HN13 ‘Desmond (Barry) Loader’ joined the Metropolitan Police in the 1960s, and was recruited by Special Branch in the early 1970s. In December 1974, he was approached by Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) managers to join the unit and did so that month.
Loader spent several months in the back office of the SDS in New Scotland Yard during which he took the name of a deceased child as his cover name. He was eventually deployed in April 1975, probably into west London.
Loader spied on two Maoist organisations, the Communist Unity Association (Marxist-Leninist) (CUA-(ML)) from 1975-1976 and the east London branch of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (CPE (ML)) from 1977 to 1978. His infiltration of the latter led him to spy on the Progressive Cultural Association (PCA) and the East London People’s Front (ELPF), both front organisations of the CPE (ML).
Loader took part in a number of violent confrontations, including the Battle of Lewisham in August 1977, and was injured during the violence. He provided evidence in its aftermath to various Special Branch debriefings and was selected for a meeting with the deputy assistant commissioner ‘A’ (Operations) of the Metropolitan Police.
Loader was arrested twice and assaulted by police officers while taking part in anti-fascist protests in Barking and Brixton. In both cases, SDS managers intervened with court officials to have the charges dropped or lessen his sentence and stop him from being sent to prison, in order to protect his cover identity and the security of the unit. There was also a possible third arrest, but this lacks documentation. Convictions resulting from the two court appearances have been referred to the Inquiry’s Miscarriages of Justice panel.
HN13 ‘Desmond (Barry) Loader' was deceased by the time of the inquiry. The lack of either an oral or written statement by Loader presents difficulties in recording his background before joining the SDS, aspects of his training and tradecraft, his life undercover, exfiltration and his post-SDS career.
Unless otherwise indicated, the information below is taken from the UCPI: Counsel to the Inquiry’s Opening Statement for Tranche 1 Phase 2.
Loader joined the Metropolitan Police in the late 1960s and transferred to Special Branch in the early 1970s. In 1974, Loader was working in B Squad of Special Branch, concerned with ‘Irish related groups’.
In December that year, he was selected by SDS Chief Superintendent (CS) HN332 Cameron Sinclair as a potential candidate for undercover work. This was on the basis that he had not been present in the Special Branch Central Office (CO) for two years, was ‘not generally known’ and had ‘not yet become too involved in B Squad’.
Within days, a memo from SDS manager, HN819 Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Derek Kneale confirmed that Loader had been asked to join the unit, and ‘was willing to do so’. Kneale noted that Loader was married with young children, had undertaken the Junior CID course, and was taking the promotional examination the following year.
Due to the lack of witness statements or oral evidence from Loader, there is a paucity of sources covering his recruitment, training and cover identity.
Loader entered the SDS just before Christmas 1975, and was initially placed, like most prospective SDS undercover officers, in the back office of the unit in New Scotland Yard. HN297 Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’) had been preparing in the back office for several months and was ready to be deployed, so Loader took over his role as a trainee.
Evidence provided by Loader’s spouse confirmed that he had taken the name, and presumably other details, of a deceased child from Wiltshire as his undercover identity. From 1973, this had been common practice among SDS officers, who were instructed to choose a suitable death certificate from the Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths in St Catherine’s House to create an identity.
Personal details taken by the police and courts from his arrest while deployed in 1978 show Loader’s cover occupation as a clerk, and that his cover flat was in Hounslow in west London. After more than three months in the SDS back office preparing for operational duty, Loader was deployed in April 1975.
Little, if any, reporting in 1975 can be confidently attributed to Loader; his activity in much of the period after his deployment in April remains a mystery. There is a report on a meeting of the West London Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (WLCARF) held in September 1975 in Notting Hill, west London which may have been based on Loader’s evidence.
This meeting is of interest for two reasons. First, there was significant violence, and arrests, after members of the National Front (NF) attempted to physically disrupt the event. Second, it attracted an array of groups including tenants’ associations, trades councils, anti-racist campaigners, students and branches of various left-wing parties. Amongst these was the Communist Unity Association (CUA-(ML)) , which became Loader’s target organisation.
