The third week of the Undercover Police Inquiry’s hearings brought revelations and frustrations.

The former undercover officers of Britain’s secret police engaged in a parade of selective amnesia, admitting what their vintage documents confirmed, but not a lot more.

And yet, we also brought the murky world of the spycops further into focus, learning the names of another MP who was spied on and a senior officer who illegally colluded with industrial blacklisting, as well as catching the Inquiry itself covering up for a criminal spycop.

CELEBRITY GUERRILLA COVERAGE

The Inquiry still refuses to live-steam its hearings, only giving us a live transcript that can’t easily be paused or rewound – a challenge to stare at for hours on end.

The women from Police Spies Out of Lives, representing women deceived into relationships by spycops, took matters into their own hands with a live reading of the transcript on their YouTube channel.

They took this inspired idea a stage further later in the week, with actors Maxine Peake, Siobhán McSweeney, and Barnaby Taylor speaking the words of the spycop witnesses.

There is, of course, no reason why the Inquiry can’t provide us with an audio-stream of the hearings. It would be no different to the read-a-long in terms of security. It’s further evidence of the way the Inquiry regards victims of spycops as marginal and the wider public as an irrelevance.

OVERVIEW

In the last three weeks, the Inquiry hearings have focussed on the formation of what began as the ‘Special Operations Squad’ (SOS) in 1968, and the years leading up to its re-naming as the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS) in 1972.

It has confirmed the names of more than 100 groups who weren’t previously known to have been spied on.

There’s no good reason why the list couldn’t have been published by the Inquiry before, allowing members of those groups to come forward with relevant testimony in time to contribute.

The movement against the war in Vietnam was the original target for this new method of deep surveillance, and during this period the spycops also reported on anarchist, socialist, communist, Irish and anti-racist groups.

‘THROWN IN’

One after another, the former spycops described:

• being asked to join the unit, rather than formally applying;
• receiving no formal training or briefings;
• being initially sent out without even a target group or movement, just to see what they could join;
• not being steered away from groups that were clearly no threat to anyone;
• no advice as to what information to report, just a vague indication that all information was good information;
• deployments lasting much longer than the 12 month maximum stipulated by SDS founder Conrad Dixon (unless something went wrong & it was ended early);
• no psychological care during or after deployment.

Spycop ‘Dick Epps’ said:

‘I was never sat down in a classroom or a training room and given a training manual, or training lectures… We were all, if you like, being thrown in to a maelstrom, and seeking to find some sense of what we were trying to do’

Rather than merely gathering information on public order issues, it is abundantly clear that spycops were foot-soldiers for the Security Service, and most SDS reports were copied to MI5. It’s also a fact that details of activists were illegally shared with employment blacklisting organisations.

This overlap has been starkly, if unwittingly, illustrated by spycops who flitted between the concepts of democracy, national security, government policy, and corporate convenience as if these were all one and the same.

The spycops talked about targeting groups who ‘want to overthrow our form of democracy’, yet they spied on numerous democratic organisations, including political parties whose very function was to participate in our form of democracy. They sent one officer after another into the anti-apartheid movement, whose sole objective was to help bring democracy to South Africa.

NO SET TARGET

Giving evidence, the spycops admitted very little beyond what their own vintage documents proved, unless it served to distance them from responsibility. Their denials were risibly implausible, claiming to be unable to recall some of the central campaigns they were spying on.

When forced to concede that many groups they spied on posed no threat to the public, they tried to defend their deployments by saying the innocent groups were allied with more dangerous ones who were the actual focus.

None of them could explain why they failed to join the supposed real targets, nor why they were reporting personal details of the people in any and every group they came across.

Epps claimed anarchists were always the likely cause of any public disorder, but when asked why he didn’t infiltrate them instead of peace campaigns, he said:

‘I don’t know that it ever occurred to me that that was a route that I might find useful. But some of them were, as I say, harebrained and a little overexcited at these moments, and I didn’t feel drawn to that sort of grouping.’

Epps infiltrated the International Marxist Group (IMG) because they ‘took part in every demonstration going’. He was instructed by his managers to make a copy of the IMG’s office keys. He admitted he didn’t remember any IMG members being violent or disorderly at demonstrations, but claimed ‘they were much busier than other groups’ – as justification in itself.

OFFICER HN340 ‘ANDY BAILEY’

Officer HN340, ‘Andy Bailey’ (or ‘Alan Nixon‘), was, like Epps, deployed between 1969 and 1972. He said a lack of instruction was a continual feature of his work, and that he just made up his methods and activities. He presumed he was doing the right thing because his managers never told him otherwise.

Bailey joined a tiny left-wing discussion group, the North London Red Circle. In his written statement he described the Red Circle as ‘a talking shop’, saying:

‘It did support a revolutionary agenda and was subversive to the extent that it advanced the overthrow of the established political system in the UK, albeit never took any concrete steps… violence would have been the last thing on many of their minds’.

He said it was a ‘recruiting ground for the International Marxist Group’, with an implication that the IMG was in itself a serious threat to public safety even though, as we heard from Dick Epps, other officers knew that wasn’t the case and they’d only spied on the IMG because they, in turn, was supposed to be adjacent to the real targets.

IRISH ISSUES

Bailey also infiltrated the Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign (ICRSC). Irish republican politics was a popular cause with the left at the time. As in the early years of the Troubles, Republicans were only attacking military targets in Northern Ireland it was, for many, a cause with little moral dilemma.

In October 1970, Bailey also attended the founding conference of the Irish Solidarity Campaign (ISC) in Birmingham. For an SDS officer to go to another constabulary’s jurisdiction, the unit must have either secured the permission of the local police, in which case they were complicit in what the spycops did, or else it was done without local approval, which is a serious breach of police protocol.

That Irish Solidarity Campaign founding conference was also attended by Bailey’s colleague, SDS officer HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’, whose deployment focused on Irish solidarity groups. A report was produced afterwards, with both their names attached to it, which contained a long list of all the groups and ‘fraternal delegates’ who attended the conference.

