Press release sent on behalf of the UCPI non-state, non-police core participants communications group
Royal Courts of Justice 5th April 2017 – picket 9-10am (photo opportunities)
On 5th/6th April at a High Court hearing of the Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing, the Metropolitan Police will be seeking to continue their cover up of human rights abuses committed by political undercover policing units. The Inquiry started in 2015 but due to police delaying tactics has yet to reveal anything at all about political police spying in the UK.
Those who were spied on will be at the hearing to demand truth and justice. They will address the Inquiry hearing to call for:
• the immediate release of the cover names used by political undercover police officers
• the names of the groups spied on
• the personal files held on those spied on
• fair representation at the Inquiry – at present around 200 victims are forced to share one legal team in court, while the police & state are represented by 5 separate legal teams
Core participants of the Inquiry sent written submissions to the Inquiry last week which explain their call, mandated by a meeting of 40 non-state, non- police core participants (NSPCPs). This follows a letter sent a year ago signed by 133 NSPCPs seeking the same information.
Kate Wilson, who was deceived into an intimate relationship with undercover officer Mark Kennedy, and is one of the signatories of the letter, said;
“The Inquiry is investigating serious human rights abuses, miscarriages of justice and criminal offences committed by police. Yet much of the control over the evidence and proceedings has been left in the very hands of those being investigated. The police clearly have no sense of urgency about the Inquiry, in fact they have sought to prevent the victims of their abuses from finding out the truth. This creates a very real risk of compounding the harm and distress of those of us who suffered at their hands and who so urgently need to find truth.”
In 2010 revelations first started to surface about British undercover police officers infiltrating environmental and social justice campaigns. By 2014 the scale & nature of the revelations had become so shocking that then Home Secretary Theresa May announced a Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing.
The revelations included that undercover police officers had:
– engaged in intimate sexual relationships with women while undercover
– even fathered children with women spied on,
– spied on the grieving family & friends of Stephen Lawrence and other victims of racist attacks & police malpractice
– colluded with private companies, including passing personal information to private companies & aiding the illegal blacklisting of trade union members and political activists,
– been involved in serious miscarriages of justice
– taken the identities of dead children
All the information of the abusive activities of these undercover policing units have so far been revealed by activists themselves, or by whistle blowers and journalists. The police have consistently acted to prevent the release of information and to cover up their responsibility for extensive human rights abuses.
Those spied upon seek truth and justice.
