Former Special Demonstration Squad officer Peter Francis

Peter Francis, undercover police officer turned whistleblower, has declared he won’t have anything more to do with the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s anonymity applications from his former colleagues.

The former spycop, who infiltrated anti-racist groups in the 1990s and spied on the loved ones of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, says the public inquiry is protecting the guilty and concealing the truth.

Francis said:

‘I know at least half of all SDS officers. Armed with such knowledge, I had hoped to assist the Inquiry to critically assess the applications being made by former undercover police officers to keep their cover names secret. But the level of redactions accepted by the Inquiry Team is so high, even I am often unable to decipher from whom the applications are made…

‘Even when a risk assessment concludes that risks faced by an individual are “low”, the Inquiry has refused to publish his or her cover name. In such circumstances, I cannot justify continuing to incur tax payers’ money drafting written submissions or attending hearings which are clearly not going to change the approach adopted by the Chairman.’

THE SPY WHO STEPPED OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Francis was deployed by the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a political secret police within the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, from 1993 to 1998. He infiltrated Youth Against Racism in Europe, Movement for Justice and Militant (now the Socialist Party).

Francis was tasked to ‘find dirt’ with which to discredit the Lawrence family and Duwayne Brooks, Stephen’s friend and the main witness to the teenager’s murder.

In April the Inquiry named an officer known to have spied on the Lawrence family. Formerly known as N81, the officer – mentored by Francis – used the name David Hagan.

Francis told a 2015 conference of police corruption and racism campaigners, via his lawyer Rosa Curling:

‘I have let every single one of you down, especially the Lawrence family, by my cowardice in not appearing before the original Macpherson public inquiry when I knew in my heart at the time that I should have done so. No matter what my senior police managers were saying to me at the time, I should have been there, I should have spoken out.

‘Just imagine how many things might have changed for political protesters, especially all the black justice campaigns, had I had the bottle to do it then.’

Francis initially came forward to tell his story, only identified as ‘Officer A’, to the Observer in March 2010. It was the first time many people had heard of the SDS.

At the end of that year activists unmasked spycop Mark Kennedy, and Francis became a prime source of information for the Guardian’s detailed investigations into the unit, its remit and methods. This culminated in the Guardian journalists Rob Evans & Paul Lewis’ definitive book Undercover: The True Story of Britain’s Secret Police in 2013. At that time, Francis dropped his pseudonym and shared details of his personal deployment.

He was keen to talk to Operation Herne, the Met’s self-investigation into spycops, if the Met would withdraw their threat to prosecute him under the Official Secret Act for sharing secret information. This was superseded when the full-scale public inquiry was commissioned.

THE SECRET PUBLIC INQUIRY

Since the original Inquiry Chair, Lord Pitchford, resigned for health reasons in 2017, there has been growing concern about his replacement Sir John Mitting. His credulous approval of police demands for anonymity coupled with a penchant for secrecy have seen a groundswell of protest, all of which has been ignored. He oversees a slow, shambolic and secretive excuse for a public inquiry.

Matters exploded in the February hearing of the inquiry when it discussed officers known as HN23 and HN40. Victims’ lawyer Phillippa Kaufmann QC asked why we couldn’t even be told the reason these officers were being granted total anonymity, to which Mitting famously responded:

‘They are examples of deployments where you are going to meet a brick wall of silence.’

Francis’ lawyer Maya Sikand told the court that Francis knew who the officers were and that they:

‘would have valuable evidence to give you about the violence that was permitted by Special Demonstration Squad managers to be used by Special Demonstration Squad officers.’

Francis broke protocol, rising to his feet to interject in person:

‘I have great, huge, concerns that these professional liars are spinning you, the Inquiry and definitely these poor solicitors they are working with here.’

Mitting insisted Francis sit, which he voluntarily, observing that the court’s ‘Krispy Kreme security’ would not have been capable of forcing him.

Matters came to a head at the following hearing in March, where Kaufmann led her legal team and the victims they represent out of court, telling Mitting:

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

Francis stayed and made some forthright contributions, only to see that Mitting ignored it all and granted anonymity to many officers as planned.

The Undercover Research Group analysed Mitting’s decisions so far, and they calculate that he is on course to grant full anonymity to around 25% of SDS officers.

Mitting’s “minded-to” note on the NPOIU officers

Last week, Mitting turned his attention to the SDS’ successor unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which ran from 1999-2011. His ‘minded-to’ note shows intentions to grant anonymity to a much greater proportion of these officers.

It is inexcusable, unacceptable, and proof of what the victims have been saying for months; Mitting is wholly unfit to investigate and expose police wrongdoing.

It is into this atmosphere that we now hear Peter Francis’ withdrawal from the process of anonymity applications:

‘Three years ago, Stafford Scott (another Core Participant) said that walking into the Inquiry was like walking into a boxing ring, facing the Metropolitan Police with one hand tied behind your back and a blindfold covering your eyes. Sadly, his assessment has proved correct.

‘The approach adopted by the Inquiry to restriction orders has undermined its ability to uncover the truth about undercover policing in the UK. I had hoped my involvement in this process would in part remedy the unfair advantages identified by Mr Scott but this has not proved possible.’

There is another preliminary hearing of the Inquiry this Wednesday, 9 May. It is another session on the anonymity of officers. We have no faith that Mitting has altered from his method of listening to the police, making up his mind, then having a pantomime hearing before approving his predetermined ruling. We will not waste our time on it.

Neither the victims nor Peter Francis are abandoning the inquiry, just the process of appraising applications for anonymity. We want to engage with the Inquiry, as long as it is intent on revealing the truth about Britain’s political secret police. Sir John Mitting is an obstacle to that and he cannot be left in charge.

Join us for a protest before the hearing – 9am, Wednesday 9 May at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand WC2A 2LL.

Follow Peter Francis on Twitter.

Sajid Javid

As Home Secretary, Amber Rudd’s intransigence brought the Undercover Policing Inquiry to crisis point. Will her successor Sajid Javid open his ears and undo her damage?

The country was shocked to learn of Britain’s political secret police units infiltrating more than 1,000 groups over 40 years, violating human rights, orchestrating miscarriages of justice and undermining democratic dissent.

When Theresa May’s choice of Chair for the public inquiry, Lord Pitchford, resigned for health reasons in May 2017, Amber Rudd appointed Sir John Mitting.

Mitting displays huge gullibility and misplaced faith in the integrity of the trained liar police officers whose wrongdoing is the subject of his Inquiry. He has ignored the sustained, increasingly desperate pleas of victims as he steers the Inquiry deeper into crisis of confidence.

Rudd stonewalled repeated appeals from victims to intervene. Women deceived into relationships by spycops and Neville Lawrence asked to meet her but the requests weren’t even acknowledged.

Victims who have been granted core participant status at the Inquiry are clear that Mitting must resign, or at least sit with a panel alongside him. Alison, an activist deceived into a five-year relationship by Special Demonstration Squad officer Mark Jenner, explained:

‘At the heart of this inquiry are the politics of race, sex and class. If we’re ever to get to the bottom of what’s been allowed to happen with undercover political policing in this country, we need an inquiry led by people with sensitivity, experience and real understanding of these issues.’