He explained:

‘They were there and so I reported it; it was then down to the back office to do their filtering, vetting, or whatever you call it’

The report was sent to both MI5 and the Home Office. The Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner commended the ‘first class work’ and asked that the officers be praised.

It will have been obvious to that senior officer that the depth of knowledge in the report can only have come from sustained infiltration.

It is already clear – and getting even clearer – that the SDS’s work was known and approved of at the highest levels of the Met, as well as its paymasters in the Home Office. There is, therefore, no way to sustain the claim that the SDS was a rogue unit, so secret that nobody outside really knew what was going on.

Bailey could not recall ISC members ever taking part in any acts of violence, nor any public disorder at any demonstrations organised by the ISC:

‘I’m sure something like that would have stuck in my memory and it definitely doesn’t.’

ANOTHER MP SPIED ON

Bailey’s reports would specifically mention whether or not events were attended by Bernadette Devlin, a young independent Irish republican MP.

According to Bailey:

‘if she was known to be going to attend any meeting or demonstration or whatever, then of course that would increase the likelihood of more people arriving at the demonstration’.

Devlin joins the growing list of MPs confirmed as having been spied on by the SDS, the unit that was supposedly formed to frustrate those who would overthrow parliamentary democracy.

SPYCOPS ABROAD

Bailey’s managers had instructed him not to join the International Marxist Group because it was ‘recognised as more of a political party’. This doesn’t tally with the fact that his contemporary, ‘Doug Edwards’, was not merely a member of the Independent Labour Party but the Tower Hamlets branch treasurer.

His managers did, however, instruct him to attend the Conference for a Red Europe in Brussels in November 1970, organised by the Fourth International (of which the IMG was a part).

As with the ISC conference in Birmingham a month earlier, Bailey says there was no direct contact between him and the other spycop who attended. That other officer was officer HN326, ‘Doug Edwards’, who complained about the trip in his evidence to the Inquiry.

This is the earliest known instance of spycops travelling abroad. It’s unclear whether the SDS followed protocol and got permission from their counterparts in Belgium (and any countries they passed through).

It is yet another example of spycops’ being engaged from the start in an activity that has been explained away as a later aberration.

TRADE UNIONIST DAVE SMITH

Blacklisted trade unionist Dave Smith was initially forbidden to deliver his opening statement to the Inquiry, as it mentioned the real name of spycop ‘Carlo Neri’ – which is Carlo Soracchi. The Inquiry insisted on nobody saying the name Soracchi out loud, even though it has been in the public domain for 18 months.

Dave Smith

Smith spoke on behalf of the Blacklist Support Group (BSG), representing union members who were unlawfully blacklisted by major construction firms.

When the BSG first spoke about being blacklisted for union activities, they were ridiculed as conspiracy theorists. But it’s conspiracy fact – and it involves the collusion of the police and the security services.

Established in 1993 using an existing blacklist from the Economic League, The Consulting Association (TCA) was a secret body comprised of most major construction companies. Between them, they illegally orchestrated the blacklisting of thousands of construction workers.

Every job applicant on major building projects had their name checked against TCA’s blacklist. If there was a match, the worker would be refused work or dismissed. These checks were done on hundreds of thousands of workers a year.

It wasn’t just the major firms who kept union activists under surveillance and contributed to blacklisting – it was the same political police who are at the heart of the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

The police’s internal spycops investigation, Operation Herne, produced a report on blacklisting which concluded:

‘Police, including Special Branches and the Security Services, supplied information to the blacklist funded by the country’s major construction firms, The Consulting Association’

SPECIAL BRANCH INDUSTRIAL UNIT

The Special Branch Industrial Unit was established in 1970, ‘with the aim of monitoring trade unionists from teaching to the docks’. Special Branch files were effectively a database for MI5, private firms and others to find out about trade union activists.

Spycops often worked for the Industrial Unit, before or after being deployed undercover. One was HN336 ‘Dick Epps’, who told the Inquiry that Chief Superintendent Herbert Guy ‘Bert’ Lawrenson, head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s union-monitoring C Squad in those early days, went to work for the Economic League.

One can readily imagine Special Branch Industrial Unit officers had a ready exchange of information with Lawrenson, their former boss, the man who quite possibly hired and trained them.

The Operation Herne report confirmed that, prior to The Consulting Association’s foundation in the 1990s:

‘Special Branches throughout the UK had direct contact with the Economic League’

MODERN POLICE HELP FOR BLACKLISTERS

As well as Special Branch files, police intelligence on political activists was later kept on the National Domestic Extremism Database, which holds files on thousands of citizens whom the State considers ‘domestic extremists’, many of whom have committed no crime whatsoever.

One of the units responsible for the database was the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), whose Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Mills gave a presentation to a secret Consulting Association meeting in 2008. This was a senior police officer helping TCA, a company whose work was illegal.

NETCU and the Special Branch Industrial Unit, along with all the spycops units, are now absorbed into the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. State spying on unions is now classified as counter-terrorism.

PERSONAL TARGETING

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

Smith then focused on a small group of union activists on the blacklist of which he was part. From the early 1990s until mid 2000s, they were spied on by three separate spycops: Peter Francis, Mark Jenner, and Carlo Soracchi.

Mark Jenner joined the construction union UCATT as ‘Mark Cassidy’. He attended picket lines, protests, and conferences, and even chaired meetings. Smith flatly accused Jenner, and through him the British State, of interfering with the internal democratic processes of an independent trade union.

When Jenner’s deployment was coming to an end, another spycop, Carlo Soracchi, using the name ‘Carlo Neri’, was sent to spy on the same group of activists. Soracchi was an agent provocateur, trying in vain to incite union members to commit arson against a charity shop he claimed was run by Roberto Fiore, leader of Italian fascist party Forza Nuova.

Jenner deceived ‘Alison’, an activist for the National Union of Teachers, into a five year co-habiting relationship during his deployment. Soracchi deceived two women into relationships with him during his deployment – Donna McLean, a Transport and General Workers Union rep from a homelessness charity, and ‘Lindsey‘ who was also an active trade unionist.

SDS officer Carlo Soracchi

If the purpose of the spycop units was genuinely, as the police claim, to detect serious criminality or public disorder, why, in over ten years of spying, were none of these people ever charged or prosecuted with a serious criminal offence? This is nothing to do with disorder or crime, it’s purely political policing.

