Undercover: police spies in South London

'Undercover: the True Story of Britain's Secret Police' by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis is primarily about the work of the Special Demonstration Squad, a London-based police unit set up to infiltrate radical and not so radical movements. Of course the police Special Branch and other agencies have been using informers and undercover police officers for many years. The SDS, seemingly formed in the aftermath of the anti-Vietnam protests of the late 1960s, took this to a new level by deploying cops to live amongst activists, and indeed as activists, for long periods. During their deep cover deployments, they took a key role in organising protests and had sexual relationships, some times having children with women while pretending to be somebody else (using the identities of other, dead children). The SDS closed down in 2008, but its work has continued since in the guise of various shadowy groups such as the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

If you've been following the authors' unfolding revelations in the Guardian and elsewhere, there probably won't be too many surprizes in this book. But gathering so much of the material together in one place does show how sustained and widespread the practice was (and presumably still is), bearing in mind that only a few undercover spies have been definitely identified out of a much larger number deployed.

Some of the South London connections mentioned in the book have been covered here before, including 'Rod Richardson', a presumed policeman involved in organising the May Day 2001 protests at the Elephant and Castle, and Jim Boyling/Jim Sutton, who lived in East Dulwich while infiltrating Reclaim the Streets.

Jim Boyling (real name) aka Jim Sutton of Reclaim the Streets

'Undercover' also includes other details, including the revelations from Pete Black that he took part in the violent anti-BNP protests in Welling in 1993 and that he was one of several spies deployed to try and dig dirt on the Stephen Lawrence campaign.The attempt to find information to discredit the Lawrence family supporters shows clearly that the undercover operation was not just targeting groups believed to be involved in direct action, but was used to undermine people who threatened to expose police wrong-doing.

Another revelation in the book is that at one time - and certainly in around 2001 - the clandestine HQ of the SDS was ' a rundown office block on Camberwell New Road... situated above the nondescript City Office Superstore stationers'. This was at 303-309 Camberwell New Road London SE5 0TF - now the home of the TFC Supermarket, next to St Marys Greek Orthodox Church.

TFC in Camberwell New Road - once a secret police HQ

If the practice has led to emotional abuse of activists, the strains of living a double life may not have done some of the cops any favours either. Dulwich-born Mark Kennedy seems to have ended up being abandoned by his former handlers after being exposed in 2011, as well as being deeply mistrusted by the activists who he spied on. Another case covered in the book is that of Mike Chitty/Mike Blake who infiltrated the Streatham-based South London Animal Movement in the 1980s, and continued to try and hang around with people from that scene after his police deployment had been ended.

Eight women  who were 'deceived into long term intimate relationships with undercover police officers who were infltrating environmental and social justice campaign groups' are now taking legal action against the police. Supporters from 'Police Spies Out of Lives' are calling for a picket of the Royal Courts of Justice at the next court hearing, expected to be on or about the 19th March.

Racist Murder in SE London

Everybody now agrees that the killing of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham  on 22 April 1993 was a terrible racist crime and two men have been jailed for his murder. Back in 1993 it was very different - Government and media indifference (with some exceptions) and police hostility to those campaigning against racist attacks.

It was a terrible time in South East London, when the borough of Greenwich was named by some as 'Britain's racist murder capital' (Independent, 12 June 1993).  In February 1991, 15-year-old Rolan Adams was killed on the way home from a vist to the Hawksmoor youth club in Bentham Road, Thamesmead.

The Rolan Adams banner on a march to the BNP HQ in February 1992

In July 1992, 15 year old Rohit Duggal was stabbed to death outside the kebab shop in Tudor Parade, Well Hall Road. A white youth named Peter Thompson was later jailed for his murder.

Relatives of Rohit Duggal on a November 1992
demonstration to the BNP HQ in Welling

Then came the murder of  18-year-old Stephen Lawrence in April 1993, also in Well Hall Road in Eltham. As with the Adams and the Duggal cases, the police and Crown Prosecution Service tried to deny the racist aspects of the murder.

