REAL LIVES Undercover police POLITICAL Unite backs truth fight for cop spy victims


In 2001 an undercover police officer operating under the name of Carlo Neri entered into sexual relationship with Lindsey (not her real name), who was friends with a number of Socialist Party members.


“We dated for almost a year and it began to get quite serious. Carlo booked a holiday for us in Venice, love began to be mentioned and it turned into something that appeared to have a future…Then he disappeared,” Lindsey told uniteWORKS.


“When I first found out he was a police spy I was incredulous. I didn’t quite believe it, even when I had the proof in front of me. Then an incredible anger and anxiety really kicked in. It was very difficult to manage. I just felt this incredible injustice.”


Lindsey, along with Unite, is among the core participants in an inquiry led by Lord Justice Pitchford into undercover policing on political groups since 1968.


Victims of police spying, who have come together to form the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS), say the Metropolitan Police is refusing to come clean about their operations and that the inquiry needs to go further in uncovering the links between police spying, politics and industry.


The Pitchford Inquiry was set up by then home secretary Theresa May in 2014, after it was revealed that undercover officers duped a number of women into sexual relationships – with one policeman fathering a child in the process – to infiltrate law abiding political groups.


Secret police officers also provided construction industry blacklisters with the details of spied upon activists, targeted


trade unions, stole the details of dead children, collected information on the distraught relatives of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence and orchestrated wrongful convictions.


A number of Labour MPs were also spied on, according to former undercover police officer Peter Francis.


“It’s absolutely vital that the undercover names that officers used are released so people can know if they’ve been spied on. We need to know what information is held on us and we need to know why people were spied on, because it was heavy handed to say the least, considering most of the groupings people were involved with. So far we’ve been met with absolute silence from the authorities, which tells me the Met are in no way sorry for what they’ve done,” commented Lindsey.


Higher up “It was political policing, pure and simple. They are supposed to be a public service and they’re not supposed to pick sides and try and derail democratic rights. We need to get to the truth of who ordered this, because I struggle to believe that the Met were stepping massively over their brief. Surely this has had to come from higher up.”


Recent developments appear to justify Lindsey’s concerns regarding obstruction by the Met and politically motivated policing.


In early February, the UK’s police watchdog announced it had launched an investigation after receiving allegations from a Met whistle blower that undercover police files were destroyed during May 2014 – two months after the Pitchford Inquiry was commissioned.


28 uniteWORKS Spring 2017 Find out more HERE


Sergeant David Williams said the files were shredded to prevent Green Party peer, Jenny Jones, discovering the extent to which the police had monitored her political movements.


COPS secretary Lois Austin said police spying was also connected to big business interests. Lois, the former chair of Youth Against Racism in Europe (YARE), was spied on by undercover police officer Peter Francis whilst organising demonstrations against the BNP during the mid-1990s.


“Some of our YARE members were also building workers and activists in UCATT. They were spied on by Peter Francis and he gave their names to the private blacklisting companies. What that means is that there was direct collusion by a public organisation – the police – and big business,” Lois said.


“It amounts to corruption, where a section of the police have stepped out of their remit to carry out the bidding of industry. We’re not interested in the Met’s claim that this was the work of a few bad apples. It’s rubbish, this was policy and we need to know who was directing it.”


The campaign group says it is sure that political policing is still going on and adds the current investigatory model will not uncover the truth or prevent unjust and political secret policing in the future. To achieve that, COPS are calling for a thorough, transparent and independent inquiry and for a number of safeguards to be introduced to prevent undercover policing abuses.


Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said the union is backing the campaign and condemned the collusion


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