Support group for legal action against undercover policing
TRANCHE 2 PHASE 1: ROUND UP – WEEK 5
CONTEXT
This summary covers the fifth week of Tranche 2 hearings of the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI), which continues to examine the activities of the Metropolitan Police’s secret political unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, from 1983-92. It was the final week of ‘Tranche 2 Phase 1’. Phase 2 hearings will begin in October, covering the officers from the same period, 1983-92, who were significantly involved in animal rights campaigns.
The final week of Tranche 2 Phase 1 hearings dealt with the deployment of officer HN78 Trevor Morris, who used the stolen identity of Anthony Lewis, a child who died, as well as his own alias, ‘Bobby McGee’.
On the Monday 29 July we heard the powerful testimony of two women, referred to as ‘Bea’ and ‘Jenny’ for privacy reasons, who Morris had deceived into intimate relationships. The proceedings were audio-only, with voice modulation for the afternoon session to protect the witnesses’ identities.
There was one day break and then Wednesday started with a summary of evidence provided by the family of Anthony Lewis, who died as a child and whose identity was stolen by HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’.
Morris then began giving live evidence on Wednesday, and continued into Thursday and Friday.
OBSERVATIONS
The courage of ‘Bea’ and ‘Jenny’ in coming forward and sharing their experiences was deeply moving. The use of a voice modulator to disguise ‘Jenny’s voice made the evidence it challenging to follow at times, but the emotional impact of her words remained clear. Both testimonies highlighted the long-lasting trauma inflicted by the abuses of these undercover operations. This was underscored further by the experience of the Lewis family.
Coming after these accounts, Trevor Morris’s own evidence was shocking, revealing just how disgusting he really was. He was given two and a half days to dig his own grave, and his narcissism revealed itself in every answer as he strived to justify everything the basis of being special, protecting national security, and performing a dangerous job that deprived him of his family.
Morris claimed he felt ashamed of the ‘strong friendships’ he made while undercover, but still insisted it was necessary. He portrayed himself as the real victim again and again. Complaining that the Inquiry existed at all, he spent time lamenting that he had been promised this day would never come and ‘no one will ever know who you are’.
He peppered his evidence with oblique references to the Security Service and ‘red areas’ which were subject matters he had apparently been told not to mention, but repeatedly did.
The video feed (run by the Inquiry with a ten-minute delay so they can cut any inappropriate revelations) was disrupted over and over again to deal with his breaches. So much so, that only 20 minutes of the afternoon of the final day was actually broadcast, and the transcripts contain ten redactions.It is worth noting that Morris seemed obsessed with SWP officials Julie Waterson and Chris Bambery, claiming to know them well and to have been privy to their conversations. It’s therefore odd that the Inquiry hasn’t thought to call Chris Bambery to give evidence.
Bea told us of her lifelong commitment to activism, reflecting that ‘if you are not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.’ She said:
‘I am proud of the fact that I have played my small part in trying to make a more just society, a more fair and equal one, and been involved in many campaigns that I think are absolutely relevant and important and wanted to make the world a better, fairer place.’
Bea explained she had always been a protester but at that time probably less than at other times because her children were still small. When asked to say how much time she dedicated to activism she said, ‘maybe 10 per cent. I have a life as well.’
Bea explained her personal circumstances:
‘I had just separated from my ex-husband six months previously. I moved to Hackney, didn’t really know anybody there… So I had just become a single mother… I was like completely consumed, really, with bringing up my children on a very small income.’
Joining the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)
In March 1992, Bea joined the SWP, shortly after starting part-time work in their print shop. She was at a vulnerable point in her life, and described joining the SWP as finding her tribe:
‘I had found a group of people who felt the same way that I did and were actually getting things done.’
The SWP provided both political and social support:
‘I felt like I was part of the community. It was wonderful, really. So it gave you emotional support as well as giving you an outlet for campaigning and wanting to make the world a better place.’
She did a remarkable job promoting the SWP, claiming:
‘It changed my life in many ways, because I felt I was able to be an active member of society again and be able to be active in campaigning and in generally trying to promote social justice.’
Bea clarified the SWP’s approach to social change as a belief that ‘change comes from below and is not imposed from above.’
She also addressed the concepts of revolution and democracy:
‘socialism from below is absolutely democratic. More democratic than our current parliamentary system can be particularly without proportional representation.’
Regarding the SWP’s goals, Bea explained:
‘obviously it was a revolutionary party, but I am not sure how many of us actually believed that we were on the brink of revolution.’
She strongly refuted claims of violent intentions emphasizing the SWP’s focus on community engagement:
‘if the news that the nursery was going to be closed locally, we were very quickly able to organise people to campaign for that.’
Relationship with HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’
Bea recounted meeting Morris at her first SWP meeting:
‘it was probably afterwards we all went down to the bar where the meeting was, and everyone was talking to everyone. I think we struck up a bit of a bond quite quickly.’
She described her state at the time:
‘I was in probably the most vulnerable point of my life. I had left a relationship, a marriage… where there had been domestic violence ultimately just six months before.’
Bea detailed the development of the relationship:
‘He seemed very keen. But he didn’t jump on top of me, I mean I didn’t jump on top of him either. You know, it was a talking, sort of friendly sort of relationship to start with and, you know, entirely consensual.’
