Stephen Lawrence - justice denied by criminal corruption?

[David Guyatt]

Cameron "concerned" - wants investigation.

Oh goody, yet another non-hunting dog to be let loose.

Dear ol' Dave eh, what a man.

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

Continue reading the main story

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.
Continue reading the main story

"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.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Duwayne Brooks was with Stephen Lawrence when he was savagely murdered by white racist thugs.

Rather than supporting Brooks so that he could testify against the racist murderers, a senior Metropolitan Police officer allegedly authorised the bugging of meetings between Brooks and his lawyer.

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

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.

A complete and utter BETRAYAL.

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.

[Magda Hassan]

Norman Bettison 'had smear file' on anti-racist campaigner

Former police chief allegedly co-ordinated campaign against man preparing to back Stephen Lawrence family's campaign

• Vikram Dodd
  
• The Guardian, Friday 5 July 2013
  

Sir Norman Bettison has been referred to the IPCC over claims made by former colleagues at West Yorkshire police. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

A man decorated for his community work has been officially informed that he was the potential victim of an alleged smear campaign orchestrated by the former police chief Sir Norman Bettison, as he prepared to publicly back the Stephen Lawrence family's campaign for racial justice.
Mohammed Amran told the Guardian he was going to denounce police racism in the West Yorkshire force where Bettison was a senior officer when dossiers are alleged to have been compiled on him.
Bettison, who went on to become the chief constable of the West Yorkshire police, has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission over the claims by his own former colleagues. Bettison stood down from his role as one of Britain's most senior officers earlier this years over disputed claims over his role in a police cover-up of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster.
On Thursday night, Amran, 37, a former top official at the Commission for Racial Equality said he had been warned the alleged smear campaign may have targeted him.
He told the Guardian that officials at the office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) covering West Yorkshire told him on Wednesday of the claims.
Amran says the officials told him dossiers about him were found at West Yorkshire police, allegedly prepared as he got ready to testify in 1998 at the Macpherson inquiry into the failings by police in the hunt for Lawrence's killers, which also examined the records of officers across the country on race.
Amran, who became one of the youngest ever commissioners of the former official race watchdog, the CRE, said: "I am shocked that someone who was a CRE commissioner can be treated in this way.
"If what the PCC is saying is true, it is a breach of Sir Norman's position."
The PCC for West Yorkshire and the force itself say documents raise serious concerns that a witness due to appear before Macpherson's hearing in Bradford was targeted.
Amran said his evidence concerned "police racism, stop and search and the treatment of young people by West Yorkshire police."
West Yorkshire police and crime commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson said there were "concerns about the motivation for the report" and that three documents recently discovered "raise significant concerns over the role of Sir Norman Bettison at the time he was assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire police in 1998 in commissioning a report to be prepared in the respect of a key witness appearing before the Macpherson inquiry."
It is believed that West Yorkshire special branch officers may have been involved.
Amran said he had gone on to work alongside Bettison, working as a community advisor for the national policing body Centrex, which Bettison led, and which later became the National Policing Improvement Agency.
Amran said: "He was always polite and pleasant to me. If I see the documents I may blow my top. I don't know how personal they are."
The claims follow revelations in the Guardian that an undercover Metropolitan police officer was asked to find dirt on the Lawrence family and the key witness in the case, Duwayne Brooks.
Brooks, who was with Stephen Lawrence on the night he was murdered, will meet Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, on Friday to discuss allegations of police misconduct, his solicitor said. The meeting was set up after Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer, alleged that he had been told to find information to smear the Lawrence family after the killing.
​http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/j...CMP=twt_fd

[Jan Klimkowski]

More admissions:

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".

[Magda Hassan]

Retired police chief admits authorising Stephen Lawrence witness recording

Ex-deputy assistant commissioner John Grieve says Duwayne Brooks meeting taped 'to protect integrity of witness evidence'

• Press Association
  
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 6 July 2013 21.32 AEST
  

John Grieve was director of the Met police racial and violent crimes taskforce when the Duwayne Brooks recordings were made. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

A retired senior Metropolitan police officer has admitted authorising secret recordings of a meeting between a friend of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, his lawyers and detectives.
Police officers had wanted "an unassailable record of what transpired" in meetings in 1999 and 2000, the former deputy assistant commissioner John Grieve said.
Grieve, who was director of the racial and violent crimes taskforce between 1998 and 2002, told the BBC he deeply regretted any distress, dismay or alarm that his decision may have caused Brooks, or Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville.
Grieve said that at the time his team were both trying to solve Lawrence's murder and lead the Metropolitan police response to charges of institutional racism after the inquiry report into his death.
He denied that officers had sought to trick or deceive anyone involved in the meetings.
"Every member of our team was wholeheartedly committed to achieving long-overdue justice for Stephen, for his parents and for Duwayne Brooks as victims of a murderous, racist attack," he said. "Every action taken was aimed at prosecuting and convicting Stephen's murderers. Every decision made was based on the information available at the time and conducted within ethical, legal, necessary and proportionate frameworks. This included taking all measures necessary to protect the integrity of witness evidence."

