Tranche 1, Phase 3, Day 2

10 May 2022

The late Barbara Shaw, holding the death certificate of her son Rod Richardson whose identity was stolen by a spycop

The second day of the 2022 Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings concerning the management of the Special Demonstration Squad 1968-82 included opening statements from:

Catherine Brown (representing the Home Secretary)
James Scobie QC (representing Lindsey German, ‘Mary’, & Richard Chessum)
Fiona Murphy QC (representing ‘Category F’ core participants – families who discovered that the identities of their loved ones had been appropriated by the spycops to construct cover names)
Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing ‘Category H’ core participants – women deceived into sexual relationships, as well as a child born as a result of one of those relationships, and one man deceived into a long term close friendship)
Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing Diane Langford and ‘Madeleine’)
Owen Greenhall (representing Lord Peter Hain, Ernest Rodker and Jonathan Rosenhead)
Sam Jacobs (representing Celia Stubbs)

Catherine Brown (representing the Home Secretary)

A very brief appearance, just confirming that the current Home Secretary remains supportive of the Inquiry’s work.

Opening statement of Catherine Brown

James Scobie QC (representing Lindsey German, ‘Mary’, & Richard Chessum)

‘Mary’ – one of the women who was deceived into a relationship
Richard Chessum – associated with Big Flame, Troops Out Movement and other campaigns
Lindsey German – Socialist Workers Party / Stop the War campaigner.

Scobie argued that the material disclosed by the Inquiry demonstrates that:

• There was no justification for the spycops’ infiltrations on the grounds of preventing public disorder. The true purpose was political and economic. There was no legal justification and the Government knew this.
• The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was really part of a large data-harvesting scheme, run on behalf of MI5, targeting anyone with left-wing politics.
• ‘Public order’ was used as an excuse, to justify the unit’s ongoing existence.
• The Government was aware that these operations were targeting lawful, democratic activities.
• The intelligence gathered by the SDS was used to blacklist law-abiding members of the public and prevent them from being employed in a wide range of jobs.

He pointed out that the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has been mischaracterised in order to justify its being infiltrated (by over 24 SDS officers over the years). In fact, the ‘revolutionary change’ they advocated was democratic in nature, with the aim of creating equality for all. As he put it:

“The aims of revolutionary socialism are to transform society from within, re-addressing the balance of power away from the minority that holds it, to the majority that should. That process has to be democratic by definition.

“They campaigned on issues such as sexual discrimination, racism, low-pay, unsafe working conditions, unemployment and poverty. All of which needed transforming.

“They focused on building a mass movement and broad-based campaigns with the aim of helping to create a better society.”

According to ‘Colin Clark’ (officer HN80), who spent five years embedded within the SWP’s headquarters, the Party:

“were strongly opposed to government policy but were not seeking to subvert the institutions of the state.”

Scobie showed that although the unit had a purely public order remit when it was founded, by the mid-1970s this justification became increasingly contrived, as public disorder was on the decline. Instead, the unit moved towards serving ‘customers’ such as MI5, who “told them what to get and where to get it”. SDS management had regular meetings with the security services.

Between 1968 and 1971, there was an “exponential” increase in the number of SDS reports being produced, from a few hundred to tens of thousands. The vast majority contained personal details of left-wing sympathisers, rather than anything relating to public order. This is an accurate reflection of the true priorities of the spycops, not the ‘skewed’ picture the police now claim it to be. The content of the unit’s Annual Reports back up his assertion.

Right to Work march at the Conservative Party conference, Brighton, October 1980

Even the public order successes claimed by the SDS are misleading. Scobie was able to demonstrate how they did this, in Lindsay German’s experience of the Right to Work campaign.

The SDS exaggerated the potential threat of disorder and then claimed the credit for it not occurring, when in fact it was the campaigners themselves who ensured events were well-stewarded and passed off peacefully.

Scobie highlighted the Metropolitan Police’s refusal to acknowledge the racist nature of many acts of extreme violence, such as the murder in 1978 of Altab Ali. Racially motivated attacks were relatively common, yet those responsible were ignored by the SDS.

The real threats of public disorder and violence came from the far-right, yet Scobie noted that according to Detective Inspector Angus McIntosh (officer HN244), there was a deliberate policy decision, made at a high level, for the SDS not to infiltrate them.

From the (closed) evidence of officer HN21:

“From the SWP side, it was mostly shouting. From the far right thing, it was mostly physical violence.”

Instead, two Special Branch officers were reportedly (in 1968) sent by their Chief Superintendent to take tea on the lawn of one well-known fascist (later imprisoned for inciting racial hatred), Lady Jane Birdwood, and “thank her” for the information she shared with them.

Next, we heard about the guidelines applied to Special Branch’s work, and therefore to the SDS, and the way ‘subversion’ was interpreted by them. Definitions were left deliberately vague, so that legitimate political and industrial activity could be treated as ‘subversive’ and therefore fair game for the spycops.

This may explain why senior managers (and the Home Office, according to material that’s now been released) were keen to ensure that the existence of the unit remained secret, and the public never found out that these officers had been given unchecked powers to “pry into political opinions and private conduct of law abiding citizens”, and to interfere with freedom of assembly and expression.

At least nine spycops are known to have assumed positions of responsibility within the SWP. These include ‘Colin Clark’ (officer HN80) and ‘Phil Cooper’ (officer HN155), who provided incredibly detailed reports and received commendations for their work. Their reports included a lot of information about trade union activity, an area neither MI5 or Special Branch was officially permitted to investigate. The SDS bent the rules to suit themselves.

The real reason for the systematic ‘hoovering up’ of hundreds of SWP members’ data was political and economic policing. SWP activists were at real risk of being refused work and blacklisted, and this is something Richard Chessum experienced himself. This document from 1975 refers to a ‘close and mutually profitable relationship’ between the police and employers.

Members of Parliament were concerned enough about this issue back in the 1970s to ask questions about trade unionists being targeted, but the police lied to them.

Opening statment of James Scobie

Fiona Murphy QC (representing ‘Category F’ core participants – families who discovered that the identities of their loved ones had been appropriated by the spycops to construct cover names)

NPOIU officer EN32/HN596, who stole Rod Richardson’s identity

Their earlier Opening Statements (in November 2020 and April 2021) described the devastation of losing their loved ones, and the horror they suffered upon learning that their identities had been used in this morally abhorrent way.