LAWRENCES STILL SHUT OUT

As we passed the 25th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence last week, Theresa May announced an annual Stephen Lawrence Day.

Just as she had commissioned the Undercover Policing Inquiry but restricted it to events in England and Wales, so May’s government gives an elevating hand to Stephen Lawrence’s memory then slaps it back down.

Whilst the annual commemoration may help people examine his legacy, Stephen’s loved ones are still being denied answers about what happened. The state is still protecting the corrupt police involved in spying on the family.

In 1998, five years after Stephen’s murder, the Macpherson inquiry examined the case and came to the famous conclusion that the Metropolitan Police were ‘institutionally racist’. Macpherson was meant to get to the bottom of the matter, but it was never even told about the Lawrences being spied on by undercover officers from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

Spycop Peter Francis had been tasked by his SDS managers to ‘find dirt’ with which to discredit the Lawrence family and their associates. Later, at the time of the Macpherson inquiry, he suggested the unit should come clean to the Macpherson inquiry but was overruled by his superiors.

NOT JUST THE LAWRENCES

Stephen Lawrence’s campaign is just one of dozens of similar groups spied on and undermined by the SDS who worked hard to ensure the failings and racism of uniformed officers went unchecked. There had been a spate of racist attacks in South London before Stephen was killed. Two years earlier, 15 year old Rolan Adams had been murdered.

Rolan’s father Richard Adams said:

‘There is no doubt that had Rolan’s murder been investigated properly, Stephen Lawrence may still have been alive today.’

Instead, as with the Lawrences, the police resources that should have caught the teenager’s killers were spent instead on undermining the family’s quest for the truth.

NOT JUST THAT SPYCOP

The establishing of Stephen Lawrence Day cannot be meaningful while the state is still withholding the truth from Stephen’s family. It’s not just that the Home Secretary has repeatedly refused to meet Neville Lawrence. Last month we were finally told the fake name of SDS officer HN81, previously described as ‘a spy in the Lawrence family camp’. He was deployed as David Hagan.

But what was David Hagan’s real name? What did he report? Who else spied on them with him? Which other groups did Hagan spy on? What has he done since? Who ordered him to spy on the Lawrences?

The head of the SDS at the time of its spying on the Lawrences was an officer known only as HN58. Mitting has granted him full anonymity at the Inquiry, saying that because he has been married for a long time he is presumed to have been incapable of wrongdoing.

The spycops’ swathe of crimes, human rights abuses and counter-democratic stifling of campaigns has shocked all those who have heard of it. Yet, we only have partial details on a minority of officers. There is much, much more still below the waterline waiting to be revealed.

Though they are numerous, the black justice campaigns were a comparatively small proportion of the 1,000+ groups that were were spied on. Scores of people were fitted up with wrongful convictions and dozens of women deceived into long-term intimate relationships.

JUDGING THE JUDGE

All the victims deserve answers, as do the wider public whose democracy has been undermined by these agents paid out of public funds. To be effective, the Inquiry needs to understand what it means to be in a marginalised group and, under Mitting’s sole stewardship, it cannot do that.

The Macpherson inquiry had a panel of lay members whose experience was directly relevant to the issue. It is plain that Mitting should resign and hand over to a panel, or at least accept a panel to sit alongside him.

As the victims’ lawyer Phillippa Kaufmann QC told Mitting at an Inquiry hearing in February:

‘We have the usual white upper middle class elderly gentleman whose life experiences are a million miles away from those who were spied upon.’

With Mitting credulously granting police anonymity on dubious grounds and refusing to act on responses from those who were spied upon, Kaufmann led her legal team and the victims out of the February hearing.

Doreen Lawrence backed the walkout:

‘I want to know the names of the police officers who spied on me, my family and our campaign for justice. The chair is not allowing that, in my view, for reasons which are completely unjustifiable and unreasonable. Theresa May, then Home Secretary and now Prime Minister promised me a truly thorough, transparent and accountable inquiry.

‘This has turned into anything but that and before any more public money is spent on an Inquiry which does not achieve this, the chair should resign or continue with a panel which is not naive or old fashioned and which understands my concerns about policing and what I went through. Anything less than this will lead me to consider carefully whether I should continue to participate in this inquiry.’

A LAST REQUEST

Having expressed their concerns to both the Home Office and Mitting himself, last week victims delivered a letter to the Home Office calling for a panel to be appointed.

Three women who were deceived into relationships by undercover police officers – Andrea, Alison & Jessica – went with Neville Lawrence and Sharon Grant (widow of Bernie Grant, black Labour MP who was spied on) to personally hand the letter in.

Neville Lawrence explained:

‘We were grieving and someone felt it necessary to send people into my house to spy on us. The crime was outside my house but they spent the money to send undercover police into my house, that money could have been spent on finding the people who carried out the murder. I want answers.’

Mitting’s inclination towards secrecy makes the appointment of a panel all the more urgent; he has held more hearings in secret than in public. We need credible, independent people in there to hear the evidence rather than an uncritical judge drawing on his career of rubberstamping state surveillance.

Neville Lawrence is clear that the appointment of a panel of people from different backgrounds is make-or-break. If it the Inquiry doesn’t get that, he said:

‘I will withdraw from it. I will leave it alone because it’s a waste of my time. I’ve wasted two years already.’

With Amber Rudd’s departure from the Home Office, lawyers for spycops’ victims have already written to Sajid Javid. Will he meet with victims and restructure the Undercover Policing Inquiry so it can fulfil its purpose and reveal the truth about Britain’s political secret police?

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

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

MITTING THE POINT

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

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

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

It was ignored.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PROTECTING THE GUILTY

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

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

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

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

‘Andrea‘ explained:

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

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

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

PUBLIC HEARINGS TURNING THE PUBLIC AWAY

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

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

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

PUBLICATION UNSEEN

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

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

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

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

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

NAMING THE OFFICERS, A BIT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NO RESPONSE

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

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

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

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

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

‘Tweets will not be responded to.’

END THE CULTURE OF SECRECY

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

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

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

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

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

Last Wednesday, 21 March 2018, Jenny Jones (aka Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb) probed the government about Britain’s political secret police in the House of Lords.

Her question had been submitted in advance, and it focused on what the government knew about the disgraced spycops units.

The Special Demonstration Squad was directly funded by the Home Office for its first twenty years. The government must have wanted something back for the millions it spent, and it received reports from the SDS.

But when the government commissioned ex-Audit Commission director Stephen Taylor to investigate and report in 2015, he couldn’t find a single document anywhere in any of the Home Office archives.

How much the government knew of the detail of the units’ tactics, such as the psychological and sexual abuse of women, is unknown. With that in mind, Jones challenged the Home Office Minister, Baroness Williams of Trafford.

As there had been a mass walkout of the victims and their legal team earlier in the day, other lords took up that issue to highlight the crisis of confidence in the public inquiry.

