The evidence in the new set of hearing into spycops promises to reveal even more state involvement, institutional racism and cover up, reports James Simpson

Last Monday, 13th October, saw the resumption of the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) into the Spycops scandal. This is the first phase of the third so-called tranche of the UCPI. Tranche 3 (T3) will investigate the actions of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) from 1993 to when it was dismantled in 2008. This first phase will see evidence given by family justice campaigns that followed the murders of Stephen Lawrence, Ricky Reel and Michael Menson. It will also hear evidence from three highly controversial SDS officers – Peter Francis, James Thomson and Mark Cassidy.

These first moments of T3, like the tranches before it, has begun with lawyers for the victims, perpetrators and the Inquiry itself outlining their positions. These statements have seen a marked departure, with outright hostility shrouded in legalese, repeatedly highlighting the institutional racism of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), the recklessness of the officers, the structural failures of SDS and MPS management, and a finger, growing in size, pointing squarely at the Home Office’s involvement.

A brief reminder…

The UCPI was called into effect in 2014 by then Home Secretary, Theresa May, after revelations by whistleblower SDS officer, Peter Francis, that he had been asked to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence. Stephen, the black teenager murdered in a racist attack in South London in 1993, had become a name synonymous with the racism, corruption and incompetence of the MPS, over the investigation and two subsequent inquiries. The second of these, the Ellison Review, outlined spying by the SDS during the earlier inquiry, the Macpherson Report, and sharing of information between an SDS officer, ‘Dave Hagen’, an SDS manager Bob Lambert, and DI Richard Walton, then a liaison with Commissioner Paul Condon for the MPS’ contributions to the report.

This cornerstone of British public life in the mid-1990s, which was meant to signal a new era of policing in the capital and beyond, was mired in the dirt of MPS spying. This had been a weight dragging it down as first Mark Kennedy, and then a succession of other SDS – and its successor, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) – officers were exposed by the activists they spied on. Headline after headline revealed police officers deceiving women into sexual relationships during deployments, some fathering children, engaging in acts of criminality and acting as agent provocateurs. They also contributed to corporate blacklists and using the identities of dead children as their undercover aliases. All whilst spying, nearly in their entirety, on left wing groups, peace campaigners, anti-racists, animal rights campaigners, environmental activists and family justice groups.

Francis’s whistleblowing and the revelations contained in the Ellison Review were the straw that broke the camel’s back. An Inquiry was called into the SDS and NPOIU actions covering the period from 1968 to 2011 – nearly five decades of police spying. Inch by inch over the last ten years people spied on have pushed the MPS’ position from claiming the furore was only a few bad apples, through a policy of neither confirm or deny, to full blown apologies for the actions of SDS officers. As we enter T3 this is now extending to the SDS managers themselves while successive Home Secretaries fret in the background.

Institutional racism

Scarman. Macpherson. Ellison. Casey. It now seems that Sir John Mitting, the second chair of the long running UCPI, will be adding his name to this list of former judges reporting on the institutional racism of the MPS. This may be the most damning. He will do well to keep his name out of the mire. In the weeks leading up to the opening statement it has been confirmed that Dave Hagen/HN81 (cover name/cypher), is only well enough to write a detailed 77-page witness statement into his actions, but not to give oral evidence. HN86, a SDS manager from 1993 to 1996 ,will also not be compelled to give evidence as he threatens legal action if it is insisted he does so.

HN86 lived in the same area as Peter Francis, and regularly shared lifts into London with him. He has been accused of being ‘thoroughly and overtly racist’, quoted as rationalising spying on black justice campaigns with the remark, ‘the monkeys were being organised,’ and of directing the SDS to spy on the Stephen Lawrence campaign as its highest priority. Stephen’s mother Doreen, father Neville and friend and witness to his murder, Duwayne Brooks, have all been highly critical of HN86 in each of the opening remarks read by their respective lawyers. All in various ways highlighting that cross examination of his evidence, given his role as Detective Chief Inspector and head of the SDS at the time, is crucial to gaining insight into the unit’s rationale, and seeking accountability for its actions.

Dave Hagen, as discussed in Spycops – undercover and unaccountable | Counterfire is also a crucial witness. As detailed, he has valuable insight into the spying on the family justice campaign and information that went into the formative Macpherson report. He also was present during the justice campaigns for Ricky Reel, giving core participant and Ricky’s mother Sukhdev a lift home from a meeting at one point.

Lee Lawrence, son of Cherry Groce, who as an 11-year old child, witnessed the shooting of his mother by the police in 1985, was reported on by Hagan in 2000. After intervening in a racist attack of a young Somali boy in October 1999, where white youths knocked the boy to the ground and began beating him after he had fallen, Lee Lawrence reported the incident to the MPS. Lee, whose version of events was not believed over that of the version of the white assailants, was reported on by Hagen who wrongly asserted ‘that Lee had approached Movement for Justice for support and states that there was an attempt to turn his case into a race issue.’ Troublingly, he is also referred to in reporting as Lee Groce – clearly establishing that the SDS infiltration had more to do with the shooting of his mother than the incident contemporaneous to T3. Lee went to trial but was acquitted over the 2000 incident, and was reported on by Hagan ten times over this period (that have been disclosed). He has refuted the  accuracy of each one in his opening statement. Lee has not been called to give evidence.