This stage of the Inquiry is of particular importance to them as they seek to learn how the practice of using the identities of dead children began and how it came to be normalised by the spycops.

Murphy took a moment to remember Barbara Shaw, who sadly passed away last year. She had been instrumental in pursuing justice for the families affected in this way for the past decade, since learning that her son’s name, Rod Richardson, has been stolen by one of the spycops.

In 2021, the Crown Prosecution Service concluded there was sufficient evidence to bring a criminal prosecution against officer EN32/HN596, but they nonethelss decided not to press charges. They feel it is ‘not in the public interest’ as the officer was only following his unlawful training. The fact that a conviction would be likely is surely enough to prosecute him, and his unlawful mentor – who we now know to be Andy Coles (officer HN2).

The CPS told Rod Richardson’s family of their decision last year, eight years after the truth was revealed, and two weeks after Barbara Shaw had died.

The delays of this Inquiry continue to cause significant distress to the remaining families, who ask that officers now “volunteer the full truth without any ambiguity and without any economy as to that truth”.

There is one family listed whose name has been redacted from the Statement. This is due to a Restriction Order granted by Mitting, awarding both real- and cover-name anonymity to the undercover who used the name of their deceased child. This means that they too are silenced, and cannot speak up in public, cannot seek support, and:

“Against a backdrop of unspeakable trauma, the family feel degraded, humiliated, debased and silenced both in the public domain and in their personal relations. The family have been shut out from the opportunity to scrutinise whether even the process that resulted in the imposition of the restriction took proper account of the ongoing gross interference with their rights.”

The families say that the evidence they heard last year ‘crystallised’ their views, that there was no need for this ghoulish practice to have been adopted in the first place, or maintained for so many years, and they question the need for the spycops operation’s very existence.

As Murphy put it:

“the Special Demonstration Squad (“SDS”) was a secret operation, operating in isolation from and far beyond the moral and legal norms of policing; and they had every confidence that its secrets, including the immorality and illegality at the core of its practices, would remain secret.”

Murphy then provided an overview of the practice, the many contradictions and how mangers sought to justify it.

In the early years of the SDS, only one officer (‘Mike Scott‘, officer HN298) stole the identity of a deceased child. He says he did so on his own initiative. Other undercovers in those years (1968-74) simply created fictitious identities, and this worked fine. They were able to obtain driving licences, library cards, etc, in their invented names, and no deployments were compromised as a result. Regional and National Crime Squad officers continued in this way until at least 1998, again without any problems.

However, we now know that many SDS officers (approximately half of those represented by the Designated Lawyers) chose this method of constructing an identity based on the real name of a deceased child, from 1974 onwards.

It’s been suggested that this became standard procedure due to deployments based on purely fictitious identities being compromised. However there is no evidence of this being the case.

There were spycops who raised concerns about this practice, and about the moral implications, and at least one who is known to have refused to adopt this method of creating a ‘legend’. ‘Colin Clark’ chose to use a fictitious name during his time undercover (1977-82), with a passport issued and no known problems.

When deployments were compromised, this was often due to the officers themselves making mistakes – for example, ‘Graham Coates‘ (officer HN304) accidentally gave his real name when stopped for drink driving.

Richard Clark (officer HN297) was confronted by Big Flame activists with a copy of a death certificate for the person he was pretending to be (‘Rick Gibson’) and had to be pulled out of the field immediately as a result.

Whether or not this tactic originated with The Day of the Jackal book, or the film of the same name, or the KGB (!) remains unknown.

Murphy went on to say that the SDS was “an entirely misguided enterprise”, blaming the unit’s managers for perpetuating this unethical and illegal practice and a “toxic culture” of secrecy. She cited the current temporary MPS Commissioner, who recently spoke out about failures of leadership resulting in institutional toxicity that could not be explained away as just a few ‘bad apples’.

Opening statement of Fiona Murphy QC

Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing ‘Category H’ core participants – women deceived into sexual relationships, as well as a child born as a result of one of those relationships, and one man deceived into a long term close friendship)

Charlotte Kilroy QC

Kilroy began her oral statement with some very old case law – about the ransacking and seizure of property by the Earl of Halifax, in the home of John Entick, in 1762. The relevance to the Inquiry soon became apparent.

Entick went on to sue for trespass, and the resulting, 260-year old judgement Entick v Carrington is one of the most important pieces of British constitutional case law. It establishes that the state cannot issue “general warrants”, or any kind of speculative or non-specific invasion of private homes in search of evidence of crimes. This, together with the Common Law principles of personal security, liberty and property, underpins much of modern policing.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Fast forward two centuries, to 1968. Following unrest on the March 1968 Grosvenor Square demo, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was set up by Special Branch and the Home Office, seemingly with any proper legal or political oversight. Very quickly, officers were creating false identities, being provided with accommodation and expenses and being deployed for years on end.

They routinely entered private homes, and were given very little direction about what to report or who to target. They gathered huge amounts of very private information and shared that with other agencies. This plainly conflicted with the bedrock of the law. However, they had a weapon the Earl of Halifax did not have: secrecy.

Charlotte then re-told the now familiar story of officer Mark Kennedy’s unmasking in 2010, which began the unravelling of the secrecy surrounding the SDS and Kennedy’s unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

It was revealed that they had entered the private homes of thousands of people and that Kennedy was one of dozens of officers who had deceived women into sexual relationships. Some even had children. All this was discovered by accident and it is only because of that accident that this Inquiry exists at all.

THE PROBLEM WITH SECRECY

“Secret surveillance powers characterise the police state and are a menace.”

This was the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Klass & Others v Germany 1978. Secret surveillance poses a danger of undermining, even destroying democracy, while claiming to defend it. In all democracies governed by the rule of law, covert powers are confined to the most serious threats. Secrecy is always dangerous to democracy. It corrupts, and it encourages abuse.

THE APPLICABLE LAW

Ms Kilroy QC made detailed written submissions on the applicable legal framework.

Freedom of Expression is described as “the primary right” in a democracy, because “without it, an effective rule of law is not possible”. The right to hold and share opinions without interference and without being monitored and placed under surveillance is protected in both common and international law.

The sanctity of the home, the family, and possessions is zealously protected in common law and Article 8 of the Human Rights Act and is considered absolutely sacred, just as every person’s body is considered inviolate. Any interference is considered trespass, and the burden is on the police to justify their trespasses.