Duwayne Brooks, who witnessed the murder of his friend Stephen Lawrence in London in 1993. Photograph: John Stillwell/PABrooks met the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, at his Whitehall office on Friday to discuss claims that the meetings were bugged. The claims affecting Brooks arose after the former undercover officer Peter Francis told the Guardian he had been told to find information to use to smear the Lawrence family.
Lawrence, 18, was waiting for a bus with Brooks when he was murdered in Eltham, south-east London, in 1993.
Francis, who worked with Scotland Yard's former special demonstration squad, spoke out about tactics that he said were used by the secretive unit in the 1980s and 90s.
In the wake of his claims, the Lawrence family called for a public inquiryinto the allegations, which the teenager's mother said made her feel "sick to the stomach".
Grieve added: "Duwayne was both a victim and witness of the attack in 1993. It could be argued that failing to protect the integrity of any evidence that may have come to light at this meeting and hence failing to protect Duwayne himself as a potential witness would have been a neglect of duty. The relevance of this was subsequently borne out at the later successful trial where he was called as a witness."
The Metropolitan police said that deputy assistant commissioner Fiona Taylor, who leads its Directorate of Professional Standards, wrote to Brooks on Friday.
"This letter confirms that DPS investigators had found documentation authorising the recording of one meeting in May 2000 and that we continued to look for the recording which this authorisation related to. This investigation continues," she said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/j...CMP=twt_fd

[David Guyatt]

It just gets worse and worse.

A whistleblower revealing the illegalities of the police and government quite often get this breach of state secrets and similar treatment, and this simply underlines the ever growing belief by the public that we are moving ever closer to a police state mentality.

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.

[Paul Rigby]

The piece is about the Metropolitan Police's ghastly conduct in the Stephen Lawrence affair, but this paragraph is so good it merits wider application:

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.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...ay-inquiry

[David Guyatt]

This is a story of endemic crookedness, racism, murder, cover-up, media spin and greater cover-up.

Scotland Yard and the police farce come out of this as a filthy dirty mean machine:

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.

[David Guyatt]

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.

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[Danny Jarman]

Hatton Garden mastermind was partner of crime boss Kenny Noye - but the pair were 'chalk and cheese'

Brian 'The Guv'nor' Reader, 76, was recruited by Noye to help sell gold from the Brink's-Mat gold robbery in 1983

The mastermind behind the Hatton Garden heist was a partner in crime of notorious gangland figure Kenny Noye, it can now be reported.


Brian 'The Guv'nor' Reader, 76, is a career criminal with a record stretching back five decades.


Jurors heard how he was jailed for eight years for his role in Britain's largest ever robbery in 1983.


A gang of masked robbers made off with gold bullion worth £26 million following a raid at London's Heathrow Airport in what become known as the 'Brink's-Mat gold heist'.


Six armed robbers posing as security guards raided the high-security facility after dousing a security guard with petrol and threatening to set him alight unless he opened the vault.

They escaped with 6,800 ingots weighing three tons as well as an assortment of travellers' cheques and diamonds in what was dubbed the crime of the century.


Some of the gains ended up in the hands of Kenny Noye's hands.


He was an expert in his field, and paid such attention to detail that he even mixed some of the gold with copper coins to change its purity and disguise its origins.


Noye recruited Brian Reader to help him sell gold from the robbery and the pair fell in together.


Reader was jailed for eight years and Noye 14 for their roles in handling the Brink's Mat gold.

To this day, much of the stolen bullion remains unrecovered.


The two were later cleared of murdering an undercover detective.


A police source said officers are now certain Reader had nothing to do with the killing.


The source said: "Him and Noye were like chalk and cheese.


"Reader is the last of the gentleman thieves.


"He was a likeable bloke, not arrogant or aggressive like many villains.


"He didn't have the swagger or the bravado of people like Noye."


Reader's friend dismissed any suggestion Noye had any connection with the Hatton Garden raid.


Noye is currently serving life in prison for the roadrage killing of Stephen Cameron in 1996.

Then....