Smith said the police can claim all they like that they were protecting democracy. But by spying on trade union members and colluding with blacklisting, spycops are actually just protecting big business and capitalism. Capitalism and democracy are not the same thing.

OFFICER HN348 ‘SANDRA DAVIES’

Giving over a long session to questioning Special Demonstration Squad officer HN348 ‘Sandra Davies’ seemed something of an odd proposition, as she appeared to have had an uneventful deployment.

As it turned out, this was the point; her testimony demonstrated the pointlessness of many deployments, and the total absence of any consideration of the impact of this intrusion on the lives of those targeted.

The SDS’ annual report of 1971 confirmed that she was recruited for her gender:

‘The arrival of a second woman officer has added considerably to the squad’s flexibility and has proved invaluable in the comparatively recent field of women’s liberation.’

Davies infiltrated the Women’s Liberation Front (WLF). A small feminist group with Maoist leanings, its meetings were attended by about 12 people, hosted at one of the member’s homes.

As a constable, she had the same powers and responsibilities as her male colleagues but, as a female officer, was only paid 90% of the men’s salary.

In the SDS, she was sent to spy on the WLF who, according to her, mainly campaigned for equal pay, free contraception and free nurseries.

SUBVERSIVE BAKING

Davies reported on the WLF supplying home-made sweets and cakes for a children’s Christmas party organised by the Black Unity and Freedom Party. She also reported on the WLF holding a jumble sale. Both of these reports were copied to MI5.

She was elected treasurer of the WLF. As part of the six-strong executive committee, she took part in the expulsion of several members that led to the group’s decline.

Looking back, she continued:

‘I do not think my work really yielded any good intelligence, but I eliminated the Women’s Liberation Front from public order concerns’

That is a mitigation that could be applied to thought-crime spying on literally anyone. More to the point, it was a fact that must have been obvious very early on in her deployment. And yet she spent two years, full-time, spying on that group.

There was no suggestion that her managers gave much thought to whether what she was doing was worthwhile. As with other deployments, it seems that once they had their spycops in place, keeping them there was more important than the substance of the information they gathered.

The rights of the people being spied on – who had police officers in their lives and homes week after week – didn’t get a look-in.

MENTAL GYMNASTICS

Davies has been granted anonymity by the Inquiry. In her ‘impact statement’, she said that she wanted anonymity because she would be embarrassed if the group’s main activist found out the truth. She also said her reputation would be tainted if her friends found out she had been a spycop.

This is an extraordinary mental gymnastics – when we question the purpose of spycops, the police tell us that they’re doing vital & noble work ensuring the safety of everyone, yet when we ask why they want anonymity, they say it would be humiliating to be known as one.

SUMMARY WITHOUT QUESTION

Rather than insisting that all of the surviving former spycops give evidence, the Inquiry has chosen not to ‘call’ the majority of them.

Instead, the Inquiry team have prepared a short summary of each officer’s witness statement, and read it out. There is no opportunity for anyone to question the spycops, giving rise to a worry that their real history will remain hidden.

Less anticipated was that the Inquiry would be more inclined to cover up an officer’s wrongdoing than the officer themselves.

OFFICER HN339 ‘STEWART GOODMAN’

Officer HN339, ‘Stewart Goodman’, was deployed undercover from 1970 to 1971, initially against the anti-apartheid groups. He joined the Lambeth branch of the International Socialists (now the Socialist Workers Party), where – mirroring Doug Edwards’ and Sandra Davies’ roles – he became treasurer.

Speaking for the Inquiry, Elizabeth Campbell summarised:

‘HN339 recalls being involved in some fly-posting while in his cover identity, but no other criminal activity. Near the end of his deployment, HN339 was involved in a road traffic accident while driving an unmarked police car, which necessitated the involvement of his supervisors on the SDS.

‘HN339 states that he does not remember much about his withdrawal from the field, but suspects that this event may have been a catalyst for the end of his deployment.’

Goodman was not merely ‘involved in a road traffic accident’.

For those willing to wade through the documents, on page 18 of Goodman’s witness statement he said:

‘I crashed my unmarked police car. I had been at a pub with activists and I would have parked the car away from the pub so as not to arouse suspicion. I drove home while under the influence of alcohol and crashed the car into a tree’.

The car was a write-off. When uniformed officers arrived, Goodman breached SDS protocol and broke cover, telling them he was an undercover colleague. Rather than arresting and charging him, they drove him home.

He was eventually charged and went to court, accompanied by his manager Phil Saunders. He believes he was prosecuted under his false identity and that Saunders briefed the magistrates. He was convicted and fined.

INQUIRY COVERING UP THE TRUTH

It is utterly outrageous that the Inquiry told the public that the only crime Goodman committed undercover was fly-posting and then, literally in the next sentence, referred to a much more serious criminal offence.

Investigating the often-corrupt relationships between the spycops and the courts is one of the stated purposes of this Inquiry, yet here they are deliberately burying examples of wrong-doing which the officers themselves admit.

Because Goodman wasn’t called to give evidence to the Inquiry in person, there was no way to question him about the possibility of judicial corruption.

Beyond that, we are left wondering what else has been covered up in this way, and lies there among the hundreds of pages the Inquiry bulk-publishes after it has finished discussing a given officer’s deployment.

OFFICER HN343 ‘JOHN CLINTON’

Another summary was given for HN343 ‘John Clinton’, who served in the SDS from early 1971 until late 1974, infiltrating groups including the International Socialists (IS).

Clinton considered the IS to be subversive, though he had an exceptionally broad definition of the word, writing in his witness statement:

‘I witnessed a lot of subversive activity whilst I was deployed undercover… During industrial disputes they would deploy to picket lines and stand there in solidarity.’

He reported on campaigns and issues supported by the group, such as women’s liberation, tenants’ rights and the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY

Clinton was infiltrating International Socialists in London in the summer of 1974, yet he made no mention of their involvement in the large anti-fascist demonstration on 15 June 1974 at which a protester, Kevin Gately, was killed by police.