Mr Sanders, representing some of the former undercovers, yesterday suggested that everything a public authority does is considered lawful until ruled otherwise by a court. That is untrue. A statutory instrument is presumed lawful, but a trespass is not. Using deception and tricks to gain an invite to someone’s home is no justification, and even where a warrant exists, it is not lawful if it allows discretion as to who the target of the warrant is, or speculative searches for evidence of crime.

THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

The primary focus of Ms Kilroy’s submissions is UK Common Law, nevertheless, international law is also relevant. Yesterday the police suggested it was not applicable, and Mitting appeared to agree.

This is wrong for 3 reasons:

1. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was applicable law at the time, and the UK was committed to comply with it. Any failure to do that must be relevant to an assessment of the statutory regulation of undercover policing, which is part of the Inquiry’s task. How can the Inquiry conclude the statutory regulation of undercover policing was adequate, if it led to the UK breaking its international human rights commitments?

2. One of the great iniquities of secrecy is that it obstructs accountability. The UK twice changed domestic law in response to ECHR rulings during the 1980s and 90s. If people had been able to raise the practices of the SDS in Strasbourg it would very likely have led to changes in law.

3. The Inquiry is tasked with examining the effects of undercover policing on individuals and the public in general. The large scale breach of people’s Human Rights and the denial of redress due to secrecy is clearly a serious effect.

INVESTIGATORY POWERS TRIBUNAL RULING IN WILSON

This case from 2021 addresses all the rights outlined above in the context of undercover policing. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled that the Met and National Police Chiefs Council had violated Wilson’s rights under Articles 3, 8, 10, 11 & 14. The ruling is summarised here.

The police lawyers yesterday sought to diminish the relevance of this case to the inquiry, by saying that it is based on the facts of that case. That is of course true, but the similarity between the facts and the impact on individuals spied on in that case, and those in Tranche 1 of this Inquiry, is impossible to ignore.

Specifically, the police’s argument – that allowing the police to make proportionate responses to demonstrations is a justification for undercover operations – was rejected by the IPT. Likewise, they cannot be considered to justify trespass.

The findings that the operations violated Wilson’s rights to freedoms of expression and association also have obvious implications for the actions of the SDS.

The IPT also ruled that two senior officers knew about the sexual relationship and others adopted a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. A finding the inquiry must bear in mind when questioning managers in this tranche. The police accepted the judgment, and did not appeal any of the findings.

POLICING BY CONSENT

The whole concept of Policing by Consent is likely to be viewed by most CP;s and as fantasy of the liberal state. Some activist groups have recently declared their withdrawal of any consent.

However, the concept did provide Kilroy with some extra ammunition. For instance, Principle 5 of the Peelian Principles (1829) states that officers are injuncted at all times to uphold the historic tradition that “the police are the public and the public are the police”.

The police are only members of the public paid to give full time attention to duties that are incumbent on every member of the public. Lying and deceiving the public and trespassing on their privacy, property and intimate lives fundamentally undermines this principle.

THE 2005 INQUIRIES ACT

The police submissions yesterday sought to suggest that the applicable legal framework is not relevant to the Inquiry’s task, because Section 2 of the Inquiries Act says the Chair cannot determine individual liability. However that does not mean that the law is not relevant to the Terms of Reference in other ways.

CONCLUSIONS

Managers ought to have been well aware of the risks posed by their operations, yet in the Inquiry’s Tranche 1 period alone (1968-82), at least 6 officers engaged in deceitful relationships with numerous women.

It is a striking feature of all the evidence so far that the common law and human rights of the individuals and the impact of long-term undercover operations on those rights were rarely if ever considered:

• There was no guidance or training on privacy or relationships
• Tasking was broad brush and officers were given free rein to decide who to spy on
• There was no restriction on entering homes
• No guidance was given about what to record, and undercover officers were expected to hoover up as much information as possible
• Very little crime, disorder, or intelligence suggesting a risk to democracy was ever recorded. Usually reports showed an absence of such risks

In conclusion, Kilroy stated that it is the Category H position that these operations were incompatible with all standards of law. Scrutiny, when it finally came, came only by accident. Responsibility for that lies with the senior police officers and Home Office officials who maintained this secrecy for so long. The Police were corrupted by these practices. Their betrayal of the values of truth, integrity and honesty is made particularly clear by their willingness to lie to the courts, attacking the very institutions it was their duty to support.

Why did managers decide to abandon all the tenets of common law and the principles of policing, simply to find out how many officers to send to a demonstration, or whether people’s ideas were “subversive”? Answering this will be an important area of investigation for the inquiry.

Charlotte Kilroy QC (representing Diane Langford and ‘Madeleine’)

The experiences of these two women provide more evidence of the police overreaching their legal powers with open ended, ‘broad brush’ investigations that relied on the spycops’ discretion. Any tests of justification for targeting and reporting on them fail, something particularly egregious given the deception of Madeleine into a relationship.

Diane Langford, New York City, 1996

Diane Langford, a long time political activist, has never taken part in or been arrested for criminal activity. Despite this, at least six undercover officers infiltrated her life, and reported on her, and on private meetings held in her home. These reports contained personal information about her, often accompanied by inappropriate personal comments on her views and domestic arrangements.

Both ‘Sandra Davies’ (officer HN348) and ‘Dave Robertson’ (officer HN45) have admitted that they never witnessed any public disorder or criminal behaviour being committed by Diane or her comrades. It is difficult to see what justified the level of intrusion she suffered or the use of police resources.

Groups like the Women’s Liberation Front were targeted for no reason other than curiosity on the part of the police and/or security services. According to Sandra Davies, the undercovers were not provided with guidance or limits about entering private homes or collecting personal, private details of their targets. Robertson’s remit was likewise to gather as much intelligence as possible on his targets.

In Diane’s case, there is none of the evidence that would be required to justify an overt investigation, never mind a covert operation. This made the surveillance unlawful.

Diane now knows that the files relating to her have not all been disclosed, and requests that this happens so she can fully and properly assist the Inquiry.

‘MADELEINE’

‘Madeleine’ was deceived into a relationship by undercover Vincent Harvey (aka ‘Vince Miller’, officer HN354).