The relationship progressed quickly. For the first few months he spent three or four nights a week at her flat. She said Morris didn’t really interact with her children, ‘I don’t remember sort of doing family things with him.’
She said he’d mostly come around in the evening and leave in the morning. He told her his marriage had failed due to infidelity with his wife’s sister, implying it was a traumatic experience. This was a fabrication and reiterates an established pattern of undercover officers inventing disturbing backstories and leveraging them to elicit sympathy, create emotional closeness and avoid difficult questions.
Bea also explained that he did disappear one time, a few months into the relationship:
‘We were supposed to spend the weekend together, and in those days there was no mobile phones or anything, just a pager.’
This disappearance led Bea to question who Morris really was, though she didn’t suspect he was an undercover officer at that point.
The relationship changed over time.
‘He told me that the relationship was over. Because of a sexual indiscretion of his which I won’t repeat… We kind of split up and then just drifted back together again, but in a more casual way.’
Eventually, in the summer of 1993 she met another comrade in the Socialist Workers Party and started a relationship with him, and stopped seeing Trevor Morris.
Regarding Morris’s lying to her about his relationship status, Bea was unequivocal:
‘I would not have got into a relationship with a married man.’
Morris’s Infiltrations and the Welling Protest
Regarding Morris’s political engagement, Bea noted:
‘He was quite naive in some ways… he wasn’t sort of well read about, he didn’t really have a great understanding of the left. But he was very interested in the day to day things, you know, the campaigns, the demonstrations, the Anti Nazi League particularly because he put a lot of his time into the Anti Nazi League.’
Bea’s testimony also revealed a pattern of self-aggrandisement among undercover officers with Morris exaggerating his role and importance within the organization and claiming to be closer to decision-makers in the SWP than he actually was. This aligns with similar behaviour observed in other undercover officers.
Bea pointed out:
‘He never did the kind of things that the leaders would do, like write books and, you know, lead meetings, do meetings at Marxism [conferences]. He had no sort of particular intellectual or political experience.’
Bea described Morris as often dressing in a stereotypical leftist manner, like a parody. He had a pager, which was unusual at the time, and was secretive about his past. Bea also noted a peculiar detail about Morris’s behaviour at demonstrations, noting that the only person she ever knew who went to demonstrations with a weapon was Morris, who carried a sharp umbrella.
‘the junction was cut off by a row of sort of heavily armed riot squad sort of police officers, and police horses… suddenly there was sort of fear and pandemonium, and Julie Waterson, who had a megaphone, was asking people to sit down… I just remember running… climbing a wall and jumping in the cemetery and just being immensely relieved because it was terrifying.’
This account underscores the intensity of the situation and the over-policing that Bea attributes to Morris’s exaggerated reports:
I do hold him responsible…. he seems proud of doing this, of being responsible for this.’
Morris’s Exit and Discovering His True Identity
Following the standardised approach used by the Special Demonstration Squad by the mid-1990s, Morris sent Bea a letter with a foreign postmark.
‘I was then really surprised to get a letter from him sent from Egypt in 1995, saying that he had gone to Egypt… in retrospect it was bizarre, because he said he was sort of working in the bazaars in Egypt and that he wanted to save some money and travel round Africa.’
Bea didn’t believe at first that Morris was an undercover cop when a friend showed her photos on Facebook. The Inquiry contacted her in 2019, which left her shocked, shamed, and paranoid. The revelation deeply affected her:
‘I felt stupid that I hadn’t realised, even when there were all these pointers… I feel that there was trespass in my house. There was trespass into my family. My privacy, my right to privacy was completely overridden. I believe that the intimacy between us was un-consensual on the grounds that the person that I was with was not the person who I believed them to be.
‘I was horribly used and it was just so wrong in many, every way. In every way. It was indefensible.’
She elaborated on her feelings of betrayal
‘I felt shame because I had inadvertently provided cover for somebody who might have got friends of mine into trouble, who might have told lies about us, about me, about my friends. I didn’t want people to know. I felt it made me into a suspect myself.’
‘I felt maybe my phone was tapped. Any sort of suspicion that somebody may have been inauthentic made me wonder who they were, or wonder if they were working for the police.’
The concerns extended to her family, ‘we were all worried about being followed, or people knowing where we were.’
The revelation had a profound effect on her children as well:
‘It was radicalising for them… they know now from a much earlier age that that’s how, you know, that this shit happens.’
Although she initially felt more angry with the British state than with HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’ himself, Bea explained that
‘my anger for Bobby has grown since then… my initial reaction was oh my god, his wife, what must she have gone through, what must she still be going through. And his own children and him…
‘and I re-read the statement and understood the part that he had played in the social justice campaigns in Welling, particularly in Welling because he has stated exactly what he told his minders about Welling and I was there and I know what happened. That he has been brainwashed in a way to believe that his allegiance is to the establishment and the state, and the status quo as opposed to his class and his community and his family.’
The impact of discovering Morris’s true identity was so profound that Bea ultimately decided to move abroad. She explained:
‘If the state will go to the extent of sanctioning infiltration at this level of decent people trying to make society better, whilst ignoring organisations on the far right where real hatred and real danger lies, then how, how corrupt is that society?’
