Spycops inquiry in “crisis” as Tory-imposed restrictions mean it may be doomed to failure

Spycops victims have delivered a letter to the new home secretary Yvette Cooper highlighting a state of crisis in the Undercover Policing Inquiry and asking that she reconsider the arbitrary end date and financial constraints imposed by the last government.

Spycops inquiry in “crisis”, Yvette Cooper must act

Women deceived into long-term relationships with undercover officers, family justice campaigners and other victims of spycops delivered a letter to the new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, today asking her to lift the arbitrary December 2026 end date imposed by her predecessors, because it is plunging the inquiry into crisis just as it is beginning to uncover the truth.

A group of core participants delivered the letter to the Home Office in Marsham Street this morning. The group included ‘Jessica’, ‘Alison’, and Eleanor Fairbraida, all women from Police Spies Out of Lives, Suresh Grover from The Monitoring Group, and family justice campaigners John and Linda Burke-Monerville.

The Spycops inquiry was set up to investigate fifty years of undercover policing infiltrating and targeting a wide range of campaign groups and family justice campaigns.

However, in June 2023, having heard only the first decade’s worth of evidence, the chair released an absolutely damning interim report. He concluded that the secret political policing operations, and the offensive tactics they employed, sanctioned by Met Police chiefs, were unjustifiable and should have been shut down in the 1970s.

Following that report, the Home Office under the previous government brought pressure to bear on the inquiry to bring its investigations to a close and deliver a final report by December 2026, however it is clear that the inquiry does not have the resources or capacity to fairly and effectively fulfil its terms of reference to that timescale.

A deepening chaos

The letter highlights how a compressed timetable combined with ongoing delays in disclosure is creating chaos and unfairness, with non-state participants subjected to punishing deadlines, and unilateral decisions being made by the Inquiry without their input.

It asks Yvette Cooper, the new home secretary, to reconsider the decisions imposed on the Spycops inquiry by her predecessor Suella Braverman which created this situation.

This deepening crisis comes at a time when the full truth of the scandal is just beginning to come out. In July, the Met Police were forced to apologise for their infiltrators’ targeting women activists for fraudulent and abusive sexual relationships, and for their targeting of anti-racist and family justice campaigns.

It is vital that the Spycops inquiry listens to its ‘Core Participants’, stops cutting corners, and is given the time and resources it needs to properly collect and hear all the relevant evidence.

The Spycops report may not even be credible

Jessica from Police Spies Out of Lives said today:

There were massive delays at the start of this investigation. They spent nine years and over £82 million mainly on undercover officers’ applications for anonymity and State applications for secrecy and that process is still ongoing. Now the victims in this Inquiry are being squeezed up against arbitrary deadlines. Witnesses are not being given time to view the files before being asked to give evidence and that is causing real distress. The disparity in time given to us and to the state is completely unfair.

For the final report to be credible, core participants and the public must have confidence in the Inquiry process. The scope of these human rights abuses and how they were allowed to happen must be fully understood if we are to ensure they cannot happen again.

Suresh Grover from The Monitoring Group added:

We urge the new Home Secretary to personally intervene to ensure that this Inquiry achieves what it was set to do – to examine policing spying of campaigns and protests and its disastrous implications for democracy thoroughly without cutting corners. It’s in her power to fix this.

Core Participants are asking Yvette Cooper to meet with them urgently to explore ways to ensure the Spycops inquiry is able to meet its Terms of Reference and that victims are treated fairly.

Hearings in the second phase of Tranche 2 of the Spycops Inquiry are due to commence on 30th September 2024, and will deal with some of the most significant deployments in the whole Inquiry, including HN10 Bob Lambert, an undercover officer who fathered a child and is alleged to have participated in serious crimes resulting in miscarriages of justice.

Featured image via David Mirzoeff