She describes how after giving evidence on this last year, she learned his real name. This led to her finding out that he went on to lead the Operation Pragada investigation into child sexual abuse in Lambeth and later became a national director at the National Criminal Intelligence Service. Madeleine was shocked by this, given what he did to her.

Former SDS officer Vince Harvey, DEcember 1999

Kilroy pointed out that Harvey was allowed to choose his own targets and use his personal judgement when deciding what to include in his reports. He took up positions of trust (such as Secretary and Treasurer) within SWP branches and used these as an opportunity to gather intelligence on party members and activities. He reported personal information expecting it to be of use to the Security Service.

Madeleine was involved in SWP activities which were entirely open and lawful, aiming to create a fairer society. Vince Harvey himself noted that their main interest was in building a working class movement, for all that there was rhetoric around ‘revolution’.

Madeleine’s evidence is confirmed by a new witness in the Inquiry, Julia Poynter, a former SWP member, who attests to both the nature of the local SWP groups and Madeleine’s relationship with Harvey.

Owen Greenhall (representing Lord Peter Hain, Ernest Rodker and Jonathan Rosenhead)

Owen Greenhall

Greenhall opened with the anti-apartheid protest at the Star and Garter Hotel in Richmond, almost 50 years ago today. Activists sought to delay the departure of the British Lions Rugby team on their tour to South Africa.

Among them was a man known as “Mike Scott” (officer HN298). Fourteen activists, including Scott himself were arrested that day and later convicted at trial. This has already been referred to the panel considering miscarriages of justice. It is an affront to justice that he deliberately deceived the defence, prosecution and court to as to his identity and the nature of his role.

There was no prior authorisation for him to participate in a demonstration leading to his arrest; he withheld key factual information that should have acquitted the defendants; the presence of an undercover officer was never disclosed to the arresting officers, the defence, the prosecution or the court; and he breached legal privilege, reporting and recording confidential conversations between defendants and their lawyers.

These concerns have already been articulated in previous statements, however we are now looking the role of SDS managers. It is clear from the evidence at the current Inquiry hearings that this was all done with the full knowledge and encouragement of SDS managers and senior officers in at all levels of the Metropolitan Police.

SDS manager Sergeant David Smith (officer HN103) was present at the first court appearance on 15th May 1972 and SDS managers monitored the case closely. Within days details had been communicated to the highest levels of Special Branch.

Anti-Apartheid Movement poster, early 1970s

Deputy Commissioner Ferguson Smith sent a memo confirming the Assistant Commissioner had been verbally briefed. Senior management were strongly supportive, saying HN298 had acted with “refreshing initiative” and that they should “take advantage of the situation”.

Discussions were had about assisting Scott in maintaining his deception, participating in criminal proceedings in a false identity, and even applying for legal aid. The only concern expressed was about the potential for embarrassment to the police if they ever got found out.

This apparently sent the tone and created a template for a policy of total secrecy, lack of disclosure and complete disregard for legal privilege and the integrity of the criminal justice system.

Like Scott, ‘Desmond/Barry Loader’ (officer HN13) was arrested a number of times, faced trial, and was even found guilty of public order offences. No disclosure was ever made, however the court was told he was “an informant” (not a police officer), and were asked to ensure he did not go to jail.

In both cases, SDS managers at all levels were quickly aware of and complicit in the lies, with Deputy and Assistant Commissioners and even the Commissioner himself involved in decisions to deceive the courts. There is no mention of any concern for the rights of co-defendants or the integrity of the criminal justice system.

The themes of lack of policy, training, guidance and oversight; an overriding need to preserve total secrecy of SDS and prevent reputational damage to the police; and lack of consideration for the rights of those spied upon are echoed in other areas of concern, such as the targeting of political groups, the indiscriminate collection of information and undercover officers taking active roles within political groups.

Greenhall went into some detail about the targeting of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Young Liberals and notes that the evidence paints a picture painted of targeting led by the undercover officers themselves, with SDS managers unable to exercise proper control.

He also cited deeply personal details recorded on his clients and their families by the SDS and passed on to the Security Services.

He concluded by citing similar concerns over the indiscriminate recording and retention of information by Special Branch as reflected in a Home Office Paper produced in 1980 which noted that some of the information collected “may not easily be justified”, reflecting that disproportionate data collection was directly related to the lack of clear management guidance and recommending independent oversight and supervision. Yet forty-two years later, here we are.

Opening statement of Owen Greenhall

Sam Jacobs (representing Celia Stubbs)

Celia Stubbs

Celia Stubbs was the partner of Blair Peach, who was killed by a police officer striking a blow to his head during a protest against racism in Southall in April 1979.

The circumstances of the tragic death of Blair Peach and the sustained cover-up that followed it is told in Celia Stubbs’ statement, and was summarised for Part 2 of the Inquiry. Undercover officers reporting on her commenced in the 1970s, and continued at least into the 1990s.

Her statement today, read out by Sam Jacobs, focused on the question how she became a target of the SDS and why intelligence was gathered on her for decades. Importantly, she found out that the Metropolitan Police still withholds information on the death of Peach.

The managers who have given written evidence generally deny any knowledge of why the Blair Peach campaign was reported on. However, when it comes to explaining the reporting on the funeral of Blair Peach, Angus McIntosh says that he would not have known to what use such information would have been put, but his understanding is that it was “for the Security Service, and for vetting, and identification/tracing”.

More was revealed in the summaries of the closed hearings the Inquiry has held. Officer HN21 recalled “one of the management” asked him to attend Blair Peach’s funeral, and it “could have been Geoff Craft [officer HN34].”

Blair Peach’s funeral, June 1979

As to why it was that the SDS wanted to report on the funeral, HN21 describes that “part of the core business was to identify people, individuals who were connected to groups.” In the instance of attending Blair Peach’s funeral, the motive “was just that” and he had not thought that there was any possibility of disorder.

As was mentioned earlier today, SDS managers did not want undercover officers to attend the rally at Southall, as it was known that uniformed officers were planning to “clamp down on the demonstrations” and dangers were “more than normal”.

Undercover officer HN41 also described the “disastrous mistake” in public order planning of closing down part of Southall.

For Celia Stubbs,

“this offers a glimpse into the information likely within the report that may have been profoundly important in exposing the approach of the police to the rally, and the violence which resulted in the death of Blair Peach.”