Live: Testimony of ‘Jenny’
Jenny described the political climate that drove her activism:
‘the mid to late 80s were very, very difficult times. We had Margaret Thatcher in power. We had what felt like a steady roll back of the rights that we had… nuclear war was the big fear at the time. Apartheid was a terrible catastrophe that many of us felt really passionately about.’
Between 1984 and 1987, Jenny was involved in a number of different campaign groups.
‘I never felt one thing was more important than anything else, I felt equally strongly about feminism and social justice and ending oppression of people at work and defending trade union rights and being opposed to racism.’
Socialist Worker’s Party Aims and Methods
Jenny disputed Morris’s claims that the SWP had violent intentions and emphasised the focus on mass mobilisation:
‘it was about mobilising as many people as possible to deliver change by strength of opinion and strength of numbers… It wasn’t a single issue movement. It was very broad based and it sought to build a mass movement to tackle all of these issues and many more. And to work towards a more just society.’
Jenny also addressed the issue of a potentially violent revolution:
‘There might be some need to engage very directly when vested interests defend their vested interests. But in practical terms, yes, that was a long, long, long way off.’
Relationship with HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’
Jenny vividly recalled her first encounter with Morris, describing him as ‘straight from central casting’:
‘The door of the kitchen burst open and this figure came in like a cannonball… He had a black beret, he had the biggest beard ever.’
She also noted the red stars pinned to his beret.
‘Having not seen him before, after that night he was suddenly everywhere. So on every demonstration I went to he was, every social and fundraiser there he was. Sometimes he was there as a DJ. Sometimes he would just make a beeline for me and my friends.’
She described him as larger-than-life, funny, and well-liked, which made it particularly difficult for people to suspect him of being an undercover officer. ‘I would never have guessed it was Bobby Lewis in a million years.’
She did however find it unusual that Morris didn’t engage in theoretical political discussions. She also noted:
‘He was really good at observing… It felt like he was really good in reading the mood of the march whereas the rest of us would be more interested in talking to our friends or waving a placard or shouting whatever people around us was shouting, and he was constantly looking back, seemed to be observing the crowd.’
Jenny recounted a specific incident that stood out when Morris started throwing the eggs at British National Party members and hit a police officer in the process before running off.
Morris stood out because he had a car, which was unusual at the time for a member of the SWP. He was also the first person she knew who had a pager. She observed his efforts to get close to SWP leadership:
‘Trevor Morris would brag about how he got close to the leader of the SWP Tony Cliff by giving him lifts after meetings.’
The Sexual Encounter and Its Context
Jenny recounted that in July 1995, after a period of being less involved in activism, she had impulsively visited a bar in central London after the annual Socialist Workers Party conference. Morris was there and greeted her enthusiastically.
While having drinks together (Jenny drank while Morris did not, he was mostly teetotal), Morris told her that he was trying to reunite with his wife and planned to move to Spain for a fresh start (which differed from what he told others about going to Egypt or Germany).
When they left the pub, Morris offered Jenny a lift, and during the journey, he suggested they go back to his bedsit for a cup of tea and to continue their conversation. Jenny agreed, partly because Morris said this would be the last time they’d see each other.
At his bedsit, Jenny noticed a lack of personal belongings, with only a tube of Ponds Cocoa Butter visible. They talked for a long time on the sofa, with Morris gradually moving closer to Jenny and becoming flirtatious. He initiated a kiss, which Jenny reciprocated, and they ended up sleeping together.
In the morning, Jenny gave Morris a gift of a book called ‘My Traitor’s Heart’. They parted on good terms, with Jenny wishing him well and giving him a hug before they went their separate ways. This was their only sexual encounter, and Jenny had no further contact with Morris after this meeting.
Jenny emphasised that she would never have consented to sleep with Morris if she had known he was an undercover police officer. She described the encounter as manipulative, given that Morris used his fake identity and impending departure to create a situation where they slept together.
Coming as it did, at the very end of his deployment, this sexual encounter could have no possible operational value, and appears to have been an entirely gratuitous abuse of Morris’ position for his own gratification.
Discovering Morris’s True Identity
Jenny discovered Morris’s true identity through a Facebook post shared by a friend, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The timing left her feeling particularly isolated as she grappled with this revelation.
She described the experience:
‘I was lazily scrolling through on an afternoon and it hit me between the eyes like a freight train.’
The revelation profoundly impacted Jenny:
‘Something I was very certain about was no longer true… I now question everybody I know. I think about people’s motivations, I wonder who they really are.’
She described her physical reactions:
‘I was walking through the middle of my town and there was a police helicopter nearby and on a rational level I know that this is really stupid but on a really basic level of fear and panic.’
She talked of her longer term struggle:
‘I feel massive amounts of paranoia, shame, guilt. It’s not something that I like to talk about at all. I am really grateful that I got to meet the other women and the other core participants who understand from the inside how this is.’
Jenny elaborated on the ongoing destabilising effects:
‘I have a shortlist in my head of probably four people from my past who I wonder were undercover officers. And because I have had no disclosure I guess I am going to wonder to the end of my days about who was and who wasn’t who they said they were.’
Reflections on Abuses by Undercover Police Units
Jenny powerfully characterised the officers’ actions:
‘I think sex without consent is rape. I did not consent to sleep with officer HN78. I did not consent to sleep with Trevor Morris. He used his fake identity to manipulate me and at least one other woman into sleeping with him, where none of us would have slept with him. And he’s lied and he’s fudged and he’s not giving straight answers and I don’t feel he’s being held to account.
