected to it is surely the least subversive way of doing so.

Many of the groups had democratic internal processes, something that the spycops were blatantly aware of given how many of them were democratically elected to positions of influence within those groups.

ACCESS TO PERSONAL DETAILS

The spycops’ stories vary as to whether or not they were given guidance on whether or not to take formal posts in organisations they infiltrated. Enough of them did so, with full knowledge of their managers, that it was obviously accepted.

Positions such as treasurer and recruitment officer gave them access to personal details of all group members. Often, they were part of the vetting process and point of first contact for people interested in joining. This gave them influence over the actual makeup and structure of the groups, and to some degree taking on these tasks would have also compensated for their lack of genuine activism.

As is notable from the accusation that caused Mike Scott to assault Géry Lawless, some groups were suspicious that newcomers might be undercover cops.

After Rick Gibson’s exposure by Big Flame, some members talked about how he had badly messed up his turn to give a talk on activism. Lack of background, political awareness, and genuine interest in activism were sufficient red flags that some spycops compensated for by deceiving activists into sexual relationships. To form a relationship with an established, trusted member of a group encourages members to extend their trust to the spycop.

This would almost certainly have been seen as easier than researching the philosophies of the groups and differences from other groups on the left. Coates had to give a 20-minute talk on the history of the Labour Party to the IS group he was infiltrating, so this was not unique to Big Flame. The spycops were trained to ‘mirror’ their targets, but it’s impossible to do so if you’re the only one talking.

NOT JUST INFLUENCING, BUT CREATING GROUPS

Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) was the spycop responsible for the formation of the South East London branch of the Troops Out Movement. His rise through the ranks to the top of the organisation, and eventual bid to join Big Flame, was achieved by deceiving four women activists into sexual relationships, and manipulating and betraying the members of both groups.

More details can be found in last week’s reports, and in the opening statement on behalf of ‘Mary’, one of the women, and Richard Chessum – who provided his own written witness statement as well.

Chessum knew about Gibson’s sexual relationships, and says it was general knowledge at the time. Did Gibson accidentally tell different women different things, and they then compared notes and spotted the discrepancies in his cover story? ‘Mary’ said he didn’t share any contact details with her, was often very hard to reach, and she knew very little about his background.

Having thoroughly investigated Gibson, Big Flame took action. They invited him to meet them in a pub and then spread out all the evidence they had gathered. ‘He looked as though he was going to cry’, said Chessum, who was told about it at the time.

Gibson came up with one last story and gave them a phone number of the office where his brother was supposed to work. It was another lie. When they went to check his flat, they found it empty, Gibson having had done a midnight flit.

After this, Chessum met with Mary and her flatmate, and told them what he had seen. He says they were shocked but not surprised. They had already discussed the possibility of Gibson being some kind of police officer. They had noticed his habit of never staying overnight, and wondered if this was because he had a wife to go back to.

BREAKING APART FAMILIES

Because, of course, the spycops did have wives to go back to. ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79), who spoke for all of the 7 May hearing of the Inquiry, said that on joining the SDS he was specifically asked if he was married or in a stable relationship:

‘It was explained… in very general terms that they felt that an officer in a stable relationship or a stable married relationship would be a more stable character, given the likely exposure to stresses and strains of the likely work involved.’

There appears to have been no thought whatsoever given to the stresses and strains on the families themselves. Once again, women were exploited for the benefit of the SDS.

‘Jimmy Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-77) infiltrated a number of groups, including anarchist ones, like the South London branches of the Anarchist Workers Association and the Federation of London Anarchist Groups.

His widow provided a statement describing how she was given no support during his absences, and had to take great pains to protect his cover whilst trying to raise their two small children, effectively as a single parent. There was no going to joint social gatherings or having friends round to their home. This left her extremely isolated, as she had no family in the UK and so was reliant for support on close friends.

In fact, the majority of the marriages relied upon by management to keep the spycops stable disintegrated soon after their deployment ended. Despite there having been ample opportunity since the unit was set up, there was no kind of post-undercover care in place for the families and the spycops themselves.

The spycops seem to have been as oblivious to the damage they were doing to the people and causes they spied on as they were to the damage they were doing to their own families.

Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 12

7 May 2021

Evidence from witness:
 ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79)

The Undercover Policing Inquiry hearing on 7 May 2021 was entirely devoted to evidence from one witness, former officer ‘Graham Coates’, who certainly has a lot to say about the Special Demonstration Squad.

The Inquiry has prepared a lengthy summary of Coates’ undercover work, and you can read this on pages 191-206 of the Counsel to the Inquiry’s opening statement. You can also read Coates’ full witness statement. Yesterday, a related statement from the family of Coates’ contemporary ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) was published by the Inquiry.

Grunwick strike mass picket, London, July 1977

‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79)

It appears that ‘Graham Coates’ (HN304, 1975-79) joined the SDS in late 1975, having spent time working in various parts of Special Branch.

Coates says he was asked to attend a political meeting and report back by Detective Inspector Creamer. Shortly afterwards he was invited to join the secret unit. In his written witness statement, he recalls ‘an element of pride at having been asked’.

He was initially deployed to spy on the Hackney branch of the International Socialists (IS) – later renamed the Socialist Workers Party – in the summer of 1976. From 1977, he turned his attention to anarchist groups, including the Zero Collective and Anarchy Collective.

He also spied on the group Persons Unknown (‘PUNK’) and the Croydon branch of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

JOINING THE SPYCOPS

Coates first knew about the existence of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) when in Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s C Squad, which monitored left wing political groups. At some point he realised that he was looking at intelligence which had been collected by the SDS.

Having apparently passed that assignment, Coates was asked to present himself at ‘Room 1818’. At that time, the SDS was part of S Squad, and its office was on the top floor of New Scotland Yard. When he got there, he remembers the suggestion that he join the SDS.

He was asked if he was married or in a stable relationship. On being questioned why they wanted to know this, he replied:

‘It was explained… in very general terms that they felt that an officer in a stable relationship or a stable married relationship would be a more stable character, given the likely exposure to stresses and strains of the likely work involved.’

He was told that his undercover deployment would last for four years.

Like all SDS undercovers we have heard from to date, he received no formal training for the role. Instead, he spent five months in the SDS back office, accompanying managers to the regular weekly meetings of undercovers at the unit’s safe house.

Who typed up the reports in those days? He says there was a dedicated typing pool – he definitely didn’t type them himself.

The Inquiry drew his attention to the Registry File numbers and asked who obtained the numbers for incorporation into these reports? Coates confirmed that this was the sort of administrative work he was tasked with during his time in the back office.

Coates has stated that the undercovers were asked for their opinions of these new recruits. Asked what managers were looking for, he replied:

‘I imagine that they were looking out for somebody who would not stand out in any way as obviously being a serving officer.’

SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS : ‘BE CAREFUL’

In Coates’ written statement, he says the advice on sexual relationships, if any, was to ‘be incredibly careful’ if you were going to get involved in people’s private lives, especially if you were going to engage in a sexual relationship.

The Inquiry asked specifically what being ‘very careful’ meant.

His explanation:

‘really and truly this is not something that we advise, but if you have to, take every precaution of all kinds that you can imagine necessary.’

Coates clarified that by ‘precautions’ he meant contraception but also the:

‘common sense preservation of an identity of an individual, of a group of individuals and of the risk that would be entailed if the whole system became exposed, if that relationship became exposed.’

However it was left to individual officers to decide whether to take this advice or not and, as we heard later, many of them ignored it.

He says that he avoided sexual relationships when undercover:

‘I found the whole business of operating as an undercover officer stressful enough.’

Asked if he had any moral views on this, he said that his views had taken ‘more definite shape’ over the years, but he did feel it was wrong for an undercover officer to have a relationship of this kind with a member of the public who didn’t know who they really were.

DEFINING SUBVERSION & LACK OF TRAINING

He defined ‘subversion’ as something:

‘likely to cause disruption to an established system of government.’

Was this the system of parliamentary democracy, or the government of the day?

‘I think it was probably both.’

He talked about aims and means – and said that Special Branch would take an interest in any group with subversive aims, even if they did not have the means to make anything happen.

Asked if he felt properly prepared for his undercover role, Coates gave an emphatic ‘no.’

He went on to say that he:

‘just had a feeling that the management of the day really expected potential officers… to fully understand all of the ramifications of such a posting’

He now wishes that he had asked more questions but was not actively encouraged to do so. He thinks more formal training would have helped.

IDENTITY THEFT

Like many other undercover officers, Coates was instructed to visit the government’s birth records registry at Somerset House and to locate the identity of a dead child for his cover name. He was advised that the ‘person should not have died incredibly old’ because an older child would have ‘much more history that could be checked’.

He stole the identity of a child called ‘Graham Coates’ to form the basis of his false persona. As part of his ‘legend building’, he visited the real Graham Coates’ place of birth – something he said he did of his own volition.

The Inquiry asked if he had carried out any kind of risk assessment (even just in his head) about the possibility of being compromised or confronted with a death certificate for Graham Coates. He answered he may have considered that ‘fleetingly’ but quickly discounted it as extremely unlikely.

Coates candidly admits to not having any qualms at the time about stealing a dead child’s identity. He doesn’t know if his fellow SDS colleagues had reservations about this practice, but also said that they did not really discuss it.

His managers did not test his cover identity in any way – they trusted the undercovers’ ability to create a solid enough story. Coates says he was not warned that activists might try to test his identity, or told of any contingency plans for such a situation.

TRADECRAFT

He wasn’t able to grow as full a beard as other undercover ‘hairies’, but altered his appearance by wearing thick heavy-framed glasses. He habitually smoked a pipe:

‘I also developed the habit of always having a hole in the knee of my jeans. This was part of my general scruffiness.’

He had a driving licence in the name of ‘Graham Coates’, a rent book and maybe a library card. His cover accommodation was in North London, and he told people he was self-employed as a window cleaner.

As part of this cover, he drove a blue Mini van with a roof-rack, and carried step-ladders and other window-cleaning equipment around:

‘The job fitted the lackadaisical lifestyle I wanted as I could make my own hours.’

Coates said that he ‘chose not to be prominent’ within the groups he infiltrated. Rather, how he presented himself was connected to how he felt it might affect his safety, saying that he unconsciously ‘probably kept what I’d now regard as a Covid 19 distance from them’.

The Inquiry returned to the issue of the SDS safe houses. Were there always two during his deployment? Coates confirmed that there were, explaining that one of them changed during this time, but there were always two. He described one as a ‘large flat’.

According to his written statement, undercover officers could go into another room for a private chat with managers. He said this was something he did ‘seldom, if ever’.

He kept a standard police diary. It was used to:

‘convey in the broadest strokes the daily activities of the UCO, commencing from phoning in to start work… meeting informants at such and such a hostelry… until the early hours of the morning when you finished work.’

These diaries were submitted at the meetings. The spycops were paid for their ‘overtime’ and expenses.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE SAFE HOUSE

Coates was able to shed light on the regular meetings at the flat. There was no formal agenda. ‘It was a fairly light-hearted gathering over tea and coffee’ followed by a ‘long and moist lunch’ at a pub.

Coates was rather vague about what was discussed at these meetings but remembered them including, for example, what was defined as on- and off- duty.

The Inquiry asked why this distinction was discussed, and he said the main reason was the spycops’ claims for overtime. His were never challenged, so he assumes they ‘fell within acceptable limits’. However, he did say that in ‘one or two cases, eyebrows were raised’.

The undercovers sometimes discussed the demonstrations they attended – the discrepancies (eg in reported numbers of people attending) as well as who attended and spoke, and how the uniformed police behaved.

Were the politics of the groups being spied on discussed in the safe house? He says he had the feeling that their politics were ‘not disregarded but belittled’, and this belittling was not deliberate, it is ‘just what happened’.

He describes his relationship with his fellow undercover officers as a ‘working friendship’. He could relax with them. The group contained a wide range of personalities. They would joke together, and he remembers banter, which the managers would join in with.

‘BANTER’

In his written statement, he described ‘informal banter’ at the undercover officers’ safe house about women these officers had encountered while undercover, and ‘jokey remarks’ about sexual encounters made in the presence of managers. This behaviour was never challenged.

Coates states that Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) had a reputation for having sexual relationships.

He also recalls that ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) had a reputation for chasing after women and was widely known as a philanderer. A third officer, whose details he did not recall, also behaved in this way.

In his statement, he says the unit’s managers:

‘must have known it was almost bound to happen with certain individuals who had a predilection for chasing women before during and after their time with the SDS. Indeed, single men were generally not admitted to the SDS and I understood this was partly about avoiding relationships.’

Asked whether the kind of ‘banter’ would have gone down well with 1970s feminists he went much further and said that it probably would have been considered offensive by most people, even back then.

RICK GIBSON – RISK OF COMPROMISE

Asked about Richard Clark, who used the cover name ‘Rick Gibson’, he said his clearest recollection was while Coates was still working in the back office before his deployment began, when he became aware that unit’s managers were worried about Clark’s identity being compromised.

How concerned were the managers about this situation? Coates suspects the managers were more concerned about the safety of Clark’s role and function as a supplier of covert information, rather than the officer’s personal safety, adding pointedly:

‘although they would deny that, wouldn’t they?’

He thought the SDS managers didn’t want to lose this valuable source of intelligence, adding:

‘if one brick falls out of the building, maybe others will become unstable, or will be discovered to be unstable.’

They were very keen to keep the unit out of the public eye. How security-conscious were they? ‘Apparently quite,’ Coates replied drily.

MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE OF RELATIONSHIPS

Ever since the spycops scandal broke, a central question has been whether or not senior officers knew about the undercovers’ abusive intimate relationships.

Speaking about Clark’s sexual relationships, Coates was clear:

‘What I heard left me in no doubt that the management were aware of that officer’s behaviour.’

Senior officers:

‘could not have failed to have drawn the obvious conclusions from the comments that were being made’.

Coates explained that the sexual comments being made in conversation in the SDS safe houses were ‘of a gross nature’ have left nobody in any doubt the nature of the Clark’s relationships:

‘It was made quite plain with jokes and banter.’

Coates is extremely clear and very emphatic that there is no way anyone working in the wider SDS office at the time could have been unaware of Clark’s exploits.

At this time, the unit was run by Chief Inspector Derek Kneale. Detective Inspector Geoff Craft (and possibly DI Angus McIntosh), who would certainly have known, as would have Sergeant ‘HN368’, if they were in the unit at that time.

Pressed for details of a ‘gross comment’ of the kind he’d mentioned earlier, he reluctantly shared one example:

‘he’ll have made her bite the blankets again last night.’

Coates reiterated that the managers never openly criticised or expressed disapproval of the unit’s ‘banter’. They actually took part in what he called a ‘low level of communal humour’.

Coates accuses the managers of being ‘deliberately blind in some areas’, including these sexual relationships.

Did the spycops discuss the Women’s Liberation Movement in their safe house? As Coates remembers, their attitude and thinking was similar to many other men at the time – feminists were ‘a bunch of angry women that could be ignored’.

The Inquiry then asked Coates more about specific officers accused of sexual misconduct in this era.

JIM PICKFORD (HN300)

According to Coates, Pickford was widely known as a ‘philanderer’:

‘anybody who knew that officer, at any stage of his service, would very quickly have known what his propensities and proclivities were in that regard… he really didn’t keep anything very secret… It was common knowledge, within and outside of ‘S Squad’ [the SDS parent unit], that he could not be in the presence of a woman without trying it on.’

Coates says he witnessed this for himself. He’d have been surprised if Pickford hadn’t talked about the women in his target group.

He didn’t think Pickford did falling in love, but knew that he’d formed a relationship with a woman he met while undercover. He says he didn’t know that Jim later married such a woman.

Again, as it was the subject of safe house banter, Coates does not see how the managers could have been unaware of Pickford’s sexual relationships.

BARRY TOMPKINS (HN106)

Turning to ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83), Coates said he couldn’t recall anything about this man’s reputation with women, or any gossip about his indulging in sexual relationships. The Inquiry asked him if he could recall an anecdote circulating in the safe house about an activist woman who could lactate on demand, but Coates said he didn’t.

Documents being published by the Inquiry suggest that Barry Tompkins did indeed have a relationship whilst undercover.

PHIL COOPER (HN155)

Coates said the banter about ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155, 1979-83) tended to be about financial matters, such as the size of his expense claims. He doesn’t remember any sexual relationships but says he would not be surprised to hear that Cooper had a ‘reputation with women’.

Asked why he wouldn’t be surprised, he went on to explain that Cooper was a ‘very charming, easy-going, light-hearted individual’ who found it easy to strike up friendships, and probably would have had ‘small to no’ qualms when it came to ‘accepting an offer of sex’ while undercover.

VINCE MILLER (HN354)

Although he couldn’t recall who ‘Vince Miller‘ (HN354, 1976-79) was when he wrote his statement, Coates now remembers him. Despite them being deployed at the same time, near each other, he says he didn’t know Miller all that well.

Coates says he wasn’t aware of his ‘reputation with women’ and knows nothing about any sexual relationships that this officer might have had.

Miller admits having relationships with four women while undercover.

Coates does not believe that the spycops gave any consideration to how these women might feel about being deceived.

TESTING FOR POTENTIAL ABUSERS?

With hindsight, Coates thinks that there should have been much stricter guidance in terms of the potential damage of such relationships to individuals and families, and that intimate relationships should have been discouraged. In particular, he suggested today that:

‘prospective UCOs [undercover officers] should be schooled for far longer, and in greater breadth, for all considerations of the work.’

When asked if he thought the men should also have been screened, so that those with a predilection for chasing women were excluded, Coates talked about why it suited the managers to ignore these sexual relationships due to the intelligence being obtained.

Coates was also asked if sexual relationships had been clearly prohibited, and if this issue been covered in training, would it have prevented them happening?

Coates replied that, in his opinion, some of the undercovers he knew would have had them anyway:

‘I don’t think it would have had any effect’.

Later in the day, Coates said he was unsurprised to hear about the high number of sexual relationships between spycops and their targets after the story became public in 2011, saying there was ‘almost a sense of inevitability’ about such things occurring.

REPORTING

Coates understood that his role was to gather information, and that:

‘no scrap of information was ever rejected as irrelevant.’

According to his statement, undercover officers were expected to ‘take information in through the skin’.

You can’t ignore things, no matter how trivial they seem – they might turn out, years later, to be ‘the missing piece of the jigsaw’ he explained. He said it was normal within Special Branch for senior officers to decide what was included in final reports, saying ‘it’s not for us’ (the reporting officers) to make such assessments.

However, he admitted to doing some filtering himself, saying he would use his own judgement and relied on his conscience as well as his experience to do so. He said that he would not report personal information – although many Special Branch reports are littered with such material.

He is not sure how complete the reporting that has been provided to him is – he says he is surprised there is not more.

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Special Branch employed covert photographers. He was often shown these pictures and asked to identify people in them. He did not photograph any activists himself.

One document shown by the Inquiry [UCPI0000011265] is a heavily censored image of an ‘anarcha-feminist’– he is asked if this is a typical example of such photos?

He agreed that it was, and explained the significance of the cropping of the image – it looks like it was a photograph that that been taken and processed by Special Branch itself.

HACKNEY INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

At the start of his deployment, Coates was tasked to infiltrate the Hackney International Socialists (IS) by DCI Derek Kneale. He found it easy to infiltrate them – he hung around Dalston and got into conversation with some of its members from which they recruited him to help sell papers and invited him to meetings.

Reports attributed to Coates go back to a meeting of the Tower Hamlets branch of IS in May 1976. There are more reports from him that hot summer – many of the meetings he spied on took place at Centerprise – a cross-cultural community hub in Dalston that combined a bookshop and coffee bar, providing advice and resources, and meeting space for all kinds of groups.

These included one meeting of the North East London Workers’ Action Support Group in July 1976 [UCPI000009764], and regular members-only meetings of the Hackney IS group.

Since the Hackney IS meetings were very small, Coates was asked how much impact his presence had on the decisions made in these meetings.

He said that he retained his sense of caution throughout, and tried not to raise any suspicions. He would minimise how often he voted and abstained as often as he judged he could.

A report dated 24 August 1976 [UCPI0000010831], concerns an educational meeting organised by Hackney IS. ‘Graham Coates’ is not only listed as one of the five attendees but is named as giving a 20 minute talk on the history of the Labour Party.

Coates believes he was asked to give this talk as a way of establishing his knowledge, as a recent recruit to the IS group, and that it would have helped his credentials.

His report [UCPI0000010756] of an August 1976 meeting at Earlsmead School mentions that Paul Foot ‘spoke on the spectre of racism’.

In February 1977, Coates filed a report [UCPI0000017759] of a meeting which discussed the case of the ‘Islington 18‘ – a group of Black defendants who were arrested in North London on spurious grounds of conspiracy.

The Inquiry asked whether the SDS reported on such justice campaigns as part of their ‘any info is fair game’ approach or did they take a particular interest? Coates says the former.

BLAIR PEACH

Blair Peach

Coates says he was not made aware of any need for sensitivity around spying on those kinds of family justice campaign groups. He was asked what he knew about Celia Stubbs, who was a member of Hackney IS at the same time as him, or her partner Blair Peach. He said that he recalled seeing Stubbs at meetings, but never met Peach.

Did he remember attending a demo in Southall on 23rd April 1979? Coates asked if this was a reference to the Grunwick dispute. He had to be reminded that this was the antifascist protest at which Blair Peach was killed by police.

In contrast with his openness in answering questions about the SDS’ misogynist culture, Coates clammed up and seemed tense – he claimed not to remember any discussion of this case, or the subsequent campaigning for justice.

CLASHES BETWEEN LEFT & RIGHT

We returned once more to the subject of public disorder caused by fascist agitation, attacks, and intimidation, which has featured throughout the evidence.

In contrast to other instances, three reports from 1976-77 [UCPI0000010769] [UCPI0000011139] [UCPI0000011244] were used to show that the National Front (NF) frequently turned up at their opponents’ events and sought to intimidate and physically attack people.

A report by Coates from July 1976 [UCPI0000010659] includes a reference to a ‘negress’ in the audience talking about the West Indian Defence Committee in Brixton, who were engaged with knives and coshes ready to meet physical racialism with physical attacks.

It’s noteworthy that, throughout this period, although the NF and other right-wing groups were extremely violent, they were not being spied on by the SDS in the way that anti-fascists routinely were.

We went back to a report from June 1976 [UCPI0000009764] on a meeting of North East London Workers Action Support Group. Somebody who spoke at this meeting is reported to have said:

‘the only reason that the anti-fascist demonstrations appeared to attack the police and not the NF was because the police actively supported and protected the NF and therefore any such confrontation was an anti-fascist action… that would always be mischaracterised by the capitalist press.’

Coates explained that the view that the police always sided with the right-wing groups was prevalent. Unfortunately the Inquiry idn’t ask the obvious follow-up question – did Coates think there was any truth in this?

Coates’ October 1975 report [UCPI0000021460] about Brent Trades Council organising a picket at an NF meeting being held in Burnt Oak Library in Edgware was, he agreed typical of the reports that he and other undercover officers submitted.

GRUNWICK STRIKE

Coates was asked about his memories of the Grunwick dispute. This was a long-running strike at a north London photo processing works in the late 1970s over unfair working practices which attracted widespread support and involved mass pickets.

Coates recalled it was something to do with the discrimination faced by Asian women workers, but didn’t think he went there.

However, in his written statement, he describes his attendance with IS in some detail, and the fact that it sticks in his mind because:

‘The Grunwicks demonstrations were the only significant public order disturbance I witnessed.’

After being reminded of this, he said he thought he had gone there on one occasion.

The Inquiry highlighted part of his witness statement’s comments about violence:

‘I never witnessed any violence close-hand, but heard afterwards from other activists that people had been hit by the police. I think there were many arrests at Grunwicks for public order offences, such as obstructing the highway, offensive or abusive words or behaviour, and possibly resisting arrest.’

He then added:

‘Of course, there was always an element of a badge of honour to it – if, as an activist, you could claim that you had been hit by the police, because it just proved how rotten they were.’

SOCIALIST WORKER STRATEGIES

The Inquiry showed a report [UCPI0000010956] from September 1977, in which a member of the SWP described Grunwick as a ‘good training ground in the use of tactics on the picket line’. They added the Party should get involved in industrial disputes at an earlier stage and recommended forming ‘cells’ in factories that could persuade people to join picket lines. To this end, he suggested, there should be a list of unemployed SWP members who could join a workplace at short notice if it was thought a dispute was in the offing.

The speaker said Grunwick showed that at least a thousand comrades would be needed to attack or block the factory gates, and the plan would need to be enacted swiftly and forcefully to avoid it being stopped by police. The SWP have the ability to take such action, he said, but not the capacity to organise it.

Coates was asked if this tallied with what he knew of SWP strategy. He said that the Party was ‘moderately OK in handling small pickets’ but lacked the ‘joined-up thinking and foresight’ to do anything on something as large scale as the Grunwick dispute.

Asked if the SWP was cooperative with the police in planning demonstrations, Coates was unsure but imagines they were.

This question has been asked of multiple witnesses now. The Inquiry seems to be implying a lack of cooperation somehow goes to justifying the deployment of undercover police – without looking at the fact that the right to free speech and assembly are protected under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention is clear that any interference with those rights has to be both necessary and proportionate.

As if it was somehow illegal and subversive to simply hold a demonstration without prior state approval.

The SWP was only ever minimally involved in any criminal activity, and even that tended to be maverick and spontaneous rather than planned and approved by leaders. As the SWP sought revolutionary change, how far had they got when Coates infiltrated them?