Hatton Garden Heist leader 'found sick pics of Tory child abuser' in 1971 raid

Notorious crook says Brian Reader he was shocked when he broke into a vault and found sickening photos of a leading politician abusing children

Hatton Gardens heist boss Brian Reader was horrified when his gang broke into a bank vault and found sickening photos of a leading politician abusing children.


But the notorious crook was shocked further when the thieves left the pictures for police to find only for the Tory Cabinet minister's crimes to be hushed up.


Reader, known as The Guv'nor, is facing jail for planning last year's £14million Hatton Garden raid and claims about his previous high-profile break-in can now be revealed for the first time.

The images are said to have been found stashed in a safety deposit box in 1971 when the gang tunnelled into a branch of Lloyds in Baker Street, Central London, and escaped with a £3million haul.


A close confidant of 76-year-old career criminal Reader said: "It was a shock for them when they found photographs of a famous *politician abusing children.


"The gang were disgusted and left them lying on the floor of the vault for the police to find but nothing was ever done."

The Government of the time allegedly forced the press to stop reporting on the burglary as a matter of national security amid allegations raunchy photos of the late Princess Margaret were found in another safety deposit box in the vault.


But the latest claims, revealed to the Daily Mirror, are more disturbing and further evidence of the Establishment cover-up of powerful paedophiles.


We are not naming the politician, who has since died and was never publicly linked to allegations of child sexual abuse.


But we have passed details to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is set to examine claims against Labour peer Lord Janner, who died before facing trial for child sexual abuse, and Lib Dem MP Cyril Smith, whose paedophilia was exposed after his death.


Inquiry chairman Judge Goddard said in November: "We will conduct an objective fact-finding inquiry into allegations of abuse by people of public prominence associated with Westminster.

"The investigation will focus on high-profile allegations of child sexual abuse involving current or former Members of Parliament, senior civil servants, Government advisers, and members of the intelligence and security agencies.


"It will consider allegations of cover-up and conspiracy and will review the adequacy of law enforcement responses to these allegations."


If the images found by Reader had been made public at the time, it would have caused a massive *political scandal.


In 1971, he was beginning a criminal career spanning five decades which would involve him in raids worth more than £150million and make him Britain's biggest thief. His gang had spent months planning the Baker Street job. They rented a leather goods shop, two doors up from the bank, and then tunnelled 40ft from the shop *basement into the vaults.

Once inside, they ransacked 268 safety deposit boxes nearly four times the 73 opened by the Hatton Garden gang.


The source said: "Brian was not well when he did Baker Street because he was only a few months out of hospital after falling on his head on another job.


"But he has great stamina and wasn't going to miss the chance of pulling off Britain's biggest ever burglary."


The raid remains the largest in British history despite claims Hatton Garden was larger. In today's money the £3million stolen would be equivalent to about £41million.


Four men were convicted of the crime, including photographer Tony Gavin and were jailed for up to 12 years, but Reader escaped prosecution.

A second source, a gang member, previously told the Mirror in 2008 that child pornography was found in the vaults but did not give further details.


He said: "We were disgusted and left it in their open boxes so police could trace the owners. We didn't want to take anything that might give us extra trouble. All we wanted was cash and jewels." At the time of the raid, Princess Margaret's marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon, was in its final stages.


In the 60s and 70s the Queen's sister was known to party hard on the Caribbean island of Mustique, where she was pictured with lover Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener 17 years her junior.

She is said to have taken snaps of male friends frolicking naked but it is not known if any were ever taken of her.


The ex-raider would only say: "I can't talk about that."


Describing preparations for the break-in, the crook added: "Before we got started, myself and an accomplice dressed up in bowler hats and pinstripes and went into the bank.


"We were able to measure out the distance from the wall to the vault using an umbrella so we could calculate how far we needed to tunnel and didn't end up popping up in the wrong place."

They tunnelled under the Chicken Inn restaurant next to the bank and used explosives to blast through 3ft of *reinforced concrete.


The concrete was not wired to the alarm system as it was thought to be impenetrable. Eight tons of rubble were excavated and left behind.


The raider said: "When we finally came up I was unable to fit through the hole and could only stick my head in. But others got in and grabbed the boxes."


Reader was too sick to help with the drilling but was among those who got into the vault to force open the boxes.


The first source said: "He was very good at opening them and soon the vault was piled high with empty boxes."


One of the boxes belonged to Michael X, a drug dealer and Black Power leader who was convicted of murder and hanged in Trinidad in 1975.


The story of the break-in was made into 2008 film The Bank Job, starring Jason Statham and Daniel Mays.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hat...abs=2%20rt$category%20p$1

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