‘But beyond him is a police structure and powers of authorisation and the Metropolitan Police and this didn’t just happen to me, this didn’t just happen to ‘Bea’, this has happened to 60 women.
She also expressed her feelings about Morris’s actions:
‘I feel dirty and disgusting and used. And what I feel on a larger level is that he slept with me because he could. Because he was working for a body of the state that had no checks and no balances in place to stop this behaviour.’
Jenny expressed feeling sorry not only for herself and other deceived women but also for Morris’s wife and children, highlighting the wide-reaching impact of these undercover operations.
She also stressed the wider responsibility of the authorities:
‘beyond him is a police structure and powers of authorisation and the Metropolitan Police, and this didn’t just happen to me… this has happened to sixty women at least!’
Jenny pointed out significant contradictions between Morris’s statements to Operation Herne and his later statement after she came forward. These inconsistencies further undermine Morris’s credibility and suggest he was more concerned about being caught than genuinely remorseful for his actions.
She also notes that Morris claimed, in his written statement, that he couldn’t remember her name, leading her to wonder how many similar encounters he had during his deployment.
‘I think there was a whole culture either don’t ask don’t tell, or these men were egging each other on and bragging about their exploits and I think all of us would really love to know which.’
She also called for accountability:‘I don’t want any woman to go through this again. It has to stop.’
Morning Session: Summary of Evidence of the Lewis Family
Marbel Lewis, the sister of the deceased child Anthony Lewis, provided a powerful witness statement, endorsed by another surviving sister, Judy Lewis, also a core participant.
The statement, read aloud by a lawyer, described how their parents and another sister found it too painful to engage with the Inquiry, and that they hoped their participation would lead to some answers and accountability for the wider family.
Marbel told us that Anthony was the first child of Hyacinth and Clinton Lewis, a happy boy with sickle cell anaemia. Despite his illness, he aspired to be a doctor but died at seven from complications on 31 July 1968. His death deeply affected the family and continues to impact Marbel, a nurse who finds it distressing to care for sick children.
In June 2019, Marbel’s sister was informed that HN78 Trevor Morris used Anthony’s name and birthdate during his deployment from 1991 to 1995.
Anthony’s family believes race played a role in selecting his identity for use by a Black SDS officer infiltrating anti-racist groups. They wonder if Morris researched their family background as he reportedly claimed that his family also originated from Jamaica.
She spoke of racism within the Special Demonstration Squad, and racist officers protecting racist groups, questioning how a Black officer could spy on anti-racist groups while protecting racist ones.
The family believe the infiltration undermined efforts to combat racism, shattering the family’s trust in public institutions, including the police, and made her family, as Black individuals, feel less secure.
Live: HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’
HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’ is the only Black Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer in this tranche (covering 1983-1992).
He began giving live evidence on Wednesday 31 July, describing his background in C Squad before joining the SDS, claiming he wasn’t initially aware of the unit or ‘the Hairies’ as they were known. He believed he would have previously received SDS intelligence without knowing where it came from.
‘I knew it was from a secret and delicate source, which meant potentially an agent.’
He was approached to join the SDS while on E Squad and had an induction meeting with his wife and two officers, HN67 ‘Alan Bond’ and HN86 (cover named not published). He denied there was any mention of sexual issues during discussions about pretending to be single in mixed company. His wife initially opposed his role, saying it would take ‘an inordinate amount of time.’
Safe House Training and Guidance
At the safe house before deployment, Morris felt underprepared despite discussing fieldcraft with other undercover officers:
‘Not because of the role of the organisation in preparing you, but because you cannot prepare for the task.’
He said sexual advances or activities were not discussed. When questioned about adhering to the police code of discipline while undercover, Morris said,
‘I don’t think that was ever broached,’ and he implied that he thought different rules might apply to ‘a Special Branch intelligence only operation.]
Morris wanted to use his DJ name, Bobby McGee, but was instructed to adopt a deceased child’s identity, Anthony Fitzgerald Lewis, instead:
‘I think they probably said something like you need to use the Jackal system.’
When the SDS was founded in 19868 officers chose their own cover names but in the early 1970s, soon after the book and film The Day of the Jackal included the theft of dead children’s identities, SDS officers started to do the same. They rereferred to the process of finding an identity this way as ‘the Jackal run’.
Perhaps predictably, several years later this led to an officer (HN297 Richard Clark ‘Rick Gibson’) being confronted with ‘his’ death certificate by suspicious comrades. Despite this, SDS offiers continued doing it for another 20 years or so until the online era made it too easy for others to check an identity.
The last known instance was in 1999. HN596/EN32 ‘Rod Richardson’, one of the first offiers in the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, was trained by old school SDS officer HN2 Andy Coles who hadn’t realised identity theft was obsolete.
When HN78 Trevor Morris was asked about concerns over stealing identities, he replied
‘it wasn’t perceived as wrong, and every other agency utilised that same system.’
Asked if he chose this identity because Anthony was likely Black (based on his cause of death involving sickle cell anaemia), Morris claimed he couldn’t remember. He said
‘I didn’t require that. I wanted the identity that I had, that I was comfortable with.’
