Quote:24 June 2013 Last updated at 08:43

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Lawrence police smear claims: Cameron demands investigation

Peter Francis, who says he says he posed as an anti-racism campaigner, served in the Met's now-disbanded Special Demonstration Squad

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Related Stories

• Police 'spied on Lawrence family'
  
• Pair convicted of Lawrence murder
  
• Stephen Lawrence: Timeline
  

The prime minister has called for an immediate investigation into reports the police wanted to smear the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Number 10 said David Cameron was "deeply concerned" by theallegations in the Guardian made by former officer Peter Francis.
The newspapers claims Mr Francis went under cover to infiltrate the family's campaign for justice in 1993.
Scotland Yard has refused to confirm or deny the reports.
But a spokesman said the Metropolitan Police shared the Lawrence family's concerns.
Former Home Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC he would be asking the Independent Police Complaints Commission to investigate the allegations.
Mr Francis told the Guardian and Channel 4's Dispatches programmehe had posed as an anti-racism campaigner in a hunt for "disinformation" to use against those criticising the police.
'Tarring the campaign'He said the Metropolitan Police were concerned the reaction to the Lawrence murder might result in rioting similar to that following the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.
Working as part of the Met's now-disbanded Special Demonstration Squad, which specialised in gathering intelligence on political activists, he said he came under pressure to find "any intelligence that could have smeared the campaign" - including whether any of the family were political activists, involved in demonstrations or drug dealers.
Doreen Lawrence told the Guardian that the family had been suspicious of police motives at the time
Mr Francis, who used the name Peter Black while under cover, says the aim of his operation was to ensure that the public "did not have as much sympathy for the Stephen Lawrence campaign" and to persuade "the media to start maybe tarring the campaign".
A Number 10 spokesman said: "The prime minister is deeply concerned by reports that the police wanted to smear Stephen Lawrence's family and would like the Metropolitan Police to investigate immediately."
Doreen Lawrence said she was shocked and angry at the disclosure. She said: "Out of all the things I've found out over the years, this certainly has topped it."
"It just makes me really, really angry that all of this has been going on and all the time trying to undermine us as a family.
"Somebody sitting somewhere, calculating what, you know, what they'd be doing to look at and infiltrate, our family. It's like, we're treated as if to say we're not human beings.
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"Start Quote

At some point it will fall upon this generation of police leaders to account for the activities of our predecessors, but for the moment we must focus on getting to the truth"

Metropolitan Police spokesman
"Nothing can justify the whole thing about trying to discredit the family and people round us."
The Metropolitan Police would not confirm or deny the account given by Mr Francis, but admitted "the claims in relation to Stephen Lawrence's family will bring particular upset to them and we share their concerns".
An independent investigation into a number of allegations against former undercover police officers, codenamed Operation Herne is under way.
In a statement the Met said: "Any actions by officers working on or with the Special Demonstration Squad need to be understood by Operation Herne in terms of the leadership, supervision, support, training, legal framework, tasking and reporting mechanisms that were in place at the time."
'Morally reprehensible'But the force gave the same response to allegations that another undercover officer had helped write the leaflets at the centre of the McLibel trial in the mid 1980s.
The statement said: "At some point it will fall upon this generation of police leaders to account for the activities of our predecessors, but for the moment we must focus on getting to the truth."
Continue reading the main story

Stephen Lawrence profile

Brought up in Plumstead, south-east London, the 18-year-old's family life was based on education and religious faith. Friends say he had a good and trusting nature.
He was born on 13 September, 1974 - the first of three children to Doreen and Neville who emigrated from Jamaica in the 1960s.
Neville was a carpenter, upholsterer, tailor and plasterer. Doreen took a university course and became a special needs teacher.
Stephen was studying A-levels in English, craft, design and technology and physics at Blackheath Bluecoat School.
He was keen on becoming an architect, and a local firm had already offered him a job.
He loved athletics and, like many teenagers, liked going out, girls and music. He had never been involved in crime.

• Profile of teen Stephen Lawrence
  

Mr Francis told the Guardian he had come forward because of the "morally reprehensible" way in which under cover officers had sometimes worked.
He is particularly angry his role was never discussed by the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry chaired by retired High Court judge Sir William Macpherson. He claims senior officers deliberately chose to withhold the information from the inquiry.
Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, was killed as he waited for a bus in April 1993.
More than 18 years later, in January 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder by an Old Bailey jury after a review of the forensic evidence.
Dobson and Norris had first been arrested in connection with the murder just weeks after it happened, but the case against them collapsed.
In 1999, the Macpherson inquiry into the killing and its aftermath published a report accusing the police of institutional racism.
Sir William said during the investigation the Lawrences had been patronised, treated with "insensitivity and lack of sympathy", and kept in the dark.
Dispatches is broadcast on Channel 4 on Monday 24 June at 20:00 BST.

