Procedural Hearing 10: 21 March 2018

Anonymity (MPS Applications IV), Lambert Report

This was the fourth such hearing in the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI), addressing specific anonymity applications being made by former Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officers. 

SDS officer applications were heard in relation to eight officers:

• HN17

• HN41

• HN64

• HN71

• HN109

• HN125

• HN337

• HN341

All of them were granted restriction orders over their cover and real names.

The hearing was marked with a walk-out by the non-state core participants and their legal representatives in protest at what they felt was their effective exclusion from the process by the redaction of relevant material by the Metropolitan Police and the UCPI. As part of this, their barrister Phillippa Kaufmann KC, made a statement to the chair (see Documents for the full text of her statement).

The hearing also addressed the ‘Lambert Report’, a report into problems in the unit by former SDS undercover and subsequent manager Bob Lambert. The Report had been mentioned in closed hearings related to HN155 ‘Phil Cooper’, HN155 'Phil Cooper' 'Phil Cooper' is the fake name of an SDS undercover who joined the unit in Autumn 1979. He was deployed into the Socialist Workers Party via the Waltham Forest Anti Nuclear Campaign and worked in the national SWP headquarters. Inquiry Chair Mitting found as a matter of fact that he had several casual sexual relationships while undercover. His real name has been restricted.  and was known to be in the possession of journalists at The Guardian newspaper. As a result, these journalists knew HN155’s real name. The Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, wanted to know the Metropolitan Police’s position on HN155 given this. 

Mitting eventually ruled that HN155’s real name would remain restricted as it was not knowledge that was readily available. However, the issue did mean that the Inquiry made the Lambert Report public, albeit in redacted form.

Speakers