Coates retorted, ‘no further than they are now, and added that at the time of his infiltration the prospect seemed remote.

Coates’ last report on the SWP [UCPI0000017375] was dated 11 May 1977.

ANARCHY IN THE UK

At around this time, in the spring of 1977, Coates moved into the ‘anarchist field’, as he was finding the IS tedious:

‘I basically found them boring, for want of a better word, and not very active… they were always just happy to just talk about the party the party, the party, the party. But they didn’t actually do anything very much, from my point of view, to make my life interesting or more sparky,’

Rather, he had developed:

‘a fascination within me about the subject of anarchism.’

He said SDS managers were keen to accommodate the wishes of spycops, so the change was approved. A contemporary, ‘Jimmy Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-77), had been infiltrating anarchist groups and was leaving his deployment, but Coates says he didn’t discuss his new focus with Pickford.

How did Coates prepare himself for anarchism?

‘I made myself thoroughly disreputable looking, for a start.’

In his written statement he said that he thinks he was:

‘drawn to the anarchists as I felt their unstructured and disorganised lifestyle might match my own lifestyle at that time.’

Coates described that infiltrating anarchists was, ‘to a great extent’, based on forming personal relationships with individuals.

He targeted Dave Morris:

‘because he was very cagey as an individual, but he was very approachable at the same time in lots of ways, and I knew a little about him, that he was a key mover in the area at the time.’

Morris, a life-long activist, gave an opening statement to the Inquiry at its first hearings in November 2020. Then, having learned he was spied on by Coates, Morris gave a second opening statement in April 2021.

Coates describes the two as being ‘close but not huggingly close’ for around 12-18 months.

A report [UCPI0000017641] of a Federation of London Anarchist Groups meeting in December 1976, described how Dave Morris spoke at the start, and then the meeting split into groups to discuss housing, claimants, law and education.

Coates was unequivocally clear that Morris was not a violent man. Yet, Coates filed a report [UCPI0000011003] in September 1977 where Morris had apparently said to close friends he was being ‘inextricably drawn’ towards political violence and it being ‘inevitable’ that he will resort to it. Coates conceded that, to his knowledge, Morris had never resorted to violence.

Coates also deliberately sought out esteemed anarchist Albert Meltzer in order to seem part of the scene. He met him twice at Freedom Bookshop.

In his written statement, Coates explained:

‘I suppose you might call it a little vanity project, but it was very important for me to set myself little targets like this as I found the day-to-day life undercover very monotonous.’

(By coincidence, the hearing was on the 25th anniversary of Meltzer’s death, and Freedom News published a eulogy for him)

ANARCHIST POLICE

Coates wrote articles for several anarchist publications during his deployment. He says he used his cover name (but this is more likely to mean his fake initials, ‘GC’). He doubts that he would have flagged this activity up to his managers. He suggests that they would have known, as he probably submitted copies of the publications with his reports, but this assumes that they bothered reading them.

He had written articles for IS, but found that harder as he did not share their politics. There, he asked for topics to cover and wrote what he thought people in the group would want to hear. However, with anarchists it came readily as he was:

‘expounding upon my feelings on the subject – my own personal feelings on the subject.’

He remembered writing an article about the difference between true work and exploitative work. We note this is a feat of compartmentalising, to be analysing such a subject and setting out his position, but as an act of paid work for an agency that wants to undermine the beliefs that he’s expressing.

The Inquiry described him as ‘a police officer with anarchist leanings’ – Coates did not correct this assertion. There was a sense among some of those watching his evidence that he quite liked it being put this way.

ANARCHIST GROUPS

Coates infiltrated a number of anarchist groups. He was not surprised to learn that, as an active anarchist, ‘Graham Coates’ has a Special Branch Registry File.

The Zero Collective produced a newsletter of the same name in the 1970s. The group was very small, commonly just three or four people in the meetings. The group didn’t commit any criminal offences or public disorder that Coates is aware of.

Likewise, another target, the Anarchy Collective produced Anarchy magazine. It was also a small group, with meetings often of only three to five people, held in private homes. Coates said that they were tenuously connected with the Angry Brigade, a far-left group responsible for 25 bombings in England between 1970 and 1972.

This connection, Coates recalled on being pressed, turned out to be that someone knew Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie, who had once been caught in Spain trying to assassinate fascist leader General Franco, and had later been acquitted at an Angry Brigade trial.

As for the Anarchy Collective itself, again, he said that they were not involved in any crime or disorder. He bluntly said they had not effected any change to the political system and, in his opinion, had no prospects of doing so.

Persons Unknown (known as PUNK) was a support group for three of the defendants in a legal case, and also campaigned against increased police powers. Again, he says he has no knowledge of them committing crimes or any public disorder.

He had previously said that he may have reported on another group, the East London Libertarians:

‘I don’t think they posed any more threat than any other small rag-tag organisation of any political persuasion.’

Finally, he spoke about anarcho-syndicalists like the London Workers Group. They were more linked to trade unionists and probably more effective at calling out support.

He got to know the Freedom Collective, anarchist publishers who he describes as ‘largely an organisation of wishful thinkers’.

After the Angry Brigade bombings a few years earlier, Special Branch was worried about further such campaigns. Coates saw nothing to suggest that was ever a risk. He was aware of ‘The Anarchist Cookbook’ which contained information about explosives, but said it was not widely circulated and he only once saw a copy (at the home of an Anarchy Collective member).

For someone who left IS because he felt it was all talk and no action, Coates’ choice of targets show a marked focus on publishers rather than action. It seems that he just personally preferred anarchism to socialism.

He said:

‘if every undercover officer told the truth, they would have to admit that at some point during their deployment they had some sympathy for the ideas and tenets of the group or groups that they were involved with.’

Coates is adamant that without spycops the police would not have been able to find out so much about these anarchist groups.

POINTLESS REPORTS

Coates reported [UCPI0000010997] on a September 1977 meeting of 23 anarchists to discuss ‘how should we react to racialism and anti-fascist demonstrations?’

It came in the wake of disturbances at counter-demonstrations against fascist street marches at Wood Green in April and Lewisham in August that year. This was time of a large and growing number of racist attacks in London.

The report describes the meeting as being split between pacifists who wanted public meetings and others who:

‘could hardly restrain themselves from rushing out to assault the nearest fascist/racialist.’

He readily conceded that the group was not actually overtaken by the latter faction. He was not asked what he thought the correct and proportionate response was to fascist throngs on the streets. He could not remember his colleagues ever discussing the far right.

Coates denied that report [UCPI0000021703] was his work. It concerned an anarchist meeting at the London School of Economics on 1 May 1978. It said that a speaker from the Paedophile Information Exchange had been invited, and this info leaked to the fascist National Front in the hope that they would come along to attack it so that the anarchists could provide physical resistance.

The report claimed there were about 65 people, including some up on the roof with things to throw down at any fascists who might arrive.

The Inquiry asked:

‘was the deliberate ambush of political opponents a tactic you came across?’

Coates said it was the kind of thing people might talk about but he never saw it happen.

Flame, the SWP’s Black workers newspaper, Sept 1977

After that odd report, the next one [UCPI0000021710] was frankly bizarre. It said that a speaker, having agreed that a previous suggestion to burn prison gates was unworkable, suggested attacking a school.

The purpose would be to point out to pupils the uselessness of academic education. This would be done by locking pupils and staff either in or out of the building, beating up the teachers ‘with a reputation’, distributing leaflets, and doing it all within 15 minutes before leaving so as to avoid capture by police.

Coates said this was not his report and he knew nothing about such an idea. Not for the first time, it seems that Special Branch did not want to distinguish between hyperbole and actual plans. As with all the other reports mentioned, this one had been copied to the Security Service (MI5).

Despite reporting no intelligence that would build a picture of concern, managers didn’t question his continued deployment until more than a year later when he was told to switch to infiltrating Croydon SWP:

‘I think that was because they felt that my output… had become insufficient.’

He did this for a few months and, again, is not aware of the group being involved in any criminality or disorder. More than that, Coates says he never took part in any crime while undercover, and neither did the groups he infiltrated.

FRATERNISING WITH THE ENEMY

The Inquiry asked Coates about socialising with those he spied on. He said that he went to the pub with IS as a group after meetings, but not to people’s houses.

He socialised more with the anarchists because he felt more ‘at home’ among them.

His mangers never asked him about this aspect of his deployment, but would have expected it. Drinking ran a risk of Coates accidentally saying things he shouldn’t, but he still drank extensively anyway.

PREJUDICE

The Inquiry then highlighted some prejudiced language and attitudes in Coates’ reports.

A report in June 1978 [UCPI0000021776] said that following police raids elsewhere, Dave Morris had seen fit to alter his appearance quite dramatically by shaving off his beard and having his hair cut short:

‘This has revealed he has a long thin face, large Jewish nose and full lips.’

An August 1976 meeting titled ‘Women: The Fight for Equality’ was reported on [UCPI0000010823].

It describes an IS party member and school teacher, speaking to an IS meeting for the first time:

‘in addition to being attractive, she was both eloquent and forceful.’

Coates denied authorship of the report, but conceded that either way there was no need to rate the woman’s physical appearance as ‘attractive’.

The Inquiry listed a number of other objectionable observations in reports attributed to Coates. There was a reference to activists having ‘a mongol child’, a derogatory term for someone with Down’s syndrome. Another child was noted as ‘exact parenthood unknown’. Sexual orientation was commented upon, and affairs were recorded.

Coates not only tried to shrug it off as the culture of the time, he sought to justify it:

‘I can only tell you it was accepted, it was not queried… on the grounds that you never know when it might come in useful, who it might lead to, where it might lead’

RIGHT TO THE TOP

Coates recounted that the head of the Metropolitan Police, Commissioner Sir Robert Mark, visited the SDS safe house to personally congratulate the officers on their work. He remembers managers insisting on maximum attendance from all deployed undercovers that day.

Unexpectedly, he recalled that Mark made a comment when he was introduced to ‘Phil Cooper‘ (HN155, 1979-83):

‘when introduced to him, he said words to the effect of, “Ah, yes, your name should be Gold”.’

This was allegedly a reference to the size of Cooper’s expenses claims. This is a strong indication that the ‘top brass’ paid close attention to everyday details of the spycops unit. It demonstrates the importance of proper cross-examination at the Inquiry.

The Commander of Special Branch also visited to cast a favourable eye over the unit.

END OF DEPLOYMENT

Coates said that he had found the undercover life became more and more stressful as time went on. By 1979 his home life was also difficult.

‘I made an error of judgement on a particular day which resulted in my immediate withdrawal and posting back to Scotland Yard.’

This was obliquely referred to as ‘a traffic matter’ in which he told a uniformed officer from another constabulary his real name.

SDS boss Mike Ferguson (a former undercover himself) was ‘incandescent’, not just at Coates’ own indiscretion but for the potential revelation of the unit and its methods. Coates was withdrawn from the field on the spot.

This account is somewhat curious when one notes the various other indiscretions of undercovers, especially ‘Stewart Goodman’ (HN339, 1970-71) crashing his car while drunk and telling police on the scene officer he was undercover.

OFFICER WELFARE

Coates pointed out that by the time he joined the SDS, the unit had had plenty of time to set up systems to look after the spycops welfare, but it had not done so.

He said that it would have been useful for potential recruits to be given a ‘much broader, fuller, longer period of immersion’ before entering the field.

He had no debriefing or period of rest after being withdrawn from his undercover life.. He doesn’t remember being told about any support on offer.

Nobody really checked up on his welfare after his deployment ended. He says now that at the time he seemed to be coping OK, but nobody knows how they’ll react to stress in the short- and long-term. He says the managers should have been more proactive and asked. He went on to complain that he was left feeling bereft:

‘I’ve gone through all of this and now it’s as if I don’t exist’.

Like a large proportion of spycops, his marriage foundered and he separated from his wife shortly after his deployment ended.

Coates sticks by the sentiment from his witness statement, that the SDS generally did not actually protect the public from danger, but that it was nonetheless worthwhile:

‘If the SDS had never existed, I do not think disaster would have befallen the streets of the capital apart from maybe on a very small number of occasions when there were very large demonstrations. But I think the work of the SDS helped to make sure police resources were not being wasted on small demonstrations, and that larger demonstrations were properly policed.’

Full written statement of ‘Graham Coates’

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 11

6 May 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘Jimmy Pickford’ (HN300, 1974-77)
‘Barry / Desmond Loader’ (HN13, 1975-78)

Introduction of associated documents:
‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78)

Evidence from witness:
Celia Stubbs

Today’s hearing of the Undercover Policing Inquiry started with the reading of witness statements of undercover officers that could not or did not want to appear in person.

‘Jimmy Pickford’ (HN300, 1974-77)

‘Jimmy Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-77) infiltrated a number of groups, including anarchist ones, like the South London branches of the Anarchist Workers Association (AWA) and the Federation of London Anarchist Groups (FLAG).

He spent a year in Special Branch – including ‘C Squad’, the left-wing surveillance section – before joining the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in the summer of 1974. He started off in the back-room, and by October was ready to be sent in to the ‘field’.

His first reports show that he targeted radical newspapers (including ‘Freedom’, ‘Lower Down’, ‘Up Against the Law’ and ‘Pavement’) as well as local, grass-roots groups around Battersea and Wandsworth in South West London.

These included the Battersea Park Action Group (BPAG), the Battersea Redevelopment Action Group (BRAG), and the Battersea & Wandsworth Trades Council Anti-Fascist Committee.

Pickford met an (unnamed) woman during his deployment (in his cover identity), with whom he had a sexual relationship. His expressed desire to tell her his real identity led to his withdrawal from active deployment in 1976. He has since died, so will not be giving evidence.

FAMILY STATEMENT

However, the Inquiry has received a statement from Pickford’s second wife and children, detailing the impact of his undercover work on them.

The family are concerned that publicity from the Inquiry will interfere with their right to a private life, so have asked for his real name to be restricted.

They are concerned about ‘unscrupulous individuals’ who were around him in later life, who might try to ‘cash in’ on this association by selling (untrue) stories to the press. They are also concerned about the possibility of other police officers making connections due to his undercover work, and sharing details of his deployments.

They say that before becoming an undercover officer, ‘Pickford’ was supplied with assurances that his true identity would never be disclosed, to ensure the safety of both him and his family:

‘This was of paramount importance to him and he mentioned this to us many times’

He taught his children to be vigilant, not divulge information, and to be suspicious of anyone seeking information, no matter how innocuous it seemed. He talked about other police work, but never his undercover deployment. After this ended, he took public-facing roles. His family believe this is because he felt his identity was secure.

They believe he infiltrated at least two groups that represented high levels of risk and danger. One of these groups remains active now, in another form. They are worried that people from these groups will try to target the family, physically or via the media/ online. They believe they could easily be tracked down.

UNDERCOVER

Pickford radically changed his appearance when undercover, growing his hair and a voluminous beard.

The family say that he would disappear for long periods of time, with no way of being contacted. No emergency contact details were provided to his wife, and no support was given during his absences.

IMPACT ON FAMILY LIFE

He parked his cover vehicle away from the family home, to which he returned during the evening and night – there would only be occasional contact prior to his arrival. This caused considerable disruption to the family routine, especially given his children were very young at the time. They feel they have made enough sacrifices as a family for his work, which he saw as protection of the country.

To avoid compromising his cover, there was no going to joint social gatherings or having friends round to their home. This left his wife extremely isolated while trying to raise her children, as she had no family in the UK and so was reliant for support on close friends.

Because socialising, even with fellow police officers, was minimal, she was effectively a single parent, socially vulnerable and alone. There was no support from Special Branch.

RELATIONSHIPS

While undercover, he began a relationship with another woman. This, along with the strains that had been put on the family (by the demands of his deployment), led to their divorce, within a year of Pickford leaving the field.

He went on to marry the other woman and have a child with her. This marriage also ended in divorce, some years later. She has not been traced, having remarried.

The Inquiry has confirmed that another, unnamed undercover officer has now provided an account of being tearfully told by Pickford that he had fallen in love with a woman associated with his targets and wanted to tell her the truth. This officer says that they offered to act as a conduit between him and the SDS managers [UCPI0000034307].

Pickford’s wife and children did meet this other woman, and the children joined them on holidays. They noted that she sometimes called him ‘Jimmy’. This indicates she had met him in his undercover identity.

The Inquiry has caused the family distress and anxiety, causing them to re-live unhappy times. This is exacerbated by needing to keep it from other family and friends. Having kept their obligations of confidentiality about Pickford’s work, they now feel betrayed at the thought of this information being released, especially as it led to the collapse of the marriage.

THE INQUIRY’S ACCOUNT OF REPORTS

Pickford’s time undercover has been set out by the Inquiry. He focused on anarchist and community groups in the Battersea/ Wandsworth area. He came across a number of other people who are now core participants at the Inquiry, including Dave Morris in 1976 [UCPI0000021496, UCPI0000017641].

He was particularly interested in Ernest Rodker, who he reported on throughout his deployment, providing many personal details including legal proceedings and birth of his son. It would appear that Rodker was the key focus of his deployment.

The early part of the deployment in 1975 focused on publications such as ‘Freedom’, ‘Lower Down’, ‘Up Against The Law’ and ‘Pavement’ [UCPI0000007125]. He also reported on small local left-leaning groups which held meetings and lobbied politicians – such as BPAG and BRAG (which Rodker was also active in).

ANARCHIST WORKERS ASSOCIATION

Having joined the Kingston branch of the Anarchist Workers Association (AWA), he helped set up the Wandsworth branch in July 1975 (later it became the South London AWA) [UCPI0000006950, UCPI0000012805].

He was elected treasurer of Wandsworth AWA in July 1975 [UCPI0000012685], remaining in that role until the end of his deployment.

He was highly active in the AWA, particularly at branch level where he was responsible for much of the local organising. This included arranging public events and writing articles for the AWA paper. He was the Wandsworth branch’s delegate to the Federation of London Anarchist Groups.

The Inquiry notes the high degree of activity, in comparison to the small numbers at the meetings, and asks whether it was it in fact him who essentially kept the Wandsworth branch functioning: would it have survived without him?

He also gave him access to the larger AWA network. He attended delegate conferences as well as AWA’s national conference.

The Inquiry notes that there are various reports from Pickford indicating his targets were alive to the possibility of police infiltration. There are also times when he cites some AWA members as having a willingness for violence to advance their aims, but it is all very rhetorical and about future revolutionary moments.

There is little in the reports to suggest any criminality or violence; the most tangible threat is a September 1975 report of some members thinking about disrupting a Royal Navy recruitment event with stink bombs and smoke pellets [UCPI0000007604].

Two local, community-oriented papers, ‘Pavement’ and ‘Lower Down’, are reported on. Even the collective members’ personal relationships and living arrangements are recorded [UCPI0000014967].

‘Up Against the Law’ (UPAL) was another publication, put out by a campaign group that assisted people trying to overturn wrongful criminal convictions.

It is believed – but unconfirmed – that Pickford acted as a distributor for the paper. He certainly reported on them – for example this November 1974 report details a dispute between UPAL and their printers [UCPI0000015096]. As with many Special Branch reports, it hard to imagine the relevance of this information to the police.

Like almost all undercovers from this period, Pickford also spied upon anti-fascist campaigners – in his case an umbrella group called Wandsworth Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist Committee [UCPI0000021581].

‘Barry / Desmond Loader’ (HN13, 1975-78)

‘Barry / Desmond Loader‘ (HN13, 1975-78) was deployed into the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) from 1975 to 1978. He is deceased.

His widow confirmed in a very brief statement [MPS-0740967], that he stole his cover surname from a deceased child from Wiltshire, and that he had told her of the surname during his deployment.

The Inquiry says that Loader’s affiliation with the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) provided entry to several associated organisations, including the Communist Unity Association (Marxist-Leninist), the East London Peoples Front, the Progressive Cultural Association, and the Outer East London Anti-Fascist Anti-Racist Committee.

EARLY REPORTING

The first report held by the Inquiry believed to be attributable to Loader dates from February 1975. These include intelligence on the Marxist-Leninist Organisation of Britain [UCPI0000012145], the Free Desmond Trotter Campaign [UCPI0000007024], and the West London Campaign against Racism and Fascism [UCPI0000007632].

COMMUNIST PARTY OF ENGLAND (MARXIST-LENINIST)

Loader’s reporting from 1977 onward focuses largely on the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (CPEM-L), in particular the East London Branch. Loader was also an active member of the Party’s cutural activities offshoot, the Progressive Cultural Association.

Like many of the undercover officers we have heard from in these hearings, Loader reported on people involved in actions against the National Front (NF), such as the organisation of demonstrations, pickets, and leafletting as well as a willingness to confront the NF directly.

Loader attended the counter-NF demonstration that became known as the Battle of Lewisham on 13 August 1977. He was injured during the event, receiving a blow to the head – the first of the two times he was assaulted by uniformed police.

A report on a meeting of the CPEM-L in the aftermath of the Lewisham demonstration states that the Party were reviewing tactics to ‘attack’ the NF [UCPI0000011180]. Loader also notes in the same report:

‘it is generally agreed amongst members that, with the advent of the police shield, more sophisticated ‘weaponry’ is required in the riot situation.’

Internal Special Branch documents show that Loader met with Deputy Assistant Commissioner (‘A’ Ops) along with Peter Collins (HN303), DCI Pryde and DI Willingale following the Lewisham demonstration.

They wanted to convey his experience and provide recommendations for future policing in similar circumstances [MPS-0732885]. This meeting ultimately resulted in a note authored by DI Willingale aimed to assist with methods of policing future demonstrations [MPS-0732886].

ARRESTED TWICE & ‘BATTERED’ BY POLICE AGAIN

Loader was arrested twice while in his cover identity. The first occasion, in late 1977, was for ‘insulting or threatening behaviour’ following a clash with the NF outside Barking police station. Chief Inspector Craft of the SDS recorded that Loader was ‘somewhat battered by police prior to his arrest’ [MPS-0722618].

Seven other individuals from Loader’s group were also arrested. Superintendent Pryde maintained contact with a court official during the proceedings in April 1978. He informed them that one of the defendants was a police informant who they would be ‘anxious to safeguard from any prison sentence’ [MPS-0526784].

Ultimately, the charges against Loader were dismissed. Three of the other seven individuals were found guilty and fined on 12 April 1978 [UCPI0000011984].

These convictions were the subject of a 2014 report to the Crown Prosecution Service drafted as part of Operation Shay [MPS-0722618], examining miscarriages of justice stemming from undercover deployments.

Discussion in Special Branch Minute Sheets reveals that Loader’s senior officers prioritised keeping Loader’s identity secret over any other consideration.

SECOND ARREST

Just three days after his court appearance, Loader was arrested a second time during trouble at a National Front meeting held at Loughborough School, Brixton on 15 April 1978.

He was again charged with threatening behaviour under s.5 of the Public Order Act 1936, along with three others [UCPI0000011356].

At the hearing, an application was made to hear all the defendants’ cases together. However, the Magistrates decided to hear Loader’s case alone. This was, allegedly, because Loader had been involved in a separate incident to the other defendants, who had infiltrated an NF meeting while Loader stayed outside.

In fact, records reveal that Superintendent Pryde established contact with a court official during the proceedings and told them that one of the defendants was:

‘a valuable informant in the public order field whom we would wish to safeguard from a prison sentence should the occasion arise’.

Unlike the previous arrest, however, it is noted that Loader’s cover name was specifically given to the official [MPS-0526784].

All the defendants, in this case, were found guilty, with Loader being fined and given a one-year bind-over of £100. It is noted in the Minute Sheet that this sentence was considered ‘very useful’ as it would allow Loader to keep a low profile for the remainder of his deployment [MPS-0526784].

The Inquiry said that there is no evidence to suggest that this officer engaged in any sexual relationships in his cover identity.

A note made of a meeting with Commander Buchanan in 2013 suggests that Loader had difficulty reintegrating with the police following his deployment [MPS-0738057].

Loader is recalled by former CPEM-L party members with little detail, although they confirm he was known as ‘Barry’ rather than ‘Desmond’.

One member of the Party applied for Core Participant status at the Inquiry but was refused, despite obviously being in a good position to help the Inquiry with Loader’s evidence.

‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78)

Summary of Evidence

‘Geoff Wallace’ (HN296, 1975-78) does not reside in the United Kingdom and the pandemic has prevented him from coming over, but he will eventually provide a witness statement.

To introduce him now, the Inquiry cites the account he gave to the Metropolitan Police risk assessor a couple of years ago. At the time he had not had access to the vintage reports attributed to him.

Wallace was a member of the Hammersmith branch of the International Socialists (IS) from summer 1975 to autumn 1978; IS became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) during his deployment. He stole the identity of a dead child as the basis for his undercover persona.

SPYING ON SCHOOL CHILDREN

We heard earlier in the Inquiry that Paul Gray (HN126) spied upon a group called ‘School Kids Against Nazis’. Wallace also spied on school children.

The first report on the Hammersmith branch of IS signed by him [UCPI000009576] is dated 29 January 1976 and refers to students at Chiswick Comprehensive School’s intention to organise a Right to Work Campaign meeting for school leavers.

SPYING ON LAWYERS

In the course of the Right to Work Campaign, in April 1976 the IS magazine Socialist Worker hired solicitors to represent those arrested during the activities. Wallace reported [UCPI0000012323] on their complaints about police conduct, probably breaching legal privilege.

Wallace’s reporting contains many references to pickets and protests, some upcoming, some containing a list of those involved. In particular, he reports on a number of campaigns to protest the closure of local hospitals, such one [UCPI0000012378] on an April 1976 meeting of the Save Acton Hospital Campaign.