Quote:Stephen Lawrence murder: police bugged meetings with witness

Senior officer is understood to have approved decision to secretly record meetings with Duwayne Brooks and lawyer


Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 June 2013 18.11 BST

Duwayne Brooks, who was found by the Macpherson inquiry to have been victimised by police. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Scotland Yard is facing new pressure over the Stephen Lawrence case after it emerged officers bugged meetings with the main witness in the case, Duwayne Brooks, and his lawyer.

The Guardian understands the decision to secretly record the meetings was authorised by a senior Metropolitan police officer. Brooks and his solicitor were unaware of the recording.

Brooks was found to have been victimised by police by an official inquiry, headed by Sir William Macpherson, in 1999, despite being a surviving victim of the attack that claimed Lawrence's life.

The decision to subject him to covert recordings came after this finding and after the Met had vowed to change following the Macpherson report.

Brooks was with Lawrence on the night the pair were attacked by a racist gang in south-east London on 22 April 1993.

The recordings took place in 1999 or 2000. At least two meetings were recorded, a source with knowledge of events said. Present were Brooks, his solicitor Jane Deighton, and police officers.

One meeting took place at the offices of Deighton's law firm in Islington, north London.

A "728" form, used by the Met, bears the name of the senior officer who authorised the decision to covertly record Brooks.

The meeting was asked for by officers from Operation Athena Tower, which the Met launched after it was chastised by Macpherson and which was a renewed effort to catch Lawrence's killers, who were then still free.

It was headed by the former deputy assistant commissioner John Grieve.

"It was covertly recorded after permission was obtained," a source said of the alleged bugging.

Responding to the allegations, the Met issued a statement promising that "an investigation into the circumstances of what took place has now been started". It will be conducted by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fiona Taylor, who is in charge of professional standards.

On Tuesday Deighton said police asked to meet Brooks and his solicitor to update them on the Lawrence murder investigation.

Brooks's solicitor Deighton told the BBC: "It does feel that there has been a persistent attempt from 1993 up to these meetings in 1999 maybe even beyond to undermine Duwayne Brooks's reputation. That is horrific," she said.

"Since he was 17, he has been haunted by the police seeking to undermine him, seeking to arrest and prosecute him and it has been up to the courts to defend him.

"He is now being haunted again by police wrongdoings scattered over the last 30 years that are emerging without warning and they are there to drag him down.

"It is a scandal that any individual should have to live through this for 30 years."

The development comes after a former undercover officer, Peter Francis, revealed to the Guardian he had been asked find information to smear and undermine the family of Stephen Lawrence. He also said he had been asked to find "dirt" on Brooks, at a time when he was the potential main witness in any prosecution over the racist murder of the gifted 18-year-old student.

The revelations led the home secretary to ask two existing inquiries to examine the claims made by Francis.

The former Scotland Yard chief Brian Paddick said of the news that Brooks had been targeted by covert recordings: "This happened in 1999-2000, after the Macpherson report. Why are they secretly recording Duwayne Brooks? This is after Macpherson has criticised the police treatment of him saying he was victimised by the police."

In a BBC interview, Deighton said the news was "horrific" and that at least one of the meetings took place at the request of the police.

She said since 1993 the police had tried to undermine Brooks and, asked for his reaction, said: "His reaction is that if it is true, it is a scandal."

Brooks is now a Liberal Democrat councillor in Lewisham, south London. He has also been recently appointed as an adviser on stop and search for the London mayor's office of policing.

He was charged after the Lawrence murder with violent disorder but cleared after a judge ruled the case against him was an abuse of process.

Brooks has long alleged a police vendetta against him.

In a 1999 Guardian interview Brooks said police waged a campaign to smear his name: "I was repeatedly stopped and searched after the murder. When the police found that I had no criminal record they used other means to try to discredit me."

At one of three identity parades officers accused him of stealing cans of soft drink.

The Macpherson report in 1999 attacked the Met for the way they treated Brooks: "Mr Brooks was the victim of racist stereotyping," it concluded.

From 1993, when he survived the attack that killed Lawrence, to 1999, Brooks was repeatedly arrested and stopped by the police. He was even stopped under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Quote:Police admit bugging Stephen Lawrence murder witness

Senior officer gave authorisation to record at least one meeting with Duwayne Brooks

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Friday 5 July 2013 17.24 BST

Duwayne Brooks, who witnessed the murder of his friend Stephen Lawrence in south-east London in 1993. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Police chiefs have admitted they bugged Duwayne Brooks, the main witness to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, it has emerged.

