Latest Operation Herne report (#3) into undercover policing - spying on justice campaigns

[DaveCinzano]

(Already posted on the Mark Kennedy überthread, but figured would be as well to have its own.)

The third Op Herne report - about spying on family & justice campaigns - was released by the Met and Derbyshire Constabulary this lunchtime:

http://content.met.police.uk/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application/pdf&blobheadervalue2=inline; filename="99/962/Operation Herne - July 2014 - SDS Reporting - Mentions of Sensitive Campaigns [PUBLIC].pdf"&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1283768671607&ssbinary=true
http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/Doc...porting---Mentions-of-Sensitive-Campaigns.pdf

It's a corker - in that Creedon admits that 18 family/justice campaigns were spied on by SDS between 1970 and 2005. The only one which is mentioned by name is the Lawrence family, because that was detailed in the previous Herne report (#2, on the allegations of Peter Francis), which coincided with the explosive Ellison Review.

Creedon has said that the families have been contacted but that he won't say which families/campaigns were spied on, you know, ‘out of respect for privacy, etc’. The Guardian has already identified the families of Ricky Reel, Cherry Groce and Jean Charles De Menezes as having been approached.

So let's build up some lists:

Definites

• Cherry Groce (1985)
• Stephen Lawrence (1993)
• Ricky Reel (1997)
• Jean Charles De Menezes (2005)

Possibles

• Kevin Gately (1974)
• Michael Ferreira (1978)
  
• Blair Peach (1979)
• Colin Roach (1983)
• Cynthia Jarrett (1985)
• Tunay Hassan (1987)
  
• Patrick Quinn (1990)
• Rolan Adams (1991)
• Quddus Ali (1993)
• Brian Douglas (1995)
• Wayne Douglas (1995)
• Harry Stanley (1999)
• Azelle Rodney (2005)

Any further suggestions?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Michael Ferreira and Tunay Hassan added, per suggestion on other thread by Fozzie Bear.

 

[belboid]

http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/230714/clipid/230714_4on_IsraelVT_23

Winston Silcott
Rolan Adams
Cynthia Jarrett
Michael Menson

confirmed, as well as the four you mention

 

[DaveCinzano]

Cheers, belboid.

Updated list:

Definites

1. Cherry Groce (1985)
2. Cynthia Jarrett (1985)
3. Winston Silcott (1985)
4. Rolan Adams (1991)
   
5. Stephen Lawrence (1993)
6. Michael Menson (1997)
   
7. Ricky Reel (1997)
8. Jean Charles De Menezes (2005)

Possibles

• Kevin Gately (1974)
• Michael Ferreira (1978)
  
• Blair Peach (1979)
• Colin Roach (1983)
• Tunay Hassan (1987)
• Patrick Quinn (1990)
• Quddus Ali (1993)
• Brian Douglas (1995)
• Wayne Douglas (1995)
• Harry Stanley (1999)
• Azelle Rodney (2005)

 

[DaveCinzano]

Here's a very recent article by Suresh Grover - who was a key person in the Lawrence family's campaign, part of the Southall Monitoring Group, and a campaigner for Blair Peach, Michael Menson, Ricky Reel and others - covering a lot of ground relevant here:

http://www.irr.org.uk/news/black-justice-campaigns-prepare-for-new-inquiry-into-undercover-policing/

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Would Hillsborough as a whole count as a possible?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Would Hillsborough as a whole count as a possible?

I can neither confirm nor deny that this may be the case.

 

[Lurdan]

Harry Stanley campaign confirmed on BBC - his widow interviewed on 6 o'clock news
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28459711

Guardian confirming Wayne Douglas campaign
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/24/undercover-police-spying-justice-campaigns-20-years

The report said the majority of campaigns reported on by the SDS "involved black males".

 

[DaveCinzano]

Cheers, Lurdan.