SPYING ON TRADE UNIONS

Wallace seems to be the undercover officer reporting in March 1977 [UCPI0000017818] on the Trade Union Committee Against Prevention of Terrorism Act. This was a Hammersmith group formed in April 1976 by local members of IS, the Troops Out Movement, Camden, Hackney and Hammersmith Trades Councils and various trades unions. Its aim was to provide a solicitor for anyone arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act which conferred emergency powers on police forces whenever terrorism was suspected.

According to a report from Wallace in April 1976 [UCPI0000012373] the Committee was suspected of having an underlying political goal; self-determination for the Irish people. In reality, they were actively campaigning for repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act by staffing pickets outside police stations holding people detained under the Act.

When the police raided the home of one of the activists in January 1978 [UCPI0000017917] they found a note amongst the seized paperwork that said: ‘In the event of no transport, phone Geoff Wallace’. Having a van available remained a key point in the tradecraft of generations of spycops afterwards.

YET ANOTHER TREASURER

Wallace held a series of positions of authority within his target group. The October 1976 report [UCPI0000021481] of a branch meeting of Hammersmith IS indicates that, as of 6 May 1976, Wallace was branch treasurer. Numerous other spycops of the era held the same post in groups they infiltrated.

By July 1976, it would appear Wallace had become the branch’s Socialist Worker newspaper organiser [UCPI0000017922].

SPYING ON ELECTION CANDIDATES

In a report on 5 August 1976 [UCPI0000011981] Wallace reported on a discussion at a meeting of the Hammersmith and Kensington branch of IS about standing in the Walsall by-election. In March 1978 the SWP talked about standing a candidate in the forthcoming general election in Hammersmith North. As these activities are within the parliamentary system, it is difficult to see how they fall under the counter-subversion remit of SDS.

NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL ‘RIOT’ 1976

The Notting Hill Carnival in August 1976 ended in a protest of young people of colour, harassed by an antagonising large police presence, and defending themselves against arbitrary police arrests. IS encouraged their members to join pickets outside the Magistrates Court where those arrested would appear. In September 1976 the branch also proposed [UCPI0000021361] that IS join the defence committee set up by the Black Liberation Front and Grass Roots and contribute to its funds.

YET MORE REPORTING ON ANTI-FASCIST ACTIVITY

In February 1976, the Coventry and Chrysler Right to Work Committee organised a march, supported by the IS, to counter-protest at a demonstration held by the National Front under the slogans ‘A Right to Work for Whites Only’ and ‘ Stop Immigration’.

According to the report [UCPI0000012230] that the Inquiry attributes to Wallace, after a peaceful march some IS members made their way to the location of the National Front election offices and attacked people with stones and bricks. At least one person was taken to the hospital.

Then, according to the same report, IS members then marched to a shopping precinct to chase away members of the National Party. This breakaway faction of the NF was led by fascist and Holocaust denier John Kingsley Read, who built a reputation for having said, after the murder of a young Sikh man in a racist attack, ‘One down, a million to go’. Read later joined the Conservative Party.

The Inquiry looks to this incident to perhaps justify this undercover deployment:

‘We note that, if the report is accurate, this was an occasion on which the violence was started by left-wing activists from the infiltrated group.’

This is not the first time that the Inquiry has used reports of ‘violent’ anti-fascist protests as a justification for many of the deployments.

ANTI-FASCISM IN BIRMINGHAM

Wallace may very well have have been one of the SDS deployed officers who attended a counter-protest march against the National Front in Birmingham. On 24 February 1977, London branches of the SWP and the IMG sent coachloads of their members to join the march.

An SDS report dated 7 March 1977 [UCPI0000017776] describes a single coach of SWP members being attacked by ‘five coaches’ of National Front supporters at Watford Gap Service station.

For some reason, the Inquiry glosses this incident in neutral terms:

‘The SWP contingent from NW London and West Middlesex districts appears to have been involved in an encounter with the National Front in a service station en route to Birmingham…’

This gives a misleading impression of this serious unprovoked attack by the NF on SWP members.

DS Richard Walker (HN368), representing the SDS management, was also dispatched to Birmingham by DI Geoffrey Craft (HN34) to ‘look after our interests’ as is remarked in a note in February 1977 [MPS-0730703].

BATTLE OF LEWISHAM & ANTI-JUBILEE PROTEST

A member of SWP who announced that he was mobilising local trades union branches to support an anti-Jubilee demonstration during the visit of HRH Princess Anne to Kensington Town Hall on 31 May, ended up in a report dated 26 May 1977 [UCPI0000017437].

Wallace also notes that of the 1,500 demonstrators expected, 1,000 were likely to be trade unionists who were ‘violently opposed’ to Jubilee celebrations, if such a thing were possible.

At the same meeting, branch members were urged to assist in staffing picket lines for the strike at the Grunwick photo processing factory. Again, in the Inquiry’s statement ‘intelligence’ on the Grunwick strike is offered as a supposed justification for the covert policing.

A report dated 21 July 1977 [UCPI0000011055] refers to the intention of the Hammersmith and Kensington SWP to send two mini-vans of people to an anti-fascist demonstration in Lewisham on 23 July 1977 ‘in order that the National Front could take a real ‘hammering’.

Celia Stubbs

Celia Stubbs

Celia Stubbs is a Core Participant at the Inquiry because of her relationship with Blair Peach and the campaign that followed his being killed by police in 1979, and the police cover-up that continues to this day.

As Stubbs’ lawyer Matthew Ryder QC told the Inquiry two weeks ago, the killing of Blair Peach remains one of the most notorious events in British police history, a national disgrace, and a permanent stain on the Met.

Stubbs believes the spycops reported on her to prevent other police officers from facing justice.

MEETING BLAIR

Stubbs began by telling how she’d first met Peach in his native New Zealand around 1962 when she was there with her then-husband who was teaching there.

Peach visited London after she had separated from her husband, and they became a couple. They lived together from 1971 onwards. Peach took an active role as step-father to her two daughters

Stubbs has campaigned since Peach was killed, seeking greater police accountability and supporting miscarriage of justice cases, and other bereaved family campaigns. She was a founding member of Inquest, and involved in Hackney Community Defence Association.

POLITICAL BACKGROUND

Blair Peach

In 1972, Stubbs joined the Hackney branch of International Socialists (IS), who later became the Socialist Workers Party. Peach joined later, around 1977.

She has recently learnt that Special Branch held ‘Registry Files‘ on both her and Peach – hers began in 1974/5, Peach’s in 1978 – but she hasn’t been shown any of the content of these. She feels that it would be useful to see these files.

Peach was a teacher, and ‘a very fervent trade unionist’ according to Stubbs, active in the National Union of Teachers in Tower Hamlets and Hackney.

IS put a lot of emphasis on building the class struggle, and Stubbs sold the ‘Socialist Worker’ newspaper in many places. She attended the group’s meetings, both public and private, as well as demonstrations and events supporting striking workers.

NATIONAL FRONT

One area of particular concern was a groundswell of far-right sentiment, especially the active presence on the streets of the National Front (NF). Stubbs and her comrades sold the Socialist Worker in the multicultural area of Brick Lane in East London, and regularly came into conflict with racist NF paper-sellers there. Peach and Stubbs joined the Anti Nazi League (ANL) when it was formed in 1977.

There was organised anti-fascist resistance to the NF, and usually a large police presence too. Stubbs recalled talking to people, lots of shouting at the fascists, banners and of course paper-selling.

The Inquiry showed a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) report [UCPI0000010769] about the first public meeting of Hackney Community Relations Council, which took place at Stoke Newington Town Hall on 22 July 1976. It was attended by 250 people, significantly more than was normal for political meetings at the time.

The officer describes an NF member being ‘ejected from the assembly room amid a shower of fists and invective’, and that as people left they were taunted by NF members but did not physically confront them.

Asked if this was typical, Stubbs said she only remembered even that relatively low level of disturbance at one other meeting. She highlighted the fact that the anti-fascists had not risen to the goading of the fascists, adding:

‘I do remember unprovoked attacks and, you know, of course members of the left were often arrested. We certainly didn’t go out to do that, you know? We didn’t go to provoke’

The next report [UCPI0000021207] is from a meeting in a pub in North West London which took place on 24 April 1979, the day after Peach had been killed.

Persisting with the Inquiry’s habit of emphasising the violence of activists they read out the report’s summary of a speech made by SWP founder Tony Cliff.

Cliff is described as comparing the Southall anti-fascist demonstration with one two days earlier in Leicester, saying the vital difference was preparation, planning and organisation by the ANL. He is reported as saying ANL had provided Leicester stewards with maps of the area leading to:

‘a successful attack here on the police by about 200 demonstrators, high police injuries and a small number of arrests. On the other hand, at Southall, due to the lack of organisation and inadequate ANL stewarding, a lot of police had been injured, many demonstrators had been arrested and, more importantly, many demonstrators had been badly injured, with one death’

The bias of the reporting officer is apparent in the next paragraph which said:

‘many of the contributors from the floor then recounted their adventure during the demonstrations in Leicester and Southall and discussed instances of “extreme police brutality”.’

Stubbs said Tony Cliff was ‘absolutely wrong to compare Leicester and Southall’ or claim Southall just needed better organisation by the ANL in future. She explained that Southall was a very tight-knit community, ethnically diverse, a strong industrial base with factories around Heathrow, and well-organised, by the likes of the Indian Workers Association.

THE FATAL DAY

The NF’s meeting at Southall Town Hall on 23 April 1979 was part of their campaigning in the run-up to the general election two weeks later. Their candidate didn’t even live in Southall, but they were targeting constituencies with large Black and Asian populations.

Mounted police intimidate protesters, Southall, 23 April 1979 [Pic: John Sturrock]

Stubbs and Peach travelled separately to the demo – he was on school holiday, whereas she came after work with some colleagues. She had never been there before.

When she arrived, Stubbs found it very crowded. She recounted finding herself near Southall Park where police were chasing people on horses, and on foot with truncheons, hitting people.

5,000 local residents had signed a petition against the NF being allowed to meet. Stubbs described factories shutting down in protest, and how it had started out as a large peaceful sit-down demonstration. But at 1.30pm, more than 3000 police moved in and it was ‘a town under siege’. Police shut all four of the roads that converged by the Town Hall, creating chaos, and started dragging protesters out.

Stubbs said:

‘it was almost as if the police punished the people of Southall… with the 700 people who were arrested, and then there were 348 people actually charged with offences.’

She made her way back to the station at about 7pm, and got the train back to Hackney without having seen Peach. She only learnt that he had been hurt later that evening when, at around 10pm, she received a phone call from a friend who was at Ealing Hospital.

SPYCOPS IN SOUTHALL

She knows that one of the spycops attended the demo in Southall that day. The Inquiry has taken evidence in secret from officers who it does not want to identify. It has then blended their testimony into a single ‘gisted’ document. In it, an officer says they were at the demonstration in Southall, saw violence and were horrified, and left before Peach was killed.

Stubbs is offended at this. Firstly, the total secrecy around the officer – we aren’t given their name, cover name, or any other details at all. Secondly, the idea that there was only one spycop at the demo is ridiculous.

Stubbs said it looks very much like the officer was distancing themselves as far as they could from the killing of Blair Peach. In this, it reminded her of the statements of the officers from the team responsible for his death, who said their van had actually stopped well away from Peach, that other police were present, and other things that were simply lies.

SPYCOPS AT THE FUNERAL

Blair Peach’s funeral, 13 June 1979

Blair Peach’s funeral was held on 13 June 1979. Members of Peach’s family came all the way from New Zealand for it, and 10,000 people came to pay their respects. Undercover police officers took photos of them for later identification.

Spycop ‘Barry Tompkins’ (HN106, 1979-83) says he attended the funeral in case there would be a risk of public disorder, something dismissed by Stubbs as ‘absolutely ludicrous’. 71 mourners are listed by name in Tompkins’ report.

The Inquiry showed several SDS reports [UCPI0000021218, UCPI0000021270] on meetings and protests that showed that the campaign for the truth about Peach’s death was a prominent topic among many sectors of the left at the time.

CAMPAIGNING FOR THE TRUTH

The Inquiry showed a report [UCPI0000021297] which included a leaflet produced by the Friends of Blair Peach. The report, seemingly unable to accept that the police were responsible for his death refers to injuries ‘it is alleged’ caused Peach’s death.

The SDS’ Annual Report for 1979 [MPS-0728963] outrageously suggests that it was the protesters’ fault that he died, saying that his death was the result:

‘of the virulent anti-fascist demonstrations.’

The campaign ideas on the leaflet are what one might expect: writing newspapers, phoning local radio stations, organising collections of money in workplaces, visiting MPs and circulating a petition to push for a public inquiry, putting forward motions at trade union branch meetings, encouraging affiliation to the ANL, and supporting calls for the Met’s notoriously violent Special Patrol Group, whose officers had killed Peach, to be disbanded.

These are traditional democratic campaigning practices, a long way from the SDS’ alleged remit of subversion and public order problems.

BURYING THE FACTS

The Met’s internal report, by Commander John Cass, found that it was ‘almost certain’ that a police officer from the Special Patrol Group killed Peach with a blow to the head.

A search of the officers’ lockers found numerous unauthorised weapons. One officer’s home had Nazi memorabilia and more unauthorised weapons. This information was leaked to the campaign and made public in June 1979.

Stubbs’ solicitor saw the weapons. One was a long cosh with metal at one end, which fits description of weapon that killed Peach.

The Cass report was published on 12 July 1979, then updated on 14 September, but it was not made public. Indeed, Stubbs had to wait more than 30 years before the Met would allow her to see it.

THE INQUEST

An October 1979 report [UCPI0000013435], detailed pickets being planned at Kilburn and Harlesden police stations, to coincide with door-to-door leafleting nearby on the eve of the opening of the first inquest into Peach’s death.

Stubbs explained that over 100 police stations were picketed in this way:

‘people were so angry about it.’

The coroner, John Burton, refused to sit with a jury. He also refused to allow the Cass report to be considered. Campaigners went for a judicial review, stopping the first inquest on that first day.

The Director of Public Prosecutions agreed that there was ‘no case to answer’ and so no police officer would be charged in relation to Peach’s death.

The inquest started again in April 1980, with a jury. The coroner, despite having seen the Cass report, did not accept that established version of events to be taken into account. The inquest concluded in May, the verdict: ‘death by misadventure’

LICENSE TO KILL

One of Peach’s friends and teaching colleagues, David Ransom, wrote a booklet called License to Kill about the killing of Peach and the Special Patrol Group. The chapter on the Special Patrol Group (SPG) is being published by the Inquiry along with the Cass report [UCPI0000034077].

License to Kill cited the Met’s attempts to defy the facts and portray the SPG as an elite, disciplined unit. They told the press that the SPG was the only specialist unit within the force and around 50% of applicants failed the vetting. Those who qualified did a ‘full tour’ of three years. The Met said it had no room for the ‘headstrong type or those who are liable to over-react to any difficult situation’.

This was all nonsense. The Met had a number of specialist units including, as we’re seeing, Special Branch and the SDS.

The purported ‘rigorous controls’ described by the Met had never existed at any time. At least seven of the officers who gave evidence to the Peach inquest had been in the SPG for longer than four years. One of them had been in the SPG for eight years, and two others had been part of the unit since it was founded, 14 years earlier. One of these was PC White, driver of the vehicle that delivered the killer to Peach.

SELF-INCRIMINATION

On 1 June 1980, the Sunday Times published an interview with the SPG’s Inspector Alan Murray. He is now widely believed to be the officer who killed Blair Peach.

Murray had just left the police and appeared to be trying to use the interview to cast his role, and that of his erstwhile unit, in a good light.

He spoke of how ‘the loony left’ were expected to behave in Southall that day, and that it promised to be ‘a tasty one’. He talked of the ‘elan’ (which Wilkinson said she took to mean ‘enthusiasm’) in the unit, and said they were proud to be known as ‘The Cowboys’. He recounted how they played the ‘Dambusters’ soundtrack as they arrived on duty.

‘When I was out with my unit I was my own boss to a large extent. Before acting I didn’t have to ring up and say “Guvnor, do you think this is right?” I followed my own experience to do what was expected.’

PC ‘Chalkie’ White, who had been suspended, was reinstated, not just as a police officer, but back into the SPG. Murray went on to become a lecturer in corporate social responsibility.

ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIONS

On the first anniversary of Peach’s death, SWP and ANL groups organised pickets at police stations all over London, as described in a report [UCPI0000020094] 18 April 1980.

Blue plaques on Southall Town Hall commemorating Gurdip Singh Chaggar & Blair Peach, 2019

Another report from the same day [UCPI0000013891] lists 16 police stations at which vigils were planned.

In 1981, on the second anniversary, public feeling was still high. A report [UCPI0000016434] mentions the South London Right to Work group’s plans to picket Eltham police station on the day.

The next report [MPS-0001219] was from decades later. It was written in the summer of 1998, regarding the plans to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Blair Peach’s killing on 23 April 1999.

The Inquiry wanted to avoid doubt and said that the line ‘Intelligence: Touchy Subject’ refers to the code-name used by the officer who filed the report, and is not some kind of comment on Stubbs or the Peach case.

Stubbs leapt at the opportunity to illuminate this topic. She told the Inquiry that the officer referred to was Mark Jenner (‘Mark Cassidy’ HN15, 1995-2000) who infiltrated the Hackney Community Defence Association and the Colin Roach Centre (also in Hackney). Whilst undercover he deceived an activist, ‘Alison‘, into a long-term relationship.

Cassidy reported that:

‘local trade unions are organising a large rally and demonstration, which will be presented with a strong anti-racist/anti-police flavour… the event will inevitably attract a large left wing presence with particular accent on anti-police type groups and the potential for disorder will be significant.’

Stubbs was indignant at this:

‘we’d had remembrance demonstrations after five years, after ten years, and this was twenty years. There’d never been any disorder. I don’t know why he put that. I think it’s pretty unpleasant.’

In 2019, for the 40th anniversary, a blue plaque for Peach was unveiled at Southall Town Hall, the Inquiry said. Stubbs added that there was also one for Gurdip Singh Chaggar, a teenager killed by white racists in Southall in 1976.

A year later, in June 2020, the plaques were stolen. It is not known if the culprits were supporters of the police, or of the National Front, or someone else.

BANDING TOGETHER

Returning to the aftermath of Peach’s death, the next report [UCPI0000014149] was from July 1980, concerning the formation of a new network of justice campaigns for cases of police brutality.

Stubbs was visibly emotional as she recounted the details of some of these, including:

• Jimmy Kelly, who had been severely beaten by Liverpool police on his way home from a pub in 1979 and taken into custody where he died within the hour.
• Richard Campbell, a 19 year old Black Rastafarian who was in Ashford prison, charged with breaking a shop window which he denied, who was force fed and died alone.
• Liddle Towers, a 39 year old electrician who died after being beaten in custody by eight officers in 1976. His first inquest ruled ‘justifiable homicide’. After campaigning, a second inquest ruled it was misadventure.
• Matthew O’Hara who was remanded to Pentonville prison for withholding his name at a hearing for rate arrears in March 1980. Though he had diabetes, the prison did not administer insulin. He was kicked in the stomach by a prison officer. After four days without insulin he was rushed to hospital and later died.

Stubbs explained that they wanted to get together with these other justice campaigns so they could support each other through the official processes such as inquests, as well as share information and push for reform of the inquest process. She does not see any valid reason to spy on these activities.

We were next shown a report from 1999 [MPS-0001707]. The Macpherson inquiry into the 1993 racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence Inquiry had been concluded in 1998, and plans were afoot to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Peach’s killing.

This report mentions many of the family justice campaigners who were active at this time, as well as the Lawrence family themselves.

As with Mark Cassidy’s report, the author feels compelled to make false claims about the likelihood of disorder:

‘Suresh GROVER, who is the organiser of this event, will positively contribute to ensuring that the day passes off without disorder. However, given the large number of groups and individuals who are likely to attend this march, the potential for disorder is high.’

MISSING OFFICERS, MISSING FILES, CONVENIENT AMNESIA

The Met’s own annual report of 1979 described the Southall protest as its ‘most significant event of the year’ yet we don’t see any spycops statement, apart from the single one summarised and blended into the gisted document.

Kevin Gately in Red Lion Square, London, 15 June1974

Stubbs noted there were also scant spycops reports from the 1974 anti-fascist demonstration at Red Lion Square when protester Kevin Gately was killed. ‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76) told the Inquiry he was at that demonstration but said he could not remember anything about it and only vaguely remembered Gately’s name.

Nothing from the SDS was presented to the public inquiry into the Red Lion Square protest. It’s simply not credible to say so few officers were involved and no significant reports were made.

Contrast these two anti-fascist protests – at which people were killed – with others in the same era where nobody died. Records show at least 18 undercover officers were present at the 1977 ‘Battle of Lewisham’ and we have more than 50 pages of reports.

It’s obvious that when someone is killed, the police don’t want to be associated with it. This looks like yet another cover-up. It makes us feel like we’re not being heard.

EAGER DENIAL

She wonders why spycop ‘Paul Gray’ (HN126, 1977-82) has been flagged up to her:

‘I was told that his statement was pertinent to my being spied upon. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing in his statement that involves me, except when, on 12 June 1979, he said he went with the SWP members of the branch he’d infiltrated to view Blair laid in state at the Dominion cinema in Southall.

‘He said he only went because it would have looked bad for him if he hadn’t and might have disturbed his undercover, but he then, immediately after that, said in his statement, “I never had anything to do with the family or Friends of Blair Peach”.

‘Why did he make that remark? It seems as though he quickly wanted to distance himself from. There must be something.’

Stubbs said that, having seen so many secret police reports, is left with as many questions as she had before.

‘I mean, Blair was killed by police officers and our feelings and campaigns were criminalised. The police, I think, wanted to keep ahead of our campaign so that Blair’s killers: we were never able to hold them to account.’

Speaking of how she and other Core Participants at the Inquiry feel violated, she concluded:

‘Core participants are fighting injustice in a climate where they are vilified by authority and we’ve been targeted. We don’t know why we’ve been targeted. I just hope this Inquiry, you know, will protect core participants, and that when you come to write your report, this will be foremost in your mind.’

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, thanked her for her evidence, though it’s unclear how much weight he will give it.

Before the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s hearing on 23 April 2021, the 42nd anniversary of the killing of Blair Peach, there was a minute’s silence in his memory. In his introductory words, Mitting referred merely to Peach being killed by ‘a blow to the head’. He did not mention the police at all. It seems the Inquiry is unwilling to fully admit even the facts established by Commander Cass decades ago.

Full witness statement of Celia Stubbs

Stubbs recently spoke about Blair Peach, and spycops, to Channel 4 News.

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 10

5 May 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘Gary Roberts’ (HN353, 1974-1978)
‘Geoff Slater’ (HN351, 1974-1975)

Introduction of associated documents:
Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76)

Evidence from witnesses:
Richard Chessum
‘Roger Harris’ (HN200, 1974-1977)

The Undercover Policing Inquiry hearing on 5 May began with summaries of evidence from ‘Gary Roberts‘ (HN353, 1974-78) and ‘Jeff Slater‘ (HN351, 1974-75).

Neither is giving any evidence in person. This goes against the wishes of non-state core participants, who believe all undercovers should give live evidence and have their evidence examined by Counsel.

‘Gary Roberts’ (HN353, 1974-1978)

This officer’s cover identity was stolen from a deceased child.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS & INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP

Roberts was deployed undercover in the spring of 1974, targeting first the Finsbury Park branch of the International Socialists (IS). He then switched to the South East London branch of the International Marxist Group (IMG). Within the IMG, Roberts had another pseudonym – a so-called ‘party name’ of ‘Gary Shopland’.

His involvement with the IMG began in late 1975, and he remained a member of the group until his deployment ended circa June 1978. Roberts thinks that he may have been tasked with infiltrating the IMG as a replacement for HN338.

STUDENT AT THAMES POLYTECHNIC

To further his cover story, Roberts became a student on a degree course at Thames Polytechnic attending classes and taking exams over the years. He became Vice President of the Student Union there. The course was paid for by the Metropolitan Police, although he never completed the degree.

MISSING REPORTS

Battle of Lewisham plaque, erected on New Cross Road, 2017

It is likely that of the reports relating to IMG meetings and members in South East London, some were written by HN338 and others by Roberts. There is some dispute about this.

Roberts has pointed out that he has not been shown any reports filed by him for the period December 1977- June 1978. He attended many large demonstrations, and reported on public order situations, but these reports seem to be missing. He says he witnessed public disorder at clashes between right- and left-wing groups.

In particular, he recalled the counter-demos mounted by anti-fascists against National Front marches in both Wood Green and Lewisham in 1977. He also recalled being charged by mounted police at a demonstration.

There is a report of him attending one demo during the summer of 1975 – a small National Abortion Campaign protest [UCPI0000012738]. This included a speech by Labour MP John Fraser which was also reported. He does not recall any property damage.

COUNTER PROTESTS AGAINST FASCISTS

He claims in his statement that IMG members, having learned of the location of the Wood Green march in 1977, scouted the route to find good places to throw missiles at the fascists.

Also in his witness statement, he recalls his attendance at the counter-demonstration thinking that the police had left too great a gap between officers as they escorted the National Front demonstrators. This had enabled the IMG to confront the marchers, resulting in violence.

Somewhat surprisingly, not mentioned in summary evidence read out by the Inquiry, in January 1977 it seems Roberts may have attended the initial meeting of the All-Lewisham Campaign Against Racialism and Fascism in his capacity as vice president of Thames Polytechnic Students Union. The group contained representatives from the IMG, the Anglican Church Council, the Labour Party, the Communist Party, and Black and Asian groups [UCPI0000017686].