It was the first time anyone had died on a demonstration in Britain for over 50 years. It was a huge cause célèbre for the left. Clinton didn’t mention this, nor any of the vigils for Gately and campaigning that followed among IS and the broader left.

It is a glaring omission that arouses suspicion. Given the SDS’s avid focus on such justice campaigns later on, it would be very odd indeed if their officer in IS didn’t participate, let alone fail to recall it as significant.

As with Stewart Goodman earlier, because this was an Inquiry lawyer reading out a hasty summary, nobody was able to question Clinton about any of this.

OFFICER HN345 ‘PETER FREDERICKS’

Barbara Beese on the protest for which she would be arrested as one of the Mangrove 9, Aug 9 1970

Spycop HN345, ‘Peter Fredericks‘, describes himself as being ‘of mixed heritage’. He was deployed by the SDS for about six months in 1971.

Fredericks was asked if he thought he was asked to target the Black Power movement because of his race.

‘No. I never came across anything vaguely associated with that statement,’ he replied, as if the police might have sent a white officer to infiltrate Black Power groups instead.

ANOTHER FAULTY MEMORY

Fredericks was asked if he remembered the case of the Mangrove 9:

‘Not clearly, no’.

The disbelieving scepticism of the barrister asking was clear even on the plain type of the transcript:

‘It doesn’t ring any bells at all? Let me see if I can help you.’

The Inquiry was then told how, on 9 August 1970 – a few months before Fredericks joined the SDS – there was a demonstration in Notting Hill about the police harassment of the Mangrove restaurant. As a result of that demonstration, nine black activists were arrested and prosecuted for riot.

There was a defence campaign set up, and their trial started at the Old Bailey in October 1971, while Fredericks was undercover in Black Power groups.

Fredericks said:

‘I was not involved closely with them. I would have read about it in the papers. I would have known something, perhaps.’

As with John Clinton’s failure to mention the death of Kevin Gately, this absence of memory is simply not credible. Even the barrister knew it:

‘And you don’t remember any conversations with any of your SOS colleagues, or anybody else in Special Branch, about this seminal event in the history of the Black Power Movement?’

Fredericks determinedly kept the lid on the can of worms:

‘Definitely not. Definitely not.’

In fact, the totality of Fredericks’s recollections of Black Power seemed to amount to very little at all.

‘SAMPLE THE PRODUCT’

When asked about intimate relationships between undercover officers and the people they spied on, his jaw-dropping response led to collective gasps of horror:

‘I have, if you like, a phrase in my head which helps guide me here. If you ask me to infiltrate some drug dealers, you can’t point the finger at me if I sample the product.

‘If these people are in a certain environment where it is necessary to engage a little more deeply, then shall we say, I find this acceptable, but I do worry about the consequences for the female and any children that may result from the relationship. That would be dangerous. So yes, it shouldn’t be done.’

Tom Fowler was live-tweeting from the Inquiry venue, watching on a screen. He reported:

‘Reading the words from the transcript is bad enough, but when you see it delivered with a wide grin, tongue darting in & out of the mouth, with the final “it shouldn’t be done” tacked on to the end with a complete lack of sincerity, it reveals an extreme misogyny as well as a certain sadism; a psychopathic willingness to use people for political ends, whilst enjoying it at the same time’

It serves to underline the problem of the Inquiry only providing a live transcript and thereby missing all the tone and inflection, something highlighted on the COPS blog earlier in the week.

WHAT NEXT?

The Undercover Policing Inquiry will now take a break to prepare for the next set of hearings. These will examine the Special Demonstration Squad 1973-82, and are expected to be held in March or April 2021.

Whenever they happen, COPS will be live-tweeting the hearings and producing daily reports, as well as weekly summaries like this one.

All our daily and weekly reports are linked from our Inquiry page.

<<Previous UCPI Weekly Report (9-13 Nov 2020)<<

>>Next UCPI Weekly Report (21-23 Apr 2021)>>

Tranche 1, Phase 1, Day 13

18 November 2020

Evidence from:
Officer HN348 aka ‘Sandra Davies’

The penultimate day of the Undercover Policing Inquiry’s first phase was scheduled to have two people appear.

Helen Steel, a lifelong environmental and social justice activist who was in numerous spied-upon groups and was deceived into a relationship by undercover officer John Dines, was due to deliver her opening statement. However, she was unable to do so.

The rest of the day was given over to evidence from Special Demonstration Squad officer HN348, which seemed something of an odd proposition, given that she appeared to have had about as minor a deployment as is possible for a spycop – long ago, not for long, deployed into one group that doesn’t appear to have warranted spying on even by the police’s standards.

As it turned out, this was the point; her testimony demonstrated the lack of guidance given to officers, and the seemingly total absence of any consideration of the impact of this intrusion on the lives of those targeted.

She infiltrated the Women’s Liberation Front for about two years, 1971-73, using the name ‘Sandra Davies’. A small feminist group with Maoist leanings, its meetings were attended by about 12 people, hosted at one of the member’s homes.

’Davies’ was a full-time spy on them for two years, producing no intelligence of any value, and would have stayed longer if she hadn’t been compromised by another officer. It’s the generalised, hoover-up approach to information gathering, checking on people who pose no threat.

PRIDE OR SHAME?

Davies has been granted anonymity by the Inquiry despite being assessed as having a low risk of any kind of reprisal. In her ‘impact statement’, she said that she wanted anonymity because she would be embarrassed if the group’s main activist found out the truth. She also said her reputation would be tainted if her friends found out she had been a spycop.

It’s an extraordinary display of mental gymnastics – when we question the purpose of spycops, police tell us that they’re doing vital & noble work ensuring the safety of everyone, yet when we question why they want anonymity, they say it would be humiliating to be known as one.

This feat is matched by the idea that although the spycops used the Stasi principle of gathering all information on anyone close to political activity, with the expectation that some of them might turn out to be a problem at some point in the future, this was necessary to protect us from having to live in a repressive Stasi-like State.

