Northern Voices: Spy Cops Inquiry - Counsel Closing Statement.

Tuesday, 21 February 2023

Spy Cops Inquiry - Counsel Closing Statement.

"They should have decided to disband the SDS". The final eight words of David Barr KC, counsel to the inquiry, when giving his closing statement for the Tranche 1 phase of the inquiry (1968-1979). Later Barr stated that: "We cannot rule out that some [SDS intelligence], once filed, was leaked to the private sector and misused to blacklist activists". The counsel of the inquiry is not on the side of the activists spied upon, but is there to provide the general thinking of the inquiry so far. He has stated that an Interim Report will be produced soon. Full statement is available here: https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230216-CTIs_T1_Closing_Statement.pdf

Blacklist Support Group (BSG) are core-participants in the public inquiry. Blacklisted workers recognise the importance of the statement made by the counsel to the inquiry. In many ways Barr's closing statement provides vindication for our fight. We have only got to this point because by the work of activists, investigative journalists, lawyers, unions and a small number of politicians, in waging campaign to uncover the truth about the nature of political policing in the UK. It is no thanks to the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office or the multiple arms of the state apparatus who have sought at every opportunity to cover up their wrong doing and delay the process. BSG applaud our fellow non-state non-police core participants, our legal teams and sister campaigns: Police Spies Out of Lives, Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, The Monitoring Group, Undercover Research Group, who have stood shoulder to shoulder for over a decade in this fight for justice.

Counsel to the Inquiry's closing statement admits that the SDS political policing was unjustified and that undercover police officers joined trade unions to spy on internal union meetings: "trade unions and trade unionists are both mentioned in SDS reporting. Specific justice campaigns often feature in SDS reporting... for example the reporting on the Shrewsbury Two Action Committee".

Yet counsel to the inquiry also claims that trade unions were not "specific SDS targets or that individual trade unionists were reported upon solely because of their trade union activities". This is a legalistic tautology. Information about what trade unionists said at union meetings was gathered by undercover police officers claiming to be union members. This intelligence was sent back to Special Branch. This is spying on trade union activities: plain and simple.

Counsel to the inquiry also accepts that intelligence was shared with employers to blacklist British citizens because of their perfectly lawful political and trade union activities. This is state sponsored blacklisting: plain and simple.

Conclusion to counsel to the inquiry's statement:

111. The SDS was created in 1968 to deal with a specific, large scale public order threat, for which there was a concrete basis for concern. It used relatively short and shallow deployments to gather valuable intelligence about the October 1968 Demonstration. The unit then became a permanent feature, deploying undercover officers continuously into far-left groups, often with vague remits. Individual deployments which lasted for several years became the norm. Officers became involved in the lives of those they were spying on. Although, they were not ordered or encouraged to do so, in some instances, this went as far as sex. Reporting was extensive, unfiltered, deeply personal and often recorded in unprofessional terms. We cannot rule out that some of it, once filed, was leaked to the private sector and misused to blacklist activists.

The whole operation was secret and a very high priority was accorded to keeping it that way. Courts were sometimes misled. Miscarriages of justice occurred as a result. An officer whose cover was compromised was told to pretend that he was acting independently. Discipline was not enforced. Aspects of deceased’s children’s identities were used even though they added only a limited further protection.
These operations have caused a lot of harm. Democratic freedoms have been infringed, outrage and pain has been caused. The damage is not limited to members of the public. Former undercover officers have suffered psychiatric injury.
The primary reason for conducting these operations was to gain intelligence to assist police to maintain order on the streets. However, the level of threat posed to public order was often not commensurate with a need to deploy undercover police officers for this purpose. Not in the way that they operated. The benefits which the unit’s intelligence brought to public order policing do not, in our submission, justify the means.
The ancillary reason for the SDS’ work was to assist the Security Service to counter subversion. However, the evidence of the SDS’ own officers and other contemporary documents show that the groups targeted by the SDS did not meet the official definition of subversion. Many of those targeted were revolutionaries. But they did not threaten the safety or wellbeing of the State. In the words of Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, Sir Robert Mark, they were “a bad joke”.
There was a remarkable lack of oversight, formal training and instruction. However, the SDS was not a rogue unit. It was part of a larger intelligence gathering apparatus and counter subversion effort which also operated in secrecy. The SDS was known to the chain of command within the Metropolitan Police Service. Senior officers visited the unit on occasion and met its undercover officers. They received annual reports about the unit’s work. The existence of the SDS was known to some within the Security Service, the Home Office and, to a lesser extent, the Cabinet Office.
We remain of the view expressed in last month’s submissions. There was no effective review of the SDS’ operation. No one appears to have considered whether the level of intrusion occasioned by SDS long-term undercover police deployments was justified. No one appears to have addressed their mind specifically to the legality of the SDS’ operations. No one appears to have considered whether (after its introduction) both limbs of the Harris definition were met. There is a strong case for concluding that, had they done so, they should have decided to disband the SDS.