Stephen Lawrence's parents at a vigil in May 1993

There were other murders too elsewhere in South London. Ruhullah Aramesh, a 24 year old Afghan refugee, was beaten to death in Thornton Heath by a gang armed with iron bars in July 1992. In October of that year Sher Singh Sagoo, a Deptford market trader, was attacked and killed. And murder was just the tip of the iceberg - between August 1990 and May 1991, 863 incidents of racist attacks and harassment were reported to the Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks alone.

I went on many demonstrations at that time, usually led by the families of murder victims. There was the Anti Racist Alliance demo in June 1993 from Norbury Park to the scene of Ruhullah Aramesh's murder.

There was the march against the British National Party's 'Rights for Whites' demo in Thamesmead in May 1991, provocatively called a few months after the murder of Rolan Adams in the same area where he was killed. The police mobilised their forces included mounted police to stop the anti-racists who outnumbered the BNP ten to one (roughly 1200 to 120).

I remember seeing riot police baton people's heads out of sight of the cameras in a car park between housing blocks on the estate. I took a friend with a head wound to Kings hospital in Camberwell as we didn't think the local casualty department would be a safe place to go.  Incidentally Stephen Lawrence (then at Blackheath Bluecoats School),  took part on the anti-BNP demo that day too.

'Horseback police in riot gear charged hundreds of screaming demonstrators as a protest ended in violence. Policy carrying batons and wearing protective visors waded into demonstrators in Thamesmead on Saturday. About 20 protesters were arrested and one PC injured as campaigners tried to block a march by the right-wing British National Party. More than 150 BNP members had intended to march from the Hawksmoor Youth Club to Bentham Road – just a few feet from where 15 year old Rolan Adams was stabbed to death in February. But police changed the route after discovering more than 3000 anti-racists were to stage a counter demonstration. The anti-BNP marchers, led by the Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks, became angered when they realized they would not be allowed anywhere near the right-wingers… as a breakaway group ran down a cul-de-sac guarded by  police horse riders, trouble flared. Police reports claim bricks and missiles were thrown at officers… An eyewitness saw three members of the crowd trampled underfoot by horses’ (Erith and Crayford Times, 30 May 1991).

Welling demonstration, October 1993

Increasingly the headquarters of the BNP in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling, became the focus of demonstrations. The point wasn't that the racist murders were being explicitly organised by them, but that they were spewing out racist poison that was legitimising these attacks.

The biggest demonstration took place on 16th October 1993.  Anti-fascist magazine Searchlight estimated 40,000 people attended, the Independent 25,000 and Socialist Worker 60,000. Either way it must have been one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in South East London. The Unity demo against the BNP started off with a massive rally on Winns Common, before heading off towards Welling.

Auschwitz survivor Leon Greenman leads the march

According to Searchlight (November 1993), 'the marchers arrived at the crossroads where one road went to the nazi headquarters and the other [Lodge Hill] was the route imposed by the police. At this point the Unity banner at the head of the march was facing into the road leading to the BNP headquarters. The stewards and Leon Greenman, an 82 year old survivor of the Nazi death camps, tried to negotiate passage through the police line. When it was refused, some of the marchers sat down'. Riot police, including some on horseback, charged the crowd and there were riotous scenes with smoke bombs,  flying bricks, snatch squads and 3,000+ police. At least 56 demonstrators were injured and 31 people were arrested on the day' (Sunday Times, 17 October 1993). Personally I didn't even see any of this until I got home on TV as I had been trapped in the crowd by Plumstead cemetery - like much of the crowd unable to move because the police had blocked both Upper Wickham Lane (towards the BNP HQ) and Lodge Hill (the route the police had earlier said the march would have to take).

