Thread by @copscampaign

The #SpyCopsInquiry resumes with Kirsten Heaven, representing 'Non-Police, Non-State Core Participants' (ie people significantly targeted by #SpyCops).

The group I represent are deeply angry that the next stage of the Inquiry is delayed until next year campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2021/04/20/new…

Mitting interjects to say that someone from the SWP has joined the Inquiry & getting them up to speed will cause the delay.

Heaven continues: we just learned this week that Tranche 2 hearings covering 1983-1992 won't be in 2022.The Inquiry was originally scheduled to *end* in 2018. Officers & witnesses are of advancing age, we're already losing some to ill health and death

HN67 Alan Bond had vital evidence but the Inquiry waited 3 years & now he is too ill. The Inquiry must take statements ASAP from all spycops. Evidence preservation is paramount, this includes testimony. The real reason for delays appears to be police desire for secrecy.

We ask the Inquiry to give specific dates for the next hearings.
We welcome the disclosure of documents, but it has been done badly. The lack of livestreaming outside of these opening statements stops people from seeing the evidence. There is no need for this.

The audio stream is limited to England & Wales, but some Core Participants are abroad and deserve it too

These hearings cover 1973-82. We've examined the documents the Inquiry has released for it. It shows what we suspected - it was without doubt political policing. There was widespread, illegitimate infiltration of groups almost all on the left, as well as lawyers & others

Spycops were involved in criminality & caused miscarriages of justice. There is excessive surveillance, ofeten at the behest of MI5. Trade unions & mainstream political parties were spied on.

#SpyCops were fully active by the early 1970s, unashamedly described by the units founder Conrad Dixon as infiltration of 'relatively innocuous organisations' as a potential stepping stone to other groups. People's details were taken from all groups & copied to MI5.

The women's liberation mmovement were targeted, with jumble sales & a children's Christmas party infiltrated. Officer HN298 Mike Scott infiltrated to the youth wing of the Liberal Party in order to get access to anti apartheid activist @PeterHain .

Cynical targeting of innocuous groups shows disdain for civil society by spycops.

Police lawyers emphasised the Commissioner & SDS' Annual Reports to show an increase in public otrder issues. But we haven;t seen them. Even then, these docs were designed to ensure continuation of funding, they were not objective.

SDS annual reports don't reflect spycops statements to the Inquiry that say groups were not a threat to the nation.

HN294 was SDS boss in early 1970s, in 1973 he told MI5 that infiltrating International Socialists & International Marxist Group was 'disappointing' due to a lack of anything worth knowing.

The docs we've seen what MI5 think is a threat. In early 1970s they didn't think subversive posed a high threat, pressure to investigate came from Prime Minister & Whitehall. We urge the Inquiry to investigate political influence on #SpyCops.

We see the continuation of reporting on lawyers & material that may be subject to legal privilege, often around justice campaigns. Spycop Alex Sloan reports on the justice campaign on the 1971 death of Stephen McCarthy who died after alleged assault by police.

Heaven lists a number of people involved in campaigns of bereaved families. Many of these were directly targeted, despite the recent denials by police lawyers. eg The Free Desmond Trotter Campaign had standard activity such as fundraising & demonstrations were reported on.

we see children of activists were reported on. eg a report copied to MI5 talked about someone's brother & wife and 'their mongol child'.

Police lawyers say such reporting 'did not cause any harm' to report on children. It was a gross invasion of privacy & family. It is harmful to society.

Spycop Paul Gray reported extensively on School Kids Against the Nazis (SKAN), involving children, copied to MI5. Has the Inquiry tried to contact anyone from SKAN? We think we should hear from them directly.

[Heaven now plays a vintage film of SKAN handing out leaflets to youngsters]

[the film has no audio, which seems like an error.]

[Heaven confirms it needs sound, and now it's turned on] Kids saying they're opposed to the National Front's scapegoating, and talking of racism at school.
"We are black, we are white, we are dynamite"

Film was in Hackney, 1979

Heaven continues: many groups spied upon have had their names redacted. But we know some groups spied on were: Christian Aid, Fellowship Party No Racism No Violence, numerous branches of the Labour Party, Orpington Young Liberals, 6 Trade Union Councils, TGWU Legal Workers Branch

Lewisham Humanists, NUS, NUT. Many women's groups - Women's Voice, Spare Rib Collective, Women Workers League, Brixton Black Womens Group, Greenham Common Womens Support Group, Lambeth Women For Peace among many, many others.

Photo taken of a woman at the funeral of Balir Peach, she'd left the SWP but was still interested in Women''s Voice.

Spycop Barry Tompkins reported on a woman having an abortion & speculated on the putative father.

