Come clean on undercover policing
Have they have learnt that the truth will come out eventually?
A petition has been set up calling on Lord Justice Pitchford to ensure a transparent, robust and comprehensive public inquiry into undercover policing.
It is demanding truth and justice for the women deceived into intimate relationships by undercover police officers and all those affected by police spying on social and environmental justice groups.
Lord Justice Pitchford, who has sat in the Court of Appeal for five years, has been appointed to lead the public inquiry into the police’s controversial use of undercover officers to infiltrate political campaigns for over more than 40 years.
Why is a transparent, robust and comprehensive public inquiry important?
Everyone has the right to participate in the struggle for social and environmental justice, without fear of persecution, objectification, or interference in their lives.
However, many campaigns and individuals have been targeted by Britain’s secret police for decades, undermining efforts for social justice that should be welcomed in a democratic society.
Citizens have been spied on, psychologically and emotionally manipulated, and abused by officers for being part of, or simply knowing people who were part of, such campaigns.
We all welcome the announcement of a full public inquiry into political undercover policing, but it must be truly transparent, robust and comprehensive.
In particular the inquiry must:
Be willing to hear evidence from those affected by undercover policing including: the women deceived into long-term intimate relationships by officers; the family justice campaigns for those bereaved at the hands of the police and those challenging the efficacy of police investigations in relation to the deaths or assaults of loved ones; the construction workers blacklisted with the help of undercover police;the families whose dead children’s identities were stolen by officers; and all campaign groups spied on;
Protect police whistleblowers from prosecution under the Official Secrets Act and encourage current and former officers to give evidence;
Cover all undercover police units from 1968 to the present day;
Ensure the police fully cooperate with the inquiry and do not obstruct its operation though the use of their ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ stance;
Hold senior police officers past and present, especially former Met Commissioners and Special Branch Commanders, to account for any wrong doing attributed to the units under their command;
Investigate officers sharing or selling information and experience acquired through undercover policing to the private sector; and
Make recommendations to change the law, especially the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), to prevent these abuses from continuing.
This petition runs just as a report to the Attorney General with the title Review Of Possible Miscarriages Of Justice Impact of Undisclosed Undercover Police Activity on the Safety of Convictions was published. The report, written by Mark Ellison QC and Alison Morgan, is being known as the Ellison Report.
The review was set up after revelations that undercover officers had formed long-term relationships with female campaigners, stolen the identities of dead children, and hidden key evidence in court cases.
More than 10 women have been taking legal action against the police after finding out that their boyfriends were undercover officers sent to spy on them or their friends.
However, with many of the undercover officers still hidden, there is a possibility that other women have had relationships with police spies without knowing their true identities.
And Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen, has called for undercover officers who infiltrated political campaigns and spied on her family to be identified.
A Scotland Yard undercover unit had spied on the Lawrence family and their supporters while they pressed police to carry out a proper investigation into Stephen’s murder.
Baroness Lawrence told the Guardian she believed that the reputation of the police had been damaged by their failure to investigate her son’s murder properly and by the revelations about the undercover officers.
“They need to rebuild their reputation. The only way is come out and say what you have done and speaking the truth,” she said.
“What I am hoping is that they will have learnt the lesson that the truth will come out eventually.”