DATE | COMPROMISE |
1971 | ‘Alex Sloan’ HN347 withdrawn with immediate effect after probably exposure (followed home; accused of being a “pig”) whilst infiltrating Irish National Liberation Solidarity Front |
1972 | ‘Dick Epps’ HN336 brought to meeting whilst infiltrating IMG and challenged – had been able to prepare for this due to telephone intercepts in which Tariq Ali and others discussed their concerns about him, and the meeting was surveilled by other officers in plainclothes |
December 1973 | ‘Dave Robertson’ HN45 recognised as a police officer during public meeting – withdrawn |
December 1973 | Jill Mosdell HN346 withdrawn due to connection with ‘Dave Robertson’ HN45 |
December 1973 | ‘Sandra’ HN348 withdrawn due to connection with ‘Dave Robertson’ HN45 |
November 1976 | Richard Clark HN297 withdrawn with immediate effect after being exposed as an infiltrator by Big Flame activists who confronted him with the death certificate of the child whose identity he had stolen |
May 1984 | HN12 compromised whilst infiltrating RCG – accused of being police spy – withdrawn and redeployed to SWP |
Sometime in 1985 | Undercover officer ‘Phil Cooper’ HN155 withdrawn from deployment – supposedly then wrote letter to Special Branch Commander Ops threatening to expose the SDS |
July 1985 | HN12 compromised whilst infiltrating SWP – recognised as police officer by third party –withdrawn and deployment ended |
June 1986 | Observer journalists Nick Fielding and Mark Hollingsworth work on the story of ‘Rick Gibson’ (Richard Clark) being exposed by Big Flame; Special Branch management secretly keep abreast of their progress |
Around April/May 1988 | Undercover officer Stefan Scutt AKA Stephen Sandford HN95 withdrawn from his deployment; threatened Det Ch Insp HN337 with exposing SDS to media |
February 1994 | Former undercover officer Mike Chitty HN11 threatened to expose the existence of SDS in a letter to Met Commissioner Paul Condon |
28 April 1999 | Obituary of SDS founder Conrad Dixon HN325 published by The Times, making reference to his creation and management of the SDS (called here only the “Scruffy Squad”, and said to have been “active against anti-state elements in the 1960s and 1970s”) |
3 November 2001 | ‘Rosa’ able to use open source techniques to identify the SDS back office and visit it whilst looking for her disappeared partner ‘Jim Sutton’ (AKA Andrew James Boyling HN14) |
5 November 2001 | Former undercover officer Andrew James Boyling HN14 admits to having been an undercover police officer to ‘Rosa’ after she tracks him down and he counter-stalks her to her workplace |
3 June 2002 | Whilst attending Kingston Green Fair with ‘Rosa’, Boyling spots ‘Jason Bishop’ HN3 – he identifies him to her as an SDS undercover officer and tells her they must hide to avoid him seeing them together |
27 October 2002 | BBC broadcasts first episode of three-part historical documentary series True Spies about Special Demonstration Squad, made with participation of former officers after the project is greenlit by Special Branch and Met Police management including Commissioner John Stevens, Assistant Commissioner Special Operations David Veness, and Head Special Branch Roger Pearce (himself a former undercover officer in SDS) |
Around January 2007 | “Welfare visit” made by Bob Lambert HN10 to ‘Rosa’; Boyling had already told her that Lambert had been an undercover officer, and that he was now his boss in the Muslim Contact Unit; Lambert was accompanied by a man named ‘Noel’, who was identified as an SDS officer, and to whom ‘Rosa’ has spoken on the phone when she was trying to find Boyling in 2001 |
14 March 2010 | Observer journalist Tony Thompson publishes two articles based on interviews with former undercover ‘Officer A’ (Peter Francis HN43), exposing the activities of the SDS into the mid-1990s |
Some time in July 2010 | ‘Rosa’ gets hand delivered letter to Helen Steel advising that Jim Boyling had been an undercover officer; the go-between confirms to Helen that Jim was a police officer; Helen and ‘Rosa’ later meet, and ‘Rosa’ says Jim told her he felt sorry for Helen because of the number of officers who had spied on her – himself, John Dines HN5 and Bob Lambert HN10; he had also shared very personal information about Helen; and that there were additional police infiltrators around Reclaim The Streets, ‘Jason Bishop’ HN3 and ‘Simon’ (possibly ‘Simon Wellings’ HN114 |
11 July 2010 | Real passport of Mark Kennedy EN12 found – excuses given and initially accepted |
October 2010 | Mark Kennedy confronted with incontrovertible proof of his real identity – admits to have been an undercover police officer |
24 October 2010 | Public account of the exposure of Mark Kennedy published on IndyMedia UK |
19 December 2010 | Sunday Times publishes article about exposure of Mark Kennedy, based on the IndyMedia story |
20 December 2010 | Daily Telegraph publishes article about exposure of Mark Kennedy, based on the Sunday Times article |
9 January 2011 | Story leads news cycle when The Guardian starts publishing more stories based on Mark Kennedy exposure, leading to exposure of ‘Lynn Watson’, ‘Marco Jacobs’ and others |
10 January 2011 | Ratcliffe trial due to start, but collapses due to exposure of Mark Kennedy as an undercover police officer |
September 2011 | Bob Lambert HN10 publishes ‘Countering Al Qaeda In London’ under his own name, building on his later career as the head of the Met Police Muslim Contact Unit and subsequent academic work, but also making reference to his own involvement in undercover police work |
15 October 2011 | Bob Lambert HN10 publicly exposed as a former undercover police spy by London Greenpeace activists at an anti-racist event organised by Unite Against Fascism that he was scheduled to speak at in his capacity as an academic |
June 2012 | Former Head Special Branch Roger Pearce HN85 publishes spy novel ‘Agent Of The State’ drawing on actual people and events from his undercover deployment |
July 2013 | Former Head Special Branch Roger Pearce HN85 publishes spy novel ‘The Extremist’ drawing on actual people and events from his undercover deployment |
December 2014 | Clare Carson publishes novel ‘Orkney Twilight’ based on her late father, former SDS officer Mike Ferguson HN135, and what he told her about his work |
November 2015 | Richard Coles publishes autobiography ‘Fathomless Riches’ in which he inadvertently exposes his brother Andrew Coles HN2 as having been an undercover police officer in the 1990s |
6 March 2016 | Former undercover officer John Dines HN5 confronted by Helen Steel at Sydney Airport where he was meeting a delegation of Indian Police Officers arriving for training he provided in his then role at the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, part of Charles Sturt University |
June 2016 | Clare Carson publishes novel ‘The Salt Marsh’ based on her late father, former SDS officer Mike Ferguson HN135, and what he told her about his work |
June 2017 | Clare Carson publishes novel ‘The Dark Isle’ based on her late father, former SDS officer Mike Ferguson HN135, and what he told her about his work |
October 2017 | Former Head Special Branch Roger Pearce HN85 publishes spy novel ‘Javelin’ drawing on actual people and events from his undercover deployment |
November 2016 | Former SDS undercover officer, MI6 case officer and head of the NPOIU Strategic Analysis Unit Trevor Morris HN78 publishes a memoir ‘Black Ops’ under the pseudonym Carlton King |
April 2018 | Former undercover officer James Thomson HN16 calls ‘Ellie’, with whom he initiated a sexual relationship whilst deployed in the field and had stayed in contact with since then, to tell her that he had been a police officer spying on political activists during their relationship 2001-2002, and recommending she did not cooperate with the UCPI |