Here is the full video and transcript of the session (the video has closed captions):

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party): I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the order paper [To ask Her Majesty’s Government what communications they have had, over the last 30 years, with police forces regarding the tactic of undercover police officers forming sexual relationships to develop their cover stories].

The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Conservative): My Lords, as part of its terms of reference the undercover policing inquiry is investigating ​the state of awareness of undercover police operations of Her Majesty’s Government since 1968.

The Home Office is a core participant in that inquiry and is in the process of making disclosure to the inquiry of material relevant to the terms of reference. The inquiry will report its findings once all the evidence has been reviewed.

Baroness Jones: Well, I thank the noble lady for her response which, of course, is not an answer to my Question.

I’m not sure if she is actually aware that, over a period of 24 years from 1985 to 2009, almost every single year there was a state-sponsored sexual relationship between a police officer and a woman who at no point was accused of doing anything illegal – not arrested, not accused – I just don’t understand how the Minister can sit there and think that this is alright.

This strikes at the heart of the ethics and the integrity of our police forces, and of course our security services. I must stress that the cases we know about are only the ones we have heard about, those are the only police names in the public realm. We don’t know all of them. Until we know all the police undercover names we won’t know how many victims there were.

I am also concerned about the Inquiry. The Minister may know that there was a walkout today by the whole legal team of the women involved and the women themselves. So how is the Government going to restore the credibility of that inquiry?

Baroness Williams: The noble lady refers to ‘state-sponsored’. I would refer her to the actual terms of reference of the inquiry, which is to ‘ascertain the state of awareness of undercover police operations of Her Majesty’s Government’. That is precisely what the inquiry was set up to do.

In terms of the walkout of today, I have been made aware of that walkout, and I am aware that the hearings are still ongoing. I would encourage all core participants – indeed, anyone impacted by undercover policing – to participate fully in the inquiry so that we can learn the lessons and get to the truth.

Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour & Co-operative Party): My Lords, can the noble lady confirm this is a very serious matter? Notwithstanding anything that comes out of the inquiry and the recommendations that follow, that she is absolutely confident that robust procedures are now in place and that it can never happen again?

Baroness Williams: My Lords, I would love to stand at this Dispatch Box and say that certain things could never happen again, but nobody can legislate for the odd rogue undertaking or the malicious intent of people. Therefore, one cannot be absolutely certain that it could never happen again. What one can do is put measures in place to try and mitigate as far as is possible [so] that it never happens again.

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-affiliated): Does the noble Minister agree that undercover policing is an essential tool in the fight against terrorism and crime and that, provided it is properly regulated and standards are adhered to, we shouldn’t judge the majority of very brave police officers that go undercover by the misdeeds of a few?

Baroness Williams: I must completely concur with the noble Lord. He is absolutely right, so much crime has been unearthed by the use of undercover policing. As I say, there are now strict rules in place to mitigate unacceptable behaviour from going on and I couldn’t agree more with him.

Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat): We know that this inquiry has already taken three years, and it’s expected to take another year before the victims get answers – campaigners walking out in protest today notwithstanding. We also know that the Special Demonstration Squad has been disbanded. But it would be naive to think that all embedded undercover work has ceased.

What assurances can the Minister give that the culture, practice, instructions to and supervision of undercover officers have already changed to ensure that, as far as is humanly possible, no man or woman will ever be subjected to these practices again?

Baroness Williams: The noble lady makes a very helpful point, because the policing Code of Ethics makes it clear that police officers should not use their professional position to, ‘establish or pursue an improper sexual or emotional relationship with a person with whom you come into contact in the course of your work’. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 provides the legal framework for the lawful deployment of undercover officers as covert human intelligence sources [CHIS]. We also have the 2014 CHIS codes of practice.

In relation to the point she makes about the length of time that the inquiry has taken, the slight extension to the length of the inquiry is due to purely the sheer number of pieces of information the inquiry has to look at.

Lord Faulks (Conservative): My Lords, I understand that the walkout from the inquiry was because of a sense that it was important that the individual police officers were actually identified by name.

I think my noble friend the Minister confirm that, by definition, undercover police officers have a cover name, and that, whatever the importance of getting to the bottom of what went on in this inquiry, it is important that they retain that anonymity, because that is a pre-eminent part of what they do.

Baroness Williams: My noble friend is absolutely right, and of course it protects the safety of those people as well.

Lord Soley (Labour): So, to confirm, this is not just a matter of rules and regulations? If it went on for so long, there must have been a serious management failure, because if there is the relationship between a senior officer and the person doing the job, that relationship is crucial in terms of keeping a check on their behaviour. That seems to me, as an outsider, not to have happened, and it’s what we ought to focus on.

Baroness Williams: I wouldn’t like to speak for the chair of the inquiry, but I am sure that some of the institutional failures that happened way back in the day will what the inquiry looks at.

Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat): In the walkout today, the leading QC who was representing the victims said that the walkout was due to the legal teams not being able to participate in a meaningful way. How have we got to a position where this has been going on for three years, cost £9,000,000 and senior QCs feel they cannot participate in a meaningful way?

Baroness Williams: My Lords, the people who walked out will have their reasons for walking out, but I know that the Home Secretary has full confidence in the chairman to carry out the inquiry in a way that gets to the truth of what happened.

Victims walk out of the Undercover Policing Inquiry, 21 March 2018

It’s been such a hectic week in the spycops scandal that nobody can have properly kept up!

In no particular order, here’s a list of twelve key events and revelations in the last six days:

1) Roger Pearce – who was spycops officer ‘Roger Thorley’ – was revealed as having written what the Inquiry called ‘virulently anti-police’ articles for Freedom Newspaper, who have now been granted core participant status at the public inquiry.

2) The announcement of the Secret Spycops Ball, a comedy benefit on 8 July for Police Spies Out of Lives, featuring Stewart Lee, Evelyn Mok, Mark Steel & Rob Newman. Be quick, most tickets have already been sold!

3) A new spycop has been named – Special Demonstration Squad officer ‘Michael Scott’ infiltrated the Young Liberals, Anti-Apartheid Movement, and Workers Revolutionary Party, 1971-76.

This means political parties targeted by Britain’s political secret police include:

• Liberal Party
• Labour Party
• Green Party
• Socialist Party
• Independent Labour Party
• Socialist Workers Party
• Workers Revolutionary Party
• British National Party

4) Kate Wilson, who was deceived into a relationship by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy, secured an admission from the Met that Kennedy’s managers acquiesced to the relationship. This is surely the death knell for the claim by senior police that such abuse was ‘rogue officers’ acting on their own initiative.

5) In Paris, after ten years the Tarnac defendants have finally come to court. Originally arrested for terrorism after security services linked them to damage to a train line, and an anonymous anarchist book, the accused have garnered huge support in France.

Under public pressure, the terrorism charges have been dropped, but the case still partially rests on unreliable intelligence from British undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. The Canary published secret police files, including excerpts from Kennedy’s notebook.

6) The Undercover Policing Inquiry finally confirmed Andy Coles was a spycop, a year since he was exposed as another one who deceived a woman into a long-term relationship, and was forced to resign as Cambridgeshire’s Deputy Police & Crime Commissioner.