A senior Scotland Yard officer gave the authorisation to covertly record at least one meeting attended by Brooks and his solicitor.

The admission was made as Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, supported calls for a rigorous investigation into what Brooks's lawyer called the police's "horrific and appalling" treatment of him over the past two decades.

Brooks believes that more of his meetings were bugged by the police.

The bugging claims emerged last week after the whistleblower Peter Francis alleged that police spied on Brooks and the Lawrence family in an attempt to discredit the campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence.

The bugging happened after an inquiry, led by Sir William Macpherson, had ruled that police had treated Brooks in a racist way, even though he had been traumatised by the experience of witnessing the murder of his best friend in an unprovoked stabbing in south-east London in 1993.

The Met claimed that it would reform its ways in response to the damning report in 1999. The landmark findings also forced the Met to launch a new investigation to find the killers.

In 1999 and 2000, the investigation team asked to meet Brooks and his solicitor, Jane Deighton, to update them on progress.

But at least one of these meetings, in May 2000, was secretly recorded by police who did not inform either Brooks or Deighton.

Last week, the Met started an investigation, headed by the deputy assistant commissioner Fiona Taylor. She has now told Deighton that she has found internal documents signed by a senior officer authorising the bugging of one meeting.

Deighton said Brooks "believes there is more. He very much wants to see the documents. There is every reason why they should be disclosed now so that he can see for himself exactly what has gone on."

The government has promised an investigation into claims by Francis, a former undercover officer, that he was asked to gather intelligence that could be used to "smear" the campaign for a proper investigation into the murder.

Francis revealed to the Guardian how he was instructed to find evidence to incriminate Brooks.

He and another undercover officer trawled through hours of footage of an anti-racist demonstration in May 1993 to locate Brooks. Five months after the demonstration, police charged Brooks then traumatised by the Lawrence murder with criminal damage, but a judge later threw out the case on the grounds that the delay in bringing the prosecution was an abuse of the legal process.

Brooks met Clegg to press for "the quickest, most transparent and thorough investigation" into both Francis's and the bugging claims. Deighton said: "This is the least the government can do to enable Duwayne to continue to rebuild his life after the racist attack on himself and the murder of Stephen Lawrence."

She said Brooks had been subjected to "appalling and horrific police actions over the last 20 years".

Clegg said he would raise the issue with home secretary, Theresa May. A spokesman for the deputy prime minister said he had "expressed his admiration for Duwayne's long-standing commitment to holding the police, and the government, to account over the events following the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence".

Quote:Police demand notes from Channel 4 on Lawrence spying whistleblower

Chief constable wants broadcaster to hand over material about revelations that undercover officers spied on Lawrence family

• Rob Evans
  
• The Guardian, Monday 13 January 2014 21.00 GMT
  

Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, with her son Stuart. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