He said he did not research Anthony’s family and also denied claiming Jamaican heritage, suggesting that he probably told people he was from the Windward Islands. The Lewis family, who found his use of their son’s identity morally repugnant, pointed out contradictions in claims, which Morris shrugged off with a comment about his bad memory.
Targeting and Tasking
Morris’s early reports covered an array of left-wing and anti-fascist groups in Hackney and Stoke Newington. He explained ‘the net is cast very wide’ and his targeting was ‘ad hoc and depending upon what was happening.’
Morris was expected to report on strategists, leaders, and potentially violent individuals, aligning his work with the Security Service’s interests.
Infiltrating the Socialist Workers Party
Morris focused on infiltrating the SWP, initially ‘playing hard to get’ to encourage recruitment. He joined the Hackney South branch, eventually becoming a committee member.
He described his approach as ‘kind of protesting, being a Black nationalist rather than a left-wing socialist.’
Morris was questioned about reports on individual SWP members, particularly women. He highlighted the significance of a militant fire woman’s trade union activities and described another woman as ‘a sad case’ who he said epitomised the party’s unsavoury recruitment policies, and said he reported this because she might have been ‘groomed’.
Justifying his reporting of SWP official Julie Waterson as ‘aggressive’, he clarified:
‘If you needed moving around on a picket or whatever, she would physically move you around if you didn’t move around.’
When questioned about why these early reports were mostly about women, Morris suggested there must have been reports on men as well, speculating, ‘I am possibly still looking at who’s active.’
The Anti-Nazi League and Morris’s Involvement
Morris reported on the SWP’s plans to relaunch the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) in late 1992. A report dated 18 December 1991 detailed the SWP’s plans to relaunch the ANL ‘to counter the rise of Nazism in Europe and prevent it getting a toehold here.’
Morris suggested that the SWP wanted to relaunch the ANL to attract supporters from the Anti-Racist Alliance, which was gaining traction among Black people.
Contrary to several witness statements suggesting he was only a rank-and-file member, Morris claimed to be an ‘organiser’, detailing responsibilities like speaking, attending demonstrations, and organising people from Broadwater Farm for the Welling demonstration.
He reported on various ANL events, including the ‘Battle of Waterloo’ in September 1992, referring to members’ instructions and their apprehension about physical confrontation, as well as the ANL’s leadership, decision making processes and fundraising efforts. This included a financial appeal signed by Bernie Grant, Arthur Scargill, and Peter Hain. He explained the importance of reporting on such activities; ‘without finances you can’t do anything.’
SWP’s Approach to Public Disorder and Conflict
Morris described the SWP’s relationship with public disorder as ‘extremely complicated’. He explained their participation in events to maintain visibility:
‘If you’re not present there and others are there and take the glory for being there, you’re missing out.’
He said the SWP’s viewed the police as ‘class traitors’ first, and ‘racist’ second. He defended his assessments of figures like Lindsey German and Chris Bambery. He spoke of Bambery’s admiration for Trotsky’s ‘martial endeavours’” explaining, ‘I am alluding to street activity, and, to be fair, to the day of the revolution’.
Morris claimed that the SWP’s Malcolm X rallies had been an attempt to recreate the Los Angeles riots in the UK, noting, ‘That’s why we brought in Bobby Seale to speak. He was from the Black Panther movement for self-defence, in the 60s.’
Reporting on Other Political Activities
Morris was unrepentant in justifying reporting on the Union of Jewish Students because of ‘entry-ism’, and also defended reporting on serving MPs, citing national security:
‘The Special Branch is a national security organisation that doesn’t slide away from the fact that an MP is involved in something. You just report what there is.’
He said he saw ‘hundreds’ of reports on MPs inside Special Branch.
Very significantly, he justified a report on a civil servant in the SWP that focused on the individual’s sexuality and frequenting of gay clubs:
‘It’s a ploy, or was a ploy, of many intelligence agencies… to try to entrap people in such places.’
This chimes with the evidence of HN90 ‘Mark Kerry’ that the SDS would collect information that could be used to blackmail people into becoming informants.
‘It is fair… it’s reporting because, you know the knowledge. I was on the South African desk… and BOSS, Bureau for State Security of South Africa, was very active in London.’
He seemed to think this was a justification, however, he is implying that the police could have been providing intelligence to the notoriously corrupt South African intelligence services who were responsible for violence in London including bombing the ANC offices.
Impact on His Personal Life
Morris claimed he had never registered with a GP during his deployment and that his managers were aware of the extensive time he was spending in his cover identity but expressed no concern about the effect on his family life.
He explained that he spent most of his time at his cover address: ‘Basically, I lived that life as my real life and my proper life was relegated… I wouldn’t laugh at home, because I have a distinctive laugh. I wouldn’t walk the streets with my children. I wouldn’t go to my children’s schools, I never went to the, any of the, you know, festivities, be it Christmas, be it New Year, be it Easter, be it sports day, be it whatever. I never went.’
Day 2 – Live Evidence: HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’
The session opened with a report by Morris from 27 July 1992, concerning a leaflet distributed at the Hackney Show by human rights organisation Liberty. The report listed the contents of the leaflet and the plans to launch a local branch.
Morris claimed he didn’t remember it, but went on to explain how reports like this would be used by Special Branch. He started with a brief history of the unit, noting with pride that ‘Britain ran a third of the world’, and frequently used the phrase ‘et cetera, et cetera, et cetera’.