One woman reported at the time 'I was sitting on a wall, just trying to avoid the police. A policeman pushed me off. The police charged from a side street. I tripped over a bush and four police just laid into me with truncheons.  I was on the floor and one of them was kneeling on me, just hitting me. Later I saw a man in a wheelchair. The police charged again and again and just knocked him over. He fell out of his chair. My friend - she's 16 - tried to help him up and the police started hiting her' (Socialist Worker, 23 October 1993) 



Anti-Nazi League chief steward Julie Waterson
bleeding after being batoned by police in October 1993

The BNP HQ finally closed in 1995, following action by Bexley Council.

See also: Bob from Brockley, pretty much summing up what I think about the whole affair; 853 - thoughts of a SE London contemporary of Stephen Lawerence, and a reminder  'that it was the community in Eltham who gave up the names of Dobson and Norris in the first place. It was the local Metropolitan Police who decided that the death of a black man wasn’t worth investigating properly, not the people of Eltham'; Ian Bone points out that one of the police officers who mismanaged the original Lawrence investigation became a Croydon Conservative councillor - David Osland wrote to his superiors in September 1993 that 'Our patience is wearing thin on 3 Area (south-east London)... with the Lawrence family and their representatives'.

[update 11 January 2012 : 'The dad of Stephen Lawrence has passed potentially crucial new evidence on his son's murder to cops, he revealed yesterday. Neville Lawrence, 69, was told a suspect had now confessed to being at the scene of the murder.The development comes after two men were jailed for life last week for the gang murder of Stephen in 1993. Mr Lawrence said: "After the verdict, I met two people in Brockley, London, on Saturday who knew one of the guys that was part of the gang. They mentioned the boy confessed that he was there on the night. They gave me their names and addresses and I passed them on to the police." Mr Lawrence called on the racist pair to tell cops where the knife used to stab his son is hidden. He added: "There is forensic evidence on that knife to convict somebody else.". His plea came as a burger bar worker claimed Norris was involved in a brutal attack on him six weeks BEFORE Stephen was murdered. Gurdeep Bhangal, 41, said he confronted the yob after he banged on the window of the Eltham branch of Wimpy. He said: "I got hold of him and was stabbed by another person." No one was arrested, [The Sun, 10 January 2012]

As Bob from Brockley reminds us in the comments, while failing to find evidence against the killers the police were deploying resources in infiltrating anti-racist groups - and indeed a former police spy has admitted to taking part in attacks on police lines in Welling (see Bob's post on this affair).

Anti-fascists jailed after Welling incident

Six anti-fascists have been jailed following action against a neo-nazi gig in Welling, south-east London. The gig took place on 28th March 2009 at the Duchess of Edinburgh pub in Upper Wickham Lane and was organised by notorious racist promoters Blood and Honour.

After the gig there was an altercation between a few of the antifascists and two fascists on the platform of Welling train station. According to Anti-Fascist Prisoner Support:

'Seven people were arrested on the night, and a further 16 were arrested in a series of dawn raids a few months later. Every antifascist the police could place in the vicinity of the fight was picked up. The police lacked enough evidence against almost all of those arrested to support an assault charge, but wished to pursue the cases against all of the accused for what we can assume were political reasons. 23 people therefore ended up being charged with conspiracy to commit violent disorder, although charges against one person were dropped before they reached crown court.

The first 11 anti-fascists went on trial on 6th June 2011, two or more years after their arrests. After 17 days, seven of them were convicted and four acquitted. Of the convicted, four were immediately sentenced to 21 months in prison. Another two were later sentenced to 18 and 15 months. The seventh was given a suspended sentence.

The second nine anti-fascists went on trial on 12th September 2011. The cases of two people who would have been in the second trial were dropped one working day before that trial commenced. All nine people in the second trial were acquitted. The trial was over two weeks long, but the jury took less than one hour to come to their unanimous verdict. They delivered it with pleasure to a cheering courtroom.

Whilst six of our comrades remain in prison we will give them all the support we can, and urge you to do the same'.