7) Having been officially outed, Andy Coles ended his silence and not only defended his deployment but went full Rolf Harris and simply denied his year-long relationship with Jessica ever happened!

Having resigned from his post as Deputy PCC, he is desperately clinging to his Peterborough City Council seat and school governorship. He must step down from these too – men who abuse their power to sexually exploit the citizens they’re supposed to serve should not be in positions of public trust. Follow the Sack Andy Coles campaign for more info.

8) Victims of spycops and their entire legal team walked out of a hearing of the public inquiry, having told the Chair, Sir John Mitting, that he should resign or get a panel of people who understand the issues. We published the full blistering speech to Mitting by the victims’ counsel, Philippa Kaufmann QC.

9) As organisations who were spied on, both the Fire Brigades Union and Unite the Union issued statements supporting the walkout from the Inquiry.

Doreen Lawrence also gave a strong warning to the Inquiry about Mitting:

‘Theresa May, then-Home Secretary and now Prime Minister promised me a truly thorough, transparent and accountable inquiry. This has turned into anything but that and before any more public money is spent on an Inquiry which does not achieve this, the chair should resign or continue with a panel which is not naive or old fashioned and which understands my concerns about policing and what I went through. Anything less than this will lead me to consider carefully whether I should continue to participate in this inquiry.’

10) The Met finally admitted that Special Branch officers illegally supplied info on political activists for construction industry blacklisting. Thousands of people were denied work for asserting their legal rights, such as union membership or wanting proper safety equipment.

Most major construction firms supplied and used the list, and police added to the blacklist’s files with information on citizens’ political and union activity. It’s has been known for some time that Special Demonstration Squad officer Mark Jenner was an active member of construction union UCATT, and here is Carlo Neri on a construction industry in 2004.

11) A less redacted version of the Special Demonstration Squad’s tradecraft manual was released, a book dripping with disdain for not only those spied upon but every other person that spycops into contact with. Officer Andy Coles was named as the author.

12) Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, aka the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, challenged the government in the House of Lords about the failure of the public inquiry.

‘the cases we know about are only the ones we have heard about: those are the only police names in the public realm. Until we know all the names of the undercover police we will not know how many victims there were.’

At the end of the busiest week ever in the spycops scandal, with demands for justice coming from ever larger numbers of people, the push for truth has never been stronger.

The recent hearing of the Undercover Policing Inquiry was a world away from the stereotype of legal proceedings. Whilst other courtrooms seize up with the stale formality and impenetrable legalese, this session was awash with dramatic force that engulfed everyone present. And not in a good way.

The Inquiry’s Chair, Sir John Mitting, was sitting in for his second public hearing after taking over from Christopher Pitchford. Concerns victims had about the Inquiry under Mitting’s predecessor have only multiplied as the bias towards police secrecy becomes markedly worse.

NEITHER TRUTH NOR JUSTICE

Mitting said that he would not tolerate the Metropolitan Police’s former tactic of ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny‘ (NCND) being used to withhold from the public any information about large numbers of officers.

In his first public hearing in November 2017, Mitting unequivocally stated:

‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny has no part at all to play in Special Demonstration Squad deployments’

Yet he has essentially continued the Met’s policy of NCND, rebranding it by saying that revealing any details about a spycop is ‘a potential breach of an officer’s Article 8 rights’, the human right to a private life. This has been the basis of Mitting issuing blanket anonymity to batches of undercover officers in recent months.

Effectively, Mitting is saying the rights of violators are more important than the rights of the violated. Because he regards the officers’ human rights as paramount, the public won’t be told the names of these spycops who invaded citizens’ lives and breached Article 8 rights – as well as Article 3 (freedom from torture), Article 6 (the right to a fair trial), Article 10 (freedom of expression), Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) and Article 14 (freedom from discrimination).

The overprotection of police privacy is now Mitting’s standard procedure. He looks at what the police officer says, and then at a risk assessment performed by another police officer, then he publishes redacted versions of these statements and issues a ‘minded-to note’ of his intentions.

Dutifully, we then go to hearings where Mitting basically goes along with what the police have recommended. He appears oblivious to the possibility that an officer might want to be anonymous because they have something to hide.

The one exception was the U-turn on Rick Gibson, whose real name is to be released, but only because the Undercover Research Group presented shocking new information about him deceiving women into relationships. Without his erstwhile comrades coming forward with the name the officer had used, the groups he infiltrated and when, this investigation would have been impossible.

NO NAMES = NO EVIDENCE = NO TRUTH

This is the fundamental issue of the Inquiry – we need to know the cover names used by officers in advance, so that those spied upon can give testimony on what the officers did. Without that, the Inquiry is reduced to the police selectively self-reporting.

The hearing earlier this month was concerned with seven officers, all of whom Mitting was intending to grant full anonymity.

Counsel for the victims, Phillippa Kaufmann QC, began bluntly:

KAUFMANN: ‘We are in no better position now than we were before the last hearing. On the contrary, we feel the situation has got worse…

‘these oral hearings, or the invitation of written submissions from us in advance, look increasingly like window dressing and look increasingly pointless in terms of actually having any realistic prospect of having any influence upon your decision-making. That is a matter of great public concern’

RUNNING INTO A BRICK WALL

Two of the officers were known by the code numbers HN23 and HN40. We are offered the bare minimum of information about them, basically just telling us that they existed. Mitting claims publishing their cover names could lead to the real names being discovered which, in turn, could lead to the risk of serious violence against the officers.

HN23 was deployed against one group and reported on other groups in the 1990s. They fear their friends and family will feel betrayed that they kept their spycop past a secret.

HN40 was deployed against two groups in the last decade of the existence of the SDS (ie 1998-2008). They were prosecuted under their false name. Despite this evidence of perjury and perverting the course of justice, the Inquiry seeks to fully protect the officer.

Kaufmann said the refusal to say anything at all amounted to Neither Confirm Nor Deny. Mitting responded:

MITTING: ‘With respect it is not a Neither Confirm Nor Deny approach. It is stronger than that. It is a flat refusal to say anything about the deployment in the open.’

Kaufmann then asked, if we can’t know about the officer can we at least be told why that decision has been taken?

MITTING: ‘I am afraid that HN23 as HN40, they are examples of deployments where you are going to meet a brick wall of silence.’

KAUFMANN: ‘It strikes us as extraordinary that we cannot even be told, for example, was this officer engaged in a deployment in relation to left wing groups or right wing groups. How on earth can the disclosure of that fact alone put that officer at risk?

Mitting was aloof and unrelenting, waiting for her to finish speaking and simply repeating himself.

MITTING: ‘I am afraid you are meeting a brick wall in these two cases and others.’

Maya Sikand, representing whistleblower SDS officer Peter Francis, spoke next about HN23.

SIKAND: ‘We come here, we hope to assist but we are not assisting because you will say, “Well, actually, no, this is a brick wall”. So it does beg the question as to why it is we are invited here’

Sikand then raised the stakes, saying that Peter Francis knows who HN23 is and the groups that were infiltrated.