David Barr KC, Counsel to the Inquiry, interrupted him, asking him to stay focused.
Morris retorted ‘it’s not always necessarily straightforward’ and went on to justify spying on Liberty by claiming:
‘Liberty is working within an area where others attempting to get into those areas may well be’ and that ‘fissures and fractures’ in communities could ‘undermine the fabric of our nation.’
Another report, from 11 October 1992, detailed an Anti-Racist Alliance (ARA) film showing at the Rio Cinema in Dalston. This report included a speech by Marc Wadsworth, and a leaflet from the Hackney Community Defence Association about police corruption and an upcoming public meeting.
Morris claimed that members had shown him documents about police corruption and that his motivation for writing reports on them was to stamp out police corruption.
Barr pointed out there was no record of Morris passing on any such information on, but despite so often referring to his inability to recall things, on this occasion Morris insisted he was sure of his memory.
Reporting on Family Justice and Defence Campaigns
Morris reported on the Rolan Adams family campaign, the Newham Monitoring Project, the Wilson Silcott Defence Campaign, the Stephen Lawrence family campaign, the Justice for Brian Douglas campaign, and the Justice for Joy Gardner campaign, among others.
He agreed that racist murder was horrific, but nevertheless sought to justify all his spying and reporting, talking about ‘street activity’ and possible public disorder, the fact that the Anti-Nazi League supported the Rolan Adams family.
He claimed that the presence of the SWP in any of these campaigns was a ‘national security issue’.
A report from 6 June 1995 on SWP involvement in a demonstration by the Justice for Brian Douglas campaign claimed SWP and Militant only sent Black comrades, showing they ‘used Black issues for their own right.’
He also reported on a speaker tour by Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers. He called Seale ‘fantastic’ and a hero. He suggested that there might have been a Special Branch officer or an agent of the Security Service at the Bobby Seale event, but he attended because he was in the area, implying that his presence, spying and reporting at the event was not necessary. He justified spying on Black protesters by referencing current white racist violence in Southport.
The Mark Ellison review on the Stephen Lawrence campaign showed extensive reporting by Morris on the campaign, focusing on demonstrations related to it. Morris claimed the SDS didn’t take an interest until it became a ‘cause célèbre’.
When asked about whistleblower SDS officer Peter Francis’ admission of gathering evidence to smear the Lawrence family he replied:
‘Nonsense. That’s not what we are about. We are about gathering intelligence not smearing individuals. That’s a Security Service job, let them do that.’
By then, Morris had clearly realised he was speaking out of turn. He suggested they ‘scrap that last bit’. He was asked if he could definitively say whether the Security Service was seeking to smear the Lawrence family, then the Inquiry cut the live feed of the hearing.
The morning ended with examination of a report by Morris into the Justice for Joy Gardner Campaign.
Mature student Joy Gardner had her north London house raided by immigration officials in June 1993. When she resisted attempts to put her in a 4-inch wide restraint belt with attached handcuffs she was shackled, gagged, and 13 feet of adhesive tape was wrapped round her head. She rapidly suffered respiratory failure and died four days later without regaining consciousness.
Three police officers were charged with manslaughter. Though four pathologists agreed on the cause of death, police found one who would give an alternative cause, and no officers were convicted. The use of gags was banned shortly after, but no admission has ever been made that it was part of the cause of Joy’s death.
One of HN78 Trevor Morris’s reports at the time referred to Gardner as ‘the Jamaican illegal immigrant’ and reported on speeches by Bernie Grant MP and Linda Bellos.
Another of his reports described a meeting and recorded speeches by Lee Jasper, Neville Lawrence, Bernie Grant MP, and Nicky Johnson of the SWP. Resolutions passed at the meeting called for a public inquiry, the Police Complaints Authority report to be made public, setting up a ‘Human Rights Commission for Blacks’, and more legal campaign actions.
Morris felt they were entirely correct, feeling the anger himself. The Joy Gardner case moved Morris, especially hearing that she was ‘trussed up like a slave’.
That didn’t stop him from claiming that the Justice for Joy Gardner meeting could destabilise London, the UK’s most prosperous city, and repeatedly reporting intentions to ‘riot’. At one point, David Barr KC pointed out that he was referring to a large demonstration organised by people who didn’t want trouble. Morris claimed his reporting added ‘context’, saying ‘they don’t understand the mood.’
He reported that the Joy Gardner verdict didn’t surprise Black youths, while older middle-class Blacks felt cheated and angry, and the political activists would try to incite riots.
Barr then read out a section of a report by Morris about a Justice for Joy Gardner meeting:
‘Most Black people are familiar with the horrors of the slave trade. They do not share the benign image of Black workers singing in the fields of a southern plantation, but they see the atrocity and the horror and the anger… ‘The police have a special role in the relationship between Blacks and whites. They are seen as the visible arm of the State. Many young British Blacks are descendants of immigrants who came to Britain from the Caribbean. The parents and grandparents of the young British Blacks have memories of the colonial police in the Caribbean who upheld a system that was apartheid in all but name. Blacks who joined the police were seen as stooges of the white ruling elite who curtailed the rights of Blacks to freedom of movement or to development, decent housing, employment or education. ‘When Blacks migrated to Britain it was unfortunate that many were treated with suspicion, disrespect, and hostility by the British police. It is this common experience of parents and children of ill-treatment at the hands of the police which has moulded the difficult relationship between the Black community and the police today.’
