The Undercover Policing Inquiry[i] is back this week, to hear much delayed evidence about some of the most controversial events in the history of the highly criticised spycops unit, the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS). Live hearings begin this Monday, 21 October, at 2pm, and will look at deployments from 1983-1992.

Witnesses, victims and campaigners will rally outside the International Dispute Resolution Centre[ii] at 1pm on Monday 21st October and will be available to comment on the upcoming evidence.

These much-awaited hearings were twice postponed by an Inquiry beset by the demands of the police and the Security Service to keep material out of the public gaze.

‘Jessica’ from Police Spies Out of Lives  commented:

“The glimpses we saw during Opening Statements of the evidence to come gives us an idea why the State wants to keep this stuff secret: these officers were sexual predators and Met Police hid the truth from the children they fathered. Undercover officers acted as agent provocateurs. They rigged the justice system and lied to the courts, spying on defence campaigns. They didn’t just report on activists, they reported on lawyers including the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer and Circuit Judge, Timothy Greene. We already know the SDS was out of control, but that reached new heights in the 1980s, and that is the evidence we are about to hear.”

Officers in this tranche are accused of orchestrating and committing serious crimes. There is compelling evidence that the Metropolitan Police colluded with the highest levels of government to subvert democracy, and they were working with companies like McDonalds, effectively acting as corporate spies.

On October 14 the police issued yet more apologies to victims of their abuses. Both the Met and the Inquiry concede that the police behaviour was unjustifiable. Nevertheless the Met have incredibly asked the Inquiry to conclude that some of their spying could be justified in this tranche.

For more details read on & follow UCPI T2P2 evidence hearings which will run into January 2025: https://www.ucpi.org.uk/hearings/

Police officers were sexual predators[iii]


Many undercover officers in this era, and all the officers targeting animal rights campaigns, deceived women into sexual relationships during their deployments. On Monday we heard Counsel to the Inquiry describe John Dines’ ‘cold, calculating emotional and sexual exploitation’ during his deployment. We also heard from numerous women about the unwanted attentions of spycop Andy Coles. Fellow officer ‘Matt Rayner’ confirmed a woman at the time described Coles to him as ‘creepy’: ‘it felt like she described him with a shudder’. The Inquiry will hear evidence in this tranche of how 32-year-old Coles (later a Conservative Councillor for Peterborough) groomed and deceived 19-year ‘Jessica’ into her first ever sexual relationship, while he was in his undercover role (an allegation which is accepted as fact by the Metropolitan Police). Charlotte Kilroy KC, on behalf of women deceived into sexual relationships described how officers “indulged themselves in a wide range of fantasies” during deployments that “unleashed a range of dark behaviour” for which they faced no real consequences.

Officers fathered children and the Met hid the truth [iv]

Bob Lambert notoriously fathered a child whilst undercover. In a deeply moving opening statement on behalf of his son, we heard how ‘TBS’ was born in 1985 and abandoned by Lambert. Left in the dark about his father’s true identity for 24 years, he tragically sought to learn more about the fiction that was ‘Bob Robinson’. He states

“as an organisation the Metropolitan Police Service were happy for me to go through my whole life without knowing the true identity of my biological father.” He points to evidence there were other children born of abusive relationships:  ‘At a bare minimum, sir, it is the Commissioner’s responsibility to assure you that no other human being is living a life with the truth obscured from him or her as it was from ‘TBS’ for more than two decades.’

Officers committed serious crimes[v]

Numerous witnesses allege undercover officer Bob Lambert placed an improvised incendiary device in the Harrow branch of Debenhams on the night of 11 July 1987. On Tuesday James Wood KC told the Inquiry:

“CCTV from the Harrow Store was recorded as having been obtained by police. The original exhibits officer has a clear recollection of Special Branch officers attending and taking custody of the exhibits in the case. After this point the CCTV appears to have gone missing.”

Did the Metropolitan Police set fire to a department store and conspire to cover it up?

This tranche of the Inquiry will examine evidence of this and multiple other instances of police deceiving the courts, nobbling the criminal justice system to ensure their officers were not brought to trial, posing as friends and supporters to visit defendants in prison, spying on justice and defence campaigns, and violating legal professional privilege to report on strategies for trials.

Police colluded with government to subvert democracy[vi]

On Monday James Scobie KC delivered an Opening Statement on behalf of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), highlighting the ‘evidential void’ surrounding the decision to target CND. At the time, an SDS manager documented CND targeting decisions ‘coming from his masters.’ Those masters were not MI5. National Archives releases from 1983 show a government scared of losing the battle of public opinion on disarmament. The Prime Minister’s office was devising ways of neutralising CND; Special Branch were engaging directly with the highest levels of government and Margaret Thatcher was making direct and specific requests. It seems MI5 let the

 

 Government down by rightly refusing to cooperate on party political issues targetting law-abiding groups. The evidence now suggests that the Met Police stepped into that void. On Tuesday we heard from lawyers representing Sharon Grant OBE, Diane Abbott MP and Dame Joan Ruddock
about how police also spied on elected Members of Parliament on the Left, raising further concerns about racist discrimination and police interference with the democratic process.