She said of HN23:

SIKAND: ‘This is an officer who would have valuable evidence to give you about the nature of his deployment and what he was asked to do would be something that he needs to give evidence to you about, because it is likely that there was a level of violence authorised by Special Demonstration Squad managers in his deployments.

‘The difficulty with not disclosing his cover name is that you cannot have his evidence properly tested other than by those with whom he possibly perpetrated that violence or who were witnesses to it, in that group that he infiltrated. So that’s why we say it is of particular importance that you do disclose this cover name.’

Moving on to HN40, Sikand added:

SIKAND: ‘It is Peter Francis’s view that once more this officer would have valuable evidence to give you about the violence that was permitted by Special Demonstration Squad managers to be used by Special Demonstration Squad officers.’

At this point Peter Francis interjected in person.

PROFESSIONAL LIARS

Francis started by reminding Mitting that he and his fellow SDS officers lied professionally, that they had been trained to make whatever they say sound plausible.

Rising to his feet, Francis contrasted the dangers faced by SDS officers with those of former drugs squad officer Neil Woods who was sitting in the public gallery. 

Pointing Woods out to the court, Francis expounded:

FRANCIS: ‘This man here is a former undercover officer himself, Neil Woods, the author of “Good Cop, Bad War“. He personally has led to more imprisonment of individuals totalling approximately 1,000 years for his deployment from 1993 all the way to 2007…

‘That one man has led to more imprisonment than the entire Special Demonstration Squad from 1968 to 2008. He is sitting here in his own name. I am sure he doesn’t mind saying he’s actually brought his wife along today. He walks in society freely and yet there is hundreds upon hundreds of people who would like to pay that man back…

‘I have great, huge, concerns that these professional liars are spinning you, the Inquiry and definitely these poor solicitors they are working with here.’

LAWRENCE SPYMASTER IS PRESUMED FLAWLESS

The court moved on to what Mitting conceded is ‘the problematic case of HN58’.

HN58 was the senior manager at the SDS during a crucial period in the late 1990s. It was five years after Stephen Lawrence was killed, and the Macpherson inquiry was investigating corruption and racism in the Metropolitan Police’s murder investigation. That inquiry was supposed to get to the truth and be the last word on the issue. But unbeknownst to them, the SDS was spying on the Lawrence campaign for justice, effectively trying to undermine the inquiry.

Mitting gave a clear statement in November 2017, saying that he wants this Inquiry to succeed where Macpherson and other previous processes have failed.

Peter Francis, who as an SDS officer was tasked to ‘find dirt’ with which to discredit the Lawrences and their campaign, said it is essential that HN58’s real name is released so his role can be discussed. Francis explained to the court:

FRANCIS: ‘I personally have promised Mr Lawrence, as in Stephen Lawrence’s father… that I would do absolutely everything for him because I and the Special Demonstration Squad let him down in the last Macpherson Inquiry.’

But withholding the real name is not the only issue with HN58. Like most SDS managers, he had previously been an undercover officer. We want the cover names published. With HN58, where there is evidence of wrongdoing as a manager, it suggests possible wrongdoing when he was an officer. His cover name must be published to allow the people he spied upon to come forward with their experiences.

REAL MEN DON’T LIE

But Mitting intends to withhold HN58’s real and cover names for three reasons:

1. ‘There is no known allegation of misconduct against him’.

This is absurd. How can we make any allegations against an officer if we don’t know who they are? Tell us the name and let those they spied on come forward to say if there was misconduct, otherwise Mitting is conducting his own mini-trials based solely on police evidence. Kaufmann bluntly told Mitting, ‘it is not a reason that actually makes any sense’.

2. ‘The nature of his deployment’.
This is impossible to comment on without knowing any details, but it’s clear that officers exaggerate the danger of their deployments.

3. ‘What is known of his personal and family life make it unlikely it would be necessary to investigate possible misconduct even if details of his deployment were made public’.

This is even weirder than point 1, and nobody seemed to understand what Mitting was alluding to. When challenged, he replied ‘I know more about this man than you do’.

Exactly what he meant had to be teased out of him. Eventually he said it.

MITTING: ‘We have had examples of undercover male officers who have gone through more than one long-term permanent relationship, sometimes simultaneously.

‘There are also officers who have reached a ripe old age who are still married to the same woman that they were married to as a very young man. The experience of life tells one that the latter person is less likely to have engaged in extra-marital affairs than the former.’

There were gasps of incredulity around the court. Does Mitting really believe that if a man has stayed married to one woman for a long time he will not have deceived women he spied on into sexual relationships? And that we can be so confident of this that we don’t need to check if it applies in every case?

The idea that men do not hide affairs from their wives, or have arrangements where affairs are tolerated, is utterly bizarre. It is patently untrue, as we already know from other spycops. Several are known to have stayed married to the same person (at least until the truth was exposed by those they spied on), including the infamous Mark Kennedy who had relationships with four women who have now reached legal settlements with the Met.

A man possessed of opinions such as Mitting’s has no place running an Inquiry with sexual abuse of women and institutional sexism at its core.

CRIMES IGNORED

This moment also made clear that Mitting had been using ‘misconduct’ exclusively as a euphemism for ‘deceiving women into sexual relationships’. He had already made the women a special case at the November hearing, saying they deserved full answers, but not mentioning any other groups of victims.

It’s important to remember that sexual abuse was only one element of the spycops’ criminal misconduct. Assault, identity theft, incitement, burglary, perjury and perverting the course of justice were all commonplace. Mark Ellison QC found that not only did spycops lie to courts and spy on lawyer-client meetings, they also withheld evidence that could have exonerated accused people.

Officers have admitted to the Inquiry that they were arrested and prosecuted whilst undercover, yet Mitting has apparently decided this is not misconduct worthy of consideration, let alone telling the victims about.

As Alison, who was deceived into a five year relationship by SDS officer Mark Jenner, wrote in the Guardian last week:

‘Rather than one senior judge, this inquiry requires an independent panel of experts, along the lines of the one that advised Sir William Macpherson in the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, or the Hillsborough Independent Panel.’

WHAT’S THE POINT?

Helen Steel was deceived into a two year relationship by undercover police officer John Dines. He was only exposed through her diligent research.

Having represented herself in the same courts for the McLibel trial, the longest trial in English history, Steel is now representing herself at the Undercover Policing Inquiry, but in effect she spoke for many:

STEEL: ‘Frankly the way that the Inquiry is currently conducting this process gives the core participants absolutely no faith that it is interested in learning the truth because it is basically believing everything the police says and saying, “I don’t need to hear you because you haven’t got anything you can tell us”…

‘it is just a pointless waste of money if we are not being told enough information to effectively participate this Inquiry. It is not going to get to the truth and the whole purpose of this Inquiry is to stop the human rights abuses that were being committed by these units. You can’t do that without our participation and it is a joke that we are being excluded from this process. It is an insulting joke.’

The victims should be heard. They – the people who brought the issue into the light – are the most keen to have the truth publicly established, but they are repeatedly running into Mitting’s brick wall. His excessive faith in police integrity, and refusal to be substantially swayed from that trust, is steering the Inquiry far from its goal.

