Undercover policing findings 'devastating for police, MI5 and Government'

A landmark report on undercover policing is “devastating” for the Met, MI5 and Government, campaigners have said. Groups representing those who were targeted by a shadowy Metropolitan Police spy unit reacted passionately to the findings from the first part of a public inquiry on undercover policing, which found that the squad’s actions were not justified and it should have been closed down. Welcoming the report, a spokesman for a group of participants in the inquiry said: “The shocking reality has at last been acknowledged – the results of the inquiry so far are devastating for the police, the security services and Government.” Baroness (Doreen) Lawrence, whose campaign for justice for her murdered son Stephen was also spied upon, said: “Sir John Mitting’s conclusion that it was completely unjustified for a police force to spy on ordinary citizens of this country is utterly shocking. “Now that Sir John Mitting has condemned undercover policing as unjustified, I now want to know who ordered the spying on me and my family? “Who thought it necessary to intrude on a law-abiding family fighting for justice for their son? Who signed off on this unlawful practice? “Given that the Home Secretary was ultimately responsible for the Metropolitan Police, I am looking to find out which home secretary was responsible for the spying into me.”

Campaigners are calling for all secret police files on them to be released and the publication of all of the names of undercover officers. Kate Wilson, speaking on behalf of campaigning support group Police Spies Out Of Lives (PSOOL), said: “This is not only about human rights abuses that happened in the 1970s, this is about the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office and MI5 perpetuating human rights abuses… for more than four decades. “And what the inquiry now has to look at is how did that go on for so long?” She went on: “It’s institutional misogyny, it’s institutional racism, it’s an institutional corruption, and the only way to get to the bottom of it is going to be giving people their files and releasing the cover names of the officers that conducted these operations.” Ms Wilson was paid more than £200,000 compensation by the Metropolitan Police last year after she was deceived into a relationship with undercover officer Mark Kennedy. Undercover officers began having sexual relationships with members of groups they had infiltrated in the 1970s, and campaigners argue that it became tradecraft. Kate Thomas, a solicitor from Birnberg Peirce who is representing a group of women who were deceived into relationships, said: “Since our clients first exposed these undercover policing units over 12 years ago, they have been fighting to uncover the truth of what happened and to ensure that the police never subject women to this abuse again. “They continue to request urgent disclosure of all the files that have been kept on them to ensure that the full truth about these operations comes to light.” The first block of public inquiry hearings revealed that some apparently inconsequential details were recorded in police files, such as reports on jumble and cake sales. One officer also trained as a clown as part of his deployment. Environmental activist Zoe Young said: “The police have tried to justify their actions by saying they were targeting subversives and protecting public order. “Their own evidence showed this was not the case. They ignored violent groups such as the National Front in favour of reporting on cake sales and campaigns for free nurseries. “While we were on the street calling for an end to racist murders, we now know police were spying on us. “They treated as criminals anyone who wanted to change the world for the better. “If there is a subversive organisation in all this, it is the institutionally anti-democratic Metropolitan Police through their systemic attacks on basic human rights.” Another campaigner, Donal O’Driscoll, said: “The inquiry isn’t over, and when it looks at later spying it will find these same patterns of abuse went on for decades and got worse, with the founding of a second unit in 1999. “We are outraged by the intrusive tactics used against us and the lack of oversight, but it only demonstrates what we already knew – that the Metropolitan Police is out of control, both then and now. “They remain a deeply sexist, racist and homophobic institution, despite being put in special measures last year. “The inquiry shows that these problems have been deep-rooted for decades.”

Dave Smith, representing the Blacklist Support Group, described the findings of the report as “a watershed moment”. He said: “£65 million and eight years later, we’ve finally got the admission that this should never have existed. This report should be the final nail in the coffin of the Metropolitan Police, as far as I’m concerned. “It’s scandal after scandal after scandal – the entire place is rotten to the core.” Mr Smith, one of a group of trade union activists who were refused jobs after being spied on by police, said there is no reference to blacklisting at all in the report, although evidence relating to it was set out during inquiry hearings. He said: “Because of it, not only myself, but thousands of other construction workers, thousands of other activists lost their jobs, suffered years of unemployment for it. “Our kids were on milk tokens during the middle of a building boom, they’ve taken food off my kids’ table, and we’re rightly bloody outraged because of this. “And all the other people who have done nothing illegal, other than stand up for their rights and stand up for their co-workers who stand up for a better world… they have lost their jobs because of this.” Frank Bennett, a relative of a dead child whose identity was appropriated by an officer, said: “It is clear that the police thought that their immoral practice of stealing the identities of deceased children was justified because we, the families, would never find out. It is good that the chair challenged this.”

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