Ex-Undercover Reveals Police Targeted Stephen Lawrence's Family

[butchersapron]

***

 

[butchersapron]

Plus he has form for recording conversations with Lawrence family members, IIRC.

Grieve coughs. Why?

A retired senior Metropolitan police officer has admitted authorising secret recordings of a meeting between a friend of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, his lawyers and detectives.

Police officers had wanted "an unassailable record of what transpired" in meetings in 1999 and 2000, the former deputy assistant commissioner John Grieve said.

Watch for more.

 

[Voley]

It could be argued that failing to protect the integrity of any evidence that may have come to light at this meeting – and hence failing to protect Duwayne himself as a potential witness – would have been a neglect of duty.

We bugged him for his own good. Fucksake.

 

[butchersapron]

We bugged him for his own good. Fucksake.

Yep, this idiocy - which, despite his claim, could not be argued in court for more than 3 seconds, would mean that all witnesses and victims could and should be bugged at all times. If they don't they are not fulfilling ling their duty to maintain evidence integrity. This a police top not having any idea of law. And in control of a lot of money and people.

 

[ViolentPanda]

We bugged him for his own good. Fucksake.

Just like Christopher Alder got restrained to death for his own good.

 

[Voley]

Yep, this idiocy - which, despite his claim, could not be argued in court for more than 3 seconds, would mean that all witnesses and victims could and should be bugged at all times. If they don't they are not fulfilling ling their duty to maintain evidence integrity. This a police top not having any idea of law. And in control of a lot of money and people.

And despite this, it's still the police investigating themselves. It'd be funny if it wasn't so fucking tragic.

 

[butchersapron]

And the next step:

Stephen Lawrence case: Special Branch 'spied on' Macpherson inquiry

Special Branch officers gathered intelligence on anti-racism campaigners from within the official inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, according to a police whistleblower.

Wearing plain clothes, the Special Branch officers regularly attended the hearings of the Macpherson inquiry to collect intelligence on witnesses and activists who supported the Lawrence family's campaign for justice.

Peter Francis, a former undercover spy during the 1990s, said that the officers' role was to "gather intelligence on individuals and groups attending the public inquiry. The reason was to further identify those deemed to be subversive. It was an absolute golden intelligence opportunity to work out who the deemed subversives were in the anti-racist groups."

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Because clearly, if you're worried about the cops being racist or letting murderers off because they're mates with the murderer's dad, you must be a dangerous subversive and threat to society.

 

[butchersapron]

Just making sure evidence is protected.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Commissioner Condon was unhappy with the televised Lawrence Inquiry hearings that ran from March to October 1998. A row of arrogant, surly detectives of all ranks had passed before the Inquiry panel, many with implausible excuses met by boos and derision from the public gallery. Condon moaned that the cross-examination was “unfair” to his men.

(Chapter 15, Untouchables)

Of course, no one would possibly suggest that Condon, a man who definitely had no direct, intimate knowledge of the SDS programme or other such Special Branch spying operations, would ever have behaved in a manner other than with the utmost probity.

Afterwards, away from the public row about who was at fault for the violent clashes, Britain’s most senior police officer paid a visit to a quiet residential flat in Balcombe Street in Marylebone. As commissioner of the Met, Condon felt indebted to the intelligence the men of the SDS had provided and he had gone to the squad’s safe house to thank them in person.

It was a rare visit from Condon. Every commissioner since 1968 had known about the work of the SDS, but its existence was barely mentioned, and of course never admitted, outside of a close circle of top cops and Whitehall mandarins. Black recalls the visit from the VIP as a ‘good moment’ for him and the rest of the unit. Condon gave them a bottle of whisky. ‘We had done what we were there for,’ he says.

