editor
hiraethified
In the Guardian today:
Undercover police officers have spied on more than 1,000 political groups since 1968. However, no official list of these groups has been published.
This database is an attempt to compile such a list. It is a work in progress and will be updated as more information is made public. The aim is to make more visible the nature and scope of a covert operation that has spanned more than four decades.
Brixton Hunt Saboteurs
Animal rights
Fake IDAndy Davey
Dates1991-1995
CypherHN2
Davey, whose real name is Andy Coles, left the police in 2012 and became a Conservative councillor in Peterborough. There is a campaign to remove him from the council after a woman, known as Jessica, said he groomed and manipulated her into an intimate sexual relationship while he was undercover. He has denied this. She is taking legal action against the police.
Brixton and Croydon Hunt Saboteurs
Animal rights
Fake IDJames Straven
Dates1997-2002
CypherHN16
The public inquiry is investigating why and how this officer used a second fake identity, Kevin Crossland. According to the inquiry, the use of this second name "does not appear to have been sanctioned" by his supervisors in the Special Demonstration Squad. The real Kevin Crossland died aged five in a plane crash in 1966. His relatives have described how Kevin was flying with his family from Luton aiport to go on holiday: "Kevin and his sister were very excited, they had packed their favourite toys to take with them. On the way to Luton airport, both were singing 'we are going to the summer holiday'." The plane crashed as it was coming in to land in the former Yugoslavia.
UK political groups spied on by undercover police – the listCherry Groce campaignJustice campaign
Fake ID Unknown
Dates—
Cypher—
The Special Demonstration Squad gathered information on the relatives of Groce whose shooting by police in 1985 sparked riots.