HN339 ‘Stewart Goodman’ is a former undercover officer with the Special Demonstration Squad deployed into the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Dambusters Mobilising Committee and the International Socialists between 1970 and 1971.
Goodman provided a written statement to the Inquiry in 2019. He was not called by the Inquiry to give oral evidence during the hearings. Therefore, this single document contains all of Goodman's recollections and views of his work with the Metropolitan Police. The Inquiry also published several Special Branch reports based on his surveillance.
Goodman's Special Demonstration Squad deployment began in October 1970 and ended in November 1971. Goodman thought his time in the field was cut short due to a drunk-driving incident and subsequent court appearance in his cover identity towards the end of 1971.
Otherwise, his deployment was without notable incident. Goodman left Special Branch in the mid-1970s but continued in undisclosed policing roles until the 1990s, reaching a senior rank.
Goodman joined the Metropolitan Police Cadets in the early 1960s. Finding his first uniformed postings 'boring' and ill-suited to him, he joined Special Branch in the late 1960s. As a detective constable, he first had a role in Special Branch inquiries. He was then tasked with investigating the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD).
He said this was not an undercover role, and that he was just tasked to 'discreetly obtain' as much information as possible by attending meetings and collecting literature. Goodman stated that 'CARD was a fringe protest group, and I think they may have later become the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) or amalgamated with it’.
He is wrong on both counts. CARD was formed to lobby for legislation to promote racial equality. It had no role in anti-apartheid campaigning. Further, its methods were not to protest; it exclusively used lobbying tactics. The implementation of the 1965 Race Relations Act was partially due to CARD's work.
This organisation was targeted by Special Branch even though it campaigned for racial equality through exclusively legal and parliamentary means. This is significant because it shows Special Branch was monitoring groups that would certainly not be a 'public-order' concern or even fit their more elastic remit regarding subversion.
Goodman did not recall who recruited him, though he thought Detective Chief Inspector HN1251 Phil Saunders was head of the SDS at the time. He said he received no training of any kind, adding that he had already been ‘in the job’ for years – and did not need to be ‘spoon-fed’.
Tradecraft
The cover story Goodman adopted was unusual; instead of having a fake job, he said he had been backpacking around Europe as a musician. He said he grew his hair and dressed more scruffily, drawing strange looks when he was out and off duty with his wife.
Like other early officers, Goodman said he had no documents to back up his cover identity, nor was he ever questioned about his background by the activists he encountered.
Goodman said that Saunders and his deputy HN294 'ran a pretty tight ship' and that he would not have chosen to start targeting groups on his own initiative. Other officers have suggested that they had more leeway in this regard.
Documentation proved that Goodman was renting his cover flat in April 1970, but his first report was not until October that year. Goodman supposed that for the six months in between, he must have been acclimatising himself to his undercover role but has no recollection of this.
Goodman said his regular routine during his deployment was to attend three to four activist meetings a week and to check in at the SDS office.
Over a relatively short period, between October 1970 and November 1971, Goodman targeted the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Dambusters Mobilisation Committee and the Lambeth Branch of the International Socialists.
Anti-Apartheid Movement
The 1970 SDS Annual Report stated that the unit had five undercovers infiltrating the Anti-Apartheid Movement, although four were on the 'periphery'.
Other undercover officers who submitted reports on campaigns related to the AAM were HN135 Mike Ferguson – the one officer close to the campaign, HN336 'Dick Epps' , HN326 'Doug Edwards' , HN331 'Don de Freitas' and one unknown other. HN346 Jill Mosdell's first reports on AAM were in November 1971, so she could be the fifth person.
One of those on the periphery was likely to be Goodman, as his reporting on both the AAM and the connected DMC campaign only consisted of seven published documents from October 1970 to February 1971. Goodman gave little insight into this part of his deployment in his witness statement.
Dambusters Mobilising Committee
A contemporary officer of Goodman's, 'Doug Edwards', said some groups were infiltrated purely as a ‘handle to swing’ into other supposedly more dangerous ones. Edwards claimed that his infiltration of the Independent Labour Party allowed him to access the more dangerous Dambusters Mobilising Committee (DMC), concurrently with Goodman.
Conversely, Goodman said that the DMC was just an entry point to more threatening groups. He said he ‘imagined’ that the AAM was infiltrated as it participated in some large demonstrations.
Other officers saw some campaigns associated with anti-apartheid campaigns as far more of a public-disorder problem, including Phil Saunders and Dick Epps. However, Goodman said his own involvement with them ‘was preparation for later becoming part of a more militant group[;] effectively it was my training ground and allowed me to gain legitimacy and an activism background to then move on to another group’.
Christabel Gurney, a member of AAM during this time, questioned whether this was an adequate justification for his surveillance of the campaign group.
One of Goodman’s Dambusters Mobilising Committee reports noted that members bought shares in Barclays Bank due to its financial support for the Cabora Bassa Dam in Zimbabwe and other investments in Southern Africa.