Having this report read to him caused Morris to break down, leading to a long uncomfortable silence in broken only by the sound of Morris quietly crying, until the Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, awkwardly suggested they break for lunch.
Special Branch and National Security
Despite apparently realising the awfulness of his role before the break, Morris came back having fully recovered his arrogant and narcissistic persona.
Morris dismissed the apology, saying that unfortunately the Commissioner had no experience in Special Branch and suggesting that the Commissioner simply didn’t understand the remit.
We also saw evidence that Morris’s reporting with was shared with French police, and a report on a planned protest at the Greek Embassy was distributed directly to the Met’s Public Order Operational Command Unit for comment. Morris said it would normally be sanitised.
1993 Welling Demonstration
Morris submitted a significant number of reports in the run up to the Welling demonstration on 16 October 1993 when thousands of antifascists protested at the offices of the British National Party.
David Barr KC identified three tiers of groups organising the Welling demonstration from Morris’ reporting:
those wanting to stay away from the BNP HQ
those wanting to go past it without trouble, and
those like Anti-Fascist Action and Red Action that the others didn’t want involved
A report from 23 July 1993 on the building for the Welling demonstration hoped for 10,000 attendees, targeting schools for teenagers. A report on a planned demonstration at a BNP mass paper sale on Brick Lane for 26 September 1993 mentioned high tensions. Morris claimed he got this information from Chris Bambery.
A report from 22 September 1993 on a protest against the BNP paper sale on Brick Lane claimed eggs and potatoes were thrown at the BNP. Morris himself denied throwing eggs, citing his ‘fear’ that the racist police might have picked him up. He said it might be ‘Jenny’s’ recollection but insisted he didn’t throw eggs, again suddenly claiming to have an ‘exceptional memory’, seemingly having forgotten his previous claims of having ‘serious memory problems’.
A report from 29 June 1993 on the SWP and ANL’s involvement in the Unity demonstration at Welling commented that the ANL was interested in recruiting into the ANL and SWP.
David Barr KC pointed out that one could recruit people to the SWP and still be an anti-racist without contradiction. Morris agreed but said the SWP would see Obama as a traitor, then added that he wasn’t being cynical.
A handwritten note on a Security Service comment sheet mentioned the percentage of Black people on the Welling march. Morris claimed he would have reported that.
Perhaps most significantly, Morris claimed that the plan was to shut down the BNP HQ forever, listing all the groups involved, including the anarchists. Morris claimed it was the plan of the ANL and all the other organisations to physically attack the BNP HQ on the protest day. Barr suggested there might have been an element of bravado in what people said. Morris disagreed, saying they were planning on physically attack.
Morris reported that the SWP made 50,000 placards but expected 20,000 attendees. When pointed out the contradiction, Morris said they were just making sure they had enough placards made. Morris claimed all ANL members were ‘up for a fight; at Welling, including school children.
A report from 5 October 1993 on preparations for the 16 October 1993 demonstration claimed everything in the ANL was riding on a show of strength. Morris advised that the only way to avoid violence at Welling was a large, visible police presence in full riot gear at the assembly point.
When questioned about his contradictory reporting of SWP policy on physical combat with the BNP, Morris claimed that ‘in private’, many were planning for a fight. He then went on to offer a rambling history lesson about Trotsky leading the Red Army in street confrontations. When David Barr KC politely redirected him back to the streets of London, it drew laughter from the room.
Morris reported it was an open secret that Chris Bambery planned to attack and destroy the BNP bookshop on the day of the Welling demo. The concept of a “hitters” group of 60-70 was introduced. Morris claimed he heard this from SWP National Organiser Chris Bambery and others, planning a group like Red Action/ Anti-Fascist Action/ Away Team. One report suggested the plan was to ‘tear down’ the BNP HQ.
Morris couldn’t recall the exact words but was sure Bambery wasn’t using hyperbole, claiming he was ‘a committed activist’, though this seemed delusional. Barr noted Morris’s suggestion that Bambery was planning violence with the police and targeting children. Morris confirmed this, unaware of how ridiculous he sounded.
Given the extent of contradictory and incredible reporting about Bambery, it is quite notable that the Inquiry has not asked him for his own account.
A lot of Morris’s answers simply didn’t make sense. When asked about references to ‘coded’ communication, he replied:
‘you can see it for yourself – and you probably can take away from that what you wish to take away from it. But I know what I took away from it.’
Barr suggested that Morris had exaggerated in his reporting, including speculation that Dutch anti-fascists might have been tagged on entry into the UK. There was no evidence for this or any other information beyond Morris’s own imagination. There was no mention of arson in any reports from the time. The first mention of any arson plan was in a statement by Morris in 2013 to Operation Herne, the Met’s internal inquiry into the spycops scandal.
Morris claimed to have been a steward at the Welling demo. He couldn’t recall a sit-down protest by SWP official Julie Waterson but stressed that if he reported it, he saw it. He claimed the Youth Against Racism in Europe stewards fled early and that violence was started by a group of ‘crusties’ including anarchists and hunt sabs.Morris claimed all injuries from the Welling demonstration were caused by bricks, suggesting Waterson was hit by a ‘friendly brick’, despite the police having settled a claim for beating her.