Police lawyers said political neutrality meant not favouring any groups. This is clearly not what happened. The SDS & MI5 targeted hundreds of people on the left & were less interested in the rising far right who wanted to create fear & violence.

The SDS annual reports say the far right wasn't of interest. They had one officer in a far right group in 1975 because the left wing group he was in tasked him to do it, not realising he was already a spy!

Why were the far right not targeted by spycops? If police allege greater cooperation from far right groups than left ones, we want to see the evidence. The National Front instigated public disorder & crime against the public, & it was not preempted by police.

spycop HN33 Gary Roberts signed became a student, attending classes 4 days a week, became vice president of his NUS, all paid for by Special Branch as part of his cover.

Trade unions & #blacklisting: The police lawyers said SDS officers didn't infiltrate uniopns & weren't invovled in blacklisting. But 1972 annual report details reports on multiple strieks & the @Shrewsbury24C campaign. spycop David Hughes joined TGWU & went to meetings.

The Inquiry says it doesn't need to hear from Hughes. The Blacklist Support Group are outrage at police lawyers referring to 'so-called blacklisting organisations'. There is not doubt it happened & such language is offensive to its victims.

The Met's own investigation found police had been involved in the construction industry blacklist run by The Consulting Association. It is plain, agreed fact, and another example of police lawyers rowing back on reality.

The SDS keenly infiltrated groups at the behest of MI5, irrespective of the group's threat to anyone. They harvested photos, bank details, phone numbers, membership lists for MI5.

Police say SDS says it wasn't a servant of MI5, but also says they weren't in a position to question MI5's knowledge and motives. Which one is true? It can't be both. Should the SDS have questioned & understood MI5 to see if their requests were reasonable?

It appears that it wasn't until 1984 that the SDS was given guidance on its relation to MI5, to seek advice before targeting potential 'subversives', & mustn't hinder in legitimate expression of ideas or exercise of civil liberties. But how far did they question it?

At the last hearings we didn't get proper disclosure in time & the inquiry's live transcript of hearings was a joke. It excludes the public. Disclosure is no better this time, with thousands of pages dumped on us at short notice. And still it was short of what we were promised.

We ask again for the Inquiry to disclose all files on Core Participants. We ask for explanation of the file reference numbering systems so we can understand what the files were.

We also ask for all the material gathered by Operation Herne - the Met's spycops investigation form about 5 years ago - as some officers now dispute what Herne says they were told.

We ask the Inquiry to proactively encourage people who were spied on to be involved - publish pics of spycops while undercover, publish names of groups targeted, tell everyone who was spied up.

The level of redaction is worrying - why are names of groups redacted? The Inquiry should publish them ASAP

[here's the most complete list that @UndercoverNet could compile theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-int… ]

The Inquiry will be giving us a 'gist document' of 7 officers who have full anonymity. It groups info by theme, not by officer, so does not help us which spycops did what.

The Inquiry will have secret 'closed' hearings to speak to these officers. Two of these appear to have talked about their careers in the BBC TV Series True Spies! Some of the officers are assessed as 'low risk'. Why must their evidence be kept secret?

Out of 18 officers alive from 1973-82, we'll only hear from 8 at these hearings. This is disturbing. HN353 Gary Roberts gave a statement in 2019, but is now out of the country so won;t give evidence, instead we'll get a summary.

Roberts was at the 1974 demo where Kevin Gately was killed, and at the 1977 Battle of Lewisham. His reports appear to be missing. Being abroad is not an excuse. Why can't he give evidence on Zoom like many of us?

An HN299 report was described on Wednesday by Counsel to the Inquiry 'the most disturbing we have found'. It was 1 person at a reading group talking about when the revolution comes 2m people will be killed. The Inquiry needs to discern rhetoric 7 overstatement from actual threat

An officer at the 1974 Red Lion Square demo was punched in the face by a uniformed officer. But the run up intel, and debrief are all missing. So much is missing from reports of that demo. We need to hear from the witnesses.

Spycop Barry Tompkins HN106 denies reports of deceiving a woman into a relationship. He is not giving evidence due to ill health. We see no evidence for his ill health being verified. We want more transparency on medical evidence of witnesses who won't give evidence due to health

There was widespread, systematic contempt for the rights of those on the left of the political spectrum. It clearly breached their common law rights and human rights. Any assurances from SDS & MI5 can't be trusted. We must see the files, and correct false info.

The scale of spycops, the lack of accountability, the political bias of groups targeted all suggest undercover policing by the SDS was unlawful, for political purposes, motivated by a desire to protect the establishment rather than the wider public interest.

With that, Heaven concludes. There will be a 10 minute break. the #SpyCopsInquiry will resume at 3.35pm.