Donal O’Driscoll Opening Statement on Zoom

Today, 5 November, Dónal O’Driscoll, core-member of the Undercover Research Group, delivered his opening statement for the Undercover Policing Inquiry. As a core-participant he is representing himself, and in this statement his work for URG, his many meetings with others targeted by spycops and his personal experience came together, eloquently, in a most powerful speech.

Chair,

1. I shall make additional oral points as well as addressing my written statement. I am aware other opening statements make points and criticisms which I simply adopt rather than repeat in my limited time. I believe them justified from my own experience of the often high-handed approach taken towards those of us on the non-state side.

2. I have been left with the impression that the Inquiry believes it can do its work without the non-state non-police core participants if needed. That it can learn the truth adequately enough from material provided by the police. That it can interpret the events we lived through, the moments and movements we were part of, without our help. That the truth can be obtained from the words and documents of units whose core training was to lie to people and was willing to pervert the course of justice. Continue reading →

1968, Helen Crampton at an SDS office party

Spycops Hearings Communication Group, 2 November 2020

Today, at the first day of the hearings, during Opening Statements, David Barr, Counsel to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, released for the first time photographs of some of the earliest managers and one undercover of the Special Demonstration Squad.

Among the photos are those of Conrad Dixon, the founder of the unit, who seem to have carried out undercover activity on occasion. The majority of images appear to come from an office party in late 1968.

Until now, the Inquiry has consistently refused to release any photos, even when core participants offered their own pictures of undercover officers to be published on the Inquiry website. Continue reading →

1973 SDS Report touching on the Shrewsbury Defence Campaign

Spycops Hearings Communication Group, 2 November 2020 – updated 17 November 2020

Today was the first day of the Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings. Dealt with is the earliest part of the Special Demonstration Squad, 1968 – 1982.

As part of today’s opening statement by the barrister to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, a list of groups targeted by undercover from 1968 to 1975 was read out, a good number being named for the first time. Update: we have since done a quick sweep of the Inquiry Opening Statement, which included even more groups. We list them below, the new ones first. Continue reading →

Stop the Seventy Tour supporters blocked the coach taking the Springbok rugby team to Twickenham, Dec 1969. AAMarchives.org

Eveline Lubbers, Undercover Research Group, 20 November 2019

Late last month, the Undercover Policing Inquiry ruled that the cover name of Mike Ferguson is to be kept secret. To date, this is the only case of a spycop who has his cover name restricted – while the real name is already in the public domain. We know about him because of True Spies, the 2002 BBC documentary about the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) spying on political opponents. Mike Ferguson featured in part 1, as an example of a successful infiltration of the Anti Apartheid Movement in the late 1960s.

Ironically, the first SDS officer who was named in public was the last to be dealt with by the Inquiry. Even within their own rules and rituals, the Inquiry’s dealings with Mike Ferguson are of an extraordinary nature. In one third of cases, both real and cover names have been restricted, and of those whose cover names have been provided, the vast majority have had their real name restricted. In Ferguson’s case, it’s the other way round, which makes one wonder.

Why are we not allowed to know his cover name and the groups he targeted? Continue reading →

Special Demonstration Squad undercover ‘Rob Harrison’ as a DJ.

Donal O’Driscoll, Undercover Research Group, 2 November 2019.

Today we release our profile of spycop Rob Harrison. It is one of our largest profiles completed to date, partly because of the amount of contemporary material we have been fortunate to get access to, but also because he exemplifies a particular style of undercover policing in political groups.

Much of the broad patterns of behaviour are now familiar – a man with a car who, despite a lack of real politics, uses his friendliness and helpfulness to place himself at the heart of the groups he was targeting. In this case, the undercover focused on anti-war and pro-Palestinian groups, starting with Globalise Resistance and the London branch of the International Solidarity Movement. From there, he moved towards groups in the anarchist circles, in particular the State of Emergency Collective and London No Borders. Deployed from 2004 to 2007, Harrison was one of the last officers active in the field for the Special Demonstration Squad; the unit was closed down in 2008. Continue reading →