Police Spies Out of Lives is organised by and for people deceived into relationships with undercover police.
See https://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/ also Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/
PUBLIC INQUIRY
“Tranche 2” hearings due to start on 1st July 2024.
Interim Report published by the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) on 29th June 2023 summary, published by Police Spies Out Of Lives, at
https://policespiesoutoflives.
“The most important takeaway from the report are the conclusions that it was very quickly clear these spying operations were not justified, that some of the worst practices (such as theft of dead children’s identities and abusive relationships with members of the public) were present from the very beginning, and that the units should have been shut down in the early 1970s.
These were clearly unjustifiable operations, deploying unethical and illegal tactics, which the Police and Home Office deliberately kept secret to avoid public outcry.”
The following links are just a fraction of the extensive media coverage of the Interim Report, including the press conference from COPS and some of our affiliates:
Undercover policing unit tactics not justified, says report – BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
Victims hold news conference after undercover policing inquiry – Sky News Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
‘Spy cops’ scandal: what is it and why was public inquiry set up? – The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/
NEW SPYCOPS PODCAST
The first half of a powerful new BBC podcast series on spycops, “Undercover: The Spycops” focuses on the case of officer Mark Kennedy, who deceived numerous women into relationships whilst infiltrating environmental and social justice groups and whose unmasking revealed the whole scandal of Britain’s political secret police. You can listen to the first 10 episodes at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/
The second half of the podcast will take a wider view, encompassing other officers and the institutional elements of the spycops’ abuses. That series is expected to be released around Easter 2024.
What’s Next? The UCPI has announced it intends to commence “Tranche 2” hearings on 1st July 2024. This second phase of the inquiry will be looking at the actions of undercover officers from 1983 to 1992.
Those targeted in the 1980s and early 1990s include environmental groups, trade unions, support campaigns for people killed by police or for those arrested/facing trial, groups opposing war, racism, destructive road-building proposals, left-wing and anarchist organisations, MPs, animal rights groups, and anti-fascists.
The disgusting secret tactics pioneered in the 1970s were expanded upon in the following decade, including the hoovering up and passing to MI5 vast amounts of personal information on activists including for blacklisting, the abuse of women for sexual relationships, the theft of dead children’s identities, the manipulation of groups by taking positions of responsibility and by acting as agents provocateur.
Core Participants at the Inquiry are currently receiving many of the thousands of secret reports made by infiltrators in the 1980s and early 1990s. Restriction orders are in place on this information, but COPS will continue to provide information as it becomes available to the public.
Latest updates on the Undercover Policing Inquiry http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/ucpi-public-inquiry/
Police Spies Out of Lives is a campaigning support group working to achieve an end to the sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers. We support the women affected by the issues to expose the immoral and unjustified practice of undercover relationships, and the institutional prejudices which have led to the abuse.
Police Spies Out of Lives is organised by and for people deceived into relationships with undercover police. We were set up to support the legal action by eight women deceived into long term intimate relationships with undercover police officers who were infiltrating environmental and social justice campaign groups. These women won an historic apology from the police, and the police no longer contest liability in Kate Wilson’s ongoing case. We continue to support these women in the remainder of their legal actions, as well as through the Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing. On many of the historic pages of our website, their case is referred to as ‘the case’.
Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill
Undercover officer won’t face prosecution over relationship https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46570224
WB&DTUC affiliated at our Feb 2019 meeting and passed the following motion which was sent to Midlands TUC and Midlands Trades Union Council conference
Motion Opposing Undercover ‘Political Policing’
This meeting notes with concern that police chiefs have admitted that undercover infiltration of political, activist and justice campaign groups in the UK has been consistent since 1968, in the form of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU).
This meeting understands that a tactic of these infiltrations was for officers to form long-term intimate relationships with women activists, to bolster officer’s cover identities in activist circles. Many of these ‘relationships’ lasted for years.
This meeting believes that this reveals that institutional sexism is endemic within the police and other state bodies that sanctioned this behaviour.
This meeting understands that police were forced to admit, in just one case so far, that they infringed upon a woman’s right not to be ‘subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. This was a violation of the women’s rights to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association and assembly. Also this was a violation of the women’s rights to a home and family life, and to privacy of communications. Further, this was an infringement of the women’s right to participate in the struggle for legal, social and environmental justice.
This meeting believes that the use of sexual relationships has no place in any form of undercover policing and the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) should be amended to reflect this.
This meeting firmly opposes this type of political undercover policing and believe that infiltrations of this kind have no place in a democratic society.
This meeting calls for the Undercover Policing Inquiry to be extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to undertake a fully transparent and truly public inquiry, providing disclosure to those whose rights have been violated by undercover operations and to fulfil its terms of reference as a means to allay public concern.
This meeting agrees to:
1/ share details of this motion and profile the work of Police Spies Out Of Lives in bulletins and newsletters
2/ raise awareness amongst trade unionists of undercover ‘political policing’, to help prevent a re-occurrence of this type of grossly intrusive policing
3/ support and publicise the demonstration by those spied upon and their supporters.
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