Updated list:

Definites

1. Cherry Groce (1985)
2. Cynthia Jarrett (1985)
3. Winston Silcott (1985)
4. Rolan Adams (1991)
   
5. Stephen Lawrence (1993)
6. Wayne Douglas (1995)
   
7. Michael Menson (1997)
   
8. Ricky Reel (1997)
9. Harry Stanley (1999)
   
10. Jean Charles De Menezes (2005)

Possibles

• Kevin Gately (1974)
• Michael Ferreira (1978)
  
• Blair Peach (1979)
• Colin Roach (1983)
• Tunay Hassan (1987)
• Patrick Quinn (1990)
• Quddus Ali (1993)
• Brian Douglas (1995)
• Azelle Rodney (2005)

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Families of victims of the New Cross Fire is also plausible.

 

[brogdale]

Met spokesman on C4 News tonight was very keen to get across how "independent" the Creedon "inquiry" was, and how the covert surveillance undertaken against the families was not 'spying', and that the only reason any SDS undercover work was undertaken was to protect the families' campaigns for justice against infiltration from groups aligning themselves in order to further violent aims.

So that's all there is to it. Case closed.

 

[elbows]

Their justification is entirely predictable given the reason for the squads existence. That special way the state reacts when considering issues of 'disorder'. That word will come up again and again.

To play a little with language as did the original version of the Prisoner...

We want information. In formation.

 

[brogdale]

Their justification is entirely predictable given the reason for the squads existence. That special way the state reacts when considering issues of 'disorder'. That word will come up again and again.

To play a little with language as did the original version of the Prisoner...

We want information. In formation.

Yes.

I can't remember the name of the filth interviewed, but he looked like he was auditioning for the job of one of those loathsome Israeli state spokesman.

 

[equationgirl]

Might be more than 18...

The report said there were several families who have not yet been contacted, and more may emerge as time goes on.

The investigation is expected to go on for another year and will report on the culture of the unit and "some behaviour that was not appropriate".

 

[brogdale]

Might be more than 18...

The final number is likely to correlate with the number of families who established justice campaigns resulting from deaths at the hands of the OB, or botched investigations. They'll have established investigations in the hope of finding 'dirt' with which to 'cover their arses' in all such cases; the fuckers.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Met spokesman on C4 News tonight was very keen to get across how "independent" the Creedon "inquiry" was, and how the covert surveillance undertaken against the families was not 'spying', and that the only reason any SDS undercover work was undertaken was to protect the families' campaigns for justice against infiltration from groups aligning themselves in order to further violent aims.

That's the ‘independent’ inquiry ‘run’ by Derbyshire top cop Creedon, but almost entirely staffed by Met officers

Creedon rather artfully made the claim in the report that the ‘target group’ which led N81 into surveilling the Lawrences “wanted to befriend the Stephen Lawrence Family and promote their own often violent agenda”.

Of course, it's pretty easy to smear someone when you don't name them - NCND, don't forget!

However, there are only a finite number of options of which group it could be. Check through your Ellison material.

eg:

• Francis had infiltrated YRE and Militant/Socialist Party (via a small left groupuscule). Therefore it's not this lot, because N81 is not Francis.
• ANL and SWP were also infiltrated at this time.
• The Socialist Action-affiliated ARA (Livingstone's chums) was also in the mix, and at the Lawrence house early on.

Curiously, Creedon goes on to say:

[The target group] were unsuccessful because it became apparent that Suresh Grover and Imran Khan, the Stephen Lawrence family’s solicitors, sought to protect the family. The family and their legal advisors wanted a wholly peaceful Justice Campaign and distanced themselves from any violent protest groups who they saw could undermine their work.

This is curious to say the least, because (for example) Suresh Grover was directly involved in justice campaigns for those including (but not limited to)... Blair Peach, Michael Menson, Ricky Reel, Stephen Lawrence, Nicky Jacobs, Cherry Groce, New Cross Massacre, Broadwater Farm.

Is Creedon seriously suggesting that Suresh himself (along with others involved in the Southall Monitoring Group and other Monitoring Groups, such as NMP, which was supposedly only ‘indirectly’ spied upon) was not spied upon? Or is it just a coincidence that SDS just happened to be - accidentally, you could say - intelligence gathering in the very campaigns Grover was trying to raise the profile of?

