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.

It is precisely the opposite. Without the understanding and knowledge we bring, there is no hope to penetrate the half-truths, the outright lies and the self-justification we know is in the police files. Further, this Inquiry would be hollow, sorely lacking the public’s trust.

3. My experience representing myself, is that this attitude towards us permeates everywhere; the bias is visible in many of its decisions. Time and time again we have come up against it, either being stonewalled or finding the ground shift beneath us, or just being denied basic consideration around disclosure. The constant prioritising of police needs over ours, exacerbates the pain we all feel.

We want answers

4. For five years we have been waiting to close this grim chapter in all our lives, to get disclosure. Yet, decision after decision effectively excludes many of us. This is made all the worse when we are told these decisions are for our own benefit. For example, disclosure of material the police had years to pore over, we are given at the eleventh hour, with insufficient time to process properly. I have personally explained to the Inquiry Legal Team the problems with this approach on various occasions.
As an aside, I am grateful at receiving access to the current hearing bundle. Though, as it was quite late in the day and it takes some time just to read the many thousand pages, I hope there will some latitude in submitting belated Rule 10 questions.

5. To continue, non police core participants remain part of the Inquiry, despite everything. Trauma, pain and injustice are at the heart of the matter. The undercover policing scandal has its impact because this is what it caused, in myriad different ways. Once one takes away the jargon around human rights and legality, it is what is left. The Inquiry has its terms of reference, but what drives the outrage, the need for justice, the public interest, are the abuses these officers carried out. And people were abused. Democracy was attacked by ideologically motivated units, utterly callous in their disrespect for people. Yet, we are told they are the ones who need protecting.

6. To replicate the police’s tactics of justification and secrecy, as the Inquiry so often has, distresses us, but it does not erase our need for answers. Throughout the next few years we will continue to remind the Inquiry about that pain and injustice. And press for processes that respects us instead of constantly prioritising the needs of the abusers, or using the flimsiest of reasons to exclude so many of us targeted by the SDS and NPOIU.

7. I have been misfortunate enough to see some of the records the undercover police kept on us. I know how extensive the reporting goes, how personal and vile it is. And how many lies and inaccuracies are in them. So, when I say the Inquiry cannot get to the truth without us, it is based on this knowledge. It will not get through the layers of deception where the police have covered their tracks. There will be so many moments that only we can explain the significance of, because the documents deliberately obscure the truth. To draw any sort of conclusions from such distorted material without our effective participation is to build an edifice on sand.

8. The same applies to the evidence of former officers. They are trained to lie, it was their job. To penetrate that veil, to ask them the necessary questions, cannot be done without our knowledge. Regardless of any statement to the contrary, the police committed serious crimes, and are clearly approaching the Inquiry as an adversarial process.

It is somewhat unfortunate the public are not privy to the many behind-the-scenes representations by the non-state non police core participants. If they were they’d see just how laughable are some of the police’s claims of the last few days.

Spied on as an activist of many years.

9. I have many questions I need answering myself. I have been politically active for three decades and targeted by a number of the undercover officers, some named and some not named. I grew up in Northern Ireland with the army pointing guns at me as I walked to school, aware of state-sponsored murder gangs and ‘shoot to kill’ policies. We knew what the British state is capable of and what it is willing to cover up or justify to itself.

So, I come to this with no illusions. However, I will not stand by when the Inquiry tells me it can get to the truth without letting me know the names of the undercovers who spied on me. When the Inquiry insists on withholding those basic facts from myself and others, it is not getting to the truth, it is helping cover it up.

10. There are a number of issues which inform my core participancy:

(a) In 1998, I was hospitalised, having been almost killed when pushed under a moving car by a police officer during a demonstration, a deeply traumatising moment that still affects me. In the subsequent months I was targeted by police for increased attention which furthered that trauma. I now believe Christine Green would have been around for that. I wish to know what reporting she and other undercovers made in relation to that period, and how that impacted on the civil claim I was then preparing against the police.