MAXINE PEAKE IS A SPYCOP

As the Inquiry persists with the idea that a glitchy live transcript is adequate public access – denying the feel of the witness’ evidence, causing eyestrain for viewers and excluding anyone visually impaired – Police Spies Out of Lives once again provided a read-along on their YouTube channel.

Today, guest star Maxine Peake read the words of ’Sandra Davies’.

The read-along’s popularity exceeded the Inquiry’s own ‘viewing’ figures.

There will be another read-along, of HN345‘s evidence, on Thursday 19 November, starting at 11:30.

SANDRA DAVIES WAS ALSO A SPYCOP

HN348 made a written statement to the Inquiry last October.

She recalled using the cover name ‘Sandra’, and having seen some documents listing members of the Women’s Liberation Front that name ‘Sandra Davies’, she conceded this may well have been her. The evidence – which we’ll come to a bit later – seems conclusive, yet she still wouldn’t completely confirm it was her.

It set a pattern for the afternoon, of the documents showing things, and her saying that she was unable to recall anything beyond what the documents showed.

In this report, we’ll call her Davies for ease of reading.

JOINING THE SPYCOPS

Davies was vetted before joining the police, and joined Special Branch in January 1971, having passed an exam and several interviews. She didn’t have any undercover experience before being asked to join the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), and it appears that she did this remarkably quickly – by mid-February.

She was asked if this meant there were only 3-4 weeks before she was recruited into the SDS, She said she couldn’t remember, but thought it was longer, perhaps a few months. However, her first SDS report is dated 17 February 1971.

She explained her motivations for joining Special Branch – these included her career development within the police, which she viewed as a long-term career.

RECRUITED BY HIGH-FLIER IMBERT

Until she was approached by Peter Imbert (who later became Commissioner), she had never heard of the SDS. He was the one who asked her to join, and explained that her job would be to ‘collect and disseminate information about anti-social behaviour’. She understood that intelligence was needed to prevent the police being unprepared for serious public order situations like the demonstration against the Vietnam War in March 1968.

Imbert will not be giving evidence at all, as he is one of the three Metropolitan Police Commissioners who have died since the Inquiry was announced. Between them, Imbert, David McNee, and Kenneth Newman ran the Met from 1977 to 1992. More than that, as Imbert’s recruitment of Davies to the SDS shows, they will have had a lot of relevant knowledge from the time before they became Commissioner.

It’s not enough to know what the officers did. We need to know who authorised and sanctioned these operations. The loss of testimony from those Commissioners, who were ultimately in charge of the SDS for a third of its existence, is one of the effects of the colossal delays the police have inflicted on the Inquiry process.

TRAINING? WHAT TRAINING?

Apart from being advised to keep a ‘low profile’, Davies was given very little training or guidance. She didn’t know how long she would be deployed for. She doesn’t remember any ‘home visit’ from a senior officer.

Asked why she was recruited, she said:

‘perhaps they were just looking for a woman, and in those days there weren’t that many of us! Perhaps there was nobody else.’

The SDS’ annual report of 1971 [MPS-0728971] said:

‘The arrival of a second woman officer has added considerably to the squad’s flexibility and has proved invaluable in the comparatively recent field of women’s liberation.’

The other woman was Jill Mosdell – Sandra confirmed that she knew Mosdell well and they became good friends. Mosdell was deployed into the Anti-Apartheid Movement from 1970-73.

DEPLOYMENT

She described her preparation for going undercover as taking off her wedding ring and make-up, finding a cover address (a shared house in Paddington to which she went only occasionally) and being ready to tell people she was a student at Goldsmiths if they asked (they never did).

She said that she would go to meetings and other events, then a day or two later visit one of the two SDS ‘safe houses’, where she would draft a report. This would then be discussed with her manager, amended, and sent for typing up.

She attended the safe house most days, and would talk to the other officers there, though, she claims, not in any detail about their deployments.

She didn’t have any experience of writing such reports beforehand, and was given little in the way of guidance. Her approach was to report anything she observed. According to her, the spycops were ‘building up a picture of the people who were involved in these various groups’.

PERSONAL INTRUSION

Davies was shown a report she’d made [UCPI0000026387] in August 1971, about a member of the Women’s Liberation Front (WLF) and the North London Alliance in Defence of Workers’ Rights (LADWR) travelling to Albania on holiday. The activist’s photo was attached to the report.

Asked why she’d felt that degree of personal information was necessary, she replied that it might be:

‘to do with the bookshop in North London, and the links with other extreme groups associated with that bookshop’

She said that the Women’s Liberation Front merited investigation by the spycops because ‘of the way they were expressing themselves, and their links’ to other groups of interest.

Most of her reports concern her attending regular meetings, often in people’s homes.

Was she ever given guidance about balancing people’s privacy vs what was needed for ‘effective policing’ – for example was she given guidance about entering people’s homes?

She was told that her job was to “be an observer, not a participant”, that she should avoid being an ‘agent provocateur’ but stick to recording what was said in the meetings she attended.

Her supervisor would accept her hand-written report, she said she didn’t always see the typed version; neither did she know who typed it or where it went. She claimed not to have realised that reports were routinely sent to MI5, but concedes it might have happened (most of the SDS reports that have been published for these hearings are marked as copied to MI5). She said she didn’t think much about this at the time.

SHARING SECRETS

Sandra Davies’ report, 14 Sept 1972, stamped ‘Box 500’, meaning it was copied to MI5

The Inquiry was then shown a document [UCPI0000014736] which is Special Branch’s response to a request for intelligence from ‘Box 500’ – that is to say, the Security Service, MI5.

Two weeks earlier, they had asked Special Branch to find out about a couple of WRU/ LADWR activists’ recent house move.

It appears that Davies (whose name is attached to the report) was tasked to find out where they had gone, and duly supplied the information to her bosses, to send on to the security services. Davies said, again, that she had no memory of this.

She described some of the large women’s liberation meetings that she attended, some of which involved hundreds of women, and said that there were lots of stalls, leaflets being handed out, she didn’t have to work hard to be invited to meetings.

She checked in with her managers to get approval for any meeting she attended.

EXTREMISM & SUBVERSION

Officer HN45, ‘David Robertson’ was already deployed, and he gave her a presentation about the Maoist movement, and Abhimanyu Manchanda who led the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League.