Crucially, HN41 recalled he was “smuggled in” to Scotland Yard to give a statement as the “Murder Squad” had heard of his presence at Southall. This shows that the officers investigating Blair Peach’s death were well aware of the SDS presence and likely knowledge of events, knowledge that was never revealed in the inquest at the time.

The fact that this has only been dealt with in closed hearings raises concerns about the ability for Stubbs and others to participate effectively in the Inquiry, as without full access it is not possible to question the witnesses properly. As Jacobs emphatically stated:

“This evidence must be revisited by the Chair.”

These revelations only add to Stubbs grief about the ongoing refusal of the Metropolitan Police to be open and honest about its actions. It is painful that time and again, it is up to her to come up with new evidence of the police’s failure. And of the Inquiry’s for that matter.

Like Diane Langford who we heard earlier this week, Stubbs submitted a Subject Access Request and received her Special Branch Registry File and some further documents from the Metropolitan Police that were not disclosed by the Inquiry.

The documents include the first information on her, with a photo attached, her relationship to Peach, and an assault by two members of the National Front for wearing an Anti-Nazi League badges.

One file shows that Special Branch information was collated on all individuals who provided a statement in respect of the killing of Blair Peach. Why was that information collected and put on file?

The disclosed reports – while heavily redacted – reveal the disdain that the Metropolitan Police held towards those seeking to hold police to account. Though she never did achieve justice for Blair Peach, her campaigning was valiant and dignified. To Special Branch, however, she was a mere “propaganda tool” for the “left wing publicity machine.”
Stubbs hopes the Inquiry understands how traumatic discovering this has been:

“I have felt more distressed but also angry. To put it bluntly, police officers took my partner’s life and then concealed the truth. The concluding job of this Inquiry is to uncover the truth.”

Video of the morning session
Video of the afternoon session
Transcript

The current round of Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings, focusing on Special Demonstration Squad managers 1968-82, continue until Friday 20 May.

<<Previous UCPI Daily Report (9 May 2022)<<

>>Next UCPI Daily Report (11 May 2022)>>

NPOIU officer known as Rod Richardson

It’s official – Rod Richardson was an undercover police officer. His real name is still unknown – he stole the identity of a boy who died as a baby – but it’s no longer disputed that he was with the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

He was one of the unit’s first officers, infiltrating anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and environmental groups in London and Nottigham from 1999 to 2003, when he was replaced by Mark Kennedy.

The Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing announced today that there will be no application to withhold his cover identity from their forthcoming proceedings, though he will be applying for anonymity for his real identity.

This comes less than a month after the Inquiry confirmed the officers known as Marco Jacobs and Carlo Neri were spycops.

Whilst this is not a bad thing, it is not to be celebrated. It is merely telling us what we already know. Richardson was unmasked by activists he spied on nearly four years ago.

Furthermore, the only reason we know these men were spycops is because their targets investigated and exposed them – a practice criticised by the inquiry and thunderously condemned by the Metropolitan Police.

We should remember that the state have now confirmed a clutch of officers who were discovered by chance. It might just have easily been any of the other 100+ other spycops who were exposed, and conversely the known officers may well have gone undetected. If that had happened then presumably the Inquiry would be confirming those other identities while the Met claimed that it was vital for the safety of the unknown Neri, Richardson and co not to be exposed.

The fact that officers and their bosses feel that it’s fine for the public to know the cover names absolutely shreds the Met’s waffle about security. It shows that it is safe to release all the cover names, as most of the Inquiry’s core participants have demanded.

The only reason that we are meeting such resistance is because the police don’t want to face the outrage that would erupt if the public knew the true scale of what was done.

Barbara Shaw, holding the death certificate of her son Rod Richardson

These new confirmations also expose the cruelty of the Met hiding behind ‘neither confirm nor deny’, refusing to tell Barbara Shaw, mother of the real Rod Richardson, anything about the state’s theft of her dead son’s identity.

It also makes a mockery of the refusal to confirm the other exposed officers. Several, including John Dines and Mark Jenner, have an even greater body of information in the public domain including their real names. It is insulting and farcical for the police to refuse to admit what everyone has known for years.

As we have amply demonstrated, the ‘policy’ of Neither Confirm Nor Deny is merely a tactic used when it suits their desire to avoid accountability. It’s past time for it to end.

Today’s admission does not give us any satisfaction. Instead, it galvanises our anger at years of stonewalling by the police, compounding their damage with a gruelling second injustice against people they abused.

The unconvincing excuses are running out. Everyone who was targeted by these disgraced counter-democratic secret police has a right to know. Every family whose dead child’s identity was stolen by them has a right to know. They always have had. The time has come.

Barbara Shaw, holding the death certificate of her son Rod Richardson

Parents who want to know if their dead child’s identity was stolen by undercover police officers have been invited to ask the Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing.

Anyone whose child was born between 1938 and 1975 can do it, as long as they have somehow stumbled across the invitation (www.ucpi.org.uk  > Preliminary Issues > Deceased Children’s Identities > scroll to the bottom of a list of 16 PDFs > click the last one) .

The issue came to light when activists exposed their comrade ‘Rod Richardson’ in 2013. The people who had unmasked Mark Kennedy had become suspicious of someone else they had known who now appeared to have been Kennedy’s predecessor. They found that the real Rod Richardson had died as a baby.

How common was dead child identity theft?

In the same week as ‘Richardson’ was exposed, Pat Gallan – Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Met and, at that point, head of its spycops investigation Operation Herne – gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. She said that they had only found one case of dead child identity theft and the combined efforts of Herne’s 31 staff had failed to find any more in the subsequent five months until activists exposed ‘Richardson’.

The select committee insisted on the truth about the issue and demanded all parents be told and given an apology by the end of 2013. We’re still waiting.

Later in 2013 Herne reported that, contrary to Gallan’s claim of it being isolated and unauthorised, identity theft of dead children was commonplace, and mandatory in the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), with instructions laid out in the SDS Tradecraft Manual.

The practice began soon after the formation of the SDS in 1968 and continued until the mid-1990s. Herne reported that, of 106 fake identities used by SDS officers, 42 were of dead children, 45 were fictitious and 19 were unknown.

Known as ‘the Jackal run’, after its use in Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal, new recruits would trawl the death registers looking for a child with their first name and a similar date of birth. There is some indication that other state agencies such as Customs, also used the practice.