For his troubles, Black was rewarded with a smaller, private meeting with the commissioner, who asked him about his undercover work and what happened on the day of the demonstration. But Black detected a slight discomfort on the part of the police chief

('Enter Mr Black', Undercover)

Specifically, there had once been a secret order from the top of Scotland Yard, he says, requiring the SDS to place the Lawrence campaign under surveillance. The order was given at a time when the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Paul Condon, was coming under persistent pressure from the Lawrences over the failures by the police to mount a proper investigation into the murder of their son. Black says that the controversy over the Lawrence murder ‘became a huge thing for Condon’. ‘It changed my deployment,’ he says. ‘I had to get any information on what was happening in the Stephen Lawrence campaign. There was huge pressure from the commissioner downwards.’

('Exit Mr Angry', Undercover)

 

[DaveCinzano]

Creedon admits SDS did gather intelligence on Lawrence family.

But that's okay because 'the intelligence had been collected as the undercover officers were spying on what he said were "violent protest groups" campaigning for a proper police investigation into the teenager's murder...He argued spies were deployed to gather intelligence on violent protest groups because there was a belief that such groups "may well hook on to any high-profile incident as a vehicle for their violent protests".'

Yeah - damn those 'violent protest groups' demanding that the police properly investigate murders! With their hooks! And their violence! And protest! In groups!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/16/stephen-lawrence-family-undercover-police

 

[ViolentPanda]

Creedon admits SDS did gather intelligence on Lawrence family.

But that's okay because 'the intelligence had been collected as the undercover officers were spying on what he said were "violent protest groups" campaigning for a proper police investigation into the teenager's murder...He argued spies were deployed to gather intelligence on violent protest groups because there was a belief that such groups "may well hook on to any high-profile incident as a vehicle for their violent protests".'

Yeah - damn those 'violent protest groups' demanding that the police properly investigate murders! With their hooks! And their violence! And protest! In groups!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/16/stephen-lawrence-family-undercover-police

These "violent protest groups", one wonders about the ratio of reactive violence to state oppression, over violence initiated by such groups.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Grieve coughs. Why?


Watch for more.

When I heard this I couldn't believe that he was arguing the covert recording was done because the police wouldn't be trusted enough to get an agreement to carry out open recording; so instead of addressing the trust issue, they choose to further cement their own untrustworthy reputation by going ahead secretly!

As a justification it fails so miserably that you wonder what inducement Grieve was given to make it?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[DaveCinzano]

Blatantly Met-sourced attack piece on Francis in Mail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...doubts-police-plot-smear-Lawrence-family.html

Comment piece defending Francis by book author in Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/whistleblower-peter-francis-smeared

 

[ViolentPanda]

Blatantly Met-sourced attack piece on Francis in Mail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...doubts-police-plot-smear-Lawrence-family.html

The Mail piece is a master-class in how to stretch a small handful of facts with insinuations, extrapolations and journalistic cliché.

 

[teqniq]

Great eh? Rather than actually accept that they done wrong, resort to smears on the most tenuous scraps available.

 

[laptop]

The Mail piece is a master-class in how to stretch a small handful of facts with insinuations, extrapolations and journalistic cliché.

His new allegations are being used to promote a book by Guardian journalists about his work as an undercover policeman.

Mere rivalry.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Great eh? Rather than actually accept that they done wrong, resort to smears on the most tenuous scraps available.

Hardly surprising, though. They've got over a century of form in spinning against anyone who speaks out.

 

[butchersapron]

...and now Humberside police targeting Janet Alder, sister of Chrstopher Alder who the police killed in his cell and who has been fighting for years for justice for him and their family:

Anti-racism smear scandal: Police targeted sister of black paratrooper who died in custody

New and disturbing evidence of systematic and nationwide attempts by police to smear anti-racism campaigners surfaced this evening, as the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) mounted an investigation into the “improper surveillance” of the grieving sister of a black paratrooper who died a slow and agonising death in custody.

A letter to Janet Alder, seen by The Independent, reveals that Humberside Police has discovered evidence that both she and a lawyer who helped prove the force’s shocking failure to prevent her brother’s death in April 1998 were illegally monitored by officers at the time of his inquest in 2000, which returned a verdict of unlawful killing. The Independent can also reveal that the former West Yorkshire Police Chief Constable, Sir Norman Bettison, commissioned a six-page report into Mohammed Amran, a Bradford race relations worker, before he testified to the Macpherson inquiry into the death of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1998.

