From the Guardian · · 2m
Home Office bid to curtail spycops inquiry sparks cover-up fears
Victims of undercover police surveillance say the government is trying to shut down a decade-long inquiry into widespread misconduct, leaving wrongdoing hidden.
In brief
Victims of undercover police surveillance say the government is trying to shut down a decade-long inquiry into widespread misconduct, leaving wrongdoing hidden. The Home Office is consulting on curtailing a public inquiry into undercover police misconduct, but victims say this would amount to a cover-up of abuses…
Inquiry into undercover police abuse
An independent judge-led inquiry has been examining how undercover officers spied on tens of thousands of political activists over more than four decades, committing abuses including deceiving women into sexual relationships.
Inquiry running over budget and behind schedule
The inquiry was set up in two thousand fifteen and was supposed to be completed within three years. It has been running for more than a decade and is expected to last another two years. It has cost one hundred forty four million pounds so far.
Home Office seeks to curtail the inquiry
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has expressed concern about the length and cost of the process. She has initiated a public consultation, closing on Sunday, to determine whether the inquiry should continue in a different format.
Victims fear a cover-up
Those who were spied on say the Home Office is looking to severely limit or scrap later stages, leaving the full extent of police wrongdoing hidden. More than two thousand people have objected to what they believe would be a cover-up.
Decades of documented misconduct
The inquiry has investigated the Special Demonstration Squad, a Metropolitan police unit that infiltrated political groups between nineteen sixty eight and two thousand eight. Officers formed long-term relationships with women without disclosing their true identity and stole identities of dead children.
Mark Kennedy's deceptions exposed
Undercover officer Mark Kennedy infiltrated environmental and left-wing groups for six years and deceived a large, but unknown, number of women into intimate relationships. Environmental campaigners had their criminal convictions overturned because crucial evidence gathered by Kennedy was withheld from their trials.
Victim warns of permanent cover-up
Kate Wilson, deceived into a two-year relationship by Kennedy, said curtailing the inquiry or reducing its powers to compel evidence will be a cover-up. She stated: we may never understand the full extent of the misconduct that has occurred in undercover policing.
“We may never understand the full extent of the misconduct that has occurred in undercover policing.”
The short version
The Home Office is consulting on curtailing a public inquiry into undercover police misconduct, but victims say this would amount to a cover-up of abuses spanning four decades.