Last week the Inquiry announced that, despite all that was said at the hearing, it will withhold the real and cover names as intended (with the exception of probably releasing the real name of the now-deceased Rick Gibson). In other words, if an officer is still married to the person they were with at the time of deployment then they are assumed to be blameless and will be protected from scrutiny.

The Inquiry cannot fulfil its purpose like this. Something fundamental must change if there is to be any point in it at all.

There are two new names on the list of known officers from Britain’s political secret police; Christine Green and Bob Stubbs.

The Undercover Research Group published a profile of Christine Green on Sunday. She infiltrated South London animal rights groups from 1994-2000, seemingly as a replacement for Andy Coles.

She became a regular hunt saboteur and protester, as well as editing London Animal Rights News and helping out at an animal sanctuary.

After her deployment ended, she started living with a man she had spied on called Tom, who had served a prison sentence for violence against a hunter (which he emphasises was an act of self-defence). More than a decade later, they are still together.

She is the first woman officer known to have had a long-term relationship with someone she spied on, although it is unclear if the relationship began whilst she was still undercover.

WEASEL WORDS

This story, already odd even by the standards of the spycops scandal when it was published on Sunday, took a swift turn for the bizarre.

On Tuesday the Metropolitan Police issued a public apology to Hampshire police. It turns out Christine Green had been authorised by the her Met Special Demonstration Squad managers to take part in a raid on a Hampshire mink farm in 1998.

Around 6,000 mink were released into the wild. Hampshire police launched an investigation at the time, though no charges were ever brought. With their new information they’ve looked into it again but decided there is still no chance of a successful prosecution.

The Morning Star gave it the glorious headline Spycop Sprung Mink From The Clink, which could only be bettered by BristleKRS’ comment:

‘STOATS AMAZE BALLS-UP: How the Met kept a (muste)lid on its spycop’s involvement in a huge mink release from a site on a neighbouring police force’s patch’

BOBBING UP

With a little less drama, the Undercover Policing Inquiry added another name to the list on Tuesday: ‘Bob Stubbs’ infiltrated International Socialists/ Socialist Workers’ Party 1971-76. The Inquiry decided in November not to publish Stubbs’ real name.

It can be very difficult to do anything with sparse information such as this. Asking people if they remember a bloke called Bob from 40 years ago is often met with an understandably hazy reply. If the Inquiry really wanted the people who knew an officer to come forward, it would locate and publish a photo of the officer along with the cover name.

It would not significantly increase any risk to the officer. With the passage of time, whatever they looked like then will be substantially different to their present appearance. There is no chance of someone seeing a picture from the mid 1970s on the Inquiry website then recognising that person in the street.

WHO ELSE WAS SPIED ON?

The Inquiry has finally instated a list of officers on its website. It gives their cover names, the groups that may have ‘encountered’ the officer, and the dates it happened. So far 16 are named, with an average of two groups each.

However, the Inquiry has admitted that the Special Demonstration Squad spied on more than 1,000 groups. These groups were targeted (according to the National Police Chiefs Council) by 118 undercover officers of the SDS.

This means there should be an average of more than eight groups per officer, rather than just two.

Who else did the named officers spy on? Why isn’t the Inquiry telling us? Is it because they are withholding names, or are the police not supplying the full facts to the Inquiry? If it’s the latter then we have to wonder what else the police are not revealing.

Whistleblower SDS officer Peter Francis is listed as spying on two groups, Youth Against Racism in Europe and Militant (now called The Socialist Party).

As soon as he appeared on the list, Francis tweeted

Activists may have also “encountered” me as spycops from 1993 to 97 as a part time student at Kingsway College Anti Fascist Group (KAFG) Which whilst I was spying er sorry ‘encountering’ on it, became the Movement for Justice (MFJ)

Every one of the thousand-plus groups has a right to know. If the inquiry would publish the full list of groups, those spied upon could be contacted and asked about infiltration. Until that happens we cannot get to the truth of what was done.

This week sees another preliminary hearing of the public inquiry into Britain’s undercover policing scandal.

BACKGROUND

On 6 March 2014, after more than three years of increasingly shocking revelations about Britain’s political secret police, then-Home Secretary Theresa May ordered a full scale public inquiry. It’s a vast undertaking, involving hundreds of officers spying on thousands of campaigns over fifty years.

It takes in numerous issues – officers deceiving women into life-partner relationships, collusion with industrial blacklisting, theft of identity, undermining democratic rights, spying on elected politicians, undermining campaigns for justice of victims of police killing – any one of which deserves its own inquiry.

The police have tried to obstruct the process at every turn, going so far as applying for it to be held in secret, even though the clue to the fundamental nature of a public inquiry is in the name.

Four years on, the Inquiry has still not properly begun.

WHEN?

On Monday 5 February 2018 the Inquiry will hold another preliminary hearing to decide on elements of its process and approach. The hearing will begin at 10am and will conclude at 4pm at the latest.

WHERE?

It will be held in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London WC2A 2LL.

WHAT?

Specifically, it is concerned with:

• Anonymity applications by seven former undercover officers of the Special Demonstration Squad that the Inquiry intends to grant in full – ie to withhold their real and cover names. They are known by the code numbers HN23, HN40, HN58, HN241, HN297, HN322 and HN348
• The Inquiry’s consultation on a proposal to change the process for determining anonymity applications by undercover officers
• Submissions relating to images of undercover police officers

The Chair of the Inquiry, Sir John Mitting, has said he is not inclined to release the real names or the cover names of any of the seven officers (except for one, HN297, as his cover name has already been known to activists).

Withholding the cover names means the Inquiry cannot perform its most basic function; without them, victims cannot know who among their comrades was an undercover officer, and so we cannot begin to learn from the victims what that officer did.

Without the real names, we will not be in a position to discover if that officer has furthered their abuses by training others in the same methods or by doing the same kind of spying for a private company, both of which are common among the exposed former spycops.

Both police and the victims – referred to as ‘Non-Police Non-State Core Participants’ (NPNSCPs) – have submitted paperwork on their intentions and arguments.

WHO ARE THE SEVEN OFFICERS?

H23 was deployed against one group and reported on other groups in the 1990s. They fear their friends and family will feel betrayed that they kept their spycop past a secret. This is not a valid reason to grant this person anonymity. There is no human right to freedom from embarrassment.

HN40 was deployed against two groups in the last decade of the existence of the SDS (ie 1998-2008). They were prosecuted under their false name. Despite this evidence of perjury and perverting the course of justice, the Inquiry seeks to fully protect the officer.

HN58 was an undercover officer who went on to become a Detective Chief Inspector in charge of the SDS from 1997-2001. This was at the time that the SDS sought to undermine the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, held five years after the teenager was murdered.

At the last Inquiry hearing Sir John Mitting described how various processes had failed to establish the full truth about the police’s reaction to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and that his Inquiry must succeed where others have failed. Hiding the identity of this officer contradicts that, and that’s before we consider what they might have done in their earlier undercover career.