‘HOOVER’

Of his reporting style, he said:

‘I would hoover up everything.’

This included the political content of meetings, as he knew the Security Service (MI5) found this interesting.

This is borne out by his reporting on the 1976 IMG National Conference [UCPI0000021343]which almost exclusively focuses on the debates between different ideological groups within the IMG. The value of this report is indicated by the fact he received a telephone message from MI5 and a Deputy Assistant Commissioner’s commendation.

Roberts assessing the potential for subversion on the IMG says they:

‘were strong in words, but in hindsight, I think they were not really likely to act on them.’

On other witnesses in the Inquiry, he does recall ‘Mary’, who appeared in several of his reports, as well as Richard Chessum [UCPI0000008223].

Piers Corbyn is also mentioned, including in relation to his election campaign for the Greater London Council, which is an example of spycops targeting the democratic process [UCPI0000008229].

Roberts says that he did not engage in any criminal activity, did not have any intimate or sexual relationships with activists, and did not join a trade union, although there he did make one report on Greenwich Trades Council [UCPI0000009380].

Summary of Roberts’ evidence by Counsel to the Inquiry
Written statement of ‘Gary Roberts’

‘Geoff Slater’ (HN351, 1974-1975)

Special Demonstration Squad officer HN353 used the name ‘Jeff Slater’ or ‘Geoff Slater’ to infiltrate the Tottenham branch of the International Socialists (IS) for under a year (1974-75).

His fake identity was stolen from a deceased child.

Before his deployment he spent time in the SDS back office but was given no formal training or any specific guidance about what information to collect.

He had cover employment at a car dealership, and a cover address which he occasionally visited but did not stay overnight at. Slater was also provided with a cover vehicle and documentation.

The first known report from Slater is dated August 1974 [UCPI0000007918] and the last is March 1975 [UCPI0000006971].

Slater does not remember enough to comment on these reports. He says he did not type them up himself. Nor does not recognise any of the reporting he has been shown and does not believe that he was the author of any of them, except two.

UNSPECIFIED VIOLENCE

Slater says he attended various demonstrations to initiate contact with activists. He recalls that IS were viewed as a ‘subversive’ group who were:

‘organising to bring about the fall of the State and they would use any means available to achieve this, including violence.’

He alleges that IS members used violence, though says he never took part in any himself. He also claims to have witnessed many incidents of major public disorder, which included police officers being assaulted. However, he does not cite any specific instances to support his claim.

A report from November 1974 mentioned IS becoming involved in industrial action [UCPI0000015056]. However, Slater denies that he became involved with any trade unions during his deployment.

According to one report, dated January 1975, he became the official Socialist Worker Organiser of the Tottenham branch, [UCPI0000012014].

Some of the groups he spied on were campaigning for racial and sexual equality [UCPI0000014964]. His reports also cover global political issues, the Irish situation, plans for protests and educational classes, and personal information about group members.

Slater also stated in his witness statement, whilst having no recollection of the contents of reports (including [UCPI0000014961]), with regard to Irish matters he states that he was:

‘instructed to report on any matter relating to the IRA and Irish Troubles more generally which were of relevance to Special Branch at the time.’

He says he did not get particularly close to any of the activists or form any sexual relationships during his relatively short deployment.

BABYSITTER & BIRTHDAY PARTY SPY?

The babysitting rota of the North London District of IS was shared in a report dated 8 January 1975 [UCPI0000012021]. This list shows ‘Geoff Slater’ as volunteering for this. It is unknown if Slater ever took his turn on the rota, but it would obviously be a concern to any parent to discover that they left their child with an imposter.

Another report attributed to Slater (wrongly, in his view) was on an IS member’s birthday party [UCPI0000006850].

EXIT

Slater’s deployment ended in the spring of 1975. This was at his request, as he found the work to be ‘debilitating and exhausting, both mentally and physically,’ and did not think he was suitable for it. He spent some time working in the SDS back office after this doing clerical work.

Written statement of ‘Geoff Slater’

Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76)

The inquiry mentioned that it was releasing documents relating to undercover officers ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) and ‘Desmond/Barry Loader‘ (HN13, 1975-78). However, as Thursday’s hearing will include summaries of statements from both men’s widows, the COPS daily reports will deal with their respective material in one go then.

The Inquiry also mentioned its release of materials about SDS officer Richard Layton Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76).

Clark spied on this hearing’s next witness, Richard Chessum, and ‘Mary‘, among others.

He was deployed into Goldsmiths College in December 1974 by the Special Demonstration Squad.

He was 29 years old, married with children, and had been a police officer for five years. He stole the identity of a deceased child, Richard Gibson, as the basis for his undercover identity. He enrolled at the Goldsmiths College on a Portuguese language course.

Clark’s target was the Troops Out Movement. It’s an interesting target from the perspective of this Inquiry,because it did not fit with the stated aims of the SDS. The Movement posed no public order risk at all.

Its aims were publicly stated and straightforward:
i. Self-determination for the people of Ireland and
ii. the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland

Their methods included lobbying Members of Parliament, drafting alternative legislation and raising awareness, with occasional low-key demonstrations, talks and film-screenings.

Clark is also known to have reported on the Free Desmond Trotter campaign in May 1975.

His deployment ended in late 1976. By December, he had been posted to another area of Special Branch, ‘S Squad’.

Clark was promoted in 1986, to the rank of Detective Inspector. He received other medals and awards before finally retiring from the police in 1998.

He has since died, so we will not be hearing any evidence from him, only from those who he spied on, and some of his erstwhile colleagues.

For a more detailed account of Richard Clark’s extraordinary deceit as a spycop, see the opening statement to the Inquiry from James Scobie QC.

Richard Chessum

The Inquiry’s next witness was a non-State core participant, Richard Chessum, who was part of the Troops Out Movement (TOM). He was spied on by a number of spycops, including Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76). Clark is now deceased.

Chessum and ‘Mary‘ provided the Inquiry with an opening statement, and Chessum has provided his own written witness statement as well.

POLITICAL OUTLOOK

The overarching aim of Chessum’s political activity over a lifetime has been to contribute to a better world. He was a Methodist lay preacher, involved in the Labour Party and in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) before he moved to London in 1968 and got involved in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) and then the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM).

Stop The Seventy Tour protest, Lords cricket ground, 1970

He joined in with the anti-apartheid Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) action at Oval cricket ground in 1969 – a pitch invasion carried out with the intention of creating an opportunity for dialogue with the all-white South African team.

He enrolled at Goldsmith’s College in 1970 and, because there was no Socialist Society there, he set one up. He recalled people’s disillusionment with the Labour government of the time. The Socialist Society held open weekly meetings, and advertised its activities to both students and staff. Among the people he recruited from his stall was the woman who later became his wife.

Chessum also joined the Anti Internment League, which opposed the internment without trial of republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. In 1972, he organised a demonstration after ‘Bloody Sunday’, when British troops killed 14 people on a civil rights march in Derry. He got more active about the situation in Ireland due to an Irish house-mate at the time prompting him to do so.

He eventually joined the International Marxist Group (IMG) in 1972, having deliberately avoided joining any of the left-wing groups that existed up till that point. He left within a year, preferring ‘to be on the open sea’ rather than stuck in a small ‘political goldfish bowl’.

Though his membership of the Labour Party had lapsed when he moved to London, he later re-joined. He says he felt very ‘at home’ within the Labour Committee on Ireland, and became its press officer.

Chessum is still politically active now, with a local group set up to assist asylum seekers and refugees, offering company and an opportunity to learn English. This group has fought against both destitution and racism. It now has over 300 volunteers and has become, in his words, ‘a substantial presence in the city of Sheffield’.

SPYCOP ENTERS THE SCENE

In 1974, Chessum was elected to the Students Council at Goldsmith’s. He had been a member of the Anti Internment League (AIL) in the past, and he supported the aims of the Troops Out Movement (TOM).

TOM was formed in West London in September 1973 by Irish solidarity activists, trade unionists, socialists and Irish people living in Britain. It was a campaigning organisation committed to bringing an end to British rule in the north of Ireland.

TOM had two stated aims. First, it campaigned for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. Second, it campaigned for self-determination for the Irish people.

TOM also campaigned around related issued including justice, policing, equality, demilitarisation, employment discrimination, cultural rights and the Irish language.

Chessum explained how he came to meet the spycop ‘Rick Gibson’. He was contacted by the national TOM office, who told him a Goldsmith’s student had been in touch asking if there was a TOM branch in South East London.

Chessum decided to set one up at Goldsmith’s, and met with ‘Gibson’ in the student union bar to discuss this plan. He thinks this meeting would have taken place in December 1974, just before the holidays.

The Inquiry has found a Special Branch report of a Socialist Society meeting which took place at Goldsmith’s in January 1975 [UCPI0000012122]. Titled ‘Why a Troops Out Movement?’, it was attended by 45 people.

STARTING A GROUP TO SPY ON

The main speaker was a former paratrooper named McConnell, from the North London branch of the TOM. Chessum proposed the formation of a SE London TOM branch and an informal meeting was planned for the following week.

That informal meeting in Februaty 1975 was the subject of the next report [MPS-0728678] we saw. There was a very low turn-out, with only two people (presumably Chessum and Gibson) present at the start. They were later joined by three IMG members (who only came along because their own class had been cancelled that night). One of them was ‘Mary’. He knows that Mary remembers meeting ‘Gibson’ for the first time at a political stall.

This next Special Branch report [MPS-0728205] is all about Richard Chessum, detailing his personal life and political activity, and even his sister’s move to York.

The Inquiry then took Chessum through a series of reports that, for the most part, demonstrate just how small the group’s meetings were, and how quickly the undercover officer made his way up through the ranks of the TOM.

These included a report [MPS-0728701] about the inaugural meeting of the SE London branch on 12 March 1975. Numbers were disappointingly low at this meeting too. Lots of left-wing groups and trade unions had been invited to come, but most hadn’t. Chessum chaired the meeting. The only invited speaker was a senior figure in TOM, Géry Lawless.

The group met again a week later, on 18 March, as detailed in the next report [MPS-0728710]. This meeting was attended by just 11 people. Elections were held, with Rick Gibson being elected Secretary of the new branch. It was also agreed that he and Chessum would be sent as delegates to the ‘Liason Committee Conference’ that weekend.

Chessum explained that, at the time, he and others were coming up to their final exams, so they didn’t put themselves forward for the role of Secretary as they knew that it would require quite a lot of work. However Gibson volunteered himself, and the use of his car.

From the perspective of intelligence gathering, it was an interesting position. It gave Gibson access to the personal details of every member.

Prospective members would contact the TOM Secretary in the first instance, giving Gibson a chance to assess them as they joined the group, and quite possibly influence the process. At first, the group met at Chessum’s home. Later they met at Charlton House.

The group organised events like a picket outside the house of local MP (and Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland) Roland Moyle. Chessum recalls being invited in for tea and biscuits. At the time he assumed people present were colleagues of the MP, but now he wonders if they were part of the State, as they did ask the group lots of questions about their personal political views.

However, Gibson’s report differs from Chessum’s memory, stating that Moyle was present that day but refused to speak to the demonstrators, and that nobody was invited inside the house at all.

A meeting at Charlton House on 21 May 1975 was probably the first public meeting of the new TOM branch outside of Goldsmith’s. The report [MPS-0728681] says it was a success, with about 45 people attending thanks to ‘good local publicity’, and credit for this outreach is given to Chessum and Gibson.

Gibson is one of the few officers who, in his reports, wrote about his own activities as if he is one of the members of the group. He had a habit of including himself on the list of attendees, with his Special Branch registry file number added.

We are left with the impression that Gibson put a lot of effort into getting people to come to these meetings, and then when they did, he would report their attendance to Special Branch.

The next report [MPS-0728668] is of South East London TOM members attending a Labour Party meeting at Alderwood School in June 1975, and questioning the Labour candidate about his views on the Irish situation:

Chessum explained that there was no public disorder:

‘The objective would have been to try and persuade people in Labour to support us’

Unsurprisingly, the Inquiry asked Chessum about the legality of TOM’s actions, despite the reports showing that the group supported parliamentary democracy to such an extent that they lobbied MPs to try to get them onside.

Chessum was unquivocal; TOM did not carry out or promote illegal acts. There was certainly no direct relationship between TOM and the Provisional IRA. He suspects that a September 1975 report about a visit to Northern Ireland [UCPI0000007665] was inaccurate – members of the TOM may well have met with Sinn Fein, the political party, but not with the IRA, which was a highly secretive organisation.

FRIENDSHIP

Chessum developed a friendship with Gibson. The two men spent time together, not just in the pub after meetings, but they also attended some Charlton Athletic football matches together. Chessum also recalled meeting up on the Woolwich free ferry at lunchtimes after Gibson had begun (he said) working near him in that part of London.

He thought that they bonded over their distaste for sectarianism, and found it relaxing to discuss things freely with someone who wasn’t a zealous member of any particular group. This is a practice known as ‘mirroring’, reflecting back someone’s perspective in order to create a closeness. Other spycops have said they were trained to do this.

There are a number of reports on the TOM, including meetings of its London Coordinating Committee and its national secretariat, and their plans to hold a demonstration and rally about Bloody Sunday, which was commemorated every year.

The next report [MPS-0728777] is about one such meeting, which took place in January 1976. The group had planned for a rally on 1 February, and booked the Hammersmith Palais for it, but this booking had just been cancelled on them at fairly short notice. Chessum recounted how the police at the time used to go round pubs encouraging landlords not to allow political meetings on their premises.

Another report from January 1976 [MPS-0728774] shows TOM’s press officer being criticised for inactivity, and the group deciding to replace him with a Press Committee. Three people, including Gibson, were then elected to this new committee. The committee’s first task was to prepare a statement about the Hammersmith Palais cancellation and the State’s repression.

In hindsight, Chessum is concerned that an undercover officer got involved in this kind of task, as the wellbeing of the TOM was clearly not his priority.

PLOTTING AND SCHEMING

During this era, sectarian groups, like Workers Fight and the Revolutionary Communist Group, were often disruptive at TOM meetings.

Chessum recalled that to counter the influence of these groups, an informal alliance had formed between Géry Lawless, other ‘independents’ within TOM, and members of Big Flame.

Gibson went on to higher positions within TOM nationally. We can see him being described as a ‘London Organiser’ and a member of the national Secretariat in this report from early 1976 [MPS-0728777].

Chessum says he was approached by Lawless and by a member of Big Flame about becoming a London Organiser himself, but in the end it was Gibson who filled that role.

TOM’s South East London branch elected two delegates for the Coordinating Committee. Both Gibson and Chessum stood for these delegate positions. Workers Fight and the Revolutionary Communist Group both turned up en masse to the meeting where this election took place.

The sectarians were on one side, Rick and Richard on the other. They felt sure that the votes would go one of two ways – but what happened was that Gibson and one of the sectarians were narrowly voted in to these two positions. Chessum reckons this must be because Gibson voted for himself, but not for Chessum.

Having now reached the national level of the TOM, Gibson would have had access to a great deal of information about their plans, members and about any legal advice they ever received – for instance about the Hammersmith Palais cancellation.

Some serious, internal, personal criticisms are revealed in a report from a Blackpool fringe meeting from May 1976 [UCPI0000009684]. Chessum explained:

‘I understand that one of the people attacked was someone called Sean McKavanagh [founder and leader of Workers Fight], a bitter enemy of Lawless.’

He went on to suggest that Gibson may well have done this in order to curry favour with Lawless. It is obvious that Gibson was now trusted by Lawless and others, and given a lot of responsibility.

BIG FLAME

Big Flame had been described as ‘libertarian Marxists’ and the Inquiry asked Chessum to explain what that meant. He said they differed from the more authoritarian, dogmatic groups found on the left – they didn’t have a strict ‘party line’ and were more open to discussing different viewpoints.

There were ‘lots of feminist women’ in Big Flame, and Chessum said he thought they probably felt more comfortable in this more egalitarian, less sectarian environment.

Chessum began attending reading nights organised by Big Flame, and as soon as Rick Gibson found out about that, he asked if he could come along.

He recalled one incident where Gibson was due to ‘take a turn’ addressing the group on a topic of his choice, but performed badly. His notes were of no help, and he completely clammed up. Chessum now thinks this should maybe have been an indication that Rick wasn’t really a committed person’.

In the meantime, Gibson appeared to have become convinced that Géry Lawless was too powerful within TOM. Gibson convened a meeting at his undercover flat to with some members of Big Flame to organise an internal coup to put an end to Gery Lawless and his ‘leadership clique’, as detailed in his Special Demonstration Squad reports of August [UCPI0000010775] and September 1976 [UCPI0000021388].

Chessum remembers that he found it strange to hear that Big Flame felt able to ‘take over’ TOM at that time. Seeing that Gibson was heavily involved in this internal situation, he can’t help but wonder if Gibson was deliberately responsible for the breakdown of the alliance.

SPYCOP SUSPECTED

Chessum knew Gibson had sexual relationships, first with his friend ‘Mary’ and then with her flatmate, and says that was general knowledge at the time. He only found out later he had also got intimately involved with at least two Big Flame women, one of whom he had a more long-term relationship with.

In the potent opening statement made to the inquiry last week on behalf of Richard Chessum and ‘Mary’, their lawyer explained how Gibson used these relationships to ingratiate himself into the groups he infiltrated, and the role they played in his activist career.

When Gibson applied to become a member of Big Flame, the group carried out some background checks on him; they were suspicious of his motives and his over-eagerness. He told some people that he planned to move to Liverpool, a city with a very active Big Flame group, as well as a large, well-connected, Irish community.

We don’t know exactly what else raised their suspicions, but Chessum recalls that when Gibson first turned up and got involved with TOM, activists had wondered why he was so invested in campaigning about Ireland as he had no obvious personal connection or Irish background. They even discussed the possibility of him being some kind of spy right at the start, but decided he wasn’t one.

Did he accidentally tell different women different things, and they then compared notes and spotted the discrepancies in his cover story? ‘Mary’ said he didn’t share any contact details with her, was often very hard to reach, and she knew very little about his background. There was also the failed presentation at the reading night that exposed a lack of political insight.

Richard Chessum got married in July of 1976 and so was away on honeymoon in Cornwall. By the time he returned to London, Gibson had been exposed, and had disappeared.

SPYCOP UNMASKED

Big Flame had told Gibson that they always carried out background checks on prospective members, and gone to work on him. They had got hold of his supposed date of birth and checked for the birth certificate at the government registry at Somerset House. They then went to the local records office where Rick Gibson had been born, where they discovered his death certificate.

Now they knew he was not really Rick Gibson, but had no idea who he really was. They thought he might be working for Special Branch or MI5. He had mentioned being employed at a campsite, so Big Flame folk went to visit it. Upon discovering it was run by an ex-army guy, they wondered if their spy had military connections.

Many of the details he provided for his ‘relatives’ were for people living in port towns, so this made them wonder if there was a link to Special Branch. They even wondered if he was a fascist of some kind.

They told Gibson that they needed to know more about his background, but none of the details he gave of family members or the school he went to checked out. He kept inventing new stories to explain it away, but he failed to convince the group.

This intense process didn’t deter Gibson from wanting to join, so Big Flame took more drastic action. They invited him to meet them in a pub and then spread out all the evidence they had gathered. ‘He looked as though he was going to cry’, Chessum was told about this incident.

He came up with one last story and gave them a phone number of the office where his brother was supposed to work. It was another lie. When they went to check his flat, they found that he had done a midnight flit, and it was empty.

Chessum was told about all this by someone from Big Flame. He was shown the dossier of evidence that had been compiled. This was later sealed and hidden away by the group. It included the birth and death certificates, and a letter Gibson had left behind for the woman he had the more serious relationship with. Chessum was told to keep the story secret, and he did, for many years.

After this, he met with Mary and her flatmate, and told them what he had seen. He says they were shocked but not surprised. They had already discussed the possibility of him being some kind of police officer. They had noticed his habit of never staying overnight, and wondered if this was because he had a wife to go back to.

LEGACY OF DECEIT

Chessum now wonders to what extent Gibson was sent to target him personally. He worked in Woolwich in those days. Gibson suddenly found a job nearby, and they would sometimes meet up in their lunch breaks. Gibson’s supposed workplace was nearby, and he and talked about an office behind a bank.

Chessum remembers visiting him there at least once, and seeing other people at work, and files in the rooms. After Gibson’s disappearance, we went to take a look, and found the office completely empty, with no traces of Gibson or anyone else.

Workers at the bank gave him a phone number to try. He was put on hold for a very long time, and then told that Gibson no longer worked there.

Chessum was not surprised that the spycops were interested in the political activity he was involved in, but he was surprised by the sheer volume of personal information being recorded and retained about him and others:

‘I find it sinister, actually’

Afterwards, he found it hard to find employment, not just in his academic area of expertise but even at a postal sorting office, and suspects that he was ‘blacklisted’ in some way due to his political activity, especially due to the connection with Northern Ireland.

The Inquiry’s Chair,, Sir John Mitting, thanked Chessum for providing such quality evidence, and for putting him right about his earlier assumptions. Mitting has previously described Gibson’s deployment as ‘unremarkable’ but now sees that this was not the case at all.

Let’s hope that Mitting continues to learn from the evidence of non-State core participants and witnesses, and everyone who was spied on by these disgraced spycops units rather than trusting the police to provide answers.

Roger Harris (HN200, 1974-1977)

The Inquiry’s next witness was Special Demonstration Squad officer ‘Roger Harris’ (HN200) who was deployed between April 1974 and October 1977 to infiltrate the Twickenham branch of International Socialists (IS).

IS later became the Socialist Workers Party, but before that the Twickenham branch was suspended from IS – during Harris’ deployment – and most of its members went on to join the Workers League.

Harris joined the Metropolitan Police in the 1960s and was based in central London. This meant he spent considerable time policing demonstrations.

He thinks demonstrations presented a lot of public order problems for the police in the 1960s, and much less in the 1970s. He is convinced that this was due to the work of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), noting that it was set up in 1968.

He transferred from uniformed duties to Special Branch, working in ‘C Squad’ which gathered intelligence on left-wing groups. As part of this work, he grew a beard and longer hair in order to fit in at meetings.

Harris became aware that the SDS existed – though not by name – when he recognised Special Branch officers among activists. All the same, he says the SDS was not an ‘open secret’ in Special Branch.

He was recruited into the SDS by officer Detective Chief Inspector HN294, who had been undercover 1968-69, and was running the unit by the time Harris joined.

TARGETING INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

Seemingly trying to illustrate the benefit of SDS tactics, the Inquiry showed a Special Branch report of Harris’ [MPS-0739315] from October 1971, before he was in the SDS.

It describes a meeting of the Hackney & Islington branch of the IS. This took place in the Rose & Crown pub in Stoke Newington. The report lists 21 people as attending, to discuss matters arising from a recent conference in Skegness.

It may sound unworthy of police attention, but the report shows Harris was among a total of nine Special Branch officers observing the meeting from the bar, having failed to gain entry to the back room it was held in. The police collected details and descriptions of those who attended, including their car registrations. The SDS would have been able to get more information than that, we were told. Though why they’d need to is another question – one the Inquiry did not ask.

In his witness statement, Harris said he felt fortunate being sent to infiltrate the IS, as if he had been sent into a Marxist group he would probably have quit. In person, he elaborated:

‘IS was similar to a lot of my friends, I like to have a sort of light-hearted attitude to life, and from what I heard these Marxist groups were very serious’

Harris found many of the views held by IS were reasonable positions that a police officer could agree with. This is somewhat refreshing, given how many other undercovers have sought to exaggerate the supposedly dangerous or subversive nature of the group.

TRAINING

Harris was not provided with any formal training when he joined the SDS in 1974, though was an experienced Special Branch officer. He spent six months in the SDS back office, and picked up more about the work of the unit as he went along. This included attending SDS safe house meetings prior to being deployed, to help prepare for what he was likely to face and to familiarise himself with the way the unit worked.

STEALING AN IDENTITY

The Inquiry has treated us to a number of euphemisms for spycops stealing a dead child’s identity – ‘adopting’, ‘using’, and ‘relying on’ it. It was straightforward identity theft. Just because it was police doing it doesn’t mean we should downplay it with softer language than anyone else would get for doing the same thing.

Harris stole the identity of a deceased child as the basis of his undercover identity, as this was standard practice, taught by his superiors.

‘I was a bit upset and I actually said “why is that necessary?”… it wasn’t something that sat comfortably with me. The reason I was given was that we needed to have a birth certificate to obtain subsequent documentation for myself, such as obtaining car insurance, and that sort of stuff.’

He was not told that this was a relatively new technique, and that it hadn’t always been used by all officers in the unit.

He went to the birth registry at Somerset House with a colleague. He chose the name of a teenager rather than a baby, as he thought the birth and death certificates would be further apart in the records and less easy for someone from IS to find if they were checking up on him.

Did he ever consider the possibility that the family of the dead child might find out?

‘that was why I was not happy with it in the first place’

POLICE CRIMINALITY

Unlike most of his colleagues who have been asked, Harris says he did see the Home Office Circular [MPS-0727104] that expressly forbids undercover officers from participating in serious crime, or from being involved in anything that is likely to lead to a court being deceived. It’s notable that the officers who did lie to courts have no memory of ever hearing the unequivocal instructions of this document.

Harris specifically remembered that he and his colleagues were given a special phone number so if they were arrested and taken into custody they could give that to someone at the police station and be released. He doesn’t recall anyone ever using it.