 

[brogdale]

That's the ‘independent’ inquiry ‘run’ by Derbyshire top cop Creedon, but almost entirely staffed by Met officers

Creedon rather artfully made the claim in the report that the ‘target group’ which led N81 into surveilling the Lawrences “wanted to befriend the Stephen Lawrence Family and promote their own often violent agenda”.

Of course, it's pretty easy to smear someone when you don't name them - NCND, don't forget!

However, there are only a finite number of options of which group it could be. Check through your Ellison material.

eg:

• Francis had infiltrated YRE and Militant/Socialist Party (via a small left groupuscule). Therefore it's not this lot, because N81 is not Francis.
• ANL and SWP were also infiltrated at this time.
• The Socialist Action-affiliated ARA (Livingstone's chums) was also in the mix, and at the Lawrence house early on.

Curiously, Creedon goes on to say:


This is curious to say the least, because (for example) Suresh Grover was directly involved in justice campaigns for those including (but not limited to)... Blair Peach, Michael Menson, Ricky Reel, Stephen Lawrence, Nicky Jacobs, Cherry Groce, New Cross Massacre, Broadwater Farm.

Is Creedon seriously suggesting that Suresh himself (along with others involved in the Southall Monitoring Group and other Monitoring Groups, such as NMP, which was supposedly only ‘indirectly’ spied upon) was not spied upon? Or is it just a coincidence that SDS just happened to be - accidentally, you could say - intelligence gathering in the very campaigns Grover was trying to raise the profile of?

Interesting that Met choose to characterise the threatening entryist groups as specifically violent. If I were representing any such family I'd be very interested to see the evidence that the OB had to that effect.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Interesting that Met choose to characterise the threatening entryist groups as specifically violent. If I were representing any such family I'd be very interested to see the evidence that the OB had to that effect.

Or indeed that an organisation responsible for infiltrating well upwards of one hundred separate undercover agents into a range of political groups, community associations and justice campaigns over the course of forty years could have the chutzpah to throw the term ‘entryist’ around at others!

 

[belboid]

Might be more than 18...

almost definitely, considering the fact that these cases are the ones where they didn't destroy their records - as they were meant to have. I imagine that there must have been a few coppers who had enough sense to dump the material.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Families of victims of the New Cross Fire is also plausible.

Ah yes, Suresh Grover does mention that justice campaign in his article (published on 10 July) in a list of campaigns, “every single one of [which] has been subject to surveillance”; and on closer examination of yesterday's Channel 4 News piece, he is clearly one of Simon Israel's sources - they even flash up a copy of the letter the Met Operation Herne sent him on 3 July.

 

[brogdale]

So Creedon has clearly been tasked to come up with the 'negligent not complicit' line...

“It appears to me the senior Met management and leadership of those days allowed the operation of the SDS to carry on in secret isolation - this was certainly complacent, at worst it may be negligent.”

Source.

What utter bollux. Like the top brass would not be aware what their own 'spooks' were up to.

 

[brogdale]

Here is the C4 interview with Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt...

http://bcove.me/scp0mv0t

e2a : interesting, isn't it, that OTOH they claim not to have any idea what SDS was up to, BOTO they can categorically state that the officers responsible for the spying were "tasked into violent groups", but were "not tasked against the families."

Lying fuckers.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Of course, their denials, non-denial denials and general obfuscation will all be for nought once the full relational map, showing how many senior cops in the Met (and in many provincial forces or national policing units) worked for, under or alongside the key decision makers in Special Branch, SDS, ARNI, SIU, NIU, NPOIU, CIU, NETCU, NDET, NDEU or NDEDIU from 1968 up until the present day. Especially when their ‘academic’ and business interests are overlaid.

 

[DaveCinzano]

So Creedon has clearly been tasked to come up with the 'negligent not complicit' line...

Source.

What utter bollux. Like the top brass would not be aware what their own 'spooks' were up to.

