Thread by @fruitbatmania

Back in Court this morning reporting on Day 2 of the IPT hearing against #spycops.
You can follow the hearing live here:
meet.video.justice.gov.uk/go/f2de00d5-fb…
Or read the thread below..

The hearing started with a Judge requestinig the police to provide an organigram of officers and roles, who was senior to who etc. Police secrecy around the roles of #spycops commanding officers makes the evidence very difficult to interpret. Police say they will provide it today

Charlotte Kilroy QC continues looking at the severity of the Article 3 breach.
At least 27 women are core participants in the #SpyCopsInquiry because of relationships they had with #spycops

The #SpyCopsInquiry is also sitting today - follow the hashtag or @tombfowler for live tweeting from there throughout the day.

We continue with the Tradecraft Manual by DS Andy Coles that encourages #spycops to have "fleeting & disastrous" sexual relationships. Coles himself had a sexual relationship with a 19-year-old girl while he was a UCO. He is now running as a Tory councillor in Peterborough

There was continuity between the SDS and NPOIU. The SDS provided training and guidance. MK knew SDS officers ,and for a time the operations were authorised by the same officers. "Rod Richardson" (MK's predecessor) was trained by DS Coles #spycops

Jim Boyling's operation "Psycho Dream" was authorised by Roger Pearce. Pearce was a
#spycops commander involved in producing reports for the NPOIU ACPO-TAM meetings. He was signing off and reporting on intelligence gathering operations including MK.

Worth noting that I was being reported on by #spycops long before I met Mark. Rod Richardson's pocketbooks show one-on-one meetings with me after London Reclaim the Streets meetings in 1999.

the Herne report also reports on the common features of SDS and NPOIU operations. Long term #spycops deployments (lasting several years) were felt to provide the best results. That practice carried over to the NPOIU (MK operation lasted 7 years).

@realspycop give evidence to Herne saying relationships were "tacitly accepted and in many ways vital in maintaining an UC role" Hern concluded no evidence sex was expressly authorised BUT that #spycops were effectively left unsupervised, and allowed to make individual choices.

It is a fact that for a time post-RIPA the NPOIU #spycops worked in a similar fashion as the SDS. They developed their tactics and MO from the SDS and a number of officers moved from the SDS to the NPOIU.

@HWistrich statement describes relationships had by women she represented in the #SpyCopsInquiry and civil claims. A very large number of #spycops are known to have had relationships. The methods used by these men to deceive women are the same as those used by MK.

Other #spycops in the field knew about MK's relationships. Marco Jacobs himself had 2 relationships as a UCO. The most plausible interpretation of the evidence is a culture of acceptance: abusive sexual relationships were simply something that happened in undercover work.

Judge points out all institutions have a culture of not grassing your mates. But here we see it going all the way to the top. The police have a positive obligation under Art 3 to have prevented these kinds of abuses. There was no such system, which is why it went on for so long.

Important question here is were #spycops properly trained?

SDS training described as "unstructured and ad hoc".

NPOIU trainer is quoted in disclosed evidence (he was specifically told by the police he would not have to give evidence under oath). He did not keep training material or notes, but he is sure that the training did mention sex...
That is all the evidence there is. #spycops

Police case claims nothing more could have been done to supervise MK. That is nonsense. It is clear that there was something wrong with the system of supervision and monitoring.

MK had the same cover officer for 7 years. That was identified by HMIC and SOCA as a failing.

Police also claim no senior #spycops officers knew it was happening. You can't have a system where nobody even notices MK has multiple relationships in several years and at the same time claim that there was no failing of supervision.

We say they DID know. It is impossible to believe they did not know. Which means something has gone badly wrong in a #spycops unit where people took no steps to prevent deployed officers sexually abusing women.

This issue is important for understanding the severity of the Article 3 breach. Was the the abuse committed by MK alone or was there was a systemic breach by the entire #spycops unit?

Human Rights claims like this are supposed to discover the facts of how the violations happened so the State can learn from that and make sure it never happens again. Remember #spycops are still out there.

There was no written guidance about #spycops sexual relationships and no proper supervision

Police claim it was "always clear there was a prohibition" on sex. That is simply NOT TRUE. After MK was found out Senior officers gave very different repsponses about #spycops and sex: Some said it was not allowed, others said it was "inevitable".

Moving on to Art 14 - These violations were sexist discrimination. Police say it's not necessary to consider this part of the claim!
Straw poll - anyone surprised @metpoliceuk are saying institutional sexism among Met officers isn't important enough to be investigated? #spycops

It is our case that sexist discrimination is at the heart of this claim. MK's relationship with me & all the #spycops relationships (see @out_of_lives ) happened because of a culture of institutional sexism. No one felt it was important to stop women's bodies being used that way.

The police ask the Tribunal not to rule on this point, so the Court is examining the case law to see whether sexism is relevant and important for determining this claim. 27 women are CP's at the #spycopsinquiry . All the #spycops officers who had relationships with us were men.

The court has been shown a timeline of all the women involved in my Civil claim and represented by @hwistrich at the UCPI. It spans 26 years from 1984-2010 and includes relationships with 18 different women all deceived by male #spycops

Statistically women were far more likely to be victims of these kinds of abusive relationships with #spycops. That difference in treatment is important to our case.

Women are also more at risk from these relationships for biological reasons. #spycops like Bob Lambert & Jim Boyling fathered children. Other affected women were unable to have children because the abusive relationships took place in the last of their childbearing years.

We claimed sexism. The police have deliberately failed to investigate this point despite accepting in their apology to women victims of #spycops that there were "attitudes towards women which should have no place in the Metropolitan Police"

The #spycops relationships were also extremely manipulative. Our evidence includes examples of emails and letters sent by MK. There is also the very disturbing report of intimate photos held on MK's mobile phone.

Men in the communities were not exposed to the same risks of abuse. The vast majority of victims were women who also faced more biological risks. Systemic discriminatory attitudes are at the heart of this case. #spycops disregard for women's dignity allowed abuse to take place.

Judge has just pointed out that sexist comments in emails are hardly evidence of a culture and practice, as they are endemic in many organisations!

We are not talking about individual #spycops officers and the attitudes displayed in their emails. We are talking about a systemic disregard for women's dignity that made it possible for these abusive relationships to take place.

We now move on to the overall lawfulness of these #spycops operations

The police have admitted that intrusion into my life by #sycops Mark Kennedy, Jim Boyling, "Jason Bishop", "Rod Richardson", "Lynn Watson" and "Marco Jacobs"
were disproportionate. That means they were simply not in accordance with the law under HRA Article 8.2

However, the police have asked the Tribunal to rule that these secret political #spycops operations were "necessary in a democratic society"

The outcome of an openended fishing expedition is not evidence of the need for it in the first place. The decisions have to be lawful and justified at the time. Any retrospective exercise is inherently problematic.

I have never been convicted of anything and the vast majority of the 100s or 1000s of people MK and the other #spycops spied on were not involved in any kind of serious crime.

SOCA report criticisms of the NPOIU are very robust.
NPOIU did not have internal policy documents or standard operating proceedures. No evidence that authorising officers were aware of other intelligence options. that could have made such intrusive #spycops operations unnecessary

And we are stopping for lunch