Communist Unity Association (Marxist-Leninist) (CUA-(ML))
It appears that Loader used his peripheral involvement with WLCARF as a stepping stone to begin his infiltration of the CUA-(ML), which was also based nearby in north-west London. Four months after the stormy WLCARF meeting, in January 1976, he reported on attending a study class of the CUA-(ML) held in a private home. He recorded that several attendees were not members of the CUA-(ML) and that the organisation was looking to form a ‘revolutionary party’ with other like-minded Marxist-Leninists.
Nearly six months later, in June 1976, Loader produced his next report which demonstrated both his successful infiltration of the CUA-(ML) and the progress of the organisation’s ongoing plan to build the ‘revolutionary party’. The latter comprised a series of five meetings bringing together existing Maoist organisations for discussions about combining to form a party.
Reporting on the first meeting of the series, in Hampstead in north-west London, Loader recorded that it brought together representatives from several Maoist groups including the CUA-(ML), the Communist Workers League of Britain (CWLB), Communist Federation of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CFB-(ML)) and East London Marxist Leninist Association (ELMLA).
Loader also reported on the fourth and final CUA-(ML) party-building meetings held in September and October 1976, also in north-west London. Loader’s reports included each meeting’s date and venue, the numbers and groups who attended, short accounts of the main speeches, discussions and disagreements and, in keeping with all SDS written reports, they concluded with a list of the identified attendees and their organisational affiliations.
In later reports on attempts by the CUA-(ML) to unify the Maoist groups, Loader provided copies of correspondence in the form of ‘open letters’ and policy documents between the various organisations.
Loader’s spying on the CUA-(ML) petered out in early 1977. His final report in January summarised progress in its activities to unite Maoist groups and build a party. He stated that the primary targets of the CUA-(ML) for collaboration were the CFB-(ML) and a new group of former Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPB-(ML)) members; the Communist Workers Movement (CWM).
He also noted that the name of the new party would be the Revolutionary Communist League. At this point, however, Loader turned his attention away from the CUA-(ML) and its associated Maoist groups to another strand of Maoism; the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (CPE (ML)).
Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (CPE (ML))
In February 1977, Loader reported on a meeting organised by the east London branch of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) (ELCPE-(ML)) in Ilford. The meeting brought together representatives of several leftist organisations including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), International Marxist Group (IMG) and the Indian Workers Association (IWA), as well as trades councils and the NE London Polytechnic Students Union.
It is interesting to note that representatives of Loader’s group the CUA-(ML) and its recent Maoist associates were not present, and he was operating well outside his home region of west London. The lack of attendance of Loader’s comrades may have been down to the location of the meeting in east London and its regional purpose, or perhaps ideological differences between the various strands of Maoism. Loader’s attendance may also have been the result of specific orders from his SDS managers, due the CPE-(ML)’s reputation as a public-order threat.
The aim of the meeting was to set up the Outer East London Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Committee (OELAFARC) to counter the National Front (NF) and other fascist groups by community organising and public protest. The meeting was successful and Loader noted in his report that the CPE-(ML) was pleased that its members had secured the chairman and secretary positions on the steering committee. Nevertheless, there were already tensions growing between the Trotskyite groups and the Maoist CPE-(ML) over the leadership of the organisation.
The fact that Loader was party to this internal information from the CPE-(ML) suggests he had already joined the organisation. This is supported by his following report in March where he was present at an internal meeting of the ELCPE-(ML) in Barking.
Over the following months Loader reported on several initiatives by the ELCPE (ML) including the formation of its front organisation the Works Committee, Ford Dagenham and on social events and there is also a reference to him attending the national conference of the party in Birmingham in October.
SDS manager DSI HN608 Kenneth Pryde contacted the West Midlands section of Special Branch regarding the latter event. Pryde stated that ‘there is no public order issue involved’, noted that the expected attendance was 200 and added:
[West Midlands Special Branch] would appreciate the facilities of our photographic team to this end especially during the hours of darkness and I recommend that D/S [redacted] travel to Birmingham on Friday 28th October to cover the evening registration and one day of the Conference on Saturday 29th October. It is therefore hoped that a good identification of national membership and information on the future policies of the C.P.E. – M. L. will result.
It is unclear whether Loader took part in the conference or the intelligence-gathering initiative as there are no reports attributed to him.
In May