One area that requires a lot more assiduous investigation is how SDS was run outside of the normal lines of command and control, essentially funded and authorised by the permanent government (in the form of the office of the Under-Secretary of State in the Home Office) but tasked directly by the upper echelons of Met Special Branch.

Note that in 1968 the Wilson government was under attack from MI5, with various right wing cabals in the permanent government, the City and the wider business environment (including batshit crazy ex-intelligence/security/military types) - as well as the right-of-centre factions within the Cabinet and the Labour Party itself - all working to destabilise it. That's the sort of context you have to consider when looking at the founding of SDS.

 

[brogdale]

One area that requires a lot more assiduous investigation is how SDS was run outside of the normal lines of command and control, essentially funded and authorised by the permanent government (in the form of the office of the Under-Secretary of State in the Home Office) but tasked directly by the upper echelons of Met Special Branch.

Note that in 1968 the Wilson government was under attack from MI5, with various right wing cabals in the permanent government, the City and the wider business environment (including batshit crazy ex-intelligence/security/military types) - as well as the right-of-centre factions within the Cabinet and the Labour Party itself - all working to destabilise it. That's the sort of context you have to consider when looking at the founding of SDS.

I'm sure that they could find another tame masonic/common purpose droid Chief Constable to 'independently' look into all of that and find that it didn't happen.

 

[Belushi]

I've managed to contact Detective Boy through the Ouija board

..a few bad apples... back in the seventies.. canteen culture... couldn't possible happen with PACE.. Cunt!... ACAB Cunt!

 

[DaveCinzano]

I've managed to contact Detective Boy through the Ouija board

..a few bad apples... back in the seventies.. canteen culture... couldn't possible happen with PACE.. Cunt!... ACAB Cunt!

Actually recently he has mostly been popping veins over the IPCC report on Taser use. Not a happy bunny!

 

[Batboy]

(Already posted on the Mark Kennedy überthread, but figured would be as well to have its own.)

The third Op Herne report - about spying on family & justice campaigns - was released by the Met and Derbyshire Constabulary this lunchtime:

http://content.met.police.uk/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application/pdf&blobheadervalue2=inline; filename="99/962/Operation Herne - July 2014 - SDS Reporting - Mentions of Sensitive Campaigns [PUBLIC].pdf"&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1283768671607&ssbinary=true
http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/Doc...porting---Mentions-of-Sensitive-Campaigns.pdf

It's a corker - in that Creedon admits that 18 family/justice campaigns were spied on by SDS between 1970 and 2005. The only one which is mentioned by name is the Lawrence family, because that was detailed in the previous Herne report (#2, on the allegations of Peter Francis), which coincided with the explosive Ellison Review.

Creedon has said that the families have been contacted but that he won't say which families/campaigns were spied on, you know, ‘out of respect for privacy, etc’. The Guardian has already identified the families of Ricky Reel, Cherry Groce and Jean Charles De Menezes as having been approached.

So let's build up some lists:

Definites

• Cherry Groce (1985)
• Stephen Lawrence (1993)
• Ricky Reel (1997)
• Jean Charles De Menezes (2005)

Possibles

• Kevin Gately (1974)
• Michael Ferreira (1978)
  
• Blair Peach (1979)
• Colin Roach (1983)
• Cynthia Jarrett (1985)
• Tunay Hassan (1987)
  
• Patrick Quinn (1990)
• Rolan Adams (1991)
• Quddus Ali (1993)
• Brian Douglas (1995)
• Wayne Douglas (1995)
• Harry Stanley (1999)
• Azelle Rodney (2005)

Any further suggestions?

You can safely assume 100s more. If anyone here truly believes that we live in a country where you can have a significant viewpoint and be a campaigner on anything and not draw attention from government security services, then you are flapping away with the fairies.

 

[Batboy]

I'll add to my comment by adding it is not just security services that will be spying or running undercover operations, the media do it too and as has been seen that includes phone hacking.... Tip of icebergs etc, can't believe how naive the general public are.

 

[Batboy]

The media largely use ex police officers for this work and these ex police officers are often 'ex' for a reason. I have personal experience of all of the above.