A top police officer is trying to force Channel 4 to hand over documents about the whistleblower who revealed that undercover officers had spied on relatives of Stephen Lawrence and their supporters.
Mick Creedon, the chief constable of Derbyshire, who is heading a team investigating the alleged misconduct of the secret undercover unit, has demanded the broadcaster provide documents and unshown footage about disclosures by the former undercover officer Peter Francis.
The police say that they need the material as they are investigating whether a breach of the Official Secrets Act and other offences have taken place months after the high-profile claims by Francis were aired on Channel 4's Dispatches and published in the Guardian. The police say they are concerned he may have compromised other undercover spies and put the safety of their families at risk.
Last week, lawyers for Creedon confirmed they intended to pursue a court order to compel Channel 4 to hand over "all written and electronic correspondence with Mr Francis together with any notes and all unedited video footage", reinforcing a demand made in a letter sent in October.
Francis has been a key source in recent years behind a series of revelations about the covert unit that sent long-term spies to infiltrate and disrupt political groups for 40 years.
He told the Guardian: "The threat of prosecution is designed not only to keep me quiet but also all the other hundred or so former undercover officers from ever speaking out. It saddens me but does not surprise me that the police don't like their dirty undercover secret being revealed to the public. They should investigate the allegations properly."
His disclosures have come under investigation by a team of police officers, led by the chief constable, that was set up to examine a broad range of alleged wrongdoing by the undercover Scotland Yard unit.
The team, headed by Creedon at the request of the Metropolitan police, has demanded that Channel 4 hand over documents and footage about "a large amount of information" they believe has been disclosed by Francis, including:
He and other undercover officers were asked to find information to undermine the campaign by the family and supporters of Stephen Lawrence, the teenager murdered by a racist gang, to bring his killers to justice.
The undercover spies routinely formed sexual relationships with the campaigners they had been sent to spy on.
A safe house that the undercover unit stopped using years ago.
The legal demand has emerged after the police team had told Francis at one point that they were treating him as a "witness" to their investigation, and hoped he was "prepared to assist the inquiry". The team has yet to arrest anyone since it was set up in 2011, nor has anyone been prosecuted.
Channel 4 intends to resist the demand by Creedon's lawyers. Guardian reporters collaborated with Channel 4 to produce the Dispatches programme last June.
Over the past four years, Francis has detailed how his superiors in the covert unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, instructed him to infiltrate anti-racist campaigns between 1993 and 1997. He has also shed light, for example, on how the spies used their fake cover names in court cases and stole the identities of dead children. These are among the allegations under investigation by Creedon's team.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has apologised for the "shock and offence" the theft of the dead children's identities caused.
Francis's claims forced the police to admit publicly that Scotland Yard had used undercover officers to collect information on groups who were campaigning for a proper investigation into the Lawrence murder.
In October, lawyers for Creedon sent a letter to Channel 4, saying: "In the Dispatches episode The Police's Dirty Secret, an individual by the name of Peter Francis is believed to have provided a large amount of information to the production team.
"It is of concern to the senior investigating officer, Chief Constable Mick Creedon, that Mr Francis may have revealed the names of fellow operatives, both past and present. In many cases, just the revelation of their true/pseudonym identities could put their lives and well-being of their families at risk.
"Similarly, in the broadcast, Peter Francis revealed a meeting location for SDS colleagues. It is of grave concern that he may have revealed further covert police premises and methodology practised during his deployment with the unit."
The SDS, which was disbanded in 2008, stopped using the meeting place in Balcombe Street, central London more than a decade ago.
Creedon's lawyers cited Francis's disclosures about "the acceptance of sexual relationships between officers and activists as well as the smearing of high-profile campaigns". They said his team was investigating "possible offences of breaches of the Official Secrets Act, misconduct in a public office, perverting the course of justice, and allegations of sexual offences".
Last August, Francis offered to speak to Creedon's inquiry, known as Operation Herne, if police chiefs withdrew their threat to investigate him over the Official Secrets Act.
He has said that on several occasions since he left the Metropolitan police in 2001, the force has threatened to prosecute him under the act if he revealed anything about his former unit.
After Creedon's team said they could not give him immunity from an Official Secrets Act prosecution, Francis said he was not happy to speak to their inquiry.
However, Francis is due to give evidence this week to an associated official inquiry that has been asked by the home secretary, Theresa May, to examine the undercover infiltration of the Stephen Lawrence campaign and other allegations.
He is doing so as Mark Ellison, the barrister heading this inquiry, secured from the attorney-general, Dominic Grieve, limited immunity to enable him to speak to his inquiry.
Derbyshire police said they did not want to comment. Since 2011, Francis has been calling for a public inquiry into all the allegations surrounding the undercover infiltration of political groups.

Quote:We know of the extent to which agencies will go here and in the US in apparently noble causes: spying on internet users; befriending, betraying and even seducing vulnerable targets; trampling on the rights of law-abiding protesters. And we know these facts not because the authorities have confessed, but because guardians of the public's right to know have thrust them into the public domain. Our state does not self-correct. It grudgingly admits culpability, but only when the alternatives have been exhausted. This will not change.

Quote:Stephen Lawrence exclusive: Links between 'corrupt' officer on investigation and racist murder gang were suppressed to protect Met chief







Will yet another judge-led public inquiry into police corruption sort out the Met?

TOM HARPER

INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER

Monday 10 March 2014

Intelligence that linked a suspected corrupt police officer on the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation to the gangster father of one of the prime suspects was apparently suppressed to protect the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