Note Bettison again.

 

[DaveCinzano]

One we've been waiting for: Peter Francis/Daley/Black alleges direct collusion between the Met's SDS and rightwing blacklisters The Consulting Association:

...[Derbyshire Chief Constable] Creedon's team is now investigating claims from the blacklisted workers that portions of the files could only have come from the police or security services, as managers in the construction industry could simply not have known about demonstrations the trade unionists were attending outside of their work hours.

Files maintained by the blacklisters on three trade unionists logged how they were "observed" or "apprehended" while protesting against fascists laying a wreath at the Cenotaph in commemoration of Britain's war dead on Remembrance Sunday in 1999.

The files on two trade unionists record a piece of information that they say was known to only a handful of members at the heart of the Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) group they were active in during the 1990s.

Francis said he collected this piece of information and reported it back to his Special Branch bosses. The information was that they were part of a loose grouping of anti-racist activists, known colloquially as the "away team", who protected YRE demonstrations from physical attacks by far-right activists...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/18/police-activists-blacklisting-agency-alleged

FAO Fedayn dennisr

(See also the Blacklist in the construction industry thread.)

 

[Fedayn]

Interesting......

 

[dennisr]

No he's making it all up now ;-) ...

 

[butchersapron]

Met Police admits force did go undercover to investigate Lawrence supporters

Earlier this year former undercover police officer Peter Francis claimed police were tasked with finding intelligence that could be used to smear the family and campaign.

In a letter to Doreen Lawrence, reportedly sent by Bernard Hogan-Howe, he admits officers were deployed for covert operations into supporters, but the Metropolitan Police said this was done to investigate groups connected to the campaign and was “not an attempt to smear a grieving family.”
A section of the letter sent to Ms Lawrence and her solicitor said: "As can be seen from the answer to your second question, records exist which indicate that undercover officers were deployed into supporters and campaigns connected with Stephen's family. At this time we are unable to verify his (Peter Francis) other allegations but records continue to be searched and therefore this position may change."

Hogan-Howe of course managed to make his statements to the first hillsborough inquiry disappear.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Met Police admits force did go undercover to investigate Lawrence supporters



Hogan-Howe of course managed to make his statements to the fist hillsborough inquiry disappear.

It's amazing how many coppers would make good stage magicians, isn't it?

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's amazing how many coppers would make good stage magicians, isn't it?

The way they consistently make undesirable CCTV footage disappear into the aether never ceases to amaze.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The way they consistently make undesirable CCTV footage disappear into the aether never ceases to amaze.

Round where I lived as a teen, they made most of the distilled contents of an off licence disappear in a matter of minutes after the window was put through.
After the local paper printed a story about (to paraphrase) "off licence looted by local youth", I wrote a letter to the editor asking how local youth would have been able to loot an off licence when it was "cordoned" by 6 uniformed coppers and 2 panda cars, and wasn't it at least feasible that the booze had gone into the boots of those cars? He sent me a reply that basically said "I can't print your letter because it'll have an adverse effect on the paper" (the office was only about 30 yards from the local copshop).

So, not only are coppers good at making things disappear, they're also good at mesmerism/getting people to do things they wouldn't usually do, too.

 

[Pickman's model]

from the archives: stokey cop corruption http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...een-lawenforcers-and-lawbreakers-1505753.html

 

[DaveCinzano]

from the archives: stokey cop corruption http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...een-lawenforcers-and-lawbreakers-1505753.html

http://hackneyhistory.wordpress.com/hcda/fighting-the-lawmen/

 

[Pickman's model]

http://hackneyhistory.wordpress.com/hcda/fighting-the-lawmen/

bloody good website

 

[laptop]

He sent me a reply that basically said "I can't print your letter because it'll have an adverse effect on the paper" (the office was only about 30 yards from the local copshop).

Good of the paper to respond, with a broad hint that they'd have liked to print it...