Undercover policing inquiry: What we know so far

The public inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales will last three years and probe the justification, authorisation and oversight of the practice, its chair has confirmed.

The home secretary Theresa May ordered the review after claims a police “spy” had infiltrated the family camp of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.
What do we know already?

Undercover relationships

Some police officers working undercover had relationships with women who were members of the groups they were tasked to infiltrate.

Many of these women had no idea that their partner was a police officer, and suffered emotional trauma when they disappeared from their lives.

Last year, the Metropolitan Police paid one woman who had a child with an officer £425,000 in compensation.

The woman, who had a child with an undercover officer called Bob Lambert, known to her as Bob Robinson, claimed that senior officials must admit undercover officers “used sex as a way to gather information and intelligence”.

We do not know how many men conducted these clandestine relationships, and there may be women out there who do not know their partner was a police officer pretending to be someone else.

There have been around a dozen civil claims for damages which have claimed officers were expected to create relationships to make their cover more believable.

Identities of dead children stolen

At least 42 of 106 identities used by undercover police officers were the names of children who had died – without their parent’s knowledge. This number could yet rise.

In 2013 a senior officer said the practice was not sanctioned by Scotland Yard’s leadership. Despite this the practice went on for years, across many surveillance projects.

Targets

Labour MPs, trade unionists and a variety of campaigners – including anti-racism groups – were targeted as well as protesters.

Mark Kennedy, an officer from the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, would drive people to and from demonstrations found to be against the law – effectively facilitating their involvement.

Stephen Lawrence

One of the most damaging allegations so far is that the police had a “spy” in the Stephen Lawrence camp during the investigation of his murder in 1993.

Former Scotland Yard undercover officer Peter Francis said last year that he was instructed in 1993 to find information that could discredit the Lawrence family.

He told Channel 4’s Dispatches programme he was told to pose as an anti-racism campaigner in a hunt for “disinformation”.

A home office review found that a Metropolitan Police officer worked within the “Lawrence camp” while a previous inquiry into the death was under way. However the officer was not named.

The Met have said that the Lawrence family was never the target of their surveillence, although information about them was gathered.

Quashed convictions

In recent years 57 convictions have been quashed after it emerged that the police had failed to disclose that its officers had infiltrated groups whose members were brought before the courts. More could follow.