Undercover policing enquiry

[Lurdan]

IPCC confirm investigation into document shredding

Investigation into document destruction at Metropolitan Police Service - IPCC
Feb 8, 2017

Following a referral from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in May 2016, the IPCC has been investigating allegations that documents kept by the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU) were shredded in May 2014.

The IPCC can confirm that there is evidence which suggests documents were shredded after the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) was announced, and a specific MPS instruction had been issued that documents should not be destroyed without express permission.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Short PR and long background briefing from UCPI:

https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/...press_notice__w_annex_IPCC_PD_Wed_final-2.pdf

 

[Lurdan]

Sarah Green, the deputy chairwoman of the IPCC, said that the Met was alerted to allegations of shredding within the unit by a member of staff in December 2014. The case was not referred to the IPCC until May last year {2016], and it is also investigating the delay.

17 months before it's referred to the IPCC but only 9 months for the IPCC to decide an investigation is warranted. Things are really speeding up.

 

[Ergo Proxy]

Might be of interest to some although as a pinch of salt his book sales might need propping up.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Might be of interest to some although as a pinch of salt his book sales might need propping up.

He's the one who (briefly) worked with Mark Kennedy before Kennedy went onto NPOIU.

 

[teqniq]

There's a pretty important hearing going on today, which unsurprisingly is not being reported by the BBC



if interested follow @tombfowler for updates

a few salient points

 

[DaveCinzano]

^ NSNPCP = Non-state non-police core participants, that is, those taking part in the inquiry - with a specific status given to them by Lord Pitchford - who were people targeted by the spycops, rather than spycops themselves, their managers, or the civil servants or others who may have been involved.

 

[teqniq]

Interestingly it looks as if Pitchford is running out of patience with the OB too

 

[Ergo Proxy]

Not sure if this goes here but......

Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors
By Trevor Johnson
15 April 2017
The existence of a secretive unit within London’s Metropolitan Police that uses hacking to illegally access the emails of hundreds of political campaigners and journalists has been revealed. At least two of the journalists work for the Guardian .

Green Party representative in the British House of Lords, Jenny Jones, exposed the unit’s existence in an opinion piece in the Guardian. The facts she revealed are based on a letter written to her by a whistleblower.

The letter reveals that through the hacking, Scotland Yard has illegally accessed the email accounts of activists for many years, and this was possible due to help from “counterparts in India.” The letter alleged that the Metropolitan Police had asked police in India to obtain passwords on their behalf—a job that the Indian police subcontracted out to groups of hackers in India.

The Indian hackers sent back the passwords obtained, which were then used illegally by the unit within the Met to gather information from the emails of those targeted.

Whistleblower uncovers London police hacking of journalists and protestors - World Socialist Web Site

 

[DaveCinzano]

Might be of interest to some although as a pinch of salt his book sales might need propping up.

He's the one who (briefly) worked with Mark Kennedy before Kennedy went onto NPOIU.

Before I forget, here's the bit from his book where he refers to Kennedy:

 

[teqniq]

Spycops inquiry delayed until late 2019

In a double-whammy ruling Sir Christopher Pitchford has said his inquiry into misconduct by police undercovers will hear no formal evidence before the second half of 2019 — but exonerated the Met of using delaying tactics.

The news has astonished participants in the Inquiry, which was opened in 2014 with a projected four-year timeframe but has already dragged on for nearly three years with the Met failing to give up cover names related to the 168 former members of its disgraced Special Demonstration Squad (SDS)....

 

[SpookyFrank]

Fuck's sake these people do like kicking stuff into the long grass don't they?

 

[teqniq]

Indeed they do. I was hoping for more from Pitchford, it appears my hopes were misplaced.

 

[teqniq]

Cambridgeshire deputy police commissioner facing calls to resign over spy allegations

 

[DaveCinzano]

More on Andy Coles AKA ‘Andy Davey’:

Andy Davey (undercover alias of Andy Coles) - Powerbase

Andy Coles - Powerbase

Another Spycop Outed: Andy Coles / 'Andy Davey' - Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance

Courageous Jessica makes statement

Jessica's statement

Buro Jansen & Janssen

 

[DaveCinzano]

BTW there's more to come on Coles - it's looking like he was better than a superficial examination might suggest. Subsequent to his SDS undercover deployment he worked on ACPO TAM, the chief constable-level strategic body driving counter-terrorism, counter-extremism and anti-public disorder policing. He was also connected with the post-SDS national units NPIOU, NETCU and NDET, and their successor organisation NDEU.