A memo written in 2000 by a Met Police lawyer suggests the force suppressed information that John Davidson, a detective sergeant on the original botched investigation, was connected to the father of David Norris, one of the racist gang who stabbed Stephen Lawrence to death in 1993.
The file goes on to warn a police officer who was preparing to leak information on the Lawrence case to a journalist that "disclosures relevant to DS Davidson's contact with the Norris family could have an adverse effect on the Commissioner's position in the on-going High Court action by Mr and Mrs Lawrence".
At the time, Doreen and Neville Lawrence were suing Scotland Yard for misfeasance in public office under the then Commissioner Lord Stevens following years of appalling police treatment following the death of their son.
The memo from David Hamilton of the Met's directorate of legal services corroborates incendiary claims by police "supergrass" Neil Putnam. He has always maintained he told the Met in 1998 of the alleged corrupt relationship between Davidson and Clifford Norris right in the middle of a judicial inquiry into the appalling case.
A review of the Lawrence murder found that full details of Mr Putnam's evidence was withheld from Sir William Macpherson during his landmark inquiry. The Home Secretary described this as "deeply troubling" and prompted accusations of a "cover-up".
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the current Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was thrown into the centre of the storm after Mark Ellison QC concluded in his review that Scotland Yard may not have told him the truth about Davidson's links to another notorious unsolved case, the murder of Daniel Morgan, prompting Mrs May to order yet another judge-led public inquiry into corruption inside Britain's biggest police force.
READ MORE: POLICE CORRUPTION REVELATIONS PILE PRESSURE ON CURRENT SCOTLAND YARD CHIEF
NEW EVIDENCE LINKS LAWRENCE MURDER AND A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
SENIOR COUNTER-TERRORISM OFFICER REMOVED FROM POST FOLLOWING MET POLICE SPYING REVELATIONS

The new memo on the links between Davidson and Clifford Norris was buried in the detail of the Ellison review, which also found that the Met inexplicably shredded four years' worth of relevant information to the Lawrence case in 2003 when Lord Stevens was Commissioner.
In the summer of 2000, officers including Detective Chief Superintendent John Yates were preparing to leak sensitive information on police corruption to a former BBC journalist Graeme McLagan.
Yates, who rose to become an assistant commissioner before resigning in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, told the Ellison review that he believed the decision to pass on the material was taken by Lord Stevens.
Before the information was sent to McLagan, Mr Hamilton in the Met's legal department wrote to a junior officer dealing with the matter on 14 August 2000 warning of the sensitivities around Davidson.
"If confidence were to be breached, consideration would have to be given to the effect on any ongoing trials in this series should any of the contents of the complaints history be leaked.
"Disclosures relevant to DS Davidson's contact with the Norris family could have an adverse effect on the Commissioner's position in the on-going High Court action by Mr and Mrs Lawrence. Part of their claim is based on misfeasance in public office and alleges wrongdoing in relation to dealings between police and the Norris family."
Crucially, the Ellison review was also told by Martin Polaine, a former CPS lawyer, that he recalled hearing of Mr Putnam's allegation about Davidson and Clifford Norris in July 1998 long before Lord Stevens wrote to the Macpherson Inquiry, releasing minimal information about the officer's alleged corruption. DS Davidson denies all the allegations.
Meanwhile, the Ellison review also uncovered Met intelligence that Davidson was linked to a private investigation firm Mayfayre Associates, run by two former Scotland Yard police officers, Alec Leighton and Keith Hunter.
In 2012, Mr Hunter was arrested and is currently on bail over the alleged bribery of police officers in relation to an investigation into James Ibori, a Nigerian politician convicted of fraud and money-laundering. He denies any wrongdoing.

Quote:Employees at Scotland Yard ordered to carry out mass shredding' of Stephen Lawrence evidence, claims damning review of the Met




TOM HARPER

Two employees at Scotland Yard were ordered to shred a "lorry-load" of police corruption intelligence, according to evidence submitted to a damning review of the Metropolitan Police.

Top-secret material gathered during a four-year investigation, codenamed Operation Othona, was inexplicably destroyed in 2003, according to a report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence commissioned by Home Secretary Theresa May.
The review, conducted by Mark Ellison QC, found evidence that a detective involved in the original murder investigation was corrupt, and that the Met had withheld full details of his criminality from the subsequent judicial inquiry into the notorious case.
In one of his most explosive findings, Mr Ellison said he needed to see the Othona files to properly investigate the Lawrence case, but he could not as there had been a "mass-shredding" of the intelligence in 2003 when Lord Stevens was Commissioner.
Tonight, it emerged that the Met is conducting a "scoping exercise" into the claims, and have been told by a former employee that "two members of staff were tasked to shred a quantity of documents that related to corruption enquiries".
The material - which dates from around the time Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death by a racist gang - is said to include a "lorry load" of documents, photographs, videos, surveillance logs, listening device records and informant contact sheets.
When Ellison's team told Roy Clark, the head of anti-corruption at the time of Operation Othona, his work had been shredded, he was stunned. "I'd be shocked if it doesn't exist," the report quotes him as saying. "It was gold-dust stuff... How can you go to those lengths and spend all that money and it is not there? I am just amazed."
Critics say another secret 1994 Met briefing paper, entitled "Dark Side of the Moon" and quoted by Ellison may provide an answer. "Paranoia about what might be revealed if corruption was investigated with vigour... [is] running high in some very powerful and influential circles," it stated.