(b) In the late 1990s I was placed on The Consulting Association’s so called ‘greenlist’ and experienced the impact of that, having job offers withdrawn last minute.

(c) In 2005 I was involved in organising the protest camp at Stirling during the G8 summit. An event at which there were multiple undercovers, a number who I knew personally. The intense police harassment of that camp while trying to accommodate over five thousand people safely, directly resulted in me developing a chronic illness which will remain with me for the rest of my life. I would like answers as to not only why that level of intrusion was considered proportionate, but what consideration was given to the impact the resulting policing pressure would have on campaigners generally.

Former spycops now working for private corporations

(d) Throughout the 2000s, I was involved in defending animal rights groups against civil injunctions that sought to undermine their right to protest. I now know that not only were the domestic extremism units overtly active around this, they were covertly active as well, including one corporate spy now known to have passed material to police. I want to know to what extent undercovers active at the time, at least one close to me, were disrupting our legal defences and who sanctioned that.

(e) During one of the injunction cases, it emerged that Superintendent Stephen Pearl, head of the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), a sister unit to the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, handed over to lawyers representing a number of private companies the names, details and convictions of 52 individuals, including myself. It was clear that this type of assistance was done as a matter of course and the practice only emerged when they sought to formalise it for proceedings. I managed to successfully intervene on that occasion, but the question remains as to how much other material, including that gathered by undercovers, was being passed over?

Superintendent Pearl went on to become a director of a vetting and security firm, Agenda. It raises the question of just how seriously we should take claims of risk facing NPIOU officers when, as of yesterday, he was listing his NETCU role and business interests on LinkedIn, along with a photograph of himself.

His co director for a time at Agenda was Gordon Meldrum, a Strathclyde Special Branch officer, who oversaw the 2005 G8 policing operation, and who the National Crime Agency will remember as their one-time Director of Intelligence. I refer back to my third witness statement for more details.

(f) Around 2010, I was with Debbie Vincent in talking to the pharmaceutical giant Novartis, negotiating in good faith regarding their injunction. As mentioned by Mr Ryder, we were not talking to Novartis as we’d been led to believe, but to an undercover officer, James Adams. I was arrested for conspiracy to blackmail, something I believe was done to undermine my work on the injunctions more generally. The charges were later dropped.

I also flag that it was around this time Jim Sheldrake (of NETCU) and Melvyn Young (the Deputy National Domestic Extremism Coordinator overseeing NETCU and the NPIOU) both joined Novartis, Young as its Global Head for Extremism and Risk.

Mark Kennedy and Global Open

Mark Kennedy, when he left the police for private intelligence firm Global Open, used his friendship with me, forged while an undercover officer, to facilitate targeting other groups I had been active with and he did not have access to otherwise.

How much other information gathered on me, by him and other undercovers, was passed on to the likes of Global Open? How often were former undercover identities used in this way? And how much were management aware? Especially given that Global Open was founded by Rod Leeming, the former head of the ‘Animal Rights National Index’ (ARNI), the very organisation that became the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

A pertinent question is how Kennedy as a serving police officer came to be recruited by Global Open.

These are not the only times when I know undercovers, informers and corporate spies targeted me, and I am sure there are more to emerge given the many other campaigns and groups I was involved in – not least of which is Climate Camp, again already covered.

Motivated by a sens of justice

11. I would like to make it clear though, as an animal rights activist, environmentalist, anarchist and anti-fascist, I remain proud of all I have been involved in and continue to be committed to those causes. I regret very little. I am sure the state will happily label me a criminal, but that does not bother me.

First and foremost, I have always fought for and been motivated by a sense of justice. It is at the core of who I am, that one does not stand idly by in the face of cruelty or oppression. Positive change comes only through people standing up to the powerful. As such, I will not accept such criticism from a state that has, and is prepared to give its agents, unchecked powers to abuse, rape, even murder, and will spend millions if necessary to cover for them. Whatever I have done that some might find disagreeable, it is nothing compared to the police.

