By Gabriel Princewill-
A public inquiry which has so far cost £11.5m has indicated that racially motivated instructions were given to discredit the Stephen Lawrence family and witnesses following the Mcpherson report designed to and is examining whether overt racism was present in the way black justice campaigners in the 90’s were targeted.
It follows revelation that an undercover police officer took part in clashes during the Stephen Lawrence inquiry as part of his cover so he could better spy on anti-racism groups, one of the UK’s longest-running public inquiries has been told.
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Making his opening statement, counsel to the inquiry David Barr KC said: “The issue of race will be particularly prominent. There is a great deal of SDS reporting on a large number of racial justice campaigns during this era.”
The inquiry will look at whether there was “conscious or subconscious racism” in the deployments of SDS undercover officers. Other campaigns that were targeted in the same period included environmental groups, anti-war campaigners, and animal rights activists.
It also saw “a seismic change” brought about by the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001, Mr Barr said, the July 7 attacks in London four years later, and the mistaken shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station.
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Officers are believed to have targeted Baroness Lawrence and Dr Neville Lawrence as they fought for justice for the racist murder of their 17 year old ambitious son, who was studying A levels at the time he was killed. Young Stephen was quietly waiting for a bus when he was callously and needlessly set upon by five youths. he youths escaped justice for a long time, until enough evidence was gathered against them.
The public inquiry was announced by then-home secretary Theresa May in 2015, after former SDS officer Peter Francis turned whistleblower.
Francis claimed that he had been tasked with gathering information to smear the Lawrence family, something the Met has always denied. It has already emerged that one undercover officer who used the fake name David Hagan, as well as Mr Francis, joined the Movement for Justice in the late 1990s and remained a member for two or three years.
This was during the Macpherson public inquiry into both Stephen’s murder and the alleged corruption, racism and incompetence that dogged the police investigation into his death.
Mr Francis attended the inquiry pretending to be a supporter of the Lawrence campaign, while feeding information back to colleagues in the Met. He is due to give evidence to the inquiry in December.
The inquiry has so far revealed that a man known only as HN81 or “David Hagan” due to an anonymity order had by 1997 been deployed to gather intelligence on the anti-racism movement in London at a time when the force was preparing to face a public inquiry over how it had botched the investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder.
The officer has admitted being part of infamous clashes on the day that the five murder suspects gave evidence to the Lawrence inquiry in 1998.
“He [HN81] accepts being involved in the public disorder,”KC Barr said.
“HN81 describes that day as the most serious incident of public disorder he witnessed and participated in. He describes shouting, aggressive posturing and joining in with the pushing and shoving once that had begun.”
“It is undeniable that the Stephen Lawrence Campaign was conducted throughout in a manner that defied public disorder, advocating for order and calm, even where some would have had it otherwise,” said Mr Barr.
“Dr Neville Lawrence is appalled that a police officer was involved in such action. He has stated to the inquiry that it is (I quote) ‘particularly troubling that an officer who sought to justify surveillance on the grounds of public disorder actively contributed to it’.”
Another key witness for the latest tranche of evidence is Peter Francis, a former officer of the now disbanded Special Demonstration Squad at the heart of the allegations of wrongdoing.
His revelations were one of the factors that triggered the public inquiry.
“Mr Francis portrays HN86 as a thoroughly and overtly racist man who, amongst other things, instructed him to seek out intelligence for the purpose of undermining black justice campaigns,” said Mr Barr.
“In particular, information about the Lawrence family which could be used to discredit them and to destroy the Stephen Lawrence Campaign.
“Mr Francis asserts that he was also expected to report information that might discredit Duwayne Brooks [Stephen Lawrence’s friend who had been with him on the night of the fatal attack].
“HN86 denies these allegations. We will be looking at them very closely indeed.”
In a brief opening address, Peter Skelton KC, representing the Metropolitan Police, said the force apologised to the family of Stephen Lawrence, his friend Duwayne Brooks, Sukhdev Reel, and other justice campaigners.
“There was a collective failure to exercise ethical judgment about the purpose of undercover policing and the propriety of reporting on family justice campaigns,” he said.
“This is reflective of an ‘us against them’ culture that prevailed within the MPS at that time, which didn’t properly distinguish between legitimate intelligence targets, such as groups committed to inciting serious public disorder, and illegitimate targets such as grieving black and Asian families who were complaining about injustice and the actions of the police.”
On Friday, the father of Stephen Lawrence, Neville Lawrence, welcomed the chance for evidence to be heard in public about how the battle for justice for his son was spied upon.
He said the surveillance by police moles who posed as anti-racism campaigners in the late 1990s was “bewildering and insulting”.
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