PREPARING FOR INFILTRATION

Harris was tasked to infiltrate IS by DCI Derek Kneale. Harris was replacing ‘John Clinton’ (HN343, 1971-73) in the organisation, and the two met to discuss the handover.

Like most of his colleagues, Harris doesn’t think he had any training or guidance on the limits of intrusion into personal lives, nor on the prospect of sexual relationships with people he spied on.

WHY SPY?

Asked to define subversion, Harris declared:

‘if you have an established system like we have in this country, we’re a democracy, and somebody tries to interfere with that by surreptitious means, I call that subversive’

Having said IS had subversive objectives, he conceded they were more seeking to interfere with or disrupt, rather than fully overthrow the system.

Asked how they sought to do it, he replied:

‘I can’t recall a particular incident’

Harris said he did not see any violence while undercover. Though he qualified it slightly with an anecdote that did not actually describe anything violent:

‘there was only one that nearly got violent, and that was the closest we came… it never actually came to violence. We came to a face to face – two cordons, one of police officers, one of the IS, but it didn’t erupt into anything more than that.’

He said that being in IS was great cover for spying on other groups, as everyone expected IS newspaper sellers to turn up at every event and let them be. However, he seems to have done very little reporting on organisations beyond those he was actively infiltrating.

Challenging his deployment due to its pointlessness wasn’t something that even occurred to him:

‘I wouldn’t have thought of doing that [challenging it] anyway because I was happy to go in areas that they were short of officers in.’

Asked if he remembered any demonstrations against the fascist National Front turning violent, Harris drew a blank.

DEATH IN RED LION SQUARE

Nevertheless, early in his deployment, on 15 June 1974, Harris attended a counter-demonstration against the National Front at Red Lion Square, London.

Police charged the crowd, with officers on horses using batons to strike protesters’ heads. Following one such charge, protester Kevin Gately was left unconscious from a blow to the head, from which he later died.

It was the first time anyone had been killed at a demonstration in Great Britain for decades. As with all the other spycops who have been asked, Harris claimed not to remember the event, let alone any discussion among his colleagues. He vaguely admitted to remembering Gately’s name ‘now you mention it’.

There were surely many reports written about this demonstration, but the Inquiry has been unable to find very much at all.

PART OF THE GROUP

Harris was part of the Twickenham branch of IS. Meetings averaged about 15 people, sometimes as many as 25, though these were not all members as most meetings were open – undermining his earlier talk of needing to be deep undercover to access these meetings.

He was appointed as the branch’s Contact Secretary. He says this meant he had a notebook full of members’ contact details:

‘obviously, every time there was a new contact it would come through me, so that could be useful, depending on who they were’

However, Harris denies having too much influence over the direction of the group. He claims to remember being told early in his deployment that his role was reactive, rather than pro-active, and that he shouldn’t lead the action in any way, nor take up senior official roles that could steer a group’s direction. He was not questioned further on the obvious disconnect: if he was the first point of contact for new members, and the public face of the group, he had a great deal of influence.

He did not deny voting at meetings, but said he just voted with the majority, so his vote didn’t really matter.

But what would you do if it did matter?

‘It depends’

The Inquiry did not pursue the point. This fact highlighted the problem of the Inquiry asking questions supplied by lawyers as a check-list exercise, without knowing what point they’re trying to elicit nor how to press an issue. See the comments at the end of the report for more on this.

Harris recorded trade union membership in reports. A January 1975 report [UCPI0000012060] of a meeting of the West Middlesex District of the IS refers to two recent strikes. However, Harris says this is the only time he remembers any discussion about IS getting involved with industrial action.

SCHISM AND THE WORKERS LEAGUE

The Twickenham branch of IS had a schism with the national leadership, which led to the branch being suspended and becoming a branch of the Workers League (WL).

The WL was a small organisation having a total national membership of only 143. As to whether they were subversive, Harris mused:

‘Not particularly, no’

Were they a threat to public order in any way, then?

‘It was never discussed at the early meetings, the ones which I went to’

He kept spying on them anyway.

Harris recorded which IS branch each Workers League member had belonged to, as well as details of their trade union membership. He also reported details of theiremployment – for example, a December 1976 report [UCPI0000017609] notes that a member works for the London Borough of Ealing.

Asked why this was worth reporting, Harris explained:

‘if they were employed in a position like that in a council, or also if they were employed in a college or something like that, it would be normal to put it in’

Harris wasn’t asked why these institutions were ones that would be ‘normal’ to report on, let alone if it was believed to contribute to public sector blacklisting. It’s already established that every constabulary’s Special Branch routinely supplied a construction industry blacklist with personal details of politically active people. It seems unlikely that was the only sector.

SAFE HOUSE MEETINGS

Harris went to SDS meetings at the unit’s safe houses twice a week, once at each of two locations. The majority of the active spycops attended these, unless there was a specific reason they couldn’t.

Reports were submitted on Mondays, with the spycops aggregating and formalising notes from that weekend’s demonstrations.

Sometimes there would be some group discussion, which he described as relaxed and open:

‘They were normally fairly light hearted… It was just basically an open forum that people could throw anything in, and obviously some of that affected other people and they might have experienced something similar’

He would spend around four hours at the safe house with his fellow spycops on Mondays.

He estimated that the meetings on Thursdays went on for longer – maybe six hours – as these were more social occasions. Sometimes they cooked lunch, and they would talk about problems and share experiences:

‘It was time to get away from all the undercover stuff and get, you know, back to normal a bit’

Harris recalled two occasions when the highest officer in the Met, the Commissioner, visited the SDS at their safe house. Harris remembers Robert Mark and, later, his successor, David McNee, both visiting during his deployment.

This tallies with similar reports by spycops from the 1960s and 1990s. This suggests it was an established part of the Commissioner’s role, or at least the existence of the unit was something brought to the attention of every Commissioner.

Harris said that, at some safe-house meetings, they were asked for suggestions about ways to infiltrate more extreme groups or events.

All this seems plausible for a group who would meet hundreds of times with the only other people who could possibly understand their lives. And yet, it is in direct contradiction to the tight-lipped responses from the majority of other undercover officers who have given evidence.

Just 24 hours earlier the Inquiry was being told by Harris’ contemporary ‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, 1971-1976) that spycops at the meetings didn’t discuss politics or anything else that affected their work, not even if they were likely to be at the same upcoming event.

SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Harris was friends with the late Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76). The pair had known each other before the SDS, and would do so long after as well. Clark deceived four women into relationships while undercover.

Harris claims they never really discussed details of their undercover work. He knew that Clark had infiltrated the IS, but says he only learnt today that he also reported on the Troops Out Movement.

The Inquiry asked Harris if he recalled Richard Clark having a reputation of being a ‘ladies man’, as has been alleged by another officer, or whether he remembers Clark being teased about this reputation within the unit?

Asked if he remembered ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76) having a similar reputation, he replied:

‘I think the answer to that would be yes’

They inquiry did not follow up on this straight away, but after the a break to allow core participant lawyers to make representations, Counsel returned and did press the point.

He seemed at pains to say he knew this without admitting it was ever discussed among spycops. Instead, he said he was aware of the reputation because:

‘I was in hospital and he came to visit me, and I didn’t see him for the visit. But when he went, my nurse came and said “oh your friend’s very nice,” and he’d been talking to her all the time instead of visiting me.’

Full witness statement of ‘Roger Harris’

FORMAT FAILING THE PURPOSE

The questioning of Harris by one of the Inquiry’s Counsel, in this case Rebekah Hummerstone, threw into stark relief an issue that has dogged the Inquiry throughout these hearings and also the previous ones in November 2020.

Whilst the Inquiry’s use of a ‘neutral’ Counsel to ask the questions steers it away from having an ‘adversarial’ format, it also leaves key questions unanswered, and points set out but not responded to properly – because this Counsel has simply moved on to the next thing on their list rather than unpacked an answer or pressed a point that the witness is avoiding.

This is particularly true where the question comes from the ‘non-State core participant’ victims of spycops. Too often merely asking a question is deemed sufficient. This is problematic when it is asked in a different way from what has been submitted.

Another problem is that those asking the questions don’t always take the time to understand the reasoning behind asking the question in the first place. This means that they often do not see the relevance of the answer or know how to deal with it. This causes some hair tearing, when having elicited a significant response, there is no follow-up and the moment is squandered.

This not only undermines the point of asking the question, it defies the purpose of having a witness appear in person at all.

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 9

4 May 2021

Summary of evidence:
‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76)

Introduction of associated documents:
‘Peter Collins’ (HN303, 1973-77)

Evidence from witnesses:
‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76)
‘Mary’

‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76)
Summary of evidence

‘Bob Stubbs’ (HN301, 1971-76) was deployed late 1971 to May 1976. His main target was the International Socialists, but he also targeted the main Irish political campaigns of the time. Though still alive, the Inquiry has chosen not to call him to give evidence, instead reading out a summary of his statement

The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer joined Special Branch in 1970/71, considering it an ‘elite unit’. He was recruited to the SDS soon after. There was no formal training, and he picked up all he needed from his three months in the back office.

He says he was given ‘free rein’ to direct his own tasking:

‘I understood that the SDS’s function was to gather information about groups that posed a threat of public disorder and violence. That said, the SDS gradually morphed into more of a general intelligence-gathering unit.’

Once in the field, he visited the SDS safe house 2-3 times a week. Initially this was an informal arrangement, but by the end of his deployment it had become a requirement. All field officers were expected to attend on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to meet with SDS managers from the New Scotland Yard office.

From the large gaps in dates on the reports in the Inquiry’s possession, it’s clear that a proportion of his reporting is missing. Stubbs himself specifically notes the absence of his reporting on small demonstrations – such as industrial pickets.

COVER EMPLOYMENT & THE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

Stubbs believes that he was chosen in part due to his dark complexion, which may have assisted him to infiltrate groups focusing on Middle Eastern politics. This was a time when Palestinian hijackings were of significant concern.

His first task was to befriend a leading activist in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – then a coalition of left groups from the Young Liberals to the International Marxist Group, and unconnected with armed groups.

He obtained a job as a laboratory technician at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital where this activist also worked. It was a full-time job but after a couple of months he had failed to strike up the friendship with his target and so the attempt was abandoned.

MAIN TARGET – INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS

He then switched to the International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party), joining its Hammersmith & Fulham Branch. He subsequently moved on to the Wandsworth & Battersea branch and finally the Paddington branch in late 1975.

Stubbs believes that the International Socialists were principally of interest to the SDS because of the possibility of public disorder and violence, particularly during anti-fascist counter protests.

He acted as treasurer for both the Paddington branch [UCPI0000009537] and perhaps also the Hammersmith & Fulham branch. In his statement he recalls being told at the beginning of his deployment that the SDS encouraged field officers to take on a position in activist groups that would give them access to membership information.

Stubbs says he was on friendly terms with activists and would on occasion have a drink with others following a meeting. However, he says he did not form any close relationships.

In March 1973, Stubbs produced a report on the IS national conference [UCPI0000007905]. The political committee recommended that IS form factory branches and challenge the communist leadership of industrial action from the shop floor.

In April 1974, Stubbs fed back intelligence on the formation of an IS Lawyers Group, [UCPI0000007915], which aimed to provide legal advice to any member (or trade unionist) ‘who clashes with the law on pickets, marches and demonstrations’. In March 1975, [UCPI0000006921], he noted the intention of the IS to stand a candidate in the Walsall by-election.

As with many undercovers of that era, Stubbs reported on anti-fascist activity. On 6 September 1975, members of the South West London District of IS, with which Stubbs was associated, were in the ‘vanguard’ of IS members who attempted to disrupt a march by the National Front in Bethnal Green [UCPI0000007566].

RED LION SQUARE

During the course of his deployment, Stubbs witnessed public disorder and violence during demonstrations involving IS and the National Front. In particular he was was at clashes in both Leicester, and in Red Lion Square in London – the latter being the anti-fascist demonstration where Kevin Gately was killed by the police.

At this event, Stubbs says he was punched by a police officer, joining a growing list of undercover officers who were assaulted by their uniformed colleagues.

Given that police and the Scarman Inquiry blamed the death on the protestors, the fact an undercover was subject to police violence at the protest is significant. It is one of the reasons why non State core participants would have liked the undercover to give evidence.

ANTI-INTERNMENT LEAGUE (AIL)

He used his membership of IS to report on meetings of Irish political groups, particular the Anti-Internment League (AIL), which campaigned to stop the imprisonment without trial of republicans in Northern Ireland.

Whilst not directly tasked to attend meetings of the AIL, as its activities were related to the Troubles they were of automatic interest. He does not recall the AIL posing a threat of public disorder, but suspects that some members approved of the use of violence as a political tool, and of the activities of the Provisional IRA.

His reporting include AIL conferences where support for both Provisional and Official IRA was apparently voiced, and which delegates from Sinn Fein and Clann na h Éireann attended.

Other examples of his reporting include a 1972 AIL delegate meeting [MPS-0728874], where he records the detailed knowledge that one activist present, Géry Lawless, had of the alleged route to be taken by the Irish Prime Minister on his visit to the UK.

Stubbs and officer HN338 produced a joint report on the ‘Police oppression and victimisation’ conference [UCPI0000015700] organised in response to police raids on Irish homes in Coventry.

TROOPS OUT MOVEMENT – WEST LONDON BRANCH

Stubbs also reported on the later Troops Out Movement, which called for British troops to be withdrawn from Northern Ireland. In particular, he attended meetings and reported on the West London branch, which was possibly the first of the TOM groups.

His earliest report about the TOM is dated 12 November 1973 [UCPI0000009938]. He cannot recall any violence, criminality, or public disorder involving TOM members. Rather, he presumes the SDS interest in TOM was due to a supposed connection to ‘Irish extremism’.

NICRA

Several of Stubbs’ reports related to the West London branch of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. He does not recall reporting on the Northern Irish Civil Rights Association (NICRA) but accepts that he must have done because there are reports in his name [MPS-0737808] regarding the group’s activities.

BELFAST TEN DEFENCE CAMPAIGN

He also seems to have had access to the Belfast Ten Defence Committee with a report of 2 December 1974 [UCPI0000015115] referring to a Committee member opening a Coop bank account for the group. The Belfast Ten had been accused of carrying out IRA bombings in London in March 1973 and held on remand, leading to a campaign for their release.

VISIT FROM THE COMMISSIONER

Stubbs recalls Sir Robert Mark, the Met Commissioner, on one occasion making a surprise visit to the SDS flat in North West London.

Bob Stubbs’ deployment came to an end in May 1976, after approximately five years, which was considered an optimal length, as he commented:

‘five years would allow time for officers to become comfortable in their role and get to know activists, but it was not such a long period that they would then find it hard to transition back to their normal lives.’

He denies any involvement in criminal activity, sexual relationships, or any kind of legal proceedings. He also stated that he never joined a trade union.

Written Statement of Bob Stubbs

‘Peter Collins’ (HN303, 1973-77)
Introduction of associated documents

Vanessa & Corin Redgrave

‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77) infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) from 1974 to 1977. He was asked by them to in turn infiltrate the National Front, remarkably something SDS management agreed to.

The officer is allegedly far too ill to submit a written statement, however the Inquiry highlighted reports relating to his deployment in an appendix to its opening statement.

The WRP was a Trotskyist organisation, led by someone called Gerry Healy for many years, receiving public attention due to the involvement of actress Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin.

It grew to a sizeable organisation with wide reach in the 1970s. Collins’ reports discuss the size of the organisation’s membership and the circulation of their newspaper, as a report on a 1975 delegate conference demonstrated [UCPI0000022002].

The same report also describes the revolutionary intent of the WRP as seen through Collins’ reporting, in which he quotes Vanessa Redgrave as telling conference that:

‘the ruling class knows that civil war is on the agenda…the time for class compromise is over; the struggle can only be resolved by force.’

Collins’ own focus seems to have been branches in North London.

POLICE RAID ON THE RED HOUSE

In the summer of 1975, Corin Redgrave purchased the White Meadows Villa in Parwich, Derbyshire, which became the WRP Education Centre. Shortly after its opening in September 1975, it was raided by police and some old bullets were found in a cupboard. The WRP’s reaction to this raid was reported by the SDS [UCPI0000009265].

A report dated 4 February 1976, [UCPI0000012240], compiled by Collins after he had attended an educational event at the Centre, details the extensive security arrangements in place there and the purported discovery of listening devices at the Centre following the police raid.

In correspondence between senior Special Branch management [MPS-0741115], Commander Rollo Watts noted:

‘It is valuable for us to learn that, despite all the speculation, the courses at ‘White Meadows’ do not include incitement to public disorder.’

Earlier, in May 1974, Collins had reported [UCPI0000009964] on measures to be taken by the WRP to combat police spies and informants and any other ’spies and agent provocateurs’ who might try to steer them away from their revolutionary Party-building and towards the kind of ‘popular-front’ actions which may expose the WRP to ’police persecution and ridicule in the capitalist press’.

As a counterpoint to the raid, the Inquiry also pointed out that although the WRP was involved with the Free George Davis Campaign, it actively sought to avoid being associated with criminal acts, [UCPI0000009410]. Davis had been jailed for bank robbery and become a cause célèbre over irregularities in the prosecution evidence.

As some point in 1975, ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76) began reporting on the WRP, so the authorship of some SDS reports on the group is unclear.

MI5 INTEREST

It is notable some of the SDS reports regarding the WRP are in response to Security Service (MI5) requests for information. This includes a March 1975 report [UCPI0000006993] where MI5 asked to clarify what was meant by the term ‘sleeping WRP members’.

WRP TRADE UNION ACTIVITY

Collins’ reporting on the WRP regularly referred to the WRP’s associations with trade unions. These included the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – both Core Participants in this Inquiry.

A March 1975 report [UCPI0000006909] details a Conway Hall meeting of the WRP’s Builders Section.

A report dated 24 March 1975 [UCPI0000006961] gives information about a march from Hull to Liverpool organised by the Wigan Builders Action Committee in support of the Shrewsbury Two, and claims the route was chosen to put pressure on National Union of Mineworkers’ leader Arthur Scargill to support the campaign.

SHREWSBURY TWO

Des Warren & Ricky Tomlinson, the ‘Shrewsbury 2’

There are two reports which reference the Shrewsbury Two – Ricky Tomlinson and Des Warren – who were framed and jailed for ‘conspiracy to intimidate’ for their part in protesting to improve working conditions for builders during the industry’s national strike in 1972.

After nearly 50 years, their convictions were overturned earlier this year. There are two reports, [UCPI0000012752] and [UCPI0000012781], which detail the meeting of the Shrewsbury Two Action Committee organised by the WRP at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool on 29 July 1975. This was attended by hundreds of people, including coachloads from London.

REPORTING ON THE NATIONAL FRONT – ON BEHALF OF THE WRP

In 1975, not knowing their member was a spycop, the WRP asked Collins to infiltrate the National Front (NF), and a small offshoot of them, called the Legion of St George. This was cleared by his SDS managers, so he reported on them to the SDS for several months, until he left the field altogether [MPS-0728980].

It worth noting the two rather different assessments of Collins’ far-right infiltration contained in the SDS annual reports.

The 1975 report [MPS-0730099] mentions it in positive terms – boasting that Collins is now acting as a double agent, and leading a ‘triple life’.

However the 1976 report [MPS-0728980] noted that the NF was no longer of interest to the SDS as ‘the information gained added nothing of real value to that obtainable from already excellent Special Branch sources’ It was not considered worth placing another SDS officer into the NF after Collins’ deployment ended.

The four reports that the Inquiry has published of Collins reporting on the far-right are: [UCPI0000006931], [UCPI0000012751], [UCPI0000009480] and [UCPI0000009553].

PUBLIC ORDER DISCUSSION

In November 1977, Collins and another undercover, Barry/ Desmond Loader (HN13, 1975-78), were taken to meet Deputy Assistant Commissioner David Helm. He oversaw public order policing for the Metropolitan police.

They talked about the perspectives of those on the ground and the changes needed within the police following such events as the street violence during the confrontation between fascists and anti-fascists at the 1977 ‘Battle of Lewisham’ and the Grunwick Strike, [MPS-0732885] and [MPS-0732886], – indicating the presence of undercovers at these events.

‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76)

‘Mike Scott’ (HN298, deployed 1971-1976) is the cover name used by a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer who – according to the Inquiry – infiltrated the Young Liberals, Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) from 1971 to 1976.

In the Inquiry, he is also known at HN298, his real name is protected. He stole the identity of a living person, Michael Peter Scott, as his cover name.

His evidence is among the most remarkable of the former undercovers heard to date, covering a clear miscarriage of justice among anti-apartheid campaigners, the theft of an identity from a living person with a callous lack of concern over the impact it could have had, and the gratuitous physical assault on a campaigner who had rightfully identified him as an undercover – something he dismissed as not really a crime.

From evidence given by Jonathan Rosenhead and Christabel Gurney on Thursday last week, it is clear that he had infiltrated the Stop The Seventy Tour, a different anti-apartheid group, rather than the AAM.

Crucially, in May 1972, Rosenhead, Gurney and ‘Scott’ were arrested with 11 others for taking part in a direct action to prevent the British Lions rugby team from leaving for a tour of apartheid South Africa. As part of a wider campaign for a sports boycott against the apartheid state, they blocked a coach carrying the British Lions team as it was about to leave a Surrey hotel for the airport.

A press report from the time recorded that he had told the court that his name was Scott and that he lived in Wetherby Gardens, Earls Court, West London. This was the address of his cover flat (at number 16). Scott was convicted of obstructing the highway and obstructing a police officer. He was fined and given a conditional discharge. Rosenhead and Gurney were also fined.

Scott’s superiors authorised him to use his fake identity in the criminal trial and to be convicted under his alias. The Inquiry is also investigating if the conviction became a criminal record attached to the real Michael Peter Scott.

In their opening statement, the Counsel to Inquiry stated:

‘Indeed it appears that senior management encouraged his participation in the criminal proceedings in the full knowledge that he would attend meetings to discuss trial tactics, but there seems little appreciation by senior management either that these meetings may be subject to legal professional privilege or that his participation in criminal proceedings as a police officer in a covert identity raised any legal or ethical considerations.’

This deceiving of a court potentially provides sufficient grounds for the activists to have their convictions overturned, something Rosenhead is considering.

Groups he targeted included:

• Putney branch of Young Liberals – early 1972 to mid-1974
• Commitment and the Croydon Libertarians – early 1972 to mid-1973
• Irish Solidarity Campaign – mid 1972 to September 1972
• Anti-Internment League – September 1972 to late 1973
• Workers Revolutionary Party – Spring 1975 to April 1976

JOINING THE SPYCOPS

Scott had worked in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s ‘C Squad’, which monitored communists. Reporting on these meetings gave him a good idea of what kind of information Special Branch was interested in.

The existence of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was well known within C Squad and their offices were close to each other inside New Scotland Yard.

Scott says he actively sought out the role. He does not remember any formal interview process, but does recall starting to grow his hair and beard on hearing that he was likely to be accepted into the unit.

He didn’t receive formal training and doesn’t recall any informal advice either – whether about guidance around being arrested and going to court in his undercover identity, or avoiding legally privileged conversations, though these were all issues that played a part in his deployment.

The SDS was ostensibly tasked to gather intelligence on subversion and threats to public order. Asked to define subversion, Scott replied:

‘Well, subversion is when you would do or carry out acts that would endanger the well-being of the State’.

He was clear that he felt this meant anything that would upset whoever happened to be in power at the time:

‘The government of the day, whoever they are, is elected and so therefore they have a right to be there and govern. And so therefore, anything that was likely to endanger that proper democratic situation would be subversive.’

Admitting the SDS cast a wide net, he said:

‘Most groups were not subversive but some of course had a potential to be, and that’s what we were reporting on.’

IDENTITY THEFT

As his previous Special Branch work had made him familiar with researching the background of ‘persons of interest’, Scott was familiar with the government birth registry records at Somerset House. When asked to come up with a fake identity, he went there and located a birth certificate for someone whose name and date of birth were similar to his own.

Asked if he did any assessment of the risks of stealing the identity of a living person, Scott gave an answer that implied yes, but actually means no:

‘I did an instant risk assessment, and that was that there wasn’t any risk.’

As to whether he thought there could be ill effects from having a criminal record applied to the real Michael Peter Scott, he brushed the concern aside:

‘What happened to me was not exactly a criminal record, it was really of no consequence, actually.’

In fact, it was exactly a criminal record.

There could be circumstances where he might break the law, with the permission of superiors. This is not something he’d expect to do – ‘you’re a police officer, after all’ – but says he was given no instructions or guidance, it was just left to ‘common sense’. He said that approach applied to all aspects of the job:

‘you were left to get on with it, but that was no bad thing. To have a big rigmarole about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do would be, I suppose, limiting the intelligence of your officers.’

He used Michael Scott’s birth certificate, and had a driving licence, bank account and other registration documents in the name. He thought this may, if anything, be positive for the real person:

‘It might assist him because my credit record was good.’

This quote typified the cavalier approach Scott throughout his evidence took with regard to the potential impact on the person whose identity he stole. This is seen again when the impact of his conviction in the identity of Mike Scott is covered (see below).

TASKING

Scott states that he was never tasked to infiltrate any particular group, Instead, he decided for himself which meetings and organisations would yield information of interest to Special Branch. To do this, he simply looked out for anything that would involve demonstrations, causing nuisance, or acting contrary to the law.

All the groups he and his colleagues targeted were on the left of the political spectrum:

‘There weren’t any right-wing groups who were demonstrating, or causing any problems as far as I can recall, at the time.’

Scott’s method was meandering. There was no master plan to use one group to get the credibility for a later target. He said it didn’t matter if officers duplicated one another’s work by infiltrating the same group.

