UK: Undercover policing: spycops north of the border
25 April 2016
"A SALES engineer from Angus was in charge of a secret police squad being investigated by a public inquiry.
(...)
His biography said: “Seconded to a National Unit responsible for gathering, assessing and disseminating intelligence relating to domestic extremism, including animal rights, left and right wing extremists and environmental extremism. Attending force areas throughout the UK, I would work with covert assets to assist with the planning, preparation and implementation of any operational policing response to planned demonstrations where there was potential for extremist activity.”
In September 2003, his biography said he was promoted to detective sergeant with NPOIU and “coordinated the activities of five field officers who had liaison responsibilities across all police forces within the UK.”
He claimed to have been involved in policing at the G8 Summit at Gleaneagles in 2005 when undercover Met officers were working in Scotland. They included the most notorious, Mark Kennedy, who was attached to the NPOIU between 2003 and 2010 until being exposed."
See:
Revealed: Sales engineer from Angus led cops' undercover scandal squad (Daily Record, link)
Also in Scotland, another Member of the Scottish Parliament has discovered that her name was kept in the files of The Consulting Association, a company that worked on behalf of major construction firms to keep a blacklist of construction workers and others. See:
"It's sinister": Ex-socialist MSP Rosie Kane fears police were spying on her after discovering name on blacklist (Daily Record, link). Background on blacklisting:
“Every Man a Capitalist”: The long history of monitoring ‘unsuitable’ workers in the UK (Statewatch Journal, August 2013)
Meanwhile, the
Pitchford Inquiry into undercover policing (link) - which covers only the work of officers in England and Wales - is to continue with a hearing "regarding possible prosecutions stemming from evidence given to the Inquiry."
A
press note (pdf) published by the Inquiry says:
"In any Inquiry, it is possible that people giving evidence could be asked questions which, if answered truthfully, could leave them open to prosecution or implicate others. The Chairman has no power to grant anyone giving evidence immunity from prosecution, but he can request an Undertaking from the Attorney General (who in conjunction with the Director of Public Prosecutions is responsible for overseeing the bringing of criminal prosecutions) limiting the use that can be made of evidence given to the Inquiry.
The hearing on 27 April is for the Chairman to consider arguments on how broad any Undertaking to be sought from the Attorney General should be."
In other news, one of the women tricked into a relationship with an undercover officer has criticised a new television series that has undercover policing and intimate relationships as its main theme. See:
I lived with an undercover officer – this BBC series gets it all wrong and
Woman who lived with police spy criticises BBC drama Undercover (The Guardian, link)