For more information, see the Undercover Research Group’s profile of HN58.

HN241 was deployed against an unspecified group in the early 1970s. The Inquiry says ‘There is a real, but unquantifiable, risk that if the cover name were to be published, the real name could be identified’. It is almost impossible to link the cover name to the real name, unless the officer or other police have given us a link. Indeed, that is the point of having a fake name.

Using this tenuous excuse to relieve an officer of a slight risk of being named means victims of spycops get no information at all and just have to trust the police and Inquiry. Once again, the Inquiry seems to forget that they are here to get the truth about police wrongdoing.

HN297 has already been exposed. He was undercover as Rick Gibson, deployed from July 1974 to July 1976. He infiltrated the South East London branch of the Troops Out Movement (campaigning for British withdrawal from Northern Ireland) and took on roles at the national level in the organisation.

He tried to become a member of socialist feminist revolutionary group Big Flame, but they were suspicious of him. Having discovered he had stolen his identity from a dead child – as was common in the SDS – they confronted him, whereupon he disappeared from their lives.

The officer is now dead. Mitting initially wanted to withhold his real name, lest it upset his widow. However, Mitting has also made a commitment to give the fullest facts to women deceived into relationships by officers and at the last hearing the NPNSCPs’ lawyers dramatically revealed that HN297 had done this to several women. One has now come forward under the name of Mary.

HN322 has no known cover name. He says he was only in the SDS for a few months, probably in late 1968. Records show he was deployed into the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (South East London), though he denies actually doing it.

HN348 was deployed in 1972-73 to infiltrate the Women’s Liberation Front (affiliated to the Women’s Liberation Movement),a group of no more than 12 people. She wants anonymity not because she fears harm – she says the group was non-violent – but because she fears embarrassment if one of the people she spied on found out, and fears her current colleagues might disapprove. 

The Undercover Research Group have produced a helpful table of what’s known about each of the HN-numbered officers.

CONSULTATION ON ANONYMITY

There are somewhere around 200 officers from the spycops units and it is taking an inordinately long time to process them all. The Inquiry wants to limit the amount of supporting evidence it publishes, thus reducing the time spent considering whether it’s safe or appropriate to do so.

The Met have welcomed the proposal. The NPNSCPs say it means taking the police’s word on matters, treating the Inquiry as arbitration rather than investigation into proven police wrongdoing. Granting anonymity orders on the unilateral account of those who seek them, without public scrutiny of the underlying evidence, means we can’t let victims know who spied on them. This means the victims cannot report what the officers did, so the Inquiry cannot command public confidence nor fulfil its purpose.

The NPNSCPs are also calling for more disclosure, with one pointing out that many SDS officers used their skills and methods to encourage or commit similar abuses in the private sector after leaving the police, and only by knowing their real names can we find out which officers have done this.

Harriet Wistrich, lawyer for many of the women deceived into relationships by spycops, has given harrowing details how several officers continued their abuse of the women after their undercover deployment ended.

IMAGES OF OFFICERS

At the previous Inquiry hearing in November, Mitting assured the non-police core participants barrister, Phillippa Kaufmann QC, that they did not have to address the issue of images of officers. As such, it was presumed that pictures of spycops at the time of their deployment could be released when a cover name was.

However, when Mitting’s final orders came out restrictions on the release of images were included. This is outrageous behaviour by Mitting and he should have permitted the issue to be addressed properly when Kaufmann raised it in November.

The NPNSCPs’ lawyers have said that a distinction should be made between pictures that can identify the officer today and those that can identify them when they were undercover. As it was, for most, a long time ago, one would not lead to another. Importantly, photos can be invaluable in jogging the memories of those who were spied upon and thus help them to come forward with their accounts of what happened. Many activists are only known to one another by forenames or nicknames, so images can make the difference in recognition.

The Inquiry has confirmed that any orders made would only apply to pictures issued by the Inquiry, not to those already in people’s possession by any other means.

CAN I GO TO THE HEARING?

The public are welcome, but room is limited. At the last hearing there was an overflow room with a live video link, but this will not be provided this time.

Around 200 significantly affected people have been designated as core participants in the inquiry. Court 73 could only hold a fraction of them, let alone their supporters, so expect a squeeze.

Ten seats are reserved for journalists, if more want to attend they have to take their chances and try for a seat with the rest of us.

HOW CAN I FOLLOW IT ONLINE?

Although it is a public hearing, it is not livestreamed. Several of the activists attending will be live tweeting, including COPS and Tom Fowler, (assuming their batteries are well charged – the room does not have power sockets for core participant/public use). Follow the #spycops hashtag for more.

The Inquiry publishes transcripts of the hearings on the Undercover Policing Inquiry website, usually the same day or the day after.

The public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police has announced that it’s considered the applications for anonymity for another nine officers from the Special Demonstration Squad.

Known by ‘HN’ code numbers, the new nine fall into three categories:

1. real names given (no cover names existed)
2. real and cover names withheld
3. cover names given but real names withheld

1 – Real names will be published: HN59, HN268 and HN3378.

These three were not undercover officers, they were back office staff/managers and so did not have cover names.

2 – Inquiry intends to withhold their real and cover names: HN41, HN71 & HN125.

HN41 was deployed into two unspecified groups in the 1970s and 80s. The Inquiry says:

‘there would be a real, but unquantifiable, risk to the personal safety of HN41 if the real or cover name were to be published. It would be neither necessary nor proportionate to run that risk.’

Someone needs to buy the Inquiry a dictionary. If something cannot be quantified then its size cannot be compared in proportion to other things.

Once again, we are not only told nothing, but we are told that we can’t be told why we’re told nothing. We are expected to trust the disgraced specialist liar units of the police to have told the unalloyed truth in their unseen evidence.

HN71 was deployed into two unspecified groups in the 1990s and 2000s. The Inquiry says that if HN71’s real name were known they would be at risk of serious violence from members of the groups. They fear the release of the cover name could lead to the real name being known, so the Inquiry will not risk it.

This misunderstands the function of a cover name; when that person disappears, there is no record left, no trail to follow. We have known about undercover officers like Rod Richardson and Lynn Watson for years, but we have no idea where they are because we only know their cover names.

HN125 infiltrated an unspecified left wing group in the 1980s. He suffers from a progressive medical condition and medical experts say the stress of participating in the Inquiry would make it worse.

3 – Inquiry intends to publish the cover names but grant anonymity for real names: HN12, HN19 & HN353.

These three officers have not asked for their cover names to be withheld.

HN12 was deployed into two unnamed left wing groups 1982-85. He admits he was arrested whilst undercover and had a sexual relationship with a woman he spied on. His deployment ended when his cover was compromised.

HN19 was deployed into two unnamed left wing groups 1981-85. He was arrested while undercover.

HN353 was deployed into two unnamed left wing groups 1974-78 (the groups names will be given at the same time as his cover name). The Inquiry says HN353 does not want media or other intrusion but notes:

‘Publication of his cover name will serve to prompt evidence from those whom he encountered while deployed, if they can remember him and have anything to say about his deployment.’