Prompted by the Inquiry, he said he never discussed with management whether a group actually warranted infiltration.

MEETING AT THE SAFE HOUSE

Scott was asked about his reports and the weekly get-togethers at the SDS safe house where managers would check in and take information. His memory there was scant.

All the officers would meet there at the same time, around a dozen of them in one living room. He recalled there was high quality food and drink, as it would be ‘a fairly social occasion… it wasn’t all business’.

And yet, having gone to several hundred such meetings with a rarely-changing group, Scott does not remember the undercover discussing their deployments with one another. He claimed they didn’t discuss politics or anything else that affected their work, not even if they were likely to be at the same upcoming event.

He does remember chatting about toy lead soldiers, and claiming expenses though.

When this point was examined, he conceded that he ‘felt quite friendly with’ a few colleagues. When asked to list which ones, he only specified ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76)

Scott’s skill for drawing blanks extended to his knowledge of colleagues deceiving women into sexual relationships.

Asked specifically whether Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76), who deceived at least four women into relationships, had, as a colleague described, ‘a reputation as a ladies’ man’, Scott said he knew nothing about it.

He also refuted allegations by a colleague that there was banter at the safe house meetings about sexual relationships. If such things had occurred they would not have been spoken about, he explained:

‘It’s a private thing and that’s a matter for them.’

The spycops were visited by very senior officers. Scott remembers the then-Commissioner Sir Robert Mark visited the safe house, and on another occasion Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vic Gilbert.

STARTING SPYING

Early in his deployment, Scott spied on the Spartacus League, which he described as a ‘revolutionary group’. He doesn’t remember them organising any demonstrations, though.

The Inquiry showed a July 1971 report by Scott [MPS-0732350] on a public meeting of the South West Spartacus League. One of the items mentioned was a ‘Revolutionary Training Camp’ – a week-long event under canvas in the New Forest.

When it was suggested this seemed more about public speaking and political teaching than armed revolution, Scott explained it was still of interest to Special Branch:

‘Because obviously armed insurrection starts somewhere. It starts with things like that.’

From there, Scott moved to the Enfield branch of International Socialists (IS), which later became the Socialist Workers Party.

He admitted that IS demonstrations were expected to be orderly, but certain individuals might come along and make them disorderly.

‘Revolution begins with groups like the International Socialists and there has to be some roughing up of the system in order to get on the road to revolution… I don’t think anyone was far down the road to revolution in 1971, but there was plenty of activity.’

In a wry move, Counsel confirmed that revolutionary groups would be of interest to the SDS, and turned to Scott’s infiltration of Putney Young Liberals. This lasted for at least half his deployment, with the Inquiry publishing Scott’s reports between January 1972 and August 1974.

PUTNEY YOUNG LIBERALS

Young Liberals, the youth wing of the Liberal Party (which later merged into the Liberal Democrats), was engaged in the same kind of civil rights and environmental issues that concerned the Party at large. The Putney branch meetings were usually 10-20 people, held at the home of Peter Hain, who gave evidence to the Inquiry last Friday.

Did Scott’s managers have any qualms about spying on a mainstream political party?

‘It wouldn’t have mattered what party they were from. If they were demonstrating and perhaps making a nuisance of themselves, they would have been reported on.’

The Putney branch of the Young Liberals was targeted because it included the Hain family.

In another of his explanations that start off as a denial and end up with an admission, Scott said:

‘It wasn’t the fact of Peter Hain being there. I think he was the president of the Young Liberals at the time. But in any event, much of this activity against South African rugby teams or the cricket teams were because of him. His family were very opposed to apartheid. Not just him, his parents as well, and that was the focus.’

DON’T TELL PARLIAMENT

Scott suspects managers may have thought spying on a mainstream party was risky to their reputation:

‘well of course such things, if it were to flare up, they could make a lot of fuss about it in the Houses of Parliament and people would be then worried about their jobs and, you know, it filters down.’

It’s an extraordinary admission. To say that, if the government of the day found out what he did, then his managers would have been sacked. It contrasts with his earlier claim that the SDS existed to uphold the wishes of the government of the day.

Continuing on the infiltration of Putney Young Liberals, Scott averred he was just ‘an observer’ at meetings. The Inquiry, however, showed report [UCPI0000008240] from January 1972. It’s the minutes of the Putney branch of the Young Liberals at which, of the 14 attendees, Scott was elected as the group’s Membership Secretary.

Two of the others present were Peter Hain’s younger sisters Jo-Ann and Sally, who were under 18. Scott said he didn’t remember them being there, and didn’t remember being Membership Secretary, and in fact even though he’s the credited author he may not have even written the report.

‘I’ve got no recollection at all of Jo-Ann Hain or Sally Hain or any children at any meetings because they’re of course of no relevance’.

In perhaps his most extraordinary denial-admission U-turn of the day, he went on:

‘As has been shown by the green movement, there are young ladies of tender age that can be quite significant, and so I would have possibly put them down anyway if they were in attendance’

HIGH STREET SUBVERSION

Another report on the Young Liberals [UCPI0000008254] of April 1972, describes discussion of the traffic on Putney High Street. There was mention of direct action to close the High Street, and support from a member of the Putney Society are recorded.

Scott defended his reporting by spreading the SDS’s remit to anything that might be of interest to any area of policing:

‘they were talking about closing the roads, closing the High Street. That clearly is of interest to the police. That’s it. The SDS is part of the police… I think the activities of the SDS were well-directed, and I think it was money well spent.’

CENTRE-LEFT EXTREMISTS

The Young Liberals’ 1972 annual conference was the subject of the next report [UCPI0000008255] shown by the Inquiry.

In it, Peter Hain is described as being ‘centre-left’. This report is from a unit who, according to one of its Annual Reports during Scott’s deployment:

‘concentrated on gathering intelligence about the activities of those extremists whose political views are to the left of the Communist Party of Great Britain’

There are some extremely distasteful details in this report – including a mention of the ‘Blagdon amateur rapist’, a comment Scott described as ‘amusing’.

There are details about MP David Steel’s attendance at the conference. Under the Wilson Doctrine, no MP should be subject to state surveillance (this has more recently been amended to it being permissible with authorisation from the prime minister).

Scott said his managers didn’t even remark on his breach of protocol:

‘MPs are not above the law and so in the context of the reporting no, no comment was made’

During Steel’s speech, paper planes were thrown at the stage by members of a libertarian group called Commitment. Scott attended Commitment meetings (see below), ‘as they seemed to be the ones likely to cause trouble’.

The Inquiry asked whether he meant more throwing of paper planes.

‘I expected that they could be more serious than that… none of these people, in the end, turned out to be very serious.’

Scott was asked why he reported [UCPI0000008248] the details of the red Volkswagen used by Peter Hain and his secretary in February 1972:

‘he was a person of interest and therefore it makes sense to note the vehicles such people are using.’

DEATH ON THE STREETS

The next report [UCPI0000008269] is on a Young Liberals Council meeting held in Birmingham in June 1974.

The meeting passed a motion expressing deep regret for the recent death of Kevin Gately at an anti-fascist demonstration in Red Lion Square, London, and called for a public inquiry into the way the police had handled this demonstration and the events that led to Gately’s death.

It was the first time anyone had been killed at a demonstration in England for years. The right-wing National Front were meeting nearby, and the anti-fascist counter demonstration was repeatedly charged by police, including mounted officers swinging truncheons.

At 6’ 9” tall, Gately’s head was well above the level of the crowd. He was found after a police charge, having been struck on the head. It was a major political event of the time. Scott says he has no memory of it at all.

Kevin Gately (circled), anti-fascist demonstration, London, 15 June 1974

Scott’s report records that the meeting Young Liberals Council:

‘condemns the vicious & unnecessary attack on the left wing demonstrators by the police and blatant bias shown by the police in favour of the march organised by the National Front’

It also asked the Home Secretary to commission a public inquiry and disband the Met’s notoriously violent Special Patrol Group (who five years later went on to kill another anti-fascist, Blair Peach, during another counter-demonstration against the National Front).

Scott said that ‘you need as much information as you can glean’ if you’re allocating resources for forthcoming demonstrations. But, it was pointed out, this is not about any future event, it’s a political party asking for an inquiry into a past event, within the democratic process.

Asked if the Young Liberals were targeted because they were involved in anti-apartheid campaigning, Scott confirmed that the protests at sports matches by all-white teams from apartheid South Africa were scenes of public disorder.

Why would a self-tasking undercover like Scott not choose to spy on the far right?

‘Well, as far as I know, there weren’t any problems with the far right. I guess you mean the National Front… I wasn’t aware of too many demonstrations organised by them’

COMMITMENT

Commitment was a small libertarian anarchist group who met in South London who Scott said wanted ‘to irritate and inconvenience some large companies’. Meetings were usually 6-8 people.

In March 1972, Scott reported [UCPI0000008560] on them and their objection to Rio Tinto Zinc mining in Snowdonia National Park.

He cannot recall Commitment being involved in any public disorder or criminal offences. So why infiltrate them at all? His explanation, once again, ended up opposing where it began:

‘potentially they could cause chaos in the streets. The fact that they didn’t was probably lack of organisation rather than a will to do so… because clearly if you can speak about it you can carry it out.’

Scott also infiltrated Croydon Libertarians, whose membership overlapped with Commitment. One of his reports [UCPI0000008152] from April 1973 describes how Croydon Libertarians used a length of chain to block a road as part of a campaign to create a pedestrian precinct. The chain only stayed in place for five minutes or so, to the consternation of the group. It seems clear that Scott was responsible for this rapid removal.

He said the group was no threat to public safety:

‘it was on this kind of level, no one was thinking of doing anything that was too dangerous or dramatic, it was this kind of level of stuff’

STAR & GARTER ARRESTS

On 12 May 1972, protesters blockaded the Star & Garter Hotel, Richmond, in order to prevent the British Lions rugby team leaving for the airport to go on a tour of apartheid South Africa.

A report [MPS-526782] from 16 May 1972 describes a planning meeting of around 20 people at the house of Ernest Rodker. The activists planned for look-outs – those who kept an eye on the movements of the rugby players – and for cars and deliveries of skips that could be used to block the coach from leaving the hotel.

There was a discussion of methods for signalling to each other. The report includes a story of Jonathan Rosenhead offering flares for this purpose, and later lighting one in the car-park. Rosenhead told the Inquiry last week that he has never handled a flare in his life.

Asked of he might be mistaken, Scott was adamant:

‘If I’ve written the report that said that he did it then he would have done it.’

Letter from PT to Ernest Rodker, 14 June 1972

A Special Branch report [MPS-0737087], from the day after the action, tells of activists sitting down to block the British Lions rugby team bus, saying as each small group was arrested, another group would replace them.

Ernest Rodker in his evidence provided at handwritten letter [UCPI0000033628] from a witness to the action. In it, Scott is described as still present after most people had been arrested, and being with a woman who was trying to stop the police from moving a red Mini blocking the entrance.

Scott was one of 14 people arrested that day. His report included comments from the activists’ lawyers – these have been redacted from the documents released by the Inquiry as even now, 50 years later, they are subject to legal privilege. And yet they were put in a report to the prosecution side from a spy among the defendants!

He confirmed that he was present at meetings of the defendants and their lawyers.

The group was summonsed to appear at Magistrates Court on 14 May 1972. All the defendants pled Not Guilty and were bailed to return to court in June.

POLICE PLEASED WITH THEIR CRIME

He did not inform anyone at the court that ‘Michael Scott’ was not his real name. He was not told of anyone else doing so.

Scott had earlier told the Inquiry he did not recall ever seeing the 1969 Home Office circular document on informants who take part in crime, which expressly forbade any course of action that was likely to mislead a court.

After that first court appearance, a report [MPS-0526782] shows Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ferguson Smith also declaring himself happy to ignore Home Office protocol and continue with this subversion of the judicial system:

‘Faced with an awkward dilemma for so young an officer, I feel that DC [redacted] acted with refreshing initiative, as a result of which he must now have both feet inside the door of this group of anarchist-oriented extremists under the control and direction of Ernest Rodker. This man has been a thorn in the flesh for several years now, having had no fewer than 14 court appearances prior to 1963 for offences involving public disorder.’

Ferguson Smith is none other than the officer who oversaw Conrad Dixon’s founding of the SDS in 1968.

Arrest of undercover officers was dismissed as:

‘merely as one of the hazards associated with the valuable type of work he is doing. there is absolutely no criticism of the officer’

The memo said that the Assistant Commissioner (Crime), one of the most senior officers in the Met, had been informed. There can be no longer be any doubt that the SDS’s activities were known and approved at the highest levels of the Met.

According to another report by Scott [MPS-0737109], 13 people attended a meeting at Jonathan Rosenhead’s home on 21 May 1972 which included some discussion on legal strategy in the case – which is reported back. Scott does not recall any discussions with the unit’s managers about this legal case.

A further report by Scott [MPS-0737108] includes advice given to the group of defendants by their lawyer Ben Birnberg. Again, he has no recollection of the managers commenting on this.

Along with the others, Scott was found guilty (of obstructing both the highway and the police) and was fined. He thinks he would have claimed this under his spycops expenses.

CRIMINALISING THE REAL MICHAEL SCOTT

Scott was convicted under the identity of a real person. Asked if possible repercussions on the real Michael Scott bothered him, he was unruffled:

‘It was such a low key thing that it wouldn’t matter who you were. If you had been convicted of such a thing it would mean very little really.’

If the conviction didn’t belong to the real Michael Scott, did the spycop who stole the identity consider himself as a person with a criminal record, did he declare it if he was asked about previous convictions?

‘No, I didn’t. I never gave it another thought really.’

WEST CROSS ACTION GROUP

Scott also infiltrated the West Cross Action Group (WCAG), which opposed proposed construction of an urban motorway.

‘I suppose it’s like anyone that is protesting about a road. There’s the possibility that they would do something to stop it happening, and that’s of interest to the police.’

The reason this particular group was infiltrated became clear when we saw a report [UCPI0000008258] describing a meeting that was convened by Peter Hain and held at his home.

The next WCAG meeting report [UCPI0000008260] is from a different campaigner’s home. According to the report, Hain suggested some form of direct action should be incorporated into the campaign and suggested painting the roads at the points where the motorway would cross existing avenues might be a good idea.

Scott admitted WCAG did not cause disorder, paint roads, nor any other crime. So, were they seeking to overthrow parliamentary democracy?

‘They may well have been. They may well. But I don’t think so.’

And yet, Scott infiltrated the group, attended the meetings, and his reports were copied to the Security Service (MI5).

‘Well it wasn’t all about overthrowing democracy, it was about nuisance value and the fact that they caused problems and possibly danger to the public by their actions and therefore this is the role of the police. This is what we have police for, to look after us’.

IRISH SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

There are reports by Scott on the Irish Solidarity Campaign (ISC) for a short period in 1972, following in the wake of Bloody Sunday.

On 30 January 1972, British soldiers in Derry opened fire on a march protesting against internment without trial in Northern Ireland. 26 civilians were shot, 14 died. Many of the victims were shot fleeing the soldiers, and others while trying to help the wounded.

Outrage spread to Great Britain. Scott infiltrated the ISC, reporting on them from May to October 1972. He was appointed the coordinator for the donations of books to send to detainees.

He concedes that the organisation was not violent, but may have been supportive of people who were. Harking back to the formation of Special Branch – founded in 1883 to spy on Irish nationalists in London – he said:

‘this was the function of Special Branch in its origins and therefore they had a responsibility’

ANTI-INTERNMENT LEAGUE

He moved on to infiltrate the Anti-Internment League (AIL), another organisation opposed to detention without trial in Northern Ireland, from September 1972 to November 1973. He was unable to grasp the civil liberties and human rights issues, saying of the group:

‘It was about supporting the rebellion in Ireland really’

Characteristically, he contradicted himself a few minutes later. Queried about his report [MPS-0728845] that detailed a pro-bombing speech at the October 1972 AIL conference, he said such views weren’t common in the group:

‘there were many people that were essentially liberals that really, that just didn’t believe in interning people and that kind of thing.’

His report said that the conference disappointed many who came, and two members of the International Marxist Group, Géry Lawless and Bob Purdie, had taken leadership roles in the AIL.

TROOPS OUT MOVEMENT

In a September 1972 report [UCPI0000007991], Scott mentions the Troops Out Movement (TOM). He admits TOM was not violent, and did not seek to overthrow parliamentary democracy, but nonetheless:

‘Troops, I suppose, are of interest to all of us, including Special Branch. As an organisation upholding the law, they would be interested in anything that was actually anti the troops.’

There was also some crossover between TOM and the International Marxist Group, who were already targeted by spycops.

Lawless was involved in the running of TOM, and was already spied on by SDS officer Richard Clark who – as ‘Rick Gibson’ – had set up a TOM branch in order to climb through the organisation to its top level before sabotaging it. (See also the statement of Mary below.)

‘IMG is a virulent Marxist group and they were endeavouring to infiltrate anywhere they could really cause problems. But in the case of Géry Lawless, he was Irish, of course, and he was – what can I say? – he was a problem wherever he went… he was just a nasty individual actually.’

VIOLENCE AGAINST TRUTH

Scott was told Lawless had accused him of being a police officer. He decided he had to do something about in order to make everyone believe that the allegations were false.

Amazingly, the same night he was told of the accusation, while driving he apparently chanced across Lawless, who was making a call in a phone box. Going to the phonebox, Scott opened the door and confronted him angrily. On being told to ‘feck off’ he punched Lawless hard enough to chip a bone in his hand and require medical attention.

Scott laughed as he remembered this incident, claiming that Lawless was trying to take off his belt to defend himself.

Why was a crime of violence against a member of the public acceptable?

‘It was acceptable to me and I was the one that made the decision. I was the one that was there, and the person that was the so-called victim was Géry Lawless’

It was nonetheless a crime of violence, surely?

‘I don’t think so, no.’

Throughout this section of the evidence, the Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, was visible on-screen. He did not appear to be taking this spycops criminality very seriously.

WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

Scott chose the Little Ilford branch of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) as his next target. He described the WRP as Trotskyists who were trying to infiltrate trade unions and foment industrial unrest.

We were shown one report [UCPI 0000006961] from 1975 to illustrate their ideological position. It referred to a march from Hull to Liverpool which would pass through the Yorkshire coalfields, where National Union of Mineworkers’ leader Arthur Scargill would be denounced as a ‘Stalinist betrayer of the working class’.

‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77), also infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party, with an unusual outcome. Not knowing he was a spy, the members asked him, in turn, to infiltrate a breakaway group of the far-right National Front.

Scott recalls meeting with Collins at the SDS safe house. He says he was not aware of this extra deployment into the far-right, and in fact says the two men never even discussed their shared experience of infiltrating the WRP.

There are many reports on the WRP, including a June 1975 report [UCPI0000012752] of a meeting of around 500 people in Liverpool that discussed the case of the jailed striking building workers known as the Shrewsbury Two.

Despite being credited as the report’s originator, Scott says knows nothing of any of these campaigns events or the case, including that the trials were held in Shrewsbury.

In April 1975, Scott reported [UCPI0000007111] on the forthcoming Catholic marriage of two members of the Little Ilford WRP:

‘It’s important to know that when members change their name by marriage and who they’re married to, it’s important to know. You build up a picture of what’s going on.’

This lack of proportionality took many forms. A month later, Scott reported [UCPI0000007176] that:

‘The Workers Revolutionary Party is actively considering infiltrating Labour Party Young Socialists with a view to the eventual subversion of all branches of the LPYS… Similar infiltration of other groups is being considered but apparently the Young Communist League has been rejected on the grounds that it is virtually non existent.’

Quite where the WRP were going to find thousands of people across the country to take over every branch of the Labour Party’s youth wing does not appear to have been considered.

After attending a WRP training course at White Meadows in Derbyshire, his deployment ended.

In all his five years undercover in the Special Demonstration Squad, Scott can only remember witnessing one occasion of public disorder. It was a demonstration in Whitehall and a man in a bowler hat trying to hit people with an umbrella. Scott can’t remember why, nor what the issue was.

Full witness statement of ‘Mike Scott’

‘Mary’

Troops Out of Ireland poster, 1975

‘Mary’ is one of the women who was deceived into a relationship by Special Demonstration Squad officer Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76).

Mary attended Goldsmith’s College in London from 1972 to1975, and joined the Socialist Society formed of students on the far left, including the International Marxist Group, International Socialists, and many independents.

The Socialist Society assisted students, and was involved in many campaigns beyond the campus, in workplaces, factories and communities in South London. It held weekly meetings with speakers on historical, economic and social issues. These often involved topical subjects, such as Vietnam and South Africa.

Mary recalls they also had speakers on issues of anti-racism, women’s liberation, academic freedom, civil liberties, free speech and human rights in general. One of their demands was for a daytime crèche for students who were parents. It was a successful campaign.

We were affiliated to and attended the local Trades Council, and we hoped to support local workers in their struggles for improved pay and conditions.

To support the national miners’ strike in the early 1970s, we adopted a mine in Wales. I visited the town and stayed with a local family to show our solidarity.

The Socialist Society also engaged in campaigns against the fascist National Front. Mary notes that it’s important to understand that during this time the fascists had united in one organisation. They were both racist and anti-democratic:

‘The State was standing by as the fascists organised. The police by their nature were institutionally racist, and as a result let the National Front organise at will’

Mary had come to London from South Africa, so the anti-apartheid movement’s struggle was especially close to her heart

During the period she was spied upon she also supported the International Marxist Group (IMG) and National Abortion Campaign.

‘I feel uncomfortable continuing to answer the questions about the IMG and my involvement in it. The questions appear loaded.

‘My activities were for social justice and in defence of human rights — which the last time I checked, are allowed in a democratic society.’

‘Seriously, I thought this public inquiry was meant to be investigating undercover political policing’

Her statements echoes what others have said last week. With the passage of time, many of the issues we were campaigning around have been shown to be completely justified.
We were on the right side of history.

In order to campaign effectively it required challenging the State, which is our legal right and responsibility as citizens:

‘At no point was I ever involved in conspiracies or discussions to involve myself in illegal or violent activities.

‘In fact, there were a number of occasions where I felt unprotected by the police when I should have been protected. Our meeting in East Ham Town Hall was smashed up, fascists coming into the building. The police who were outside stood back and let it happen.

I had forgotten that I had a ‘party name’ but have discovered from Rick Gibson’s notes that my alias was ‘Millwall.’ I sold Red Weekly every other week outside the Den, Millwall Football Club’s ground, and outside factories in south London. I have to say I was a braver woman than I thought I would ever be.’

EMOTIONAL ABUSE

We then get to the topic of the sexual relationship with Rick Gibson.

‘He was easy to befriend, he was a harmless sort of person and he was not predatory. He was very mild, very bland and also very boring.’

Last week at the Inquiry we heard that Rick Gibson built his career infiltrating activist groups, using relationships with four different women to win trust and build his cover story.

‘He was a frequent visitor to both myself and to my flatmate (who was also an activist). I assumed that our sexual encounters were a manifestation of a mutual attraction. They proved to be half-hearted and fizzled out.

‘Had I known he was a police officer there is absolutely no way I would have had any sexual contact with him at all. His use of sex was a way of consolidating his history, and to cement his reputation. He was using it to get closer to us as a group of activists.

‘I do find it appalling that in the reports for senior management ‘Rick Gibson’ has seemingly left out the sexual contact.

‘I find the whole strategy and practice of spycops having sexual relations with activists as immoral unprincipled and a criminal abuse of emotions. It is also an abuse of their own partners and families.

‘I am totally opposed to any acts of violence. That stems from my background of being aware of State violence in South Africa.

‘I would also add that the sexual contact that I and other women faced was a form of State violence.

‘Finally, I am angry with the Metropolitan Police. It took it upon itself to do this and had a cavalier attitude to privacy. Nor did the Metropolitan Police consider the rights of people to be involved in legal and genuine political activities.’

GIBSON’S ENTRANCE

Gibson wrote to the national office of the Troops Out Movement in December 1974. Quite likely, his membership application was a police response to the Birmingham pub bombing in November. He asked if there was a local branch in South East London.

‘His letter prompted myself and other activists, such as Richard Chessum, to meet with him and launch an entirely new branch. Without the undercover, it would not have existed.’

Mary first met Rick Gibson in December 1974 or early January 1975, when he approached her at a political stall at the University. Soon thereafter, the Socialist Society launched the Troops Out Movement in South East London, and had their first meeting.

As is now clear, befriending Mary and Richard Chessum was just a stepping stone to bigger things. Gibson became London organiser of the Troops Out Movement relatively quickly, and the convenor of the national officers next.

Mary probably saw Gibson for the last time in late 1975. As he became more and more involved in TOM nationally and moved up the ‘career’ ladder he became increasingly peripheral to her.

The Inquiry has asked her if she remembered other undercover officers active as well; ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76), ‘Jim Pickford‘ (HN300, 1974-76), and ‘Gary Roberts‘ (HN353, 1974-78). Mary said she sadly she can’t be of help without further information, disclosure or contemporaneous photographs that the Inquiry refuses to supply.

GIBSON’S EXIT

Gibson was exposed by members of Big Flame who did not trust him, and in their investigation found both the birth and the death certificates for the real Rick Gibson, whose identity the spycops had stolen.

Mary was simply astounded when she found out he was a police officer. But certain aspects of Rick Gibson’s behaviour clearly fell into place.

‘He was always strangely unobtainable. He would not exchange contact details and he always had reasons why he could not be contacted. He said he worked for the water board and was often away.

‘He had no political back history, no other back history, he seemed to be extremely politically naive and also utterly new to the idea of activism.’

