Stephen Lawrence Independent Review

The Stephen Lawrence Independent Review (SLIR) was established by the Home Secretary, Theresa May, in 2013, to look into claims that the Metropolitan Police had withheld evidence of police corruption from the 1999 Macpherson Inquiry. It also looked at claims from Specal Demonstration Squad (SDS) whistleblower HN43 Peter Francis HN43 Peter Francis 'Pete Black' HN43 Peter Francis was a SDS undercover officer from September 1993 to September 1997. He is variously known as Pete Black, Peter Johnson and Pete Daley and infiltrated Youth Against Racism in Europe. As a whistleblower he revealed to The Guardian that he had been spying on Stephen Lawrence's family. Francis is a core participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Police 'smear' campaign targeted Stephen Lawrence's friends and family, The Guardian, 24 Jun 2013.  that there was inappropriate targeting of the justice campaign by undercover officers. 

The Home Secretary appointed barrister Mark Ellison KC to conduct it, with assistance from Alison Morgan. Ellison had previously led prosecutions of suspects in the murder of Stephen Lawrence. As such, it is often referred to as the Ellison Review.

The Review’s terms of reference included answering:

• What was the role of undercover policing in the Lawrence case, who ordered it and why? Was information on the involvement of undercover police withheld from the Macpherson Inquiry, and if it had been made available what impact might that have had on the Inquiry?
• What was the extent of intelligence or surveillance activity ordered or carried out by police forces nationally in respect of the Macpherson Inquiry, Stephen Lawrence’s family or any others connected with the Inquiry or the family?
• What was the extent, purpose and authorisation for any surveillance of Duwayne Brooks and his solicitor?

With regard to the statements of Peter Francis, the SLIR found:

• Our Review does not permit us to test the competing accounts of Peter Francis as against other SDS officers.
• We have a number of concerns which arise from the allegations made by Mr Francis. We feel unable to reject his claims simply because other SDS officers deny them.
• We do not feel able to make any definitive findings concerning Mr Francis’ claims.
• A Public Inquiry that can see and hear the evidence being tested, and which also considers the wider potential SDS issues raised in the postscript to this section, might be better placed to make definitive findings.

The Lawrence Review Team was coordinating the Metropolitan Police’s response to the Macpherson Inquiry and the likely findings regarding racism. SDS head, HN10 Robert Lambert, HN10 Robert Lambert 'Bob Robinson' Bob Lambert, using the cover name 'Bob Robinson' infiltrated Animal Rights campaigns as a SDS officer between 1983 and 1988. He fathered a child whilst undercover, with 'Jacqui'. He was also involved in the planting of an incendiary device, which resulted in two other people going to prison. He returned to the SDS as a manager (1993-1998) and oversaw further controversies. He later became an academic in the field of 'Terrorist Studies'.  organised a meeting between one of the team, Richard Walton, and SDS undercover HN81 ‘Dave Hagan’. HN81 'David Hagan' HN81 'David Hagan' was an SDS officer between 1996 and 2001 who targeted the Socialist Workers Party, Class War, Movement Against the Monarchy and Movement for Justice. He is referred to extensively in the Ellison Review about the targeting of the family of Stephen Lawrence.   Ellison was deeply critical of this, making a set of findings relating to undercover policing:

• We find the opening of such a channel of communication at that time to have been ‘wrong-headed’ and inappropriate.
• The reality was that N81 was, at the time, an MPS spy in the Lawrence family camp during the course of judicial proceedings in which the family was the primary party in opposition to the MPS.
• The mere presence of an undercover MPS officer in the wider Lawrence family camp in such circumstances is highly questionable in terms of the appearance it creates of the MPS having a spy in the family’s camp.
• However, for a meeting to then be arranged to enable an in-depth discussion to take place about the Lawrences’ relationship with groups seeking to support their campaign, in order to help inform the MPS submissions to the Public Inquiry, was, in our assessment, a completely improper use of the knowledge the MPS had gained by the deployment of this officer. The meeting was apparently sanctioned at a high level of SDS management. Mr Lambert has claimed that he was asked to arrange it by senior management within the SDS. We also note that the file note he made was sent to the Detective Chief Inspector acting at the time. 
• In so far as we can discern, it appears therefore that the SDS management thought that it was a good idea to have the meeting because it might be useful to the MPS in dealing with the Inquiry, and because it might fulfil part of the ‘wider remit’ that the SDS was seeking to serve at this time.
• Nobody seems to have considered how opening such a channel of communication would be viewed by the Inquiry or the public, if it became known, in the context of the MPS’s opposition to the Lawrence family’s case at the Public Inquiry.

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• [I]nformation regarding undercover policing was withheld from the Public Inquiry. In our assessment both the details of relevant Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) undercover officer deployment into groups privy to tactical aspects of the Lawrence family campaign and the fact that a channel of communication had been opened between an undercover officer so employed and a member of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) team working on the final submissions to the Inquiry should have been disclosed to the Inquiry Chairman. They were not. We have found no clear evidence that a positive decision not to disclose the extent of undercover policing was made by the MPS. There was simply a culture whereby no disclosure was made relating to the undercover work of the SDS. In this regard, the SDS seems to have operated, and been considered to be, outside the sphere of evidence and the MPS’s disclosure duties. This seems to have been permitted by the MPS senior management.

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• We believe that revelation to the Public Inquiry of what is now apparent in terms of the nature of the undercover policing around the time of the Inquiry, and the use that was made of it, would have greatly troubled the Chairman of the Inquiry and his advisers as it troubles us, the Commissioner at the time and the Deputy Commissioner at the time, as well as others who were on the Lawrence Review Team who were unaware of it.

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• We believe that if the MPS had sought the guidance of the Chairman of the Inquiry on the propriety of continuing any undercover deployments that touched on the Lawrence family campaign during the period of the Inquiry, as we believe it should have, the Chairman would have directed that such deployments should be terminated. In our opinion the Chairman would also have wanted to assess the prior propriety of any undercover deployments since the murder.
• If the Public Inquiry had come to find out in September 1998 that a member of the MPS Review Team preparing the final submissions for the Inquiry had ‘tapped into’ an undercover resource, justified essentially on a public order remit, we believe the Inquiry would have deplored such conduct.
• The likely result would have been that the MPS’s case at the Inquiry, and the MPS’s reputation as a whole, would have been further – and severely – damaged. The objective appearance would have been that the MPS had taken advantage of the position of the undercover officer to gain access to some of the internal workings of the Lawrence family campaign. In our view, revelation of these facts to the Lawrence family and the public would have been inevitable, in order that submissions could be made as to the appropriate remedy in the Inquiry.
• Public disorder of a far more serious kind than anything envisaged by the original undercover deployment could well have resulted.
• In short, the MPS may itself have caused the real risk of the public disorder and the kind of ‘meltdown’ it so feared.