A judge-led public inquiry has found that an undercover police unit that infiltrated leftwing political groups caused “outrage and pain” to the public and acted in a sexist and racist way.
The inquiry ruled that the Scotland Yard unit was not justified in intruding deeply into the private lives of campaigners, including their sexual relationships, and suggested it should have been disbanded early in its existence.
The inquiry found that the managers of the unit frequently approved reports that contained “many examples” of racism and sexism.
Senior Whitehall officials, some of them in the Cabinet Office, and top police officers knew about the unit, which was part of a highly covert state-funded apparatus that spied on leftwing and progressive groups, the inquiry concluded.
The critical evaluation of the unit, known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), was made public on Monday by David Barr KC, the inquiry’s most senior barrister.
He said the unit’s “operations have caused a lot of harm. Democratic freedoms have been infringed, outrage and pain has been caused.”
The inquiry, led by the former judge Sir John Mitting, is examining how 139 undercover officers spied on more than 1,000 mainly leftwing groups between 1968 and at least 2010. The officers were sent on deployments, usually lasting four years, to infiltrate political groups and acquire information about the activities of campaigners.
The first phase of the inquiry has focused on the early covert operations run by the SDS between 1968 and 1982.
Summarising its broad conclusions from this first phase, Barr said: “The level of intrusion into people’s lives arising from SDS operations, particularly once long-term deployments became the norm, was very considerable.
“Moreover, the intrusion resulting from the SDS’s operations was into very sensitive areas of people’s lives: their political lives, their financial affairs, their legal affairs, their families, their friendships and even, in some instances, their sex lives.”
Barr said at least five undercover officers deceived women into sexual relationships in these early operations, and there was evidence that the unit’s managers knew about the deception. “There is also evidence that the risk of sexual misconduct was both obvious and recognised. More could and should have been done to reduce the risk of sexual misconduct by the undercover officers.”
The inquiry intends to examine how at least 15 other undercover officers deceived women into intimate relationships that occurred between the 1980s and 2010, including fathering children with them.
The undercover unit compiled the information gathered about activists into “extensive and deeply personal” reports that were, Barr said, “on many occasions sarcastic, or otherwise unprofessional. The attitudes betrayed by the language used in reports are significant. There is sexism. There is racism. There are many examples. Such reporting was known to managers and accepted because they signed off the reports.”
Barr said it was “hard to identify a single instance” in which information gathered by the unit “averted a public order calamity”.
He said the SDS operated with a “remarkable lack of oversight, formal training and instruction” but was not a “rogue unit” as it was funded by the Home Office and collaborated with MI5.
Barr said the need to gather information about political groups such as feminists and anti-racism campaigners “was not an adequate justification for the intrusion caused” by the long-term covert operations.
The inquiry continues.