Police acted as Corporate Spies[vii]

On Tuesday the Inquiry heard directly from Dave Morris on behalf of the McLibel Support Campaign about how  SDS officer Bob Lambert was an author of the original ‘What’s Wrong With McDonald’s?’ flyer, and how the SDS blatantly interfered with the legal process to ensure that Lambert’s successor, John Dines, was not named on the ensuinglibel writ. Dines went reported Keir Starmer’s confidential legal advice to defendants in what became the longest trial in English history.

James Wood KC also expressed concern at the level of information sharing between undercover officers and corporate spies and the subsequent use of this information in civil proceedings.

Kirsten Heaven KC summed up her statement on behalf of cooperating non-state core participants with a call for the Inquiry to investigate the ‘more controversial recipients of SDS reporting. These include, for example, private companies, employers and foreign governments… [or] departments of state being customers of SDS reporting such as the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the office of the Prime Minister.’

Police apologists seek to justify their spying

The Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police issued yet more apologies[viii] on Monday, to ‘TBS’ and women deceived into sexual relationships; to the family of Michael Hartley for stealing his identity[ix] and to the families of Rolan Adams and Trevor Monerville for targeting black family justice campaigns[x]. They also apologised for the tone and nature of their reporting; and for the ‘culture of impunity’ created within the SDS. However, despite apparently accepting that the conduct of their officers was unjustifiable the Met still sought to justify their actions, claiming that although in practice SDS’s deployments were marred by misconduct, there was still a justification for covert infiltration in this tranche, because it included spying on ‘militant animal rights’.

Kirsten Heaven KC made clear in her Opening Statement that the police are wrong:

“put simply abhorrent behaviour and systemic managerial failure are matters that clearly go to the heart of the question of justification…  SDS managers directed undercover officers to engage in speculative deployments characterized by extensive collateral intrusion. They knew UCOs were involved in criminal activity and taking on positions of responsibility, that they were cohabiting with activists and engaging in duplicitous sexual relationships. SDS managers even directed undercover officers to mislead the court and facilitate miscarriages of justice. Many of these behaviours have been defended by undercover officers in this Inquiry as being essential to doing their job.”

Invoking the Judgment of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal[xi] and the Inquiry’s own Interim Report[xii], Heaven made clear “the widespread fishing expeditions engaged in by [the SDS] could never have been justified even despite the so called ‘militant aspects’ of the animal rights movement.”

Core Participants who were spied on for their involvement in animal rights campaigning have responded with a statement. Read it here: http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2024/10/18/statement-on-animal-rights-movement/

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[i]The UCPI was established in 2015. It is investigating undercover policing operations including secret political policing by the SDS and NPOIU, spying on 1000 left-wing political groups between 1968 and 2014. Hearings can be attended in person and some will be broadcast on the Inquiry Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@undercoverpolicinginquiry9441/streams

[ii]Hearings are being held at the IDRC, 1 Paternoster Ln, London EC4M 7BQ, United Kingdom. Opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. The rally is supported by:

[iii]Read Kilroy’s full Category H Opening Statement here: Women deceived into sexual relationships will give evidence on 26 Nov 2024 (Belinda Harvey), 27 Nov 2024 (Helen Steel), 28 Nov 2024 (‘Jacqui’) and 12 Dec 2024 (‘Jessica’).

[iv]Read TBS full opening statement here. His mother ‘Jacqui’ will give live evidence on 28 November.

[v]Evidence of serious criminality by officers such as Bob Lambert and Matt Rayner will emerge throughout these hearings. Lambert will give evidence himself from 2-5 Dec 2024 and Rayner from 7-9 Jan 2025

[vi]Read Scobie’s full statement here. The SDS officers involved have refused to give evidence to this Inquiry.
Read the full statement for Sharon Grant here and Dianne Abbott and Dame Joan Ruddock here.

[vii]Read the full statement by Dave Morris on behalf of the McLibel campaign here. Morris will give evidence on 5 November 2024.

[viii] These apologies are added to those made back in July for targeting anti-racist and justice campaigns. You can read the full statement on behalf of the Commissioner here.

[ix]Read the full statement on behalf of ‘Category F’ families here.

[x] Richard Adams and John Burke-Monerville will both be giving evidence on 24 October 2024.

[xi] IPT ruling in Wilson v MPS: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/wilson-v-mps/

[xii] Undercover Policing Inquiry Tranche 1 Interim report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/undercover-policing-inquiry-tranche-1-interim-report

Spycops Condemned for Sexual Abuse, Serious Crime & Targetting Starmer
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