MASS WALK-OUT AT MITTING INQUIRY

VICTIMS of undercover police units and their lawyers staged a mass walk out during today's hearing of the undercover policing public inquiry calling for the removal of Sir John Mitting as the new judge in charge of the inquiry.  Sir John Mitting has told the inquiry, that victims will be be met with a 'wall of silence' in key parts of the inquiry and is granting anonymity to almost every police officer - so the public inquiry will be held mainly in secret.  This will not be justice. We are not prepared to participate in a process in which the victims are merely window dressing. 

Below and attached is the full transcript of the submission made by Phillipa Kaufman QC, representing over 200 of the 'non-state, non police core participants' in the inquiry including Doreen and Neville Lawrence, women activist who were deceived into relationships with undercover officers, anti-racist campaigners and trade unions. 

Blacklisted workers and the Blacklist support Group have been granted 'core participant status' in the inquiry because of undercover police infiltration of trade unions and were part of the walk out. 

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Blacklist Support Group Statement for Undercover Policing Public Inquiry hearing on Wed 21st March 2018:

'Blacklisted workers who have been kept under surveillance by political policing units were always skeptical about whether the British state investigating itself would truly provide justice.  But under John Mitting, the public inquiry has descended into a good old fashioned establishment cover-up.

'Mitting was put in charge to carry out a job of work on us - and he's doing it.  Time and again he gives the police the benefit of the doubt, to the detriment of those whose lives have been torn apart by this human rights scandal.

'Tinkering around the edges isn't going to change things.  We have no confidence in Mitting.  He must go and needs to be replaced with a panel of experts who have have at least some degree of empathy with the victims and are prepared to question the accounts of undercover police officers who have been trained to lie.'

Dave Smith: core participant in 
'union strand' of public inquiry (21/3/18).

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