That, right there, is exactly why all the cover names should be published. We know that these units used inexcusable and unlawful tactics and methods. We know that the officers, like most wrongdoers, do not want to be held to account and will lie about what they did.

These particular miscreants have had expert training and years of practice at lying. If lying were an Olympic sport these people would be Team GB’s best hope for gold. It is not good enough for the Inquiry to take their word. We need those who witnessed their deployments to tell us what they saw. We need the cover names.

ANONYMITY = UNACCOUNTABILITY

Referring to HN19, the Inquiry says:

‘He has no concerns for his physical safety, but is concerned to avoid the intrusion into his and his wife’s private and family life which might result from publication of his real name. His concern is understandable.’

Leaving aside the rich irony of a desire for privacy from people who invaded the lives of others to the greatest possible degree, any kind of testimony or being held to account exposes a person to intrusion. If it doesn’t apply to the innumerable other officers who do it every day, why is it taken so seriously here? Specifically, why does it overrule the need for victims and the public to get answers and justice?

The fact that some officers don’t ask for their cover names to be kept secret undermines the police’s claim that publishing cover names puts officers at unacceptable levels of risk.

Furthermore, the Inquiry is happy to publish the real names of back office staff, which proves that they don’t believe the claim that naming officers from the spycops units means some evil anti-police terrorists will come and attack them on general principle. That being so, the Inquiry’s decision to hide so many real and cover names is based on falsehood. It leans too far towards the police’s desire for total secrecy. It is an unacceptable barrier to truth and justice.

The public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police has issued brief notes on applications for anonymity by another cluster of officers. As usual, these former spycops who invaded people’s lives want to have their true identities kept from their victims.

The Inquiry intends to release the cover names of most of them. After last week’s announcement concerning five officers whose real and cover names the Inquiry intends to keep secret, this is a bit of improvement. However there are still some fundamental flaws that undermine the Inquiry’s stated desire of uncovering the truth.

Known by their HN-numbers, there are 12 ex-spycops in the new list. The Inquiry is still looking into officers HN9 and HN66. Officers HN61 and HN819 are backroom staff, so there are no cover names involved, and presumably we will get their real and cover names.

As for the other eight, the Inquiry does not intend to release any of their real names, but wants to release the cover names of seven. They are all men. Here’s the rundown:

NEW NAMES COMING

HN13 is now dead. He was deployed 1974-78, thought to be infiltrating the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) though the name of the group may be wrong. He was prosecuted twice under his false name, one of these leading to conviction. His widow wants her husband’s memory left in peace. However, the police risk assessor thinks there is no chance of the cover name leading to the real name, so the Inquiry intends to release that.

HN109 is a mystery. Neither the real nor cover name will be made public and we cannot be told why. We just have to trust the veracity of what the police told the Inquiry.

The Undercover Research Group have done a characteristically meticulous job of cross-referencing the new information with what’s already known, and have found that HN109 was around the spying on Stephen Lawrence’s family.

The Inquiry’s Chair, John Mitting, has said getting definitive answers about spying on the Lawrences ‘is one of the central issues which the Inquiry must investigate’, yet he intends to keep this officer completely hidden.

HN296 infiltrated an unnamed left wing group from 1975-75.

HN304 infiltrated ‘a number of non-violent groups’ from 1976-79.

HN339 infiltrated two unspecified groups between 1970 and 1974.

HN340 was deployed against an unnamed group from 1969-72, and reported on others.

HN354 infiltrated an unspecified group 1976-79 and admits to ‘two fleeting relationships’ with women he spied on.

HN356/124. This one was accidentally given two numbers. Now dead, he infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party from 1977-81. He was on the April 1979 anti-racist demonstration in Southall where Blair Peach was killed by police.

NO NAMES, NO TRUTH

Time and again in the new list, the Inquiry says that publication of these officers’ cover names

‘may serve a purpose: to prompt former members of the group against which he was deployed to provide information about his deployment.’

Indeed, it is the only way those who were spied upon can be prompted to come forward. Without a cover name, an officer remains in the dark forever. This is why we are so insistent that all cover names be released.

We have no faith in the self-reporting of officers about their abuses, nor in their ex-colleagues who are carrying out the risk assessments on behalf of the police for the Inquiry. Any public servant should be publicly accountable, let alone one from a covert institution guilty of so many serious abuses that it needed a public inquiry into its misdeeds.

Even those who still find the Met a trustworthy body must accept that the spycops units have no credibility left. Since the scandal broke we have been subjected to a flurry of desperate lies from everyone involved, from the officers themselves right to the top ranks. As one lie gets exposed, they change their story until that, too, falls under the weight of new evidence. So the more they want to hide an officer, the more suspicious the public becomes.

POLICE PERJURY

The Inquiry has said that people who were deceived into sexual relationships by officers deserve the fullest answers, and it will be seen as a reason to release an officer’s real name as well as the cover name. They appear to take a less stringent approach to officers who deceived the judicial system and orchestrated miscarriages of justice.

The one in the new list, HN13, was far from the only spycop to be arrested. The five spycops the Inquiry spoke of two weeks ago – and whose real and cover identities the Inquiry intends to withhold – included two who admit being arrested whilst undercover, one of whom was prosecuted under their false identity. 

There is plenty of evidence that this was common practice throughout the era of the spycops units. When they were arrested alongside people who were convicted, it means their evidence was withheld from the court and the conviction is unsafe.

Undercover officer Mark Kennedy was arrested and involved in cases that led to 49 wrongful convictions that have now been quashed due to his exposure by activists. The detail of his actions also made it clear that the police and Crown Prosecution Service colluded to orchestrate these miscarriages of justice.

Mark Ellison QC’s 2015 report into the issue found many more among the Special Demonstration Squad’s remaining records.

‘Using the SDS Annual Reports it has now been possible to identify 26 SDS officers who were arrested on a total of 53 occasions.’

That’s just what can be deduced from the SDS annual reports. The true total is likely to be higher. It’s notable that Mark Kennedy was from another unit entirely, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, and other officers there, such as as Rod Richardson and Lynn Watson, were repeatedly arrested as well.

All of this contravened strict instructions from the Home Office that officers should be withdrawn if they risked misleading a court.

In 1969, the year after the Special Demonstration Squad was set up, the Home Office issued Circular 97/1969, and it was clear and unequivocal.

‘The police must never commit themselves to a course which, whether to protect an informant or otherwise, will constrain them to mislead a court in subsequent proceedings. This must always be regarded as a prime consideration when deciding whether, and in what manner, an informant may be used and how far, if at all, he is allowed to take part in an offence.

‘If his use in the way envisaged will, or is likely to result in its being impossible to protect him without subsequently misleading the court, that must be regarded as a decisive reason for his not being so used or not being protected.’

The officers cannot feign ignorance. They knew the gravity of the situation and they chose to lie.

Either courts were told it was an agent – meaning it was an unfair trial for other defendants – or else this was perverting the course of justice and perjury. The Inquiry and the wider public should treat this as a negation of police duty and an affront to justice.