Day 3 – Live Evidence: HN78 Trevor Morris ‘Anthony “Bobby” Lewis’
The final day of this round of hearings began with the Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, giving his usual speech about the ten-minute delay in broadcasting proceedings so that they an prevent inappropriate material being published. Then almost immediately there was a breach and the proceedings paused. Throughout the day, there were multiple breaches, causing the broadcast to be repeatedly suspended.
Morris was asked a few more questions about the SWP, and his reporting of their contacts in the Labour Party, including Bernie Grant MP, Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Benn MP, and Peter Hain. However, the vast majority of the day was concerned with his sexual behaviour.
Relationship with ‘Bea’
Morris admitted to having sexual encounters with ‘Bea’ for ‘quite a long time on and off’ but claimed he ‘wouldn’t describe it to be a relationship.’
He said he never knew her full first name. He claimed he doesn’t know if he made the first move and that he does not remember how they met, using phrases like ‘if she said…’ as if seeking to imply that we shouldn’t necessarily believe her, but the he could not or would not offer another version of events.
He denied writing reports about ‘Bea’, despite his name being on them. When shown a report about ‘Bea’ getting a job at the SWP print shop, Morris bluntly said ‘I didn’t write the report’.
Morris admitted to knowing ‘Bea’ was a single mother with two young children but denied knowledge of her previous violent relationship and claimed to know ‘nothing about the relationship between Bea’s kids and the father.’ He also said he didn’t know about the childcare facilities for Bea to attend meetings.
Morris denied telling ‘Bea’ that his relationship was over but admitted telling her he had two young children and had ‘ruined his marriage and made a grave sexual indiscretion’.
Morris confirmed telling ‘Bea’ he was a DJ in Germany and ‘may have’ said he had sex with many German women while married. When asked about incorporating this into his cover story, Morris said it ‘might have been in the legend from the start but didn’t use it straight away’.
David Barr KC asked if he presented himself as ‘not a long term prospect’ from the very start in anticipation of sexual activity. Morris denied this, saying it was fluid.
Lack of Remorse
The Inquiry revealed that Morris didn’t admit to sexual activity when questioned by Operation Herne, the Met’s investigation into spycops in 2013. Morris claimed, as far as I recollect, I probably didn’t. They never asked me,’ a claim met with incredulity.
When asked if he was sorry about using Bea, Morris replied, ‘incorrect, I didn’t use her’. He insisted ‘she and I hit it off,’ claiming it was ‘totally and utterly real circumstances’.
Morris did not accept it was completely wrong for him to deceive Bea into having a sexual relationship with him, refusing to apologise, he could barely bring himself to utter any regret, saying only:
‘I regret [the sexual relationships] because it would be better for everyone if they had not happened.’
When told that ‘Bea’ wouldn’t have consented to sex if she knew he was a police officer, Morris responded, ‘I don’t know that’.
David Barr KC pointed out that Bea has given evidence saying she would not have consented. Morris replied:
‘She may have done. I mean, but it never happened so she never had that circumstance. That’s like saying that no woman in the Second World War who was a Brit ever went with a German’.
When asked if he thought about being a police officer when starting the sexual relationship, Morris replied:
‘my primary perspective of myself was that I was an activist in the Socialist Workers Party’.
He claimed that by the time he met ‘Bea’ he was ‘entirely an activist, fully entrenched’, despite being only a few months into his deployment.
Oddly, he also asserted:
‘at maximum I was concerned with maintaining cover, but I don’t even think that’s true’.
He justified having deceitful sexual encounters by saying it was somehow different for him.
He stressed that he did not think it was ‘unlawful’ to have sex with his targets while undercover because he was a Special Branch officer (he said this a lot as though all wrongdoing became right because he was ‘Special’). This comes despite the fact that courts have ruled that such relationships, and the broader political spying, are indeed unlawful.
Morris also used the term ‘national security’ as though it were a get out of jail free card. His excuses were endless:
‘I believed this was a subversive organisation and I was doing it for the good of the nation.’
This completely contradicts his claim that he was a fully entrenched activist so didn’t count as a cop when targeting women for sex.
He also talked a lot about his mindset at the time as though that were a justification for his sexual behaviour. When questioned about whether it was unethical to have sex when deployed undercover, he responded ‘possibly.. probably,’ but as usual he prevaricated, passing the blame onto management:
‘there was zero guidance on that issue, and no assistance, actually.’
He stressed that he had requested a ‘female partner’, apparently to pretend to be his girlfriend, but been refused. The blame always fell elsewhere and the real victim, he would have us believe, was always him.
At the start of the current round of hearings, the Met’s Commissioner gave a statement unreservedly apologising for spyops deceiving women into sexual relationships. It described it as ‘abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong’.
When asked if he agreed with it, HN78 Trevor Morris almost threw a tantrum, vehemently disagreeing in an extended rant that concluded that it was:
‘unacceptable that the Commissioner just off his tongue just says that as though it means nothing to him. Was he in that role? Did he ever do that job? No, he didn’t… It is outrageous.’
Unrepentant for his sexual abuse of women, HN78 Trevor Morris typifies the callousness, cruelty, sexism, egotism and arrogance that is endemic among the spycops. We can expect to hear more when the Inquiry returns in mid-October.