It has been criticised as being ghoulish, but it’s more than that. As Anthony Barker – whose brother John died of leukaemia aged 8 and had his identity stolen by SDS officer John Dines – pointed out, it puts bereaved families at risk. After Dines ended his deployment and disappeared, his worried and bereft activist partner Helen Steel traced John Barker and went to the house listed on the birth certificate.

‘Now, imagine that policeman had infiltrated a violent gang or made friends with a volatile person, then disappeared, just like this man did. Someone wanting revenge would have tracked us down to our front door – but they wouldn’t have wanted a cup of tea and a chat, like this woman says she did.’

Why did spycops steal children’s identities?

Time and again we were told that it was done to give officers a credible back story. Operation Herne said

‘As outlined in the SDS Trade Craft Manual, the practice of using a genuine deceased identity was developed to create a plausible covert identity that was capable of frustrating enquiries by activists’

It later reiterates

‘the subject chosen had to have an ‘existence’ to show up in case of basic research by suspicious activists’

Met police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe said

‘At the time this method of creating identities was in use, officers felt this was the safest option’

But, as one of the activists who exposed ‘Rod Richardson’ explained, it actually posed a significant risk.

‘How many times have you looked up a friend’s birth certificate because you thought they were actually someone else? It is the rare act of someone with a deep distrust. A real birth certificate wouldn’t allay the reasons for that suspicion. More than that, if an activist is suspicious enough to look for a birth certificate, they can find a death certificate too.

‘There are many reasons why someone might not have a British birth certificate. They may have been born abroad, they may have been adopted. There is, however, no reason for someone who comes round to your house to have a death certificate… Having found Rod Richardson’s birth certificate, the next thing I did was search for and find his death certificate and I immediately knew my friend had in fact been a fraud.’

In truth, the spycops stole these identities for the same reason most other thieves do it. Before passports were commonplace, a birth certificate was the primary proof of identity. Using a real one enabled them to open bank accounts, get tenancies and various other bits of officialdom that construct an ordinary functional life.

More brass monkeys at the Met

The Met responded to the revelations with their typical secrecy and cavalier attitude to the damage they have done to citizens they’re supposed to serve.

A number of bereaved families contacted police to ask if their child’s identity had been used. The Met refused to answer. A Freedom of Information request was made asking for the ages of the dead children, not even the exact dates or their sexes. At least with that barest detail, many worried families would be able to rule out their children if there wasn’t a match. The Met refused to do even that.

In August 2014 the Information Commissioners Office declared that the police must release the list of ages. Five months later, the Met admitted they had stolen the identity of dead children of every age between 0 and 17 except for 2, 3 and 15.

Bernard Hogan-Howe personally issued an apology of sorts. It was addressed to nobody in particular, refused to give any names or contact any affected families, and basically said he was sorry he got caught.

‘It was never intended or foreseen that any of the identities used would become public’

Years after the exposure of ‘Rod Richardson’ and John Dines, the Met still ‘neither confirm nor deny’ that either was an officer. The real Rod Richardson’s mother, Barbara Shaw, made a complaint to the police. It was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission in February 2013 and they handed it back to the police but said it would be a ‘supervised investigation’. It was then downgraded to a straightforward unsupervised police self-investigation known as Operation Riverwood.

When it was completed the police announced that no action would be taken against any officer. They are still refusing to publish the investigation’s report.

Barbara Shaw’s lawyer Jules Carey said

‘The families of the dead children whose identities have been stolen by the undercover officers deserve better than this. They deserve an explanation, a personal apology and, if appropriate, a warning of the potential risk they face, in the exceptional circumstances, that their dead child’s identity was used to infiltrate serious criminal organisations.

‘The harvesting of dead children’s identities was only one manifestation of the rot at the heart of these undercover units which had officers lie on oath, conduct smear campaigns and use sexual relationships as an evidence-gathering tool.’

What happens next?

Last week’s announcement from the Pitchford Inquiry says it may publish names used by spycops. However, it actively warns that it, too, may join in with the Met’s cover-up practice of Neither Confirm Nor Deny.

‘the Inquiry may be unable to give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to your question, even after the Inquiry has concluded its work and knows the answer. The reason for this is that in order to protect the rights of other individuals or in the public interest the Chairman of the Inquiry may have to make a restriction order under section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005 that prevents the Inquiry from releasing information in its possession.’

Bear in mind that this is not disclosing the identity of an officer, just the identity of someone else that they stole and stopped using years ago. But still, they say that your right to know what was done to your family without consent can be trumped by a desire to stop people knowing something that isn’t even about the police officer.

The Inquiry says that it will, later, attempt to contact all families whose children’s identities were stolen. This is a significant step forward and raises the real prospect of names being published.

If the Inquiry decides not to publish, will it also gag the families? Has it considered how secrecy may compound the damage to a family? As we’ve learned from countless justice campaigns, public acknowledgement of state wrongdoing is vital for victims to be able to come to terms with what was done to them.

The Inquiry also says that any families applying will be initially contacted by the police. Once again, we see the police as being placed as trustworthy independent arbiters. The police are the subject of the Inquiry because we proved they ran a sustained, systemic, strategic campaign of counter-democratic subterfuge and brazen abuse of citizens.

The Inquiry’s increasing tendency to side with police perspective and norms is deeply alarming for anyone hoping for truth and justice. We know from other cases of police wrongdoing that ‘liaison officers’ were not friendly faces but actually evidence gatherers used to undermine attempts to find justice. We know that police lied to the family of Ian Tomlinson, telling them a protester may have been their father’s attacker, and warned against contact between the family and journalists seeking the truth.

The Inquiry must recognise that what limited light falls on this murky abuse has been shed by the hard work of victims. The Inquiry should seek to emulate and expand on this approach rather than copying the acts of the perpetrators.

The police have attempted to frustrate justice and cannot be trusted. Although the police have all the files and the answers, they choose to withhold them. Their refusal to tell their victims what was done is an arrogant intensification of torment. They are acting as an enemy of justice.

Chief Constable Mick Creedon

As the full scale public inquiry into Britain’s political police continues to limber up, it’s worth noting that they’re reliant on the same police that committed the abuses.

New evidence this week shows that’s not institutional, but that a individual senior officer responsible for spycops is posing in a key role as a neutral trustworthy figures.

OPERATION HERNE

The first serious attempt at inquiring into the spycops scandal was a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing in February 2013.

