The Guardian

Overview

Along with those who were deceived into relationships, The Guardian newspaper has played a significant part in bringing the spycops scandal to public attention and breaking some key stories.

Its role preceded the events of October 2011 when EN12 Mark Kennedy ‘Mark Stone’ was first confronted and exposed as an undercover. In March of that year, the Guardian’s sister Sunday paper, The Observer published an interview with ‘Officer A’, later identified as the former Special Demonstration Squad officer turned whistleblower Peter Francis. It talked about the targeting of anti-fascist groups and the tactic of stealing dead children’s identities to create a cover identity. The latter topic it would continue to lead on exposing.

In the meantime, The Guardian was among the first to bring the exposure of Mark Kennedy to public attention when his role as an undercover was identified during the collapse of the January 2011 trial of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar climate protesters. It was quickly followed by exposures of EN34 ‘Lynn Watson’, HN14 Jim Boyling ‘Jim Sutton’ and HN10 Robert Lambert ‘Bob Robinson’, bringing to public attention the work of activists who'd discovered the truth about their former comrades.

The Guardian’s team was led by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis who contributed to the paper’s undercover policing news stream with regular updates of developments as well as breaking stories. This included coverage of the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

A particularly significant moment was the two journalists’ 2013 book Undercover: The true story of Britain’s secret police which contained more revelations. Prominent among these was Peter Francis' admission that he had been tasked to find material to smear the family of murdered Black teenager Stephen Lawrence during the Macpherson Inquiry, and also that he had reported on trade unions in relation to blacklisting. It also unmasked HN11 Mike Chitty / ‘Mike Blake’ as another undercover.

In 2013 it helped reveal that HN10 Robert Lambert ‘Bob Robinson’ had played an active role in an 1980s attack by animal activists which saw a Debenhams store set on fire for selling fur, and that he fathered a child by a woman he had deceived into a relationship.

Working with television outlets such as Channel 4 News, Dispatches, and BBC Newsnight, The Guardian also played roles in bringing other important spycop stories to public attention, including that of HN104 Carlo Sorracchi ‘Carlo Neri’ in 2016, and HN2 Andy Coles ‘Andy Davey’ in 2017, dramatically demonstrating that the police narrative that it was ‘only a few bad apples’ or 'rogue officers acting without authorisation' could no longer hold.

It played a further role in the Inquiry when, in January 2016, it broke the story of police destruction of files, when a whistleblower approached Baroness Jenny Jones. For more on this see under Assurance.

In the Undercover Policing Inquiry, lawyers for The Guardian have made representations around the necessity for openness by the Inquiry and in relation to the anonymity process for former undercovers. In this it has both made its own submissions and also done so in concert with other media organisations.

The Guardian had particular relevance with regard to the Lambert Report, an internal Special Demonstration Squad document prepared by HN10 Robert Lambert ‘Bob Robinson’ into the activities of HN11 Mike Chitty ‘Mike Blake’ who had returned to socialise with his target groups after his deployment had ended and he should have cut all contact. It was clear that Rob Evans and Paul Lewis had access to the report and as a result knew the real names of several other undercovers mentioned in it. This, in turn, impacted on several anonymity applications for those officers. As a result, it was discussed at the Procedural Hearing of March 2018.

Archive of articles from the Guardian

Procedural

References