Darkening Mitting’s day further, Duwayne Brooks’s lawyer, Rajiv Menon KC, threw another stick of dynamite onto the bonfire. Brooks has instructed his lawyers that he will not be giving evidence until he has had all the disclosure of the SDS reporting on him. A request that should be an accepted practice for all the Non-State, Non-Police Core Participants, although never has been, was met by Mitting frostily. Clearly hesitant, knowing he was on shaky ground, Mitting said that this position would mean Brooks may not ever give hearing evidence unless an exceptional circumstance allows the freeing of some time later in the Inquiry. Bear in mind that the MPS has had more than ten years to get this disclosure ready. Much of this time appears to have been used to destroy and/or lose these reports (nearly all SDS reports come from the Security Service files shared with them). Also, that the T3 hearings will still be going on through the summer of 2026 and rarely sits for a full week. Mitting will surely be made to retract this and make time for Brooks most reasonable request. The fact he did not do so immediately and publicly at the first opportunity speaks volumes.

SDS officers and managers up to their necks….and of course Bob Lambert

T3 will hear from some of the most notorious SDS officers, guilty of some of the worst of their shared traits, and some who went one, two or multiple steps further. Mark Cassidy, Peter Francis and James Thomson are all due to give evidence over separate four-day periods between now and Christmas. David Barr, counsel to the UCPI, outlined their deployments. All their testimony will demand further reporting after their hearing evidence (and the evidence of those they deceived). It is safe to say that none are in for an easy time.

All deceived women into sexual relationships. Cassidy living with ‘Alison’ for four years of his deployment, while married with children with ‘S’. Both will give evidence. Thomson deceived two women into long term sexual relationships and a further adolescent woman into a long-term close friendship. One of whom ‘Ellie’ he maintained sporadic, intimate contact with, even after the public inquiry had been announced, only admitting to his real identity when the UCPI said it would no longer maintain his anonymity in 2018.  Francis too had one-night stands while deployed under his assumed names of Peter Black and Peter Daley.

The opening statements reveal patterns of behaviour similar to stories revealed about Tranche 2 (T2) officers. Mental illness and traumatic events were feigned to explain behaviours and ultimately end deployments for example. But also new and troubling traits emerge from these three deployments. All three travelled abroad extensively in their cover identities. Cassidy was a member of the Hackney branch of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT), and Francis enrolled in Kingsway College to get near his target group. These developments clearly point to issues about the SDS managers, both in their organisational efforts as well as their lack of general oversight day to day into the Undercover Officers’ (UCOs) conduct.

Along with HN58, Bob Lambert’s name appears extensively throughout the deployments of the three men. An SDS operations manager at the time, as well as being shrouded in the conspiracies that abound his meeting with UCO Dave Hagan and DI Richard Walton at the time of the Macpherson Report, he has also been highlighted as an extremely influential presence in the T3 era SDS, in particular on Francis and Thomson. The fact that much of Lambert’s own undercover deployment controversies are mirrored, echoed then amplified (see Robert Lambert in the 1980s: Frankenstein’s monster grows up | Counterfire) throughout this era of the SDS means his appearance next year in the next phase will again be eagerly anticipated by those seeking answers. To be frank, Lambert’s life and career probably merit an inquiry or legal investigation of their own.

Where does the buck stop

Dave Morris, who represents himself in matters relating to the McLibel trial, again used his statement to highlight the need for investigation of decision-making processes that led to these undercover deployments. Lambert is a key cog in this. A Commander of the SDS in this era, Roger Pearce, was another UCO during the T2 period. The presence and success of these two men’s careers, after such controversial undercover deployments in the 1980s and the attitudes they have displayed since speaks volumes. But inquiry counsel David Barr further revealed in his statement that Lord Paul Condon will also be appearing next summer. This is a result surely of the controversies that abound the surveillance of Stephen Lawrence’s family, the justice campaign surrounding his murder, and the SDS interference with the Macpherson Report. He was the Commissioner of the MPS at the time, the highest-ranking police officer in the country.

The next stop is Westminster. There is an ever-louder thud being heard at the Home Office’s door. With each year and passing tranche the notion that Home Secretaries from successive governments were not aware of the SDS has become increasingly farcical. It seems ever more likely that they undoubtedly were, and in certain circumstances had a hand in directing where UCOs were deployed. Francis’s opening statement discussed his target group changing from Militant Labour to Youth Against Racism in Europe just days before he went undercover. This was only a few months after Stephen Lawrence was murdered. Imran Khan, speaking on behalf of Baroness Doreen Lawrence, alleged Home Office involvement in the surveillance on her family. Shortly after the UCPI was called a decade ago, a former Home Secretary of the time keenly sought out Baroness Lawrence. At this meeting the person in question eagerly assured her that the Home Office had not had any involvement in the spying on her and her family after Stephen’s death. This, coming before any disclosure was heard or evidence gathered, was taken as confirmation by Doreen that they most certainly were. She has left it as an open question whether she will name this person when she gives her hearing evidence on November 20^th.

What’s next at the UCPI?

At time of completing this article, ‘Sara’ one of the women deceived into a long-term relationship by James Thomson has just given the first hearing evidence of T3. I will aim to cover this in the next report from the UCPI, but it was marked by the harrowing abuses of the UCO and the dignity and bravery of the witness. This shared trait that runs through the women deceived into long term sexual relationships by SDS UCOs so starkly sets them apart from their abusers when they take the stand. Bar a day of evidence on Monday 20 October from HN143 Bryan Gunn, a senior SDS manager, more relevant to the earlier T2 time period, the next fortnight will be dedicated to analysis of James Thomson’s deployment and will feature hearing evidence from further women he deceived, and a family member of a deceased child he stole the identity of.

This will culminate at the start of November in four days of evidential hearings from Thomson himself. Details are available on the website Undercover Policing Inquiry: Official Website. The hearings can be followed either in person by emailing the UCPI to let them know you will attend, or on the Inquiries YouTube channel live with a 10-minute delay. For those doing everything to hold the MPS and Government to account for their actions, all support and help is very welcome. Please check out the campaign pages of Police Spies Out of Lives, Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance and the Undercover Research Group for further analysis and insight from those affected.