A Recognised Legal Representative (RLR) is a solicitor who represents the interest of a core participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI). They are formally recognised as such in a series of rulings which are usually made at the same time as individuals are granted core participant status.
It is a right of the Inquiry to determine whether or not a core participant should pay for their own legal representation. In the case of individuals it has awarded Costs Orders which allow RLRs to be paid for their work related to the Inquiry. With large bodies (e.g. police forces), they have tended to provide their own legal representatives without commensurate costs orders, or the Inquiry has turned them down, as has happened in the case of trade unions.
At the hearing on legal representation, the then Inquiry Chair, Sir Christopher Pitchford, recognised that pre-existing relationships between non-state core participants (NSCPs) and their lawyers were important to the targets of spycops. He thus permitted the NSCPs to use their preferred solicitors, a practice maintained by his successor, Sir John Mitting. This is not a standard practice in public inquiries where, to avoid public expense, the Chair is permitted to assign lawyers to represent a group considered to have the same interest.
Pitchford’s approach was assisted by the fact that there were a large number of diverse NSCPs but that the eleven legal firms representing them had already come together to form a coordinated group to minimise that expense by combining their efforts.
The solicitors, who may have many clients or only a couple, instruct barristers to prepare submissions or speak on their behalf at hearings. When it comes to particular submissions or Opening and Closing Statements, the RLRs have appointed their own preferred barristers to put forward the arguments of their clients. Sometimes these barristers speak on behalf of an RLR firm or category, with RLRs pooling their respective interests according to their client’s needs. This is particularly true of Category H core participants (women deceived into relationships).
It is possible for core participants to change their RLR, and this has happened on occasion. Several people have chosen to represent themselves as Litigants-in-Person.
Some aspects of legal representation were addressed in the Procedural Hearing of 7 October 2015.
For the non-state core participants (NSCPs), the lawyers coordinate their efforts through the NSCPs’ Coordination Group. It is currently led by Lydia D’Agostino of Kelly’s Solicitors. It had previously been coordinated by Tamsin Allen of Bindmans. This group coordinates the work of the twelve legal teams to provide joint replies and submissions on behalf of the NSCPs to the Inquiry when a collective or general response is needed. This is in part because even though not every NSCP has a particular interest in a Tranche, there is a collective interest in the overall issues as well as the conduct and procedures of the Inquiry.
List of Recognised Legal Representatives acting for NSCPs
Undercover police and their managers are represented by the following firms:
- DAC Beachcroft LLP (moved from Slater & Gordon)
- Clyde & Co
- Bullivant Law
- Designated Lawyers (DL)
- Leigh Day
Many of the undercovers and managers represented in the Inquiry by the Designated Lawyers (or DL), in their capacity as former Metropolitan Police officers, and are often just referred to as the Designated Lawyer Officers. The Designated Lawyers are paid for by the Metropolitan Police though solely employed to represent the rights of those officers, and as such are distinct from the lawyers for the Metropolitan Police itself – usually called the Commissioner's Lawyers (or CL).
A number of former Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) undercovers have chosen independent legal representation. For the most part they are represented by solicitor Scott Ingram, formerly of Slater & Gordon, but now with DAC Beachcroft LLP. Several other NPOIU officers are represented by Clyde & Co.
Whistleblower officer Peter Francis is represented by Leigh Day.
EN12 Mark Kennedy 'Mark Stone' is represented by Malcolm Duxbury of Bullivant Law (previously he had been represented by Robert Roscoe of the firm Victor Lissack, Roscoe and Coleman).
In 2016, former undercover HN5 John Dines ‘John Barker’ withdrew as a core participant and otherwise self-represents in the Inquiry.
EN34 'Lynn Watson' and HN82 'Nicholas Green' are listed by the Inquiry (September 2024) as having core participant status, but as being unrepresented by any legal firms, so probably should be categorised as Litigants-in-Person.