12. The above are just my examples of how undercover police in my life was not merely an inconvenience but actively impacted me. If there is to be one key point from this opening statement I wish the Inquiry to take away, it is that my story is far from unique.

13. In October 2010 I was among the first to get the phone call, a friend telling me they had just confirmed that ‘Mark Stone’ was in fact the undercover Mark Kennedy. I had considered Mark a friend, invited him to help us set up the Activist Tat Collective, campaigned alongside him, been on actions with him, visited his house and socialised with him.

I was asked to let others close to him know, and over the next few months I watched the pain and tears as that knowledge rippled through our movements. I watched my good friends and colleagues being broken by the fact. I knew a number of those he had relationships with, and could only try to console them as they processed that horror. The shock-wave of that moment reverberates to this day.

If you want to watch, rather then read!

14. I may be better known to the Inquiry as a researcher, but I would like to disabuse it of any notion that this is my primary reason for participating. I am involved to support all those affected, to help them find a way through the pain and get at least a modicum of justice and answers. In the last decade I have spoken to over 150 people who had been targeted, from all forms of campaigns and groups, some friends, many whom I’d never met before. Probably better than most, I know how far and deep the emotional scars of this scandal go.

15. The impact is far beyond those accepted as core participants. There are many out there still struggling with the facts of how they were targeted. Campaigning is hard enough, causes enough burnout and trauma in itself, without knowing there are those working alongside you to directly undermine all you are seeking to achieve. The horror of sharing intimate moments and times when you put your life on the line, literally in some cases, with someone who was betraying you, is a distressing and deep deception that cannot but affect people. I can attest how often that story plays out time and time again, and how deep the scarring goes.

Beyond the headlines

16. In talking to all these people, I have come to understand how far the issues reach beyond the headline accounts, that there are other themes the Inquiry cannot avoid. There are three in particular I wish to highlight.

(a) Firstly, it is apparent the undercovers had access to medical records and were willing to use health issues to facilitate access to people. They were close to people suffering serious medical trauma and inserting themselves in their lives and care.

(b) Secondly, in a number of cases, the undercovers were involved in the lives of children of activists. I have listened to those parents tell of the guilt at leaving their loved ones in the care of people who didn’t really exist, the doubt that develops around their own judgement, and the anger toward the police that sanctioned this. I’m also very aware of how much it impacted those children, some having to live with parents processing the trauma, others damaged by the knowledge that someone they thought was a friend who could be depended on, was lying to them about everything.

(c) Thirdly, undercovers pointed the fingers at other people, alleging them to be police or informers. How many people were wrongly accused in this way, effectively driven out and denied their ability to partake? This is a profoundly cynical, destructive and anti-democratic thing to do, and the interference with their rights should not be glossed over.

17. None of these were one-off cases.

Underminding the right to protest

18. I do not accept the narrative that these units were rogue. They were known of at the highest levels and as such their activities condoned. That a number of undercovers and unit managers went on to senior management tells us that knowledge permeated – despite the nominal silos between the undercover units and the rest of the police. Any investigation into the truth must air how far that knowledge went, but also how much there was a wilful blindness to those abuses.

19. We have already seen that the police want to focus on the alleged criminality of some protestors in order to justify the undercover deployments. I wish to present a different picture. These were units that were ideologically motivated, individually and systemically racist and sexist, with little care or interest in the rights of those they targeted. They did not send the officers in to tackle the alleged criminality of one or two people, but targeted groups wholesale for exercising their rights to protest and seeking positive social change.

20. In doing so, they effectively criminalised these communities, and once that was accepted practice, it became reason enough to justify everything else. A fundamental question facing the Inquiry is: was all this ever acceptable in a democratic society?

21. Because of this, it is my position that the notion of “collateral intrusion” has no real place in this Inquiry. These units saw nobody as collateral, but reported on everyone regardless. The concept has no meaning when everyone, and their families, were systematically targeted on the basis of their beliefs. A common pattern among police even today.

