Thread by @copscampaign

The next speaker today at the #SpyCopsInquiry is Ruth Brander, representing the Non-Police, Non-State Core Participant Group.

Brander: I speak for all the non state core participants at the Inquiry people apart from families officers & @realspycop. I'm supplementing the statements from other lawyers who represent them,

Brander: They want to know what was done to them personally, & how #spycops were allowed to undermine civil society in the UK & beyond for over 50 years.

Brander: Almost every decision since Chair took charge of the Inquiry has reduced its ability to get to the truth. The Inquiry isn't interested enough in transparency as a means of getting to the truth. It plans to stop live streaming next week.

Brander: Lack of public access to #SpyCopsInquiry has no real security risk if there were for events 50 years ago. Other Inquiries eg CSA has proper security to prevent information being wrongly released by live stream

Brander: Spycops get anonymity at the Inquiry to protect comfort & reputation, not security. Some have spoken publicly before! Police can't claim secrecy prevents them giving true picture when it's limits they demanded.

Brander: Anonymity was granted to #spycops was several years ago, when we expected a public hearing. But in Covid times, it means we don't get live streaming & makes the public inquiry a private inquiry

Brander: It helps nobody to refuse to livestream the #SpyCopsInquiry. Reading a transcript is not the same thing. We ask for the decision to be changed.

Brander: Victims of #spycops have 4 big concerns
1 Victims must be treated a significant resource, helping uncover not only personal stories but deeper themes. But hardly anyone sees the documents available to the Inquiry, & even those get 5,500 pages with 4 weeks notice.

Brander:
2 Giving anonymity to #spycops & not even publishing photos of named one the Inquiry loses many people who would otherwise come forward & help get to the truth

Brander:
3 Inquiry puts too much trust in police who hold the evidence that incriminates them

Brander:
4 Having a sole white male chair dealing with racism & sexism can't function as well as having a diverse panel advising alongside him.

Brander: When #SpyCopsInquiry was announced we hoped the victims would be at the heart of the process & would at least see their files. But more than 5 years later, almost nobody has had anything at all. Requests have been dismissed by the Chair as unhelpful distraction

Brander: Given disclosure, victims of #spycops would help the Inquiry fulfil its purpose. But the Inquiry hasn't searched Met files on core participants, and when told about files it hasn't asked for the full file. Victims are appalled by this.

Brander: Police's own lawyers said there's no easy way of saying which intel came from the #spycops units. Officers themselves can't identify their own reports. The subject will often be the ONLY person who can identify the source

Brander: As #spycops had access to people's files, ALL info in the file is relevant to what spycops did, whether a spycops was the source or not. The Inquiry must get the full files or else it can ONLY make decisions from an uninformed position

Brander: The limiting of disclosure to those the Chair thinks are 'directly relevant'means others won't spot things & suggest vital questions. We thank the Chair for allowing @PeterSalmon7 from @UndercoverNet to have such access, but other victims will have more to identify

Brander: the #SpyCopsInquiry is effectively shutting out the active participation of victims, undermining public confidence in the eventual conclusions

Brander: the #SpyCopsInquiry has done little to inform people who've been spied on (largely those deceived into sexual relationships). Most victims don't even realise they were spied on. Without knowing all the names used by #spycops.

Brander: Inquiry only intends to give names used by only 6 from 21 officers of the NPOIU (unit of Mark Kennedy). People spied on can't come forward if they don't know which of their old friends was in fact a #spycops officer

Brander: We need the list of all groups targeted by #SpyCops otherwise they can't come forward and say what the officers did. We need photos of officers in their undercover identity as it will jog otherwise clouded memories. Without this, the #SpyCopsInquiry will miss vital info

Brander: Without knowing the full extent of which groups were spied on, the public won't understand the scale of what was done.

Brander: the #SpyCopsInquiry relies on police to be the principle source of evidence - where names are secret the police will be the only source. Yet they have a woeful history of disclosure. This is an inquiry into THEIR wrongdoing, they cannot be trusted to tell the whole truth

Brander: #spycops gathered *intel*, not evidence, so they knew they wouldn't have their conduct scrutinised. HMIC made this point themselves in 2012 in this report justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/public…

Brander: Spycops had a culture of impunity which stems from a lack of scrutiny. where they DID have interaction with courts, they lied and misled. Despite 19 separate reviews of #spycops we haven't got the truth. We can't trust them as their own honest archivists

Brander: #spycops undermined the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. The Met also withheld evidence of police corruption from the Lawrence inquiry. this is detailed in Mark Eellison's report from 2014 gov.uk/government/pub…

Brander: The Met have actively swerved repeated opportunities to put its house in order on #spycops. If they'll lie to courts & cover it up, why are they trusted for the #SpyCopsInquiry?

Brander: The Met have specifically destroyed files relevant to the #SpyCopsInquiry & managers didn't report it, & officers refused to engage with the investigation. metro.co.uk/2020/03/18/met…

Brander: #Spycops officer 'James Straven' lied not once but twice in sworn statement to the inquiry. Just because the Inquiry thinks a deployment was unremarkable is not good enough reason to grant anonymity. Victims may be able to contradict them if they have the name

Brander: Victims have no confidence that the police will give the #SpyCopsInquiry proper disclosure beyond tactical partial damage limitation.

Brander: We need to know the role played by the Home Office. The official review by Steven Taylor found no docs, with the key file being missing, despite serious protocls about destroying secret files campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2017/03/18/wha…

Brander: It's clear secrecy & destruction of evidence by the guilty is a real problem. Who else gets to choose which of their incriminating evidence to make public?

Brander: Most groups targeted by #spycops were spied on for political reason. They deserve justice, but the #SpyCopsInquiry Chair has been dismissive of groups with views substantially different from his own

Brander: How is the Chair equipped to decide which campaigns were justified targets, esp more recent ones where history hasn't made it stark? Esp when the groups aren't told & able to explain themselves

Brander: #SpyCopsInquiry chair has no experience of sexism or racism, which were key motivations of #spycops. He needs a divers panel to advise him but refuses.

Brander: If the #spyCopsInquiry chair is to sit without a diverse panel, he has the heavy burden of challenging his own biases. It's made harder by the secrecy around the evidence he will examine,

Brander: The public shock about #spycops isn't a modern sensibility. An 1833 Select Committee demanded strict necessity test, & a more generalised use is abhorrent & alien to the spirit of the constitution.

Brander: People have a right to a private realm. It's beyond irony that police lawyers use 'totalititarian' to describe people, they spied on for campaigning against sexism, racism & environmental protection

Brander: Victims of #spycops want this inquiry to succeed, to participate, to understand what was done, & how #spycops distorted civil society. they want lives protected from the abuses in future

Brander: victims here at the #SpyCopsInquiry want proper access to proceedings; To get their full files in advance; to get the full list of those spied on; To see photos of spycops published; To have a diverse panel to assist the Chair, asap.

Brander: Without these it's hard to see how the #SpyCopsInquiry can fulfil its purpose of getting to the truth.

With that, Brander concludes. Inquiry Chair Sir John Mitting responds: all I can say is that I hope to prove you wrong.

Mitting's immediate, offhand dismissal of all the reasoned & evidenced proposals is utterly repellant, exactly the sort of thing she was saying needs to change, & in keeping with what we've been used to from Mitting & the police. It's why we have so little faith in the process

The #SpyCopsInquiry will now break for lunch and return at 2pm when it will hear from Lord Hendy QC, speaking for the Fire Brigades Union @fbunational & Unite the Union @UnitePolitics. We will be live tweeting what he says.