Davies said:

‘I can’t remember one word of that presentation, but it was really a group that was opposed to our form of democracy’.

Asked what she was told about ‘subversion’ and ‘extremism’, she repeated:

‘We all understood that these groups were working against our form of democracy’

There was the feeling that she meant something else. Just as previous officers have conflated national security with the convenience of the government of the day, so Davies seemed to use ‘democracy’ to mean the current political hierarchy. As Dave Smith said yesterday, capitalism and democracy are not the same thing.

The SDS was spying on numerous open, democratic organisations, including political parties whose sole function was to participate in our form of democracy. Her close colleague Jill Mosdell was infiltrating the Anti-Apartheid Movement, whose sole objective was to bring democracy to South Africa.

Sandra said that her purpose was to see if the Women’s Liberation Front would ‘take direct action or whether it was just words’.

Asked if direct action was a problem, she said that in our country:

‘we’re entitled to our opinions and we can say what we like, well no, we can’t say exactly what we like but we’ve got Speakers Corner…. people can say what they like as long as they don’t go too far’

She seemed unaware that every regime on earth would describe their system in that way. Davies had a glaring absence of any questioning of the inherent rightness of the morals and intentions of the police and State.

DON’T DO CRIME

The next document was a Home Office circular about informants taking part in crime. Sandra does not recall seeing this before, but felt she understood the principles. She was very clear that she did not get involved in any criminal activities.

‘You’re there to uphold the law not break it… regardless of what role you’re playing’

According to her the police do use informants that are involved in criminality, but police officers shouldn’t get involved in criminality.

Were there rules about forming close relationships with activists?

Davies said she was told to ‘listen, learn and report back’, the spycops were not to get close to their targets. She was confident that officers in her day did not have sexual relationships with the people they spied on:

‘It didn’t need to be discussed specifically, it was something that didn’t happen’

Davies said she hadn’t heard about spycops deceiving people into relationships until she was contacted about this Inquiry, about three years ago. She hadn’t been to any SDS reunions over the years, so hadn’t heard stories from anyone else. She watched a documentary, ‘found it quite shocking’ and didn’t know what to believe.

MANAGEMENT

She described the SDS as being run by two Superintendents, a Chief Inspector, and two Sergeants.

Davies mainly reported to Phil Saunders and, to a lesser extent, HN294. They would have a direct debrief at the safe house.

She wasn’t provided with any back-up or support, she was sent out alone. She actually created her own security arrangements (with her husband) for travelling home late at night.

WOMEN’S LIBERATION

In her written statement, Davies said:

‘Women’s liberation was viewed as a worrying trend at the time.’

It seems clear that this is why she was recruited. Asked who exactly was worried by women’s liberation, she could only vaguely offer ‘all sorts of people’. She hurried to clarify that this didn’t mean those people were worried about the entire movement, just ‘factions within it’.

Counsel to the Inquiry then led her through a set of questions that exposed the hypocrisy and absurdity of Davies’ deployment in the Women’s Liberation Front.

She confirmed that, as a uniformed constable, she’d had the same powers and responsibilities as her male colleagues. However, women officers got 90% of the men’s wage at that time.

She was reminded of an violent confrontation in which she’d helped rescue injured officers and come back covered in blood. She was given no support or aftercare following the incident, beyond being told ‘you joined a man’s job so get on with it’.

According to her statement, the WLF mainly campaigned for equal pay, free contraception, and free nurseries. These are things that seem not just reasonable, but far more in keeping with a fair and just society than the practices of the police who employed her.

The policies and campaigning methods weren’t subversive by any real measure, so why was she sent to infiltrate the women’s movement, and specifically the Women’s Liberation Front?

Davies said it was because the WLF had links with ‘more extreme groups’. Asked if she was told the names of these groups that were supposed to be her true target, she once again became vague, referring to ‘a lot of unrest’ at the time. She mentioned the Angry Brigade, and added that the ‘Irish situation was very volatile’.

Davies’ own statement says the activists she spied on were not breaking any laws, just hosting meetings, leafleting and demonstrating – ‘all within the bounds of the law’ – and that she did not witness or participate in any public disorder during her entire deployment. So what was the point?

‘I was tasked to observe them because Special Branch did not know much about them’

IRISH CONNECTIONS

The Inquiry was shown a report [UCPI0000026992] of a WLF study group on 11 March 1971, comprising of seven people meeting in someone’s home.

Davies reported that one woman present praised the recent actions of the IRA, which she described as ‘a good way to start a revolution’. She’d put the words in quote marks.

We should note that, at this time, the IRA was only attacking British military targets in Northern Ireland. It is extraordinary that this comment on current affairs, made in a private home with no intent for action of any kind, was deemed worthy of reporting and filing by Britain’s political secret police. So much for ‘you are free to express your opinions’.

There seemed to be little else in the way of Davies reporting on the Irish situation she’d suggested as one of her true targets.

CHINESE CONNECTIONS

The next report [UCPI0000026996] was of another meeting of the study group, on 15 April, with 11 people present this time. Davies reported ‘general discussion’ of a ‘The East is Red’ – which she described as a ‘Chinese Revolutionary film’ – which was due to be shown twice that weekend.

Then came a report [UCPI0000026997] on a meeting of the Friends of China, that took place on 27 April. It was held in another private house, the home of Diane Langford, Besides Langford, her partner Abhimanyu Manchanda (a prominent Maoist), and Davies, there were only five other people present. Once again, Davies told the Inquiry that she had no memory of this meeting, but accepts that this report was hers.

According to the report, the Friends of China’s first matter of business was discussing the WLF’s magazine. Someone [their name is redacted] criticised the effort and resources put into it, before two members agreed to each take away 50 copies to sell.

There was more discussion of ‘The East Is Red’, which had been screened again, at the Cameo Poly Theatre in Regent Street. One person said it had shown too much violence, but another replied that there hadn’t been enough. A completely legal discussion about a legal film screened in a public venue.