Looking back, it is clear that his sexual advances, and the use of sex was a way of ingratiating his way into the group as a whole.

‘I am disgusted that the police felt it appropriate to spy on people campaigning for better conditions for working class people, for democracy, civil liberties and human rights.

‘I am not traumatised, just feel embarrassed and foolish being used and conned. It really angers me as the police had no right to do this.

‘The only solace I can take is that that everybody else was fooled by ‘Rick Gibson’ as well until Big Flame found out who he really was.’

Finally, Mary wants to know what personal information is held on her by the police, Special Branch and MI5, and what was passed on when she moved to Cardiff. This includes her correspondence, whether her phone was tapped and what records there are of her conversations with her friends.

Mary believes that the intelligence reports that have been disclosed only form a small part of the whole picture, and hopes the Inquiry will disclose more.

‘The reports disclosed to me must have been seen by senior civil servants and Ministers.

‘This type of political policing is completely unwarranted. I would like to know who authorised this activity by the police, and how it was justified.

‘In a democratic society there is a duty to campaign and protest when and where necessary, the actions of the police and the undercover officers bring democracy into disrepute.’

Full Witness Statement of Mary

You can read more about this case at:
‘Rick Gibson’ – spycops sexually targeted women from the start, 28 November 2017
‘Mary’ proves: sexual targeting was always part of spycops, 30 January 2017

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This is the second of our weekly reports on the current round of Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings examining the actions of the Metropolitan Police’s undercover political unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), from 1973-82.

These hearings are scheduled to run for four weeks before taking a break for about a year. Subsequent hearings will look at the unit’s later years.

This report summarises the main points of the second week of this set of hearings. For more details, see our daily reports linked from our Inquiry page. For background information on the Inquiry, see our UCPI FAQ.

WHAT’S NEW THIS WEEK

Following last week’s opening statements, the focus this week was on witnesses from both the undercover unit the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the ‘non-state core participants’ (ie the people spied on) in the era in question.

Many of the same themes emerged as during the first round of hearings in November 2020, which looked at the SDS from its foundation in 1968 until 1972. Further evidence has done nothing to contradict the impression of the SDS as a secret and secretive unit with a remit to report every detail of the lives of the people they spied on.

‘BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY’

Spycops picked their own targets, or were assigned them by the Security Service (aka MI5). Miscarriages of justice would be authorised in order to prevent the unit being exposed. The foundations laid in the early days of the SDS were rapidly built upon during 1973–82, eventually resulting in the credo revealed by whistle-blower officer Peter Francis – ‘by any means necessary’.

And yet, the information obtained by those means was characterised by some spycops this week as being of little use; the groups they went to such lengths to infiltrate as basically harmless. Other undercovers fell back on the refrain that they reported everything and left it to their superiors to filter out what was useful. Both spycops were simply pulled out without strategy.

This doesn’t explain why some reports contained passing remarks made by individual activists that had been deliberately exaggerated, or even invented, so that the groups would seem dangerous or in favour of violence.

In this report we highlight some of the week’s events as examples of recurring themes, and look at the infiltration of various anti-apartheid campaigns. Full coverage can be found in our daily reports.

LITTLE TO NO TRAINING

‘Dave Robertson‘ (HN45, 1970-73) and ‘Alex Sloan‘ (HN347, 1971) – who both gave evidence on 27 April – spoke of having little to no training for their roles, and being expected to pick it up – or just make it up – as they went along.

It seems that the higher-ups were doing the same thing. A statement from spycop ‘David Hughes’ (HN299/342, 1971-76) details how SDS management did not really know what to do when another officer was suspected of, or in the case of Robertson, identified as being undercover by the people they were spying on.

Alex Sloan explained that he was not given any guidance about what to do if his cover was blown. He was never instructed on what to do if offered a responsible position like treasurer or secretary in a target group (but thought he should accept it). He was not told about ‘legal professional privilege’, a long-established legal convention prohibiting his presence at discussions between lawyers and their clients. This last point came up more than once this week.

In most cases, the spycops themselves chose which people to spy on and which groups to infiltrate. David Hughes attended public meetings advertised in then-radical magazine Time Out. As we saw last week, none of these groups (bar one) was right-wing.

Special Branch’s remit, and by extension the remit of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), was to deal with ‘subversion’ (opposition to the UK’s parliamentary democracy), and threats to public order. From the evidence this week, the spycops were not given clear criteria on how to assess what was subversive.

Robertson could not recall guidance about what might constitute ‘extremism’ or ‘subversion’. He said vaguely ‘it was just part and parcel of the whole’. Alex Sloan, when asked if he knew what was subversive, replied that it wasn’t for him to judge – another recurring standpoint of the spycops.

Rajiv Menon QC, representing Piers Corbyn, defined it as activity that:

‘threatened the safety or well-being of the State and was intended to undermine or overthrow parliament by political or industrial means’.

Two justifications for spying on non-subversive, non-violent, law-abiding groups emerged: a) they might lead to violent groups b) it was useful to confirm that they were indeed what they seemed to be. Neither of these justifications seem to have been borne out by the results of decades of spying.

It is now clear that both Special Branch and the SDS spycops have always had a broader remit, which extended to threats to police credibility, corporate profit, and the convenience of the government of the day.

The campaigns infiltrated were all what we would now describe as social justice groups. The one exception – as mentioned before – was when a spycop was asked to infiltrate a right-wing group by the left-wing group he was spying on.

LITTLE TO NO USE

Once the spycops were embedded in these groups, their initiative appears to have deserted them.

Another repeating theme is the spycops themselves reporting that the groups were no real threat, and / or giving evidence now that the intelligence they gathered was basically useless. Descriptions given in evidence included:

• ‘Mickey Mouse’, ‘never scary at all’, not causing ‘aggravation to anyone’, (Alex Sloan on the Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front);
• ‘The majority of people I encountered during my deployment were not that extreme’ (David Hughes)
• ‘I do not think my work really yielded any good intelligence’ (Sandra Davies)

And yet, rather than withdrawing and trying to find a group that was bent on public disorder (such as Column 88, Nazis who were using firebombs), they continued to report on the peaceful groups working for positive social change.

UNFILTERED ‘INTELLIGENCE’

Nor were they directed to filter what ‘intelligence’ they gathered – every detail went into the reports, from activists’ body types to cigarette brands. Robertson said that ‘everything was fair game for reporting’, including details of flowers given to speakers. It was someone else’s job to decide what to do with the intelligence he collected.

The spycops reported highly personal information, such as the condition of Ernest Rodker’s health and the birth of his child. Some would give their own slant to their reports. Hughes stated:

‘Sometimes my personal views crept into my reporting. The SDS office never told me this was inappropriate or not permitted.’

They reported ideas from activists that were what executives now would define as ‘blue-skying’, involving fireworks, ticker-tape, and weather balloons, as though they were serious plans – despite the groups having no history of such actions.

Christabel Gurney

They reported on Christmas parties. One held as a fundraiser for the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the home of Christabel Gurney was 75p a ticket, 12p for drinks, and attended by a spycop. Sandra Davies seems to think that festive cakes and sweets made by the Women’s Liberation Front at the request of the Black Unity and Freedom Party were a ruse to ‘get their philosophy across’ to children.

Many of the reports went to MI5. Some fifty years later, MI5 still has them. Dave Robertson talked about not typing up his own reports after writing them, but knowing they were routinely copied to MI5. He said it was ‘obviously pretty routine’ that MI5 would request details about someone and the SDS would supply them.

This week Piers Corbyn, Diane Langford, and Ernest Rodker all specifically asked that their files be withdrawn and handed over to them. They are by no means the only activists who want this. It has always been one of the core demands of COPS.

A CULTURE OF DUBIOUS PRACTICES

We heard from various spycops this week, some in person and some via written statement. Despite – or because of – some convenient bouts of amnesia, their reports are consistently similar, and not just for this period (1973 – 82). They clearly indicate a culture of dubious practices that began with the very start of the undercover units and intensified, fostered by a climate of complicity, as the years passed.

All of their statements uphold the fact that knowledge of SDS activity went all the way to the top of the command chain. Hughes recalled the then-Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Robert Mark, visiting the unit:

‘It was obvious to me that he had concerns about the SDS. I remember words to the effect that “you realise that you could cause me tremendous problems under certain circumstances”.’

The motivation for the miscarriages of justice resulting from spycops violating lawyer-client privilege and standing trial under cover names, as demonstrated this week by ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76), was clear from the very beginning.

Scott was arrested as part of an anti-apartheid action. To avoid revealing the existence of the SDS, he was instructed to stand trial under his cover identity, including deliberately lying from the moment he took the witness stand. He was to attend meetings with genuine activists and their lawyer – violating lawyer-client privilege; and to withhold evidence that would have exonerated the activists (the protest took place on private land – a pub car park – and did not, as claimed, block a public highway).

Scott received a conviction – or rather, as he had chosen to steal the identity of a living person, the real Michael Scott did. The police reports show no concern at all about deceiving the court and orchestrating a miscarriage of justice, purely to avoid any ‘potential embarrassment to police’ if it became known that a spycop was involved.

Rodker sees this as part of a repeating pattern:

‘The failure to view activists as individuals with their own legitimate rights and interests, and the decision to place those second to the unfettered gathering of information on them may be a precursor to some of the more gross abuses of activists that, I note, happened in later periods of undercover policing of campaigners.’

Judge Mitting has said he will turn this matter over to the Inquiry’s panel that is due to review likely miscarriages of justice. The Inquiry has known about these miscarriages for years now, and in light of the age and health of the activists whose convictions may now need overturned, it is shocking that this Panel has still not been set up by Mitting.

IN CONTEXT

During the first week of the hearings, the police lawyers stressed the importance of looking at the activities of spycops in context, rather than through a modern lens. It was a different time with different values. A time when it was apparently fine to include in reports that: an activist couple had ‘a Mongol child’; ‘large Jewish nose[s]’, or the fact that a woman activist didn’t wear a bra, as merely objective descriptions.

It is true that the activism under discussion should be fully understood in the context of what it was trying to achieve. To properly assess the impact on the groups they infiltrated, one must know what causes the spycops were undermining.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS

Diane Langford co-founded the Women’s Liberation Front in 1970. At this time women could not get a mortgage, credit card or loan without a male co-guarantor. They did not have the right to equal pay or maternity leave, and could be fired for becoming pregnant. They had no legal recourse against discrimination in employment, education, and training. Contraception was not available on the NHS; there were no rape crisis centres. It is indefensible to say that this is a status quo that should have been maintained.

However, as spycop ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348) told the Inquiry in November:

‘Women’s liberation was viewed as a worrying trend at the time.’.

The aims of the WLF – equal rights for women and a society free from all forms of discrimination – were clearly and publicly stated in the application for membership, which Sandra Davis would have signed when she infiltrated the group in 1971. Their methods were also clear and public: demonstrations, open meetings, street theatre, film screenings, boycotts, and other collaborative actions. Diane Langford stressed the importance placed on collective action over individuals ‘indulg[ing] in macho posturing’.

Diane Langford, New York City, 1996

‘Dave Robertson‘ (HN45, 1970-73) reported on the WLF, and several other groups that Langford belonged to, including the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League (RMLL) which she formed with her late husband and fellow activist Abhimanyu Manchanda. A small group focused on studying deep political theory, the RMLL aimed to guide and advise the WLF and other groups campaigning against oppression.

When the RMLL eventually suspended Manchanda, splitting that group and destabilising two others, Robertson would play a part or even had a vote in that decision. When the WLF ousted Langford, leading it to change its name and then fall apart, Sandra Davis voted against her (and was elected treasurer shortly after).

As with Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’ HN297, 1974-76) last week, we see spycops deliberately taking positions of influence within the groups they infiltrated and then using this to weaken them – and bring about their demise.

There is a deeply unfunny irony in that Sandra Davis was working to delay equal rights for women on 10% less pay than her male colleagues. It is also worth noting that despite police lawyer David Perry QC (in Kate Wilson’s case) attempting to deny a culture of sexism in the SDS, this is the era in which the unit developed and consolidated the methods and practices that it would use for the next thirty years.

ANTI-APARTHEID CAMPAIGNS

Not content with preserving sexism, the SDS was also deeply suspicious of any group that sought to end racism. Again, to look at their operations in the context of the times is to see violent right-wing and fascist groups on the rise in the UK, and a government cheerfully doing business with South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. It categorised people into a hierarchy of racial groups, with whites at the top.

‘Beach and sea whites only’ sign, apartheid South Africa

The laws segregated all areas of life, reserving the best for whites. It affected everything from education, employment and housing to which bench people could sit on or which beach they could visit. Most of the population was denied the right to vote. Sexual relationships and marriages between people of different racial groups were illegal.

Groups fighting against apartheid in the UK were infiltrated by Mike Ferguson (HN135), ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76), HN332, Jill Mosdell (HN346, 1970-73), and Douglas Edwards (HN326, 1968-70).

THE ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT

The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) was set up to unite as many people as possible with the same goal: bringing equality and democracy to South Africa. As a UK group, they focused on the UK institutions and companies that were trading with and supporting the South African government, and attempted to stop these practices.

Anti-Apartheid Movement demonstration, London, 15 July 1973

Central to the AAM’s approach was to try and avoid doing anything that would distract the press from the real issue – the violence of the South African apartheid regime. As such it eschewed violence or heated confrontation. Rather, it concerned itself which included common campaign tactics such as organising petitions, public meetings, pickets, vigils, cultural events, and mass rallies.

In 1970, the AAM President was the Rt Rev Ambrose Reeves, an Anglican bishop. Vice presidents were Sir Dingle Foot QC MP; Rt Rev Trevor Huddleston, another Anglican bishop and Rt Hon Jeremy Thorpe MP. Also on the board was the then-leader of the Liberal Party Basil Davidson, an historian who had worked for MI6 behind enemy lines in the Second World War and been awarded the Military Cross.

This is hardly a group of radical subversives; far from overthrowing parliamentary democracy, the AAM’s sole aim was to extend it to southern African nations that were subjected to racist rule of colonial white minorities.

Despite this, the AAM was infiltrated by the SDS.

STOP THE SEVENTY TOUR

While the AAM resorted to mainstream methods, younger people wanted to do more. This is how the Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) was born, its immediate and principal aim was to stop the white-only South African cricket team from touring in the UK in the summer of 1970. More broadly, its aim was to make a very strong political point that people representing apartheid were not welcome in the UK.

STST used all classic forms of non-violent direct action (NVDA), pitch invasions being the most prominent. They sought to follow the well known principles of civil disobedience learned from recent history such as the struggles for Indian independence by Mahatma Gandhi and for black civil rights by Dr Martin Luther King.

They would run on to cricket pitches and sit down. Painting slogans on the walls outside Lords cricket ground, and even these were things like ‘stop the tour’ and ‘go home’ rather than anything more profane or aggressive.

According to Prof Jonathan Rosenhead (non-state core participant):

‘Stop The Seventy Tour was a nice floppy liberal alternative organisation, which many people could join. There was no party line and no ‘militancy’ as such, and the only thing everyone agreed on was the need to end apartheid.’

Yet the STST was infiltrated by the SDS.

SPECIAL ACTION GROUP

A small group of anti-apartheid activists believed in direct action and organised in private to add an extra layer to the campaign – calling themselves the Special Action Group (SAG). Rosenhead, who took part in the SAG, refuted the suggestion of the Inquiry calling them ‘the covert arm’ of the Stop the Seventy Tour, saying they just wanted the element of surprise.

For instance, one of them would check into the hotel where the rugby team stayed, overhearing their room numbers to either glue their locks, or write a message on their bathroom mirror with shaving cream At a certain point the team just wanted to go home.

The SAG was infiltrated as well.

DAMBUSTERS MOBILISING COMMITTEE

The Dambusters Mobilising Committee (DMC) was a coalition of groups including the AAM, that opposed the construction of the vast Cabora Bassa dam project in Mozambique.

The dam was a collaboration between South Africa, Rhodesia and Mozambique’s colonial ruler Portugal. It displaced local people without compensation in order to supply electricity to apartheid South Africa, and undermined United Nations sanctions.

The DMC campaigned to dissuade British (and other European) companies from financing or otherwise becoming involved in the Cabora Bassa project.

DMC meetings were small, attended only by representatives of the organisations in the coalition. They spent a lot of time researching companies involved in the dam. Some campaigners bought shares so they could attend Annual General Meetings of various companies, such as that of Barclay’s Bank who were guarantors of some of the dam’s financing, and pose pertinent questions to the meeting.

Even this Coalition was reported on.

MCCARTHYIST QUESTIONING

There was something both incongruous as well as slightly offensive in the line of questioning pursued by the inquiry throughout the week, repeatedly pushing to imply STST activists were violent and attempting to demonise their actions.

This is especially galling given the murderous racist violence of the South African apartheid regime they were protesting against. Adding to this, that within the UK it was STST protesters who were routinely assaulted by the police, stewards and some rugby supporters.

Peter Hain at a press conference called by the Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) campaign, 7 March 1970. Left to right: Jeff Crawford (Secretary of the West Indian Standing Conference) England cricketer Mike Brearley, STST member Mike Craft, & STST Chair Peter Hain.

On the final day of the week, the Undercover Policing Inquiry was devoted to hearing evidence from just one person, Lord Peter Hain. He had a rich career as an activist, and hence a thick secret police file that include decades of reports from undercover officers of the SDS

Hain founded and chaired the STST campaign, from its launch in September 1969 until it was disbanded in late May 1970.

Hain refused to be put in a position where, as an activist, he had to defend his campaigning, telling the Inquiry this attitude put both them and the police at the wrong side of history.

Like earlier in the week, the Inquiry opted for a line of questioning reminiscent of the McCarthy Un-American Hearings of the 1950s, in which guilt by association with radical groups or ideas is seemingly used to justify the State’s spying.

Their first question was whether Peter Hain’s parents, who had fled South Africa, were ‘communists’, when it is well known they were active members of the Liberal Party.

WASTE OF POLICE MONEY

Asked if it was understandable that police ‘faced with these novel, rather effective tactics’ should seek to gather all the information they could on campaigners’ secret plans, Hain cut in:

‘I know what you’re trying to insinuate, but… we were transparently public, some might say unwisely honest, about what our intentions were, which was to stop the tour by non-violent direct action.’

Hain made the point that the Anti-Apartheid Movement suffered extreme violence from agents of the South African State in London. This included the bombing and arson attacks on their offices, letter bombs being sent to their homes. Hain himself was sent one – it was opened by his teenage sister, and the matter was never fully investigated by the police. Hain demanded to know why this was.

Hain put it to the Inquiry that the SDS was a completely disproportionate waste of police resources: ‘

Why were they not targeting the agents of apartheid bombing and killing and acting illegally and violently in London at the time?’

In response to the Inquiry’s repeated suggestions that the STST took risks with their actions, that could have led to violence, Hain insisted that the main violence came from the other side. He described the brutal response to a pitch invasion at the Springboks’ match in Swansea in November 1969:

‘They ran on, they sat down, they interrupted play for, as I recall, over ten minutes, as it was intended. They were then carried off by the police and thrown to rugby stewards, rugby vigilantes, if you like, recruited for these purposes, and thoroughly beaten up. A friend of mine had his jaw broken, a young woman demonstrator nearly lost an eye…

‘They could have been carried out of St Helens, but there was clearly a pre-planned attempt to beat the hell out of the protesters, and that’s what happened.’

‘SOUTH AFRICAN TERRORIST’

The mindset and political framework of the undercover policing units seems not to have changed over the years.

A police report from 1993 – as the apartheid regime was collapsing and Nelson Mandela, three years out of prison, was poised to become president – refers to the Anti -Apartheid Movement as ‘Stalinist-controlled’. If that is the type of thinking of these units, Hain said:

‘we have a particular ideology of undercover policing which frankly cannot be defended.’

He has also learned recently, from a document revealed last month in Kate Wilson’s case in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, that in November 2003 he was described as a ‘South African terrorist’ by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy.

Kennedy was in the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, a parallel unit to the SDS, and deceived Kate (and other environmental campaigners) into a relationship.

At the time this spycop was calling him a terrorist, Hain was was a member of the British Cabinet, Secretary of State for Wales, the leader of the House of Commons and the Lord Privy Seal.

Hain retorted with a with a question that summarises the hearings of this week effectively:

‘What is it in the DNA of undercover policing that allows its officers to get such a biased and reactionary view of the world, that they make these kind of biased and completely unrepresentative and libellous and defamatory statements?’

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Tranche 1, Phase 2, Day 8

30 April 2021

Evidence from witness:
Peter Hain

Peter Hain at a press conference called by the Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) campaign, 7 March 1970. Left to right: Jeff Crawford (Secretary of the West Indian Standing Conference), cricketer Mike Brearley, STST member Mike Craft, & STST Chair Peter Hain.

On Friday 30 April, the Undercover Policing Inquiry was devoted to hearing evidence from just one person, Peter Hain. Hain had a rich career as an activist, and hence a thick secret police file that include decades of reports from undercover officers of the Special Demonstration Squad.

His long experience as a public speaker and a politician made him a strong witness. Not only did he challenge the line of questioning the Inquiry had chosen, he also made a strong case for non-violent direct action.

Hain refused to be put in the position where, as an activist, he had to defend his campaigning, telling the Inquiry this attitude put them and the police at the wrong side of history. Time and again, Hain used the questions as an opportunity to say what he had to say. In doing so, this day of testimony resulted in an interesting lecture on social history.

FROM ACTIVIST TO PEER OF THE REALM

As well as his involvement in the Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigning against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, Hain was in the Young Liberals – a more radical and progressive group than the main Liberal Party. He served as a member of its National Executive between 1973-75, and then as President from 1975-77.

Hain chaired the Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) campaign, which opposed a planned cricket tour of England by an all-white South African team, from its launch in September 1969 until it was disbanded in late May 1970.

He was also active in the Action Committee Against Racialism 1970-73 and a founder member and press officer for the Anti-Nazi League (ANL). He joined the Labour Party in September 1977 and was then elected as an MP in 1991. He was then a government minister for five years and Cabinet minister for seven years.

This meant that he signed off ‘on work of utmost sensitivity’. He signed warrants for surveillance and interception, and saw intelligence reports produced by the police, Security Service (MI5), MI6 and GCHQ. Hain has been a Privy Councillor since 2001, and a member of the House of Lords since 2015.

APARTHEID

‘For use by white persons’ sign, apartheid South Africa

Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s. It categorised people into a hierarchy of racial groups, with whites at the top.

The laws segregated all areas of life, reserving the best for whites. It applied to everything from education, employment and housing to which bench to sit on or which beach people could visit. Most of the population was denied the right to vote. Sexual relationships and marriages between people of different racial groups were illegal.

Asked about the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), Hain explained that, though apartheid is universally regarded as immoral today, it wasn’t so in the past:

‘For 50 years or so it was a bitter long hard struggle, and people take it for granted that everybody was against apartheid, because it was such a detestable institution of racism like the world has never seen… You have quite correctly depicted it as a movement that was in a minority, albeit with a large reservoir of public sympathy’

The South African apartheid state presented itself as a bulwark against communism, and it suited its purposes to be seen as part of the ‘democratic West’. Of course, it went against all the principles of democracy as the vast majority of the population was denied the right to vote. It was one of the most vicious tyrannies that the world has ever seen where a minority, less than 10% of the population, oppressed the great majority on grounds of race.

‘We were on the side of justice and equality and human rights, and the apartheid regime was on the wrong side of all those issues.’

The Western governments supported the regime by supplying it with arms, continuing to invest in and trade with it, opposing sanctions, and more.

SOUTH AFRICAN EXILE

Hain had grown up in apartheid South Africa. His parents were from conventional white South African families but ‘very unusually took a stand against the apartheid system’ and were forced into exile as a result. They moved to Britain in 1966 and lived in Putney, south London.

In documents produced by the Metropolitan police, his parents are described as communists. Hain says this is not true, his parents were members of the South African Liberal Party, never the Communist Party.

Hain said the Met files on his family contain details that could only have come from South African sources. Dismissing opponents of apartheid as communists was standard practice for them, and this distortion is typical of both the South African security services and the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) reports.

Basil D’Oliveira

Hain recalled the case of South African-born ‘cape-coloured’ cricketer Basil D’Oliveira. As he was ‘Cape Coloured’ (a South African ethnic group with diverse ancestral heritage), he was not allowed to play in his own country, but started playing for the England team while living here in exile. He was then excluded from taking part in the England team’s 1968 tour of South Africa to appease the apartheid regime.

Just before the team was to leave, however, he was asked to replace another player who was injured, prompting accusations from then Prime Minister Vorster and other South African politicians that the selection was politically motivated. Attempts to find a compromise followed, but these led nowhere. The English subsequently cancelled the tour.

This had made it clear to young Hain that the English cricket authorities were on the side of apartheid, and supported the racist form of cricket operating in South Africa.

The Inquiry moved on to discuss the ‘Wilf Isaacs Eleven tour’. Isaacs was a businessman – and South African Army officer – who sponsored a cricket tour of Britain in 1969. Such sporting tours by all-white teams were regarded as promotion of apartheid, and they also provided a tangible target for anti-apartheid campaigners in Britain.

Hain was 19 at the time. He said he is proud to recall the pitch invasion he organised in Basildon on 5 July 1969. As far as he knows, this was the first non-violent direct action that took place against a South African cricket team.

STOP THE SEVENTY TOUR

This led to advance planning for similar future tours. They formed Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) to oppose a planned visit from the South African cricket team in 1970. In the run up to that, the campaign started protesting against the South African Springboks rugby team in the winter of 1969/70.