Mitting concluded in the Interim Report that the SDS’ reporting on the DMC showed that the group’s tactics were peaceful and lawful.
Lambeth International Socialists
Stewart Goodman was the first of at least 35 SDS officers to infiltrate the International Socialists (IS) and its successor organisation the Socialist Workers Party over a period of 40 years; although earlier officers had attended IS meetings, they were in connection with the VSC.
Goodman explained that joining the International Socialists was straightforward, saying he had just met an IS member in a pub and started to attend meetings of the Lambeth Branch – as that was where his cover accommodation was based.
He reported on IS between February and November 1971 However, there are no reports between May to September 1971.
Gaps in the record of SDS’ undercover reporting are common and Goodman’s deployment was to come to a sudden end, see below.
While Goodman better recalled his time with IS than with the other two groups he infiltrated, the details he provided were scant.
Goodman said that although he never met up with members for social events, meetings would often be in rooms above pubs and conducted over several pints of Guinness. He recalled that they sold the party newspaper and went on numerous demonstrations that 'all blurred into one'.
There is no record in Goodman's reporting of these demonstrations, even though Goodman stated that there was frequent disorder during them. Lindsay German, an IS member at the time, gave a statement to the Inquiry that refuted the accusations of premeditated disorder and violence levelled at the organisation in SDS reporting.
Indeed, the only instance of criminality that Goodman pointed to was when he was chased by uniformed police whilst flyposting at The Oval cricket ground in south London but was not caught.
Goodman's first report on the Lambeth branch, and the International Socialists in general, was dated 9 November 1970. It included a copy of a discussion document to be considered at the IS National Conference in 1971. Goodman said this would be useful for Special Branch as it outlined IS' political agenda.
In his reports on the IS National Conference 1971, Goodman also gave details on policy and organisational matters and identified attendees from branches across the UK.
Again, while the 'public order' interest was minimal, documentation from the later 1970s establishes that MI5 was interested in such information. This is consistent with Goodman's view that the SDS' role was primarily about subversion.
Goodman also addressed a report which included a photograph of International Socialists' National Secretary, Duncan Hallas. Goodman explained that the Special Branch photography unit would often provide these images and ask SDS officers to identify them. In Hallas’ case, Goodman said he would have been of interest due to his prominent role.
In his statement, Goodman also said he had a close working relationship with the chair of Lambeth IS and another member, Paul Holborrow. However, the latter is not mentioned in Goodman's reporting.
With Lambeth IS, Goodman claimed he acted as an 'enthusiastic follower' but not an 'instigator' of activities. He became branch treasurer, perhaps with encouragement from his SDS boss, HN1251 Phil Saunders , a role other undercover officers assumed during their deployments. This would have gained Goodman access to branch membership and mailing lists, which MI5 was interested in.
MI5's influence on SDS surveillance targets has been a matter of debate within the Inquiry hearings; whether the SDS' duties related to public order or mainly aimed to fulfil so-called ‘shopping lists’ of information requests from MI5. Goodman was unequivocal on this point: 'The whole raison d'etre of Special Branch was counter-subversion'. He added that ‘the modus operandi of IS was subversion.
Stewart Goodman gave a detailed account of a car accident he had while drunk, which he thought was the cause of his early and sudden exit from his deployment. The accident was serious enough to write off the car. His recollection strongly suggested that, as with the HN13 'Barry Loader' court cases, a senior officer intervened in the judicial process to alter the outcome:
I crashed my unmarked police car. I had been at a pub with activists, and I would have parked the car away from the pub so as not to arouse suspicion. I drove home while under the influence of alcohol and crashed the car into a tree. Uniformed officers attended and I gave my real name to the officers and told them that I was an undercover officer. It is very unlikely that I had my warrant card with me, but I was probably able to provide enough information for them to believe who I was.
Goodman said though he was 'definitely intoxicated', he was not arrested and was given a lift home by the uniformed officers. He also assumed that a senior officer, perhaps Phil Saunders, ensured that no further disciplinary action was taken.
However, Goodman was charged with driving without due care and attention, attended court in his cover name, and pleaded guilty. Goodman also said: 'I also have a vague recollection of Phil Saunders telling me that he had briefed the magistrates in private that I was an undercover officer.' Phil Saunders intervened in other legal proceedings on behalf of three other SDS undercover officers.
Goodman thought this might have been the 'catalyst' for being withdrawn but was not sure about this. Certainly, Goodman's deployment was shorter than most SDS officers’, but other officers were involved in road-traffic accidents and were not forced to withdraw from their deployment.
The Metropolitan Police applied to restrict HN339's real name on 29 November 2017. On 8 April 2018, Goodman's cover name and target groups were published. Subsequently, on 15 May 2018, the Inquiry ruled that the real name would be restricted. On 2 February 2019, he submitted a witness statement to the Inquiry. The relevant documents can be found towards the bottom of the documents tab.