The next document [UCPI0000027026] was a report of a WLF meeting, dated 8 December 1971. The speaker at the meeting had just returned from a trip to China and was ‘was clearly very impressed by the Chinese system’. This developed into a group discussion about all aspects of everyday life in China, including the use of acupuncture.

The speaker showed photos of life in China and is reported as saying Britain was ‘in desperate need of change,and that the Chinese methods would work here’; in his opinion ‘violent revolution’ was the means of achieving this change.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN’S UNION

The Women’s Liberation Front held their AGM on 6 February 1972. They agreed to adopt a new constitution (that meant only women could be members) and new aims. There was also a proposal to change the organisation’s name to the Revolutionary Women’s League, but this was left for another meeting

Its new list of aims said it sought:

• ‘To organise women in general, working class women in particular, to fight for the elimination of all exploitation and oppression and for a socialist society.
• ‘To expose the oppression suffered by women and to relate this to capitalist society and to oppose those who confuse the effects of women’s oppression for the real cause, ie the private ownership of the means of production.’

This is entirely lawful, and not anti-democratic unless, like the spycops, you think democracy and capitalism are the same thing.

The group wanted to achieve these things as a path towards things that sound largely moderate and desirable to modern ears:

• ‘To demand equal opportunities in employment and education.
• ‘To fight for equal pay for work of equal value.
• ‘In order that women have real opportunities to take part in social production, we demand that crèches and nurseries are installed at the place of work, education and in the community, wherever there is a need.
• ‘All women should have the right to have children or not. In order to make this right effective, alongside child-care facilities, adequate contraceptive and abortion information and facilities should be made available free on the NHS.
• ‘To demand maternity leave for a definite period with no loss of pay, in the pre-natal and post-natal periods, and the right to return to the same job, guaranteed by law.
• ‘To fight against all discrimination and injustice suffered by women in all realms of society, in laws as regards marriage and divorce, in the superstructure; customs and culture.
• ‘To fight against the discrimination suffered by unmarried mothers and their children.
• ‘To wage a consistent struggle against male chauvinism and to strive to educate and encourage men to participate in all our activities.
• ‘To take our full part in the struggles against the growing attacks on our standard of living and our democratic rights and against the growing racism and fascist policies of the ruling class.
• ‘To mobilise women to support the anti-imperialist struggles of all oppressed peoples for the realisation of our common aim, the ending of the system of exploitation and oppression.’

ANGRY BRIGADE

Having cited the Angry Brigade as one of her true targets, she was asked about her reporting on them.

The Angry Brigade, a left wing group responsible for around 25 bombings in the early 1970s (the term should be qualified with the fact that they were relatively small devices and, between them, caused slight injury to one person).

Davies had reported [UCPI0000008274] attending a women’s liberation conference in 1972. She wrote that one woman associated with the Angry Brigade gave out copies of their ‘Conspiracy Notes’. The ‘Stoke Newington 8’ – a group of people facing serious charges connected with the Angry Brigade – were reaching out to other radical groups at the time for support.

The meeting was reported as chaotic, with calls for better structure to the discussion being heckled by Gay Liberation Front activists.

That appears to be the extent of her reporting on the Angry Brigade.

BLACK POWER CONNECTIONS

One of Davies’ reports [UCPI0000027028] was about a WLF weekly meeting that took place on 18 November 1971 – again in someone’s home – where 15 people attended.

There was a talk by Leila Hassan from the Black Unity and Freedom Party (BUFP)

Asked if Special Branch had asked her to pay special attention to this group, Davies said ‘not to my knowledge, no’.

Was she aware of the trial of the ‘Mangrove Nine’, a group being prosecuted following an incident in the Mangrove restaurant, a venue that had been raided by (racist) police officers many times?

Davies claimed to know absolutely nothing about this case, and nothing of Leila Hassan’s connection with them.

All in all, it seems Davies had done basically nothing about her supposed true target groups, only mentioning them in passing when they came into the orbit of the WLF.

SO WHAT DID SHE ACTUALLY DO?

The reports Davies made show a pattern of weekly WLF meetings held in the evenings at people’s private homes. They were mostly study groups, reading political texts and discussing them. One example [UCPI0000026990] describes reading ‘Lenin Conversation with Clara Zetkin’ which deals with women’s emancipation in 1920.

Asked how she avoided revealing anything personal about herself, Davies said it was easy because she was never asked. Others liked to talk a lot, and liked to be listened to. Yet she also said that she doesn’t remember those soliloquies mentioning any personal details about any of the people in the group.

She was asked if she ever felt uncomfortable spending time with those women every week, knowing that they didn’t knowing her true identity and role:

‘I was doing a job at the time, so I wasn’t – I don’t think I considered that, no. I was just doing my job.’

SUBVERSIVE BAKED GOODS

According to one of Davies’ reports [UCPI0000010932], the Black Unity and Freedom Party was planning a children’s Christmas party in 1971, and they asked the WLF to contribute home-made sweets and cakes.

Asked why the intention to bake was worthy of reporting by police charged with preventing disorder, Davies seemed to suggest it was a ruse to spring some indoctrination on the kids:

‘They were involving themselves with children and the sweets and cakes were an addition. They wanted to get their philosophy across to as many groups as they could. That was their aim’

Another of Davies’ reports [UCPI0000010907] mentions a jumble sale being organised by the WLF. Again, she defended this because:

‘they would have used it as another opportunity for advertising their aims’

Both of these reports were copied to MI5.

At this point, the fact that Davies herself admits the WLF’s aims didn’t warrant intrusion by undercover police is largely obscured by the absurdity of her claim that a jumble sale was a recruiting ground for radical political activist.

IDLE GOSSIP

Davies reported [UCPI0000010931] a letter which criticised an un-named activist for having an affair, and mentioned the termination of the employment of an un-named person (who may or may not be the same person – we can’t tell because of the name’s redacted) at Banner Books.

Why was it necessary to report this personal gossip?

Davies, yet again, didn’t remember, but accepted she had written the report.

Then how would it have helped effective policing of public order situations?

‘It just shows how the group was functioning… giving people an insight into what was happening at the time.’

She said that it wasn’t felt irrelevant by her managers, as it wouldn’t have got as far being typed-up if that were the case.

