As managers in the Special Demonstration Squad are about to give evidence to the Mitting inquiry, new restrictions on reporting have been introduced, reports James Simpson 

The Undercover Policing Inquiry, the public inquiry into the ‘Spycops’ scandal called in 2014 by then Prime Minister Teresa May, has been rocked by further restriction orders. These bring into question how public it will ever be. 

The Spycops scandal erupted upon the discovery in 2010 that a succession of police officers of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and latterly the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) had been living as political activists for years on end since 1968. They had been spying on a diverse range of left-wing groups, from anarchists to revolutionary socialists, justice and anti-racism campaigns to hunt saboteurs and environmental activists. They had formed friendships, long-term sexual relationships and, on four known occasions (so far), fathered children with unaware, deceived women. They passed information onto Special Branch and the security services, which was used in vetting and blacklisting practices in the private and public sectors. They broke the law and incited others to do so. 

Already, after ten and more years of legal wrangling to protect the identity of undercover officers and the practices in which they engaged, the idea that this was in any way an open process has long since vanished. On Friday, the inquiry announced that no hearings from now until the second week of December will be live streamed. So far, a live stream has been available online through the Undercover Police Inquiries YouTube channel, albeit with a ten-minute delay to ensure secrets into policing and security practices are maintained away from the prying eyes of the public that have been their victims on so many occasions. 

This at least allowed an increasingly ageing section of the core participants – the people deemed by the inquiry to be the ones most directly affected by undercover policing – a way to stay in touch with the goings on and listen to testimony as it was given (nearly) if they couldn’t get to central London. This was accompanied by published transcripts of hearings which will now also be replaced by edited summations of witness testimony. 

Shielding secrecy 

So why bring in the changes now? This summer, evidence was given by officers and core participants in the second tranche of the inquiry, loosely covering the period between the mid-80s to mid-90s.  This included evidence from officers like Roger Pearce and Trevor Morris, and included live testimony that ‘smearing people’ was the job of the security services not the police, which would trend online. Morris would later be found to also be the ‘Carlton King’ who Sir John Mitting, chair of the Inquiry, would be forced to ‘neither confirm nor deny’ had ever been in the employ of MI6. Pearce would also be found to have been busy writing fictional tales of undercover officers who had sexual encounters with activists. This, while at the same time denying any knowledge of any such incidents ever being mentioned in real life in the pubs and safe houses in which the SDS held their regular meetings. 

The return of the second tranche, belatedly delayed to the start of this October, was notable for the lack of police officers giving evidence. This was save for one using the cypher HN122 who infiltrated the RCP and Class War in the late 80s and early 90s. A man whose selective memory was so on point and well-conditioned, that he could not remember any of the multiple times he had strayed beyond the M25 under his assumed identity. Even though he had stated doing so in his own earlier witness statements. Even when crashing at the band Chumbawamba’s Leeds residence. A boring man, relatively inconsequential by his colleagues’ standards of deviance and criminality, who could very easily be relied on to give little away. 

Bubbling away in the background of everything since the resumption of the inquiry this year have been the names of SDS officers Bob Lambert, Andy Coles and John Dines. They had been repeatedly intimated to have been central powerful figures in the fabric of this era of undercover policing. This was an era where the unit moved from the periphery of the security-services’ policing of political thought and notions of equitable justice, to being a larger cog in the stated desire to undermine and waylay social and political movements which would challenge any element of the ruling-class’s domination of society. 

Illegality and deception 

Dines would enter a four-year sexual relationship with Helen Steel whilst undercover. Steel along with Dave Morris, were two members of London Greenpeace who were sued by McDonalds for daring to hand out literature to the public that challenged whether the company’s food was good for your longevity, their practices good for the environment and the business good for the economy. For their troubles, as well as Dines, they were watched by multiple spies privately employed by the fast-food corporation, even when they were receiving legal advice from a young lawyer named Keir Starmer. Helen and Dave will be giving evidence, along with London Greenpeace and animal-rights activist comrades. This will be covered by the Inquiry’s new restriction directives. Dines, who now lives in Australia, won’t be called to give evidence, and will continue in his employ of teaching ethics to police officers Down Under. 

Coles had two sexual relationships with teenage girls he deceived as a 30-something police officer masquerading as an environmental activist. He wrote what is described as the SDS Manual. A set of guidelines that delineates and formalises the behaviours of these officers, whilst disparagingly joking about the people in the groups they were infiltrating. Coles went on to become a Tory councillor until 2023. His evidence is due to be heard at the end of December and is not yet covered by the new restriction order but must be viewed as under similar threat in terms of how publicly available it will be. Some of his victims’ evidence will, however, be under the new secretive structure. 

Lambert infiltrated animal-rights and environmental activists, is said to have had four sexual relationships undercover, and fathered one child, of whom he was at the birth yet abandoned at the end of his deployment. He is said to have firebombed a Debenhams store and been a co-author of the documents over which McDonalds would later sue. He later became the head of the SDS, a senior university lecturer and leading talking head on Islamic radicalism who is said to have been a leading influence on the birth of the much criticised Prevent legislation. His evidence, and anybody tangentially connected with him, is absolutely covered by the restriction order. In fact, every single person giving evidence that will now be quasi-secret, will be testifying, in the main, about the working practices of Lambert, Coles and Dines. 

And this is the nub of it. As the inquiry has reached the stage where the SDS metamorphosed from founder Conrad Dixon’s brainchild as an extension of protest policing to where it submerged itself as a contributory element of the amorphous, all-encompassing behemoth that is the British secret state. This is the exact time that the Inquiry has decided that the lights must go out. Where this transformation is accompanied by the rampant and habitual disregard for morality and law that this status brings, is the moment the Inquiry wants to go rogue. Where the SDS become more scalphunters than bobby-on-the-beat, to maintain their unique usefulness to MI5, this is where the Inquiry most wants the British public to have its gaze averted. 

At this point, this is the only public, viable direct challenge to the security services in the UK and how it polices political organisation and thought. The potential to learn about the development of the security apparatus that enshrouds us today is there and it is imperative that we give as much oxygen to the efforts to expose and publicise their methods and patterns of behaviour as we can, whilst we can.  

To get a seat in the public gallery at the Undercover Police Inquiry you can apply through their website at https://www.ucpi.org.uk/hearings-registration/