It took testimony from three women who had relationships with undercover officers, Helen Steel (anonymised as ‘Clare’), Lisa Jones and Alison.

It also heard from Assistant Chief Constable Pat Gallan of the Metropolitan Police, then-head of the police’s self-investigation into the issue, known as Operation Herne.

The three women who had relationships had done successful investigations to prove that their former partners were Metropolitan police officers. In contrast Pat Gallan, with a staff of several dozen, said she had uncovered very little indeed.

The hearings were the day after the Guardian revealed that Mark Kennedy’s predecessor officer had stolen the identity of a dead child called Rod Richardson. The report estimated it had happened in around eighty other cases.

Gallan, who admitted being aware a case of theft of dead children’s identities five months earlier, had somehow found no further instances and cast doubt on the Guardian’s guess.

She says she does not know if the figure of 80 children’s identities being used is accurate.  She knows of two cases.

Gallan’s numeracy is clearly as strong as her detective ability. Even by that time, there had been published stories about three officers who used dead children’s identities – Rod Richardson, John Barker (aka officer John Dines) and Peter Black (aka Peter Daley, aka officer Peter Francis).

Gallan flatly refused to apologise for the practice of stealing dead children’s identities, or for anything else. It was a PR disaster and she was removed from her post at Operation Herne by the end of the week.

With a new layer of scandal to fend off, they needed to front it someone ‘independent’.

DECAPITATE THE HYDRA

They brought in Derbyshire’s top cop, Chief Constable Mick Creedon.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said revelations that police used the identities of dead children will be investigated by an independent police chief with an expertise in corruption.

Well that is certainly true, though perhaps not in the way Theresa May meant. Yet again we see the exceptionalism afforded to police. No other industry would regard a sister company whose top brass frequently transfer between one another as independent and free from bias.

It continues to this day – the police are still holding the spycops files that will be wanted by the Pitchford public inquiry. Even though a whistleblower officer has reported ‘domestic extremist’ files being destroyed by fellow officers, even though the Met corruptly destroyed a ‘lorry-load’ of documents relating to its own corruption including the Stephen Lawrence case, the public inquiry has not requisitioned the relevant documents.

What other organisation found to have committed systematic abuse of citizens would be treated this way? Which other criminals get to be custodians of the evidence that incriminates them?

The Home Affairs Select Committee issued an interim report (it never did a full one). They emphatically insisted that all families whose dead children’s identities were stolen by spycops be informed. They expected it to happen by the end of 2013. We are still waiting.

At that time Creedon, keen to calm the furore and retain credibility, rapidly produced an Operation Herne report rubbishing the idea of there only being two isolated instances of dead children’s identity theft. He said that for around 20 years – mid 1970s to mid 1990s – it was standard practice in the Special Demonstration Squad.

At this stage one hundred and six (106) covert identities have been identified as having been used by the SDS between 1968 and 2008.

Forty-two (42) of these identities are either confirmed or highly likely to have used the details of a deceased child. Forty-five (45) of these identities have been established as fictitious.

Work continues to identify the provenance of the remaining identities.

There are definitely more, though. For one, the officer known as Rod Richardson wasn’t in the SDS, he was from the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. Who knows how many of their officers did it?

Creedon explicitly rebuffed calls for an independent inquiry into spycops.

‘There has always been public concern about police investigating the police, but I’ll be brutally honest: there is no one as good at doing it as the police. We don’t seek to hide things. We do actually seek to get the truth and we do it properly and I frankly find it almost insulting that people suggest that in some way, because I’m a police officer, I’m not going to search the truth.’

THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

The proof that Operation Herne was just a figleafing exercise came in March 2014. After whistleblower SDS officer Peter Francis revealed his unit had spied on the family of Stephen Lawrence, Mark Ellison produced his comprehensive and damning report into the matter. His findings eventually forced the resignation of the head of Counter Terrorism Command, Richard Walton, a classic case of ‘go before they bring misconduct charges and thereby preserve your pension’.

On the very same day as Ellison’s report was published, Creedon issued his Operation Trinity report. It looked at the same issue and reached essentially opposite conclusions. He basically said that if there isn’t documentary proof of spying on the Lawrences we can’t say it happened.

So immersed was Creedon in protecting the police from exposure that the 84 page report subtitled Allegations Of Peter Francis said it

will neither confirm or deny if Peter Francis was an undercover police officer.

Four months later came a third and seemingly final Herne report, into the spying on similar racial and family justice campaigns. Two years on, the 18 families identified are still waiting for answers. Creedon and Herne are publicly silent on that and all other matters.

BY HIS OWN HAND

But this week there’s a new twist in the tale. When spycops were active, they had to be authorised by a senior officer from the constabulary they were in, as well as their bosses at the Met. More than one of the exposed undercover officers was in Derbyshire; Mark Kennedy was there many times. We know from leaked papers of Kennedy’s deployments in North Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire that the proper protocol of these authorisations was meticulously adhered to.

As Derbyshire’s Assistant Chief Constable (Operations), Mick Creedon will have been briefed on these deployments and he will have personally authorised them to go ahead. It’s quite possible that Operation Herne has custody of documents authorising Kennedy’s abuses and bearing Creedon’s signature, unless they too have been deliberately lost or destroyed.

The Undercover Research Group have just published a profile of Mick Creedon that maps his career and shows a particular involvement in protests by environmentalists, anti-fascists and other groups who were infiltrated by spycops.

Far from being a clean, neutral figure, Creedon came to Operation Herne as an insider of many years’ standing. Once again, having been proven to have abused citizens the police are shown to respond with deceit.

These attempts at self-preservation backfire by undermining any idea that the police could have a  serious commitment to honesty and integrity, let alone justice. Top to bottom and side to side, we’ve seen brand protection as their highest priority – indeed, that is the very thing that led to them undermining the justice campaigns in the first place.

There can be no faith in Operation Herne, nor any police self-investigation. There can be no trust in the people whose wrongdoing is the subject of the public inquiry being allowed to decide what does and doesn’t get revealed. The problems highlighted by the spycops scandal are endemic and institutional. The revelation of Mick Creedon’s true history proves that there is no independence in the police.

Barbara Shaw, holding the death certificate of her son Rod Richardson

Three years ago today, the first halfway credible official report into Britain’s political secret police was published. The Home Affairs Select Committee had taken evidence from three of the women deceived into relationships by officers – Helen Steel (aka Clare), Alison and Lisa Jones.