DIRECT INFLUENCE

Some of Davies’s reports are on meetings of the WLF Executive Committee. This was a group of six people, and the only way she could have been in those meetings is if she was a member. That required holding office in the group and thereby influencing its direction, something that SDS founder Conrad Dixon had specifically forbidden.

Women’s Liberation Front AGM minutes 1972, showing spycop ‘Sandra Davies’ elected as treasurer

The documents show that somebody called Sandra Davies was elected treasurer of the WLF (the same post that ‘Doug Edwards’ took in the Tower Hamlets branch of the Independent Labour Party).

Despite allegedly having no memory at all being on this Executive Committee, or attending any of these meetings, she was remarkably adamant that she didn’t influence the direction or policies of the group in any way.

The Inquiry returned to Davies’ report of the WLF Executive Committee meeting of February 1972 [UCPI0000010906] again.

This meeting appears to mark a change of leadership and a change of direction for the group.

This was when the idea of changing the group’s name to the Revolutionary Women’s Union (RWU) was first formally proposed, and eventually agreed. As part of such a tiny group, how much influence did Davies have? Was she responsible for its adopting a more radical, ‘Revolutionary’ name?

A month later, Davies reported [UCPI0000010911] on an emergency meeting of the RWU’s Executive Committee.

This time, the Committee decided to suspend three members from the wider group for ‘disruptive behaviour’. They agreed to serve them the three with written notices of suspension, and spend three weeks compiling a dossier with details of their ‘disruptive tactics’. These would then be circulated to all members.

Despite this prolonged, controversial and divisive work being agreed and carried out by the small group, Davies says she remembers none of it.

Did she remember that this internal division then led to reduced enthusiasm and drive within the group?

‘I can’t comment on that. I have no idea’.

Six weeks later, on 4 May 1972, Davies attended another Women’s Revolutionary Union meeting at a member’s home.

According to her report [UCPI0000010913], it opened with comments about a general lack of enthusiasm within the group, older members dropping out and not being replaced by new ones. This appears to be a direct consequence of the suspensions Davies had a hand in. One of those present was convinced that her phone was tapped, and warned/ reminded the others not to discuss their WRU activities over the phone.

END OF DEPLOYMENT

Davies’ deployment was terminated in February 1973. There had been ‘an incident’ involving another officer, HN45, ‘David Robertson, with a risk of his cover being blown. As a result, he, Jill Mosdell and Davies were all withdrawn from the field at the same time.

Despite serving in the Met’s elite subversion, demonstration and disorder unit for two years, Davies said in her witness statement:

‘I did not witness or participate in any public disorder whilst serving with the SDS. I do not even recall going on any marches or demonstrations. I did not witness nor was I involved in any violence.’

Looking back, she continued:

‘I do not think my work really yielded any good intelligence, but I eliminated the Women’s Liberation Front from public order concerns’

That is a mitigation that could be applied to thought-crime spying on literally anyone. More to the point, it was a fact that must have been obvious very early on in her deployment. And yet, she was still there, spying full-time on that group, two years later.

There was no suggestion that her managers gave much thought to whether what she was doing was worthwhile. As with other deployments, it seems that once they had their spycops in place, keeping them there was more important to the police than the information they gathered.

The rights of the people being spied on – who had police officers in their lives and homes week after week – didn’t get a look-in.

Had it not been for the incident with HN45, she probably would have stayed on even longer, as there was ‘no indication’ that her managers wanted to withdraw her. Nor is there any indication she would have left:

‘I was submitting my reports and was guided by superior officers’

Davies told the Inquiry that she stood by what she wrote in her statement:

‘In hindsight, I would not have joined the SDS as I was putting myself too much at risk and there were more worthwhile things I could have been doing… I question whether police officers should be undercover at all’

And that remains her view now, 50 years after being deployed herself.

Here ended the Counsel to the Inquiry’s questioning.

ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?

After this, Ruth Brander, representing non-state core participants at the Inquiry (ie people who were spied on), was permitted to revisit three of the topics raised.

First, Brander asked about the SDS officers meeting at the safe house. Davies had said they much of the day was spent waiting around, yet did not discuss much detail of the deployments that they were all immersed in. What did they talk about?

Davies said the spycops would write their draft reports, and wait for their turn to have one-to-one talks with the managers. She said the atmosphere was good and – despite the common values of the times and them being outnumbered by men – the women officers were not subjected to any sexist behaviour.

So, Brander asked, if they didn’t talk about the people they spied on, what were the topics of conversation?

Davies said it was general chat, probably ‘holidays and houses and families’.

Moving on, Brander asked if, although she said she wasn’t aware of any sexual relationships between spycops and people they targeted, there were other emotional involvements, such as going out for dinner or drinks. Davies insisted not.

SPYING ON CHILDREN

Finally, Brander asked about Davies’s report [UCPI0000010928] on a school strike organised by the Schools Action Union in May 1972.

Several North London schools had taken part in the strike with a list of demands that, rather like the Women’s Liberation Front’s calls for an end to gender inequality, appear moderate:

• Teacher-pupil committees to run the schools
• No school uniforms
• No corporal punishment
• Free school meals and milk
• Freedom to leave school during the lunch break

Davies said that she hadn’t been involved in it, she would just have picked up details from what people said.

Brander asked if she’d given any consideration to the appropriateness of reporting on school children.

‘I wasn’t reporting on children,’ Davies protested.

‘Well, the report here is about action taken by children, isn’t it?’ Brander pressed her.

Davies, her memory apparently intact now, replied:

‘I don’t know anything about the Schools Action Union, I wasn’t involved in any of that.’

Brander’s eyebrow could be heard raising, even through the silent transcription. She pointed out that it’s quite a lengthy report – running to 13 separate numbered paragraphs of intelligence – with a lot of detail. It named several of the children who’d been arrested.

The fact that the typed report exists means that, as with the others, it was discussed and approved by the spycops’ managers.

The accompanying written witness statement from HN348.

COPS will be live-tweeting all the Inquiry hearings, and producing daily reports like this one for the blog. They will be indexed on our UCPI Public Inquiry page.

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