Worth noting that his job as Deputy PCC in Cambridgeshire is entirely in the gift of the PCC (i.e. not subject to civil service recruitment regulations etc). The PCC, Jason Ablewhite, himself came from the business community, before relocating to Cambridgeshire, where he became the Chief Executive of Huntingdonshire District Council. Is it also worth noting that the Cambridgeshire business community includes li'l mom'n'pop enterprises like Huntingdon Life Sciences..?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Coles has tendered his resignation and Ablewhite has accepted:



Via BBC Cambridgeshire

 

[teqniq]

Just as well I didn't title the thread 'The Pitchford enquiry'. Retired due to ill health apparently. New chair John Mitting.



not much on Wiki

Sir John Mitting to take over undercover police inquiry

hmm from the Graun piece, does not bode well

...Mitting, who became a QC in 1987, has been a high court judge in England and Wales since 2001. Between 2007 and 2012, he was chairman of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which rules on whether or not individuals should be deported from the UK. The commission has been described as Kafkaesque as it regularly hears secret evidence that can be used to deport individuals on grounds of national security without them seeing it.

Since 2015, Mitting has been the vice-president of the investigatory powers tribunal, which hears complaints about the intelligence agencies. The tribunal has been criticised for rarely upholding the complaints and for operating in secrecy....

 

[DaveCinzano]

Pitchford has been ill some time and Mitting was named as his replacement a while back - probably more interesting from the past few days is the Inquiry team admitting that more than 1,000 groups were spied upon by the SDS and NPOIU

 

[Pickman's model]

Pitchford has been ill some time and Mitting was named as his replacement a while back - probably more interesting from the past few days is the Inquiry team admitting that more than 1,000 groups were spied upon by the SDS and NPOIU

fuck me, they were busy

 

[mojo pixy]

Well, you know, they're not called busies for nothing..

(tbf I don't know how it's spelled and since it's slang that probably doesn't matter)

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Dunno if this has been posted. I'd rather avoid a debate about the hosting party, it's the content that matters in this case.

 

[Streathamite]

more than 1,000 groups were spied upon by the SDS and NPOIU

Fucking hell. What other subversive groups were they spying on - the Quakers?
Speechless

 

[likesfish]

Pitchford has been ill some time and Mitting was named as his replacement a while back - probably more interesting from the past few days is the Inquiry team admitting that more than 1,000 groups were spied upon by the SDS and NPOIU

ffs how the fuck could they justify this even if you took every tiny group most Batshit members bullshit as complete truth you couldn't justify this .

 

[LDC]

1,000 groups over how many years though, 40? Suspect the number also includes groups looked into, rather than those that they just had an active spy in for a length of time.

Can't say I'm surprised, it's probably every extra-parliamentary political/campaign group that's done anything.

I can't find the quote now, but isn't there one from someone in the security services saying how they had someone in every group the size of a football/cricket team, and if their man wasn't the captain then he was the referee and he could send anyone off at any time.

 

[Kaka Tim]

it was basically any extra-parliamentary political group on their radar - and any politicians who associated with them.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

BNP infiltrator seeks police admission of covert operation

Pretty grim reading and raises loads of questions.

How many people who had nothing to do with the cops or the far right would be happy to infiltrate the BNP for 40 quid a week.

 

[Pickman's model]

BNP infiltrator seeks police admission of covert operation

Pretty grim reading and raises loads of questions.

How many people who had nothing to do with the cops or the far right would be happy to infiltrate the BNP for 40 quid a week.

Even in 2003 you'd get more jsa than that, while also getting hb, ctb and retaining your self-respect

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Even in 2003 you'd get more jsa than that, while also getting hb, ctb and retaining your self-respect

Well he was doing doorman work so I dunno if the benefits angle applies (though you right about the amount and the self-respect). It just seems unlikely that you'd just be out on a run and end up getting recruited by the cops like that? (Tbf I have cunningly avoided this by never going out on a run).

Also it does sound like they treated him like shit - not even paying him what they said they would and waving cash in his face? And the idea that his exit strategy would be to infiltrate Muslim groups or Loyalists where the risk of violent retribution is even higher is terrifying.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well he was doing doorman work so I dunno if the benefits angle applies (though you right about the amount and the self-respect). It just seems unlikely that you'd just be out on a run and end up getting recruited by the cops like that? (Tbf I have cunningly avoided this by never going out on a run).

Also it does sound like they treated him like shit - not even paying him what they said they would and waving cash in his face? And the idea that his exit strategy would be to infiltrate Muslim groups or Loyalists where the risk of violent retribution is even higher is terrifying.

I know lots of people approached by the cops to become informers, but they were all previously involved in things esp round the time of the maydays back in '01-'04. Outside the six counties never heard of people being asked so nicely if they'd do this, but the being treated like shit is common to pretty much all informant narratives I've read