Their powerful testimony was overshadowed by that week’s revelation of the fact that Mark Kennedy’s predecessor, the officer known as Rod Richardson, had stolen a dead child’s identity. The real Rod Richardson died when only a few days old.

Pat Gallan, head of the Met’s self-investigation Operation Herne, said they had found a solitary instance of theft of a dead child’s identity five months earlier. Since then, despite the combined efforts of Herne’s 31 staff, they had failed to find any more until activists came forward with the evidence about Richardson. Gallan refused to apologise for the practice.

Perhaps not coincidentally, she was removed from Operation Herne four days later.

The Select Committee took it very seriously.

The practice of ‘resurrecting’ dead children as cover identities for undercover police officers was not only ghoulish and disrespectful, it could potentially have placed bereaved families in real danger of retaliation.

This point is an important one. John Barker died aged 8 of leukaemia. His identity was later stolen by police officer John Dines. After his deployment ended and he disappeared, Dines’ worried and bereft activist partner Helen Steel traced John Barker and went to the house listed on the birth certificate. John Barker’s brother Anthony said

Now, imagine that policeman had infiltrated a violent gang or made friends with a volatile person, then disappeared, just like this man did. Someone wanting revenge would have tracked us down to our front door – but they wouldn’t have wanted a cup of tea and a chat, like this woman says she did.

The Select Committee gave clear instructions to the police.

Families need to hear the truth and they must receive an apology. Once families have been identified they should be notified immediately. We would expect the investigation to be concluded by the end of 2013 at the latest.

In July 2013 Operation Herne published a report into the theft of dead children’s identities, contradicting Gallan’s claim of it being unusual and confirming it was in fact mandatory in the Special Demonstration Squad for decades. Around fifty identities were stolen for use by police.

WHEN IS A RISK NOT A RISK? WHEN IT’S A COVER-UP

The Operation Herne report talked of the police’s ‘essential’ and ‘long-standing policy’ of Neither Confirm Nor Deny (NCND).

As Police Spies Out of Lives, the group representing eight women deceived into relationships by these officers, pointed out

NCND doesn’t have any legal standing. It doesn’t even seem to be a ‘policy’ – no evidence has been presented of a written policy, and in some instances police lawyers have referred to it as a ‘practice’.

They wryly observed

The women launched their legal action in December 2011, but it was not until June 2012 that the police first mentioned NCND in relation to the claim. You might think if there had been such a long standing policy this would have been highlighted in the first police response.

They then listed a number of times when this supposed policy didn’t apply, ranging from media appearances to the Met Commissioner speaking on the record to the Metropolitan Police Authority.

The report’s author, Chief Constable Mick Creedon, agreed that the relatives deserve an apology but said revealing the names used

would and could put undercover officers at risk.

If officers were spying on the likes of Helen Steel, then it is insultingly absurd to say they would be put at risk by being identified. Numerous officers have been exposed for many years – including their real names and photos being widely reproduced in the mass media. The worst retribution any of them has suffered is a few people politely leafleting outside a building that they weren’t actually in.

If the officers really were spying on genuinely dangerous people, then they are leaving the bereaved families at risk. Under witness protection programmes, the police put endangered civilians through court and then organise a new safe life with changed identity . It’s a lot of effort, but it’s only a few cases and society deems it worthwhile in order to ensure justice is done. Plainly, the same could be done if there actually were any former officers who were in a position of risk.

So either way, this refusal to name names is transparent nonsense. It is a decoy, a device for shielding the police from accountability and further condemnation for their actions. No other institution would protect its rampantly immoral staff so vigorously and effectively.

The police admit that they have done wrong to the citizens they are supposed to serve. They agree that they should issue an apology, but have not done so. This demonstrates absolute arrogance.

WHEN IS A REPORT NOT A REPORT? WHEN IT’S A SECRET

The police said they had completed a report into the theft and use of Rod Richardson’s identity, and concluded there were no criminal charges to be brought,  nor even misconduct proceedings. What were their reasons? We have no idea because the police would not let anyone see the report, not even Richardson’s mother Barbara Shaw.

Her lawyer, Jules Carey, condemned the secrecy and its part of a wider mosaic of abuse by undercover police.

What we heard this morning was not an apology but a PR exercise. The families of the dead children whose identities have been stolen by the undercover officers deserve better than this. They deserve an explanation, a personal apology and, if appropriate, a warning of the potential risk they face in the exceptional circumstances that their dead child’s identity was used to infiltrate serious criminal organisations.

The harvesting of dead children’s identities was only one manifestation of the rot at the heart of these undercover units which had officers lie on oath, conduct smear campaigns and use sexual relationships as an evidence-gathering tool.

In Ms Shaw’s case, the Metropolitan Police have stated that the investigation into her complaint is complete but they have declined to provide her with a report on the outcome. They have refused to confirm or deny that the identity of her son was used by an undercover officer despite there being only one Rod Richardson born in 1973. And they have concluded that there is no evidence of misconduct or even performance issues to be addressed.

Ms Shaw has told me that she feels her complaint has been ‘swept under the carpet’.

MASTERS AND SERVANTS

The conclusion of the Home Affairs Select Committee’s interim report (the full report never materialised) was unequivocal.

The families who have been affected by this deserve an explanation and a full and unambiguous apology from the forces concerned.

The police simply refused, and that was the end of it.

The Select Committee also said

We will be asking to be updated on the progress of Operation Herne every three months. This must include the number and nature of files still to review, costs, staffing, disciplinary proceedings, arrests made, and each time a family is identified and informed. We will publish this information on our website.

It appears that didn’t happen either. What reason could there be? Either the Select Committee didn’t ask, or the police refused and the Select Committee didn’t make a fuss.

Even as they wallow in a foul cesspool of their own long standing practices, the police feel able to blithely ignore insistent demands of parliament to come clean. And parliament has let them get away with it.

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

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

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

This

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

= = = = = = = = = = =

British undercover officers and the countries they worked in

Mark Kennedy

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

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

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

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

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

Rod Richardson
1. Italy
2. Netherlands
3. France

Peter Francis
1. Germany
2. Greece

Jim Boyling
1. Ireland
2. Italy

John Dines
1. Scotland
2. Ireland

Lynn Watson
1. Scotland

Jason Bishop
1. Scotland