The Hain family’s small flat became the headquarters for the STST campaign. Meetings were held there, their phone number became the national campaign contact, and his mother the group’s unofficial secretary.

Hain explained:

‘this was a campaign which came out of nowhere – it suddenly became massive; it was spontaneous and decentralised, with autonomous groups in different places.’

The Inquiry put it to Hain that there was a ‘potential for violence’ in the STST campaign because emotions must have been ‘running high on both sides’.

Hain refuted this, reconnecting various incidents where he and others used purely non-violent tactics.

‘Don’t scrum with a racist bum’ became a much-loved slogan following protests at the Springboks’ arrival at Heathrow Airport in October 1969. The team’s first training session, which they found out took place near the Hain family home, became the target of protest by STST. The AAM organised a demo at the South African embassy, where the team was due to attend an evening reception.

Stop The Seventy Tour protest, Lords cricket ground, London, 1970

STST’s Ad Hoc Committee met at the Hain family’s flat on 5 December 1969. Hain recollects that it consisted of ‘people I trusted’, planning the upcoming protests at the Springboks’ match at Twickenham. He believes that this group was never infiltrated.

However, there is a detailed report of this meeting [UCPI0000008656], which records six people attending, signed by the SDS’ Sergeant Mike Ferguson (HN135).

In their suggestive line of questioning, the Inquiry stated that there was an element of deliberately misleading fellow activists by suggesting that all their protests would be outside the cricket ground, when in fact the main event – the pitch invasion – was inside. Hain said that there was a good reason for not mentioning it, to keep it secret from the police; had the police known about the pitch plan, it would have scuppered chances of success.

Hain told the story of one activist dressed in a suit, who managed to drive the team’s coach for a short time, until he was forced to a halt by members of the rugby team and assaulted by them.

Asked about tin tacks sprinkled on a pitch at a protest in Bristol, Hain made it clear that he was opposed to this tactic, and that it was a one-off action by one person.

He said that claims in reports by SDS officer Mike Ferguson that this was to be an ongoing tactic, and that STST would supply the tacks, are outright lies. And, indeed, they were just part of a pattern of lies and exaggerations in the reports.

At the previous day’s Inquiry hearing, Hain’s fellow anti-apartheid campaigner Jonathan Rosenhead had also noted the ‘creative’ tendencies’ in Ferguson’s reporting. This might be a special concern as Ferguson went in to head the SDS in 1978.

Hain was emphatic, and turned the question from one asking him to justify his actions, to the spycops justifying theirs:

‘I don’t remember any instance of a planned violent act, although obviously this tin tacks one could have led to that. But if you’re making the point that this was a massive movement and there were lots of people organising spontaneously, yes, there were.

‘But does that justify Mike Ferguson deploying special, extraordinary police resources to take part in meetings in my living room or my parents’ living room? And in Young Liberal meetings, another undercover officer going by the name of ‘Mike Scott’, who I again don’t recognise?…

‘Why were they not targeting the agents of apartheid bombing and killing and acting illegally and violently in London at the time?…

‘I mean, this was a completely disproportionate waste of police resources, and it was on the wrong side of history. What the Mike Fergusons and the Mike Scotts actually should have been doing was helping bring down the apartheid system and deploying British security and policing resources to track down apartheid agents acting illegally in London. Instead of that they were spying on us.’

INSINUATIONS OF VIOLENCE

Asked if it was understandable that police ‘faced with these novel, rather effective tactics’ should seek to gather all the information on secret plans, Hain cut in:

‘I know what you’re trying to insinuate, but… we were transparently public, some might say unwisely honest, about what our intentions were, which was to stop the tour by non-violent direct action.

‘And that leads me to where I think you’re taking me. Why was an undercover officer in virtually every meeting that I attended when they could have found out what I was planning to do by what I’d publicly stated?’

Hain set his actions among the noble company of campaigns that were also vilified at the time, but are now celebrated:

‘I see non-violent direct action of the kind that I advocated and participated in through the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign, as having a long lineage going back to the Suffragettes, to early trade unionists, to the Chartists protesting for the vote, to Mahatma Gandhi in India protesting against British colonial rule for Indian independence. It’s in a long line of non-violent direct action that’s also carried out by Extinction Rebellion and other environmental protests today.’

They were not even doing anything unlawful, he said, pointing out that trespassing on the pitch was not even a criminal offence:

‘I’m still proud that I did non-violent direct action to change the course of history, and we did change the course of history.

‘That Stop The Seventy Tour campaign was fundamental, as Nelson Mandela subsequently told me, having seen it or heard about it from [the prison on] Robben Island where he was at the time, it was fundamental in changing the nature of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, in galvanizing it and in ultimately bringing about the downfall of apartheid’.

ARE YOU, OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, A COMMUNIST?

As during the interrogations of Jonathan Rosenhead and Christabel Gurney earlier in the week, the Inquiry opted for a line of questioning reminiscent of the McCarthy Un-American Hearings of the 1950s, in which guilt by association with radical groups or ideas is seemingly used to justify the State’s spying.

Hain was asked about the various radical groups listed as affiliated to the STST; the AAM, the National Union of Students, the National League of Young Liberals, the Student Christian Movement, the International Socialists and the Young Communist League. Hain made a point of adding the United Nations Youth Student Association to this list, and explained that his philosophy:

‘has always been – you bring in the broadest spectrum of opinion that you can that share in common a single objective… who can rally together, even though they may disagree about everything else.’

The Inquiry quoted from another SDS report by Mike Ferguson [UCPI0000008606] on an STST National Committee meeting held towards the end of the group’s activities in May 1970, which read:

‘There could be no doubt that the next two weeks would be crucial as far as getting the tour cancelled was concerned, and the trump cards which STST had to play in connection with the Commonwealth Games and racial disorder which would occur in the event of the tour taking place’

The Inquiry asked:

‘Was racial disorder one of your trump cards, Lord Hain?’

Hain refuted the insinuation that STST would somehow incite and organise racial disorder, explaining that the disorder mentioned was from the potential of pro-tour and pro-apartheid groups banding with the National Front and other racists. He had meant that this might get the tour cancelled if other methods failed.

RUGBY TOUR

Turning to the South African Springboks’ rugby tour of 1969, the Inquiry read a passage from Hain’s memoir, Outside In:

‘Suddenly the campaign exploded into action and into prominence. It was announced on 23 October that weedkiller had been sprayed on Oxford University’s rugby ground just a week before the team was due to arrive. The words “Oxford rejects apartheid” appeared in five-foot letters on the pitch.

‘The next day the university rugby club officials called off the match. They said that they had taken this decision after consultations with the Thames Valley Police “because of the risk of violence”.’

Asked if this was a fair summary of the events, Hain once again deftly cut down the implications of the question:

‘What doesn’t summarise it fairly is the risk of violence. The Oxford anti-apartheid group, which organised this quite independently of me, I might add, though with my general approval, though I was never a fan of spraying weedkiller anywhere.

‘But the Oxford Anti-Apartheid Movement was not intending violence; it was intending to adopt the same non-violent direct action tactics that it had adopted during the Wilf Isaacs tour, except on a much, much bigger scale, and that was why the game was cancelled and the venue was transferred.’

Hain made the point that the Anti-Apartheid Movement suffered extreme violence from agents of the South African State. This included the bombing and arson attacks on their offices, letter bombs being sent to their homes. Hain himself was sent one – it was opened by his teenage sister, and the matter was never fully investigated by the police. Hain demanded to know why this was.

He described the brutal response to a pitch invasion at the Springboks’ match in Swansea in November 1969.

‘They ran on, they sat down, they interrupted play for, as I recall, over ten minutes, as it was intended. They were then carried off by the police and thrown to rugby stewards, rugby vigilantes, if you like, recruited for these purposes, and thoroughly beaten up. A friend of mine had his jaw broken, a young woman demonstrator nearly lost an eye…

‘They could have been carried out of St Helens, but there was clearly a pre-planned attempt to beat the hell out of the protesters, and that’s what happened.’

After outrage in the mainstream media and a delegation, led by Hain, to the Home Office, such policing did not recur.

Hain described the protests that followed the Springboks to Dublin. 10,000 people marched, led by Bernadette Devlin MP (whose name appears in many Special Branch reports). This was the biggest demo of the entire tour, organised by two South African exiles, and the largest demonstration of any kind in Dublin for decades.

TRUE SPIES – OR TRUE LIES?

In 2002, the BBC broadcast a three-part series called True Spies that, for the first time, revealed the SDS to a wide audience.

In what was clearly an effort to paint the secret police in a positive light, journalist Peter Taylor interviewed several spycops and their cover officers, and introduced former Special Branch officer, Wilf Knight, the handler of the late Mike Ferguson.

Because Ferguson was identified in True Spies, it made no sense for the Inquiry to restrict his real name, but it did indeed grant anonymity for his cover name (for most former spycops this is the other way round, either that or both their real and cover name are restricted).

Today we learned that the Inquiry has told Hain the cover name in case it jogged his memory, but it did not. It is frankly bizarre for the Inquiry to be protecting the fake name used 50 years ago by a spycop who is now dead.

True Spies episode 1: ‘Subversive My Arse’, 27 October 2002

The Inquiry quoted a section from the True Spies transcript (page 12), where Knight proudly says:

‘I don’t think Peter Hain ever realised that he had a police officer as his number two.’

Hain refuted this, saying he never had a ‘number two’ at all. He thinks the undercovers routinely lied in their reports.

In True Spies, Knight described how Mike Ferguson’s SDS reports helped thwart the protestors plans:

‘The intention was for demonstrators, just prior to half time, to throw flare bombs, smoke bombs and metal tacks onto the pitch. Mike passed that information on, it was passed on to the uniform, and at the appointed time officers were there with sand buckets and metal magnets and although they threw as many as they could onto the pitch they were snuffed out, taken away and the players didn’t know that it had taken place and when they came out after half time the game carried on.’

Hain said it was:

‘a very clear example of a lie by Mike, a straight lie’

There was no throwing of tacks at Twickenham, let alone police clearing them with magnets. Asked by Counsel to the Inquiry, David Barr QC, if it was possible that Wilf Knight wasn’t lying, merely suffering from some confusion 30 years after the events he described, Hain said:

’“Some confusion” would be a very charitable description of it, if I may say so, Mr Barr, because it was typical of the behaviour of undercover officers, as I’ve seen in the documentation provided to me by the Inquiry, that they very rarely told the truth about what was going on.’

The Inquiry then cited another section from True Spies – the story of how Mike Ferguson diverted attention away from himself by accusing a genuine member of the group of being an infiltrator, who Hain then threw out of the meeting. Hain is pretty sure this is yet another fabrication. He remembers one person being disinvited from attending meetings of the group, but not in the way described.

The Inquiry turned to an SDS report [UCPI0000008660], the STST National Conference in March 1970. Mike Brearley, a British first-class cricketer speaking at the conference, asked STST activists to refrain from violence.

Hain said he applauded Brearley for this, and added that he was a courageous man, the only cricketer to make a public stand in support of the STST campaign. John Taylor was the only rugby international player to do the same.

THE ‘C’ WORD

The report also quoted Hain as saying that, after the Springboks’ tour, STST supporters should move to oppose the broader underlying issues of racism and the capitalist system that nurtures it.

Questioned on whether this meant there was an ulterior motive to the campaign, Hain retorted that the undercovers were trying to push a false narrative about a secretive second strand of the campaign – who wanted to use more violent tactics – which just did not exist.

As for opposing capitalism, he met that point head on:

‘I think that capitalism run in its more extreme way is designed to create a rich elite at the top and great impoverishment down below, instead of to spread wealth and ownership more widely and to allow people to participate more equitably in the running of their economy.

‘So I want a fairer, more just economic system, and I make no bones about that. I was a socialist at the time I was in the Young Liberals and I remain one, and if that’s the discussion we want to have, I’m very happy to have it.

‘But the point I was making at the time was that the British capitalist system was more interested in profits and in trade, than in decency and human rights and justice and non-racism because, actually, its trade of arms and its supplying of arms was perpetuating apartheid, entrenching it and strengthening it.’

SUCCESS

Hain mentioned his belief that South African intelligence operatives infiltrated and secretly recorded meetings, and that they collaborated with the Met’s Special Branch.

Nevertheless, eventually the 1970 cricket tour was called off, just weeks before it was due to start. The STST campaign had been successful. Asked if the planned protests would have gone ahead if it hadn’t been cancelled, Hain enthusiastically confirmed they would. He gave examples of the kinds of exciting tactics the activists had come up with.

Hain emphasised that it came at a crucial time for the campaign against apartheid. Within South Africa the resistance was suffering severe repression, the leaders imprisoned, campaigners who were driven into exile were attacked, arrested and tortured.

‘So this campaign came at a time and achieved a victory which was very, very important for the momentum of the international anti-apartheid movement.’

YOUNG LIBERALS

Moving on to Hain’s involvement with the Young Liberals, the Inquiry noted that it was unusual for the youth wing of a mainstream political party to be prepared to commit minor criminal acts in order to advance its aims.

Hain asked for clarification on what type of minor crime was being invoked:

‘You mean like occurred at the Sarah Everard demonstration at Clapham Common? Would you describe that as a minor…’

He was interrupted and told that he wasn’t there to ask questions.

Hain was presented with the example of his sitting down on a zebra crossing. Hain was happy to admit that he had done this:

‘it did cause a lot of tension within the Liberal Party, though I don’t think that that’s the focus of this Inquiry’

It was pointed out that, according to the SDS reports, the Young Liberals were discussing issues such as pensions, pollution, and homelessness. But did they also discuss non-violent direct action?

Hain pulled the insinuation up into the light:

‘But what’s wrong with it? What is wrong with non-violent direct action?’

He was told there was no specific objection, to which he pointed out they’d labelled it ‘criminal’ and, when pressed, downgraded that to ‘minor criminal’.

‘What I object to about this line of questioning, is when it comes to progressive radical movements, whether it’s environmentalists today, whether it’s anti-racists, Black Lives Matter, whether it’s Greenpeace or Extinction Rebellion or the Anti-Apartheid Movement of its era, we are all presented as somehow subversive or semi-criminal or objectionable or disrupting England’s green and pleasant land.

‘Actually, that pejorative prism through which radical politics is presented is, in my view, completely unacceptable, reprehensible and partisan. That is the sort of perspective of undercover policing and ideology that was driving it. That’s my major concern, and I think, you know, I’m not accusing you personally, but I think you’re reflecting that state of mind’

Hain then talked about how this undercover political policing got to the point where instead of catching the racists responsible for Stephen Lawrence’s death, they infiltrated the Stephen Lawrence campaign that was seeking justice.

REPORTING ON HAIN’S FAMILY

Attention turned to a January 1972 SDS report [UCPI 0000008240] on a Putney Young Liberals, meeting at Hain’s family home. According to the report, spycop ‘Michael Scott’ (HN298, 1971-76) was elected as Membership Secretary. Hain does not recall this person, so thinks he may have operated under another name then.

The report mentions Hain’s sisters, 15 year old Jo-Ann, and 13 year old Sally. Hain condemned the ‘disproportionate, politically biased policing’, adding:

‘I really don’t understand why “Mike Scott” was in this meeting at all, how it could be justified by his superiors and what he was doing with particularly two young women teenagers.’

Whether or not we agree with the aims of campaign groups, why should the police be sent to spy on them? Hain noted that ‘Sandra Davies’ (HN348) told the Inquiry in November that she could have been doing much more valuable things with her time.

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting intervened, explaining to Hain that some of the questions he’s been asked would have been the result of input from the various police lawyers. Although this was meant to reassure Hain that the line of questioning around the legitimacy of his campaigning was not the Inquiry’s viewpoint, it did reveal that the police, nearly 50 years, later are still seeking to justify their actions.

TELEPHONE TAPPED?

Hain was asked if his family’s phone number was used by other groups, and he confirmed that it was. They suspected that their telephone was tapped, so were cautious about what they said on the phone. Hain’s mother had experienced surveillance in South Africa, so was particularly security-conscious.

In his witness statement [UCPI0000034091], Hain refers to a phone call between his mother and undercover officer ‘Mike Scott‘. In his report, ‘Scott’ claimed that she told him to go to a private meeting at Ernest Rodker’s house. Hain rejected this:

‘I find that so unlikely as to be inconceivable. My mother was incredibly careful about what she said on the phone, and since both my parents and us as a family had lived under apartheid and under constant surveillance by the apartheid police, with Special Branch cars parked at the bottom of our drive following us wherever we went, including me to school, occasionally, on my bike, she was ultra careful, to the point of almost being too careful.’

Hain wondered what this undercover is concealing and why he is not telling the truth here.

INDEFENSIBLE

Hain highlighted three more points about the anti-apartheid campaign.

A police report from 1993 – as the apartheid regime was collapsing and Nelson Mandela, three years out of prison, was poised to become president – refers to the Anti -Apartheid Movement as ‘Stalinist-controlled’.

If that is the type of thinking of these units, Hain said:

‘we have a particular ideology of undercover policing which frankly cannot be defended.’

He has also learnt recently, from a document revealed in Kate Wilson’s case in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, that in November 2003 he was described as a ‘South African terrorist’ by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. Kennedy was in the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, a parallel unit to the SDS, and deceived Kate (and other environmental campaigners) into a relationship.

At the time this spycop was calling Hain a terrorist, Hain was was a member of the British Cabinet, Secretary of State for Wales, the leader of the House of Commons and the Lord Privy Seal.

‘What is it in the DNA of undercover policing that allows its officers to get such a biased and reactionary view of the world, that they make these kind of biased and completely unrepresentative and libellous and defamatory statements?’

ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE

After the racist National Front (NF) had overtaken the Liberal Party in the Greater London Council elections of May 1970, there was a great deal of concern amongst those opposed to fascism and racism about the rise in racist attacks. People felt the need to tackle the problem, and the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) was formed in 1977.

The Inquiry showed an AP News report about the ‘Battle of Lewisham’ in 1977, with the Inquiry pointing out the distressing view of violence against the police.

Hain told the Inquiry about the kind of violence that the far-right used. They physically attacked, and sometimes killed, people. He describes them as ‘swaggering’ through predominantly Black areas, threatening and committing violence. The NF attacked Jewish, Muslim and Black citizens. The ANL sought to stand in their way and block this violence.

Hain did not understand why the police protected these racist thugs, a group ‘whose avowed purpose is to stir up and promote racial hatred’. He notes that such behaviour was criminalised by a later Labour government (that he served in).

He repeated that the ANL was set up as part of a deliberate strategy to do things differently.
There were local groups – no central membership list – and lots of groups based in specific communities and professions such as ‘Nurses Against the Nazis’, ‘Skateboarders Against the Nazis’ etc. The ANL put out leaflets, and campaigned against the NF’s electioneering. They mobilised to stop them openly demonstrating in the street.

Rock Against Racism organised music festivals, so the public could hear anti-racist messages from a range of punk and reggae bands.

He calls it an ‘innovative campaign’ and went on to explain the concern about the far-right influencing youth culture, especially skinhead culture. Punk bands were invited to play at Rock Against Racism. Hain is proud of a formerly racist skinhead who said he had had been convinced by the arguments of the ANL.

Hain was questioned about physical resistance being used by anti-fascists. He responded with some questions of his own:

‘What should be done? Should the National Front just be allowed to continue to march unchecked or should somebody try to do something about it, as we did, and was done in 1936? Now, in 1936, Mosley’s Blackshirts were attacking Jewish communities very predominant in that part of East London. In the modern age, it’s been Black or Muslim communities that the National Front have targeted. Who else was protecting them?’

When it was suggested that these demonstrations and counter-demonstrations caused a ‘public order challenge’ for the police, Hain was unequivocal about the police’s public safety remit:

‘Their purpose should have been combatting racism and Nazism and its menacing rise at that time’.

A report from 1978 [UCPI0000011673] shows that the ANL was aware of NF’s plans to hold at rally at Islington Town Hall on 27 April. The report says the group, including Hain, were ‘drawing up plans for disruption’. Hain disagrees with their aims being mischaracterised in this way – they actually wanted the event not to take place at all:

‘It’s seen through a prism where we are the bad guys, and the racist and Nazis are not. The NF targeted areas with Black/ Muslim/ Jewish populations for their demos. They attacked mosques and synagogues. I think the police should have been on our side in opposing them’

The Inquiry was shown an SDS report [UCPI 0000016579] of the ANL’s national conference March 1981. A section headed ‘Violence’ was read out, which makes it clear that the ANL explicitly opposed the use of ‘tit for tat’ violence, and did promote a wide range of ways of non-violently supporting the victims of racist violence. Hain said he is grateful that the Inquiry has included these documents.

The next SDS report [MPS-0726913] was about Rock Against Racism, which – as mentioned above – held a giant carnival in Victoria Park in East London, in 1978.

Many thousands of people (the police report says more than 30,000) marched to the park from central London that day to see a host of punk and reggae bands, including Tom Robinson Band, X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots and the Clash.

Asked if he would accept that there is a value in the police collecting such intelligence, Hain replied that  the spycops could just have asked them, or the Met officers who were liaising with the organisers of such an open, non-confrontational event, what their intentions were.

30 April 1978 from Asya Gefter on Vimeo.

From the report it becomes clear that the police were mainly worried about the amount of people that would stay over in London, and how that would affect police protection of a planned NF march the next day.

The BBC’s True Spies documentary featured an anecdote from a spycop called ‘Geoff‘ (HN21) about people ‘sitting on sacks of money’. Hain remembers that occasion, it was simply that the money had been collected in donations from people who attended the gig in the park.

Jumping forward nearly 20 years, the Inquiry produced an SDS report [MPS-0742234] on a large ANL meeting that took place at the Camden Centre on 11 June 1994. It was attended by 320 delegates from over 200 separate organisations. By then, as well as being on the ANL Steering Committee, he was a Labour MP.

Hain cited the ‘Wilson doctrine’, an established principle that there must be disclosure of any surveillance of MPs, and said:

‘I think it’s wholly wrong, and I suspect close to being illegal, that undercover officers were reporting on me.’

BACK TO THE EIGHTIES

The Inquiry then produced an SDS report from March 1980 [UCPI0000013868] about a meeting at Westminster Central Hall. This debate, entitled ‘The crisis and the future of the Left’, was chaired by Hain. Tariq Ali and Paul Foot spoke, alongside three MPs; Audrey Wise, Stuart Holland and Tony Benn.

‘For the life of me, I don’t know why they were there except that they were obsessed with spying on left wing events, and it comes back to my concern that the progressive radical side of British politics seemed to be their targets.

‘And when I look back over the years, 50-plus years in politics and bring it up to date, it seems that the constant targeting of progressive radicals of various descriptions, from those explicitly on the left or on the so-called far left, or those on the centre-left, seems to be the focus of attention rather than the right and the far-right’

Hain was told the Inquiry will be hearing about the infiltration of the far-right too. But due to the supposed ‘risks’ to those spycops who were deployed against these groups, this evidence may be heard in secret.

In 2018, The Guardian together with the Undercover Research Group, published a list of groups known to be targeted – as disclosed by the Inquiry – predominantly left wing groups. In stark contrast, the far-right was barely infiltrated by the spycops at all.

As we heard earlier in the week, in the period currently being examined by the Inquiry, they only had one officer infiltrating a far right group and that was by accident. ‘Peter Collins‘ (HN303, 1973-77), infiltrated the Workers Revolutionary Party. Not knowing he was a spy, they asked him, in turn, to infiltrate a breakaway group of the far-right National Front.

The Inquiry was shown several SDS reports from innocuous meetings that Hain is named as attending. One from June 1980 [UCPI0000014020] covered a special conference of the Labour Party at the Wembley Conference Centre.

From July 1980 we saw a report [UCPI0000014080] on British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.

In February 1982 Hain and others spoke at a meeting at Borough Community Centre, about the Right to Work march against unemployment. For reasons that are unclear, the SDS reported on it [UCPI 0000017175].

As well as the pointlessness from a public safety or national security standpoint, Hain was concerned not just about how long these files are retained, but about what they indicate about MI5. He said the Director General of MI5 came to him in July 2000 and said the Security Service files on him had been destroyed. It is obvious that they have not, as these were retrieved from somewhere. The SDS files released by the Inquiry that start with a ‘UCPI00000…’ reference numbers are largely copies from MI5 archives.

Hain became a Minister in 1997, and would have been security-vetted at this time, before being privy to sensitive intelligence.

TAKING SIDES

He said that he is no ‘starry eyed romantic’, that he supports the rule of law and wants to see effective policing. He believes that there is legitimate undercover policing as well as illegitimate undercover policing. He knows that some undercover officers have done important anti-terrorist work, for example. However he would like to see proper boundaries drawn for undercover operations.

He pointed out that if the police adopt an approach of spying on everyone in the hope that this throws up useful intelligence, that leads to the kind of approach that encourages spying on the entire Muslim communities:

‘In case you might catch the odd Jihadi, who are in a tiny minority… a lot of this went wrong from the very beginning. There seemed to be open season on progressive or left wing ideas and movements’

Hain ended with a clear message to the Inquiry about what he thinks they need to do. Referring again to the Stephen Lawrence family being spied on, he would like the Inquiry to address the issue of proportionality and right and wrong:

‘I’d like also you to address what was right and wrong about history. Was it right to infiltrate women’s rights groups in the early 1970s? Was it correct to infiltrate the Anti-Apartheid Movement, which had the objective of stopping apartheid? I know it’s not the Inquiry’s purposes to get involved in politics, but you can’t avoid making a choice here.’

That said he hopes that the Chair’s final recommendations will help to ensure that this kind of intrusion does not happen again.

Full written statement of Peter Hain