It is an aspect the Inquiry needs to look at in order to fully understand how these units approached their work. Even if it can be said that management did not know of individual abuses, they do not escape responsibility for creating a culture where anything went and they were content to fund it. Or that they actively signed off on the choice of targets. I do not think I was the only one surprised that reporting on the Schools Action Union was considered sufficiently positive an achievement as to make the SDS Annual Report. Twice.

Points for the Inquiry to adress

22. The following points may be considered outside the Inquiry’s terms of reference. However, I continue to press them because I know them to be significant and that no inquiry into the truth can avoid them.

(a) We know that undercovers and their managers went on to work for private firms, taking their knowledge and experience with them. In doing so they perpetuated the same intrusion and abuses they carried out as undercovers. It is not simply a matter of whether they worked undercover subsequently, but whether they also took information with them or used contacts back into Special Branch to obtain that information. I note that in 1988 journalists wrote of Special Branch files being shared by these types of firms.

(b) The story of the undercovers is an international one; these units did not respect borders. No account can turn a blind eye to the bigger picture of their operations abroad, particularly the 2005 G8 protests in Scotland or for example, the visits to Ireland, Germany and Iceland.

(c) I note with considerable interest the extent to which MI5 have been cited over the last few days by the police themselves, and hope this bears further fruit as its clear the full picture includes them.

“I’ve Met the Met and I’ve the Bruises to Prove It”

Finally, I wish to address a couple of matters from preceding opening statements.

Much was made of the pressures on the police. Repeated mention was made of two people killed during protests as a justification for undercover policing. For many of us it was another example of the contempt the police clearly hold us in. Having almost joined that number I fully endorse the words of Mr Ryder on behalf of Celia Stubbs and hope there are no further expressions of this breathtaking callousness.

The lauding of Public Order Branch sticks in the throat when so many fellow campaigners have accounts of wanton violence from them, of being provoked and attacked. I have my own. On one protest, while assisting someone on the ground, I was batoned across my face – hard enough to snap my glasses in two. There is a phrase we had for returning from demos in London, “I’ve Met the Met and I’ve the Bruises to Prove It”, because we all knew how prone they were to violence.

The tragic murder of Ian Tomlinson was not a surprise; it was only a matter of time.
Ironically, many of the undercovers make out it is they who are at risk. Personally, I find that incredulous. They have the backing of the Metropolitan Police, itself an organisation responsible for a staggering number of deaths at the hands of its officers.

No, what all this is about is accountability. The police are given extensive powers which they have abused. What they are most worried about is being held responsible for that. As far as I am concerned, undercovers hiding behind restriction orders is a cowardly refusal to acknowledge they had no right to carry out their political, sexist, racist and anti-democratic policing.

There is no doubt it is still going on. We know domestic extremism units continue to exist and monitor protests to this day. The fact that they remain embedded in Counter Terrorism Units shows nothing has fundamentally changed in how they view campaigners. Changing unit names has not altered the ideological foundation that gave rise to the abuses in the first place. These counter terrorism units are merely a rebranding of Special Branch while their Special Project Teams continue to deploy undercovers. The spycops scandal is not an issue of the past; it remains relevant right up the current moment.

I’d like to offer a final observation. On Tuesday we were treated to a fanciful view of a bygone age. It would have been better spent on a different lesson from that era, The Widgery Tribunal’s whitewashing of the Bloody Sunday massacre. As a young man in Northern Ireland, Widgery was a byword for the extent the state is willing to cover up its crimes.

Today, I argue it teaches another lesson, that the fight for the truth around great injustices can never be brushed under the carpet through legal proceedings. People cannot and will not be fobbed off. Growing up aware of the injustice that was Widgery in itself is, in part, is why I am here today. Like with Shrewsbury, Orgreave, blacklisting, and so many family justice campaigns, the issue of spycops will not go away until answers are had, in public. I urge the police and the Inquiry to reflect on that. Thank you.