Undercover police spied on anti arms trade campaigners and exaggerated their threat to protect the arms industry

Evidence quoted in an opening position statement released on 2 February by the Undercover Policing Inquiry shows that multiple undercover police officers spied on anti-arms trade campaigners, including Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), because of the financial importance of the industry to the British state.

There are also allegations that risks from protests against Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI), one of the world’s largest arms fairs, were deliberately exaggerated to ensure a repressive police response designed to stifle protest. In fact the biggest risk facing undercover police officers came from uniformed officers. Or, as they euphemistically say, “over-enthusiastic policing”.

One report, a 2003 review of HN3 ‘Jason Bishop’ who targeted DSEI protests states that:

Source has been targeted at environmentalist groups who engage in direct action
and/or protest action and a wide range of environmental and political issues. Some of these issues concern or could influence the financial well being of the State, i.e. DSEI.

Another, an interview with HN18 Robert Hastings in 2007, states that police targeted DSEI organising:

because of the high profile nature of the event and the amount of money involved and the embarrassment that would be caused to the government etc.

Additional reporting from HN18 describes the “worst disorder” at DSEI protests as:

free flowing [marches with] street party gatherings accompanied by a samba band and a sound system.

Campaign Against Arms Trade

During the course of the inquiry, CAAT applied for core participant status twice. Once, when the inquiry initially began in 2015, when the inquiry argued there was not substantive proof that CAAT had been spied on.

The second application, made in 2024, was rejected on the grounds that reports were collateral damage due to reporting on another core participant, Emily Apple, who is also currently CAAT’s media coordinator, and a CAAT volunteer for some of the period covered by this tranche.

However, as Apple’s position statement for Tranche 3, Phase 2 of the inquiry sets out, CAAT was the target of frequent reporting by numerous undercover police officers, some of which pre-dates any reporting on her by undercover officers. Tranche 3 of the inquiry covers police spying from 1993-2008 when the Special Demonstration Squad/Special Duties Squad (SDS) closed.

Apple, who was also a very close friend of Martin Hogbin, the corporate spy who infiltrated CAAT from 1997-2003, is additionally asking the inquiry to investigate the relationship between the policing units and arms trade spies, and whether any of the information reported by Hogbin to BAE Systems ended up with the SDS.

Apple’s statement also details the extensive harassment she received from the police, often directed by the SDS, and the intrusive interference in her private life by undercover officers, including buying her then two-week old son a giant polar bear.

Apple, CAAT’s media coordinator and core participant, stated:

It is very clear that CAAT and other anti-arms trade campaigns I was involved in were deliberately and intrusively targeted by undercover officers to protect the arms trade, and its value to the state. Street party gatherings were described as ‘serious disorder’ while little or no investigations were carried out against the arms companies marketing illegal weapons at DSEI.

While some of the events the inquiry is investigating are over 20 years old, this is not a historical issue. We saw yet again at DSEI in September 2025 the lengths the police are willing to go to protect arms dealers, deploying extreme violence – the very picture of ‘over-enthusiastic’ policing described in the documents – to police our protests. This resulted in the police breaking the wrist of a legal observer, breaking the ankle of another protester, and knocking a third unconscious.

Anti-arms trade campaigners are currently facing unprecedented levels of repression, in particular with the proscription of Palestine Action. There are striking similarities between the exaggerated threats outlined in these documents with the justifications relied upon by this government to target protesters today.

There are serious questions that need answering about the complicity between successive governments, the police and the arms companies to repress our right to protest to protect a trade that is complicit in multiple genocides and human rights abuses.

The inquiry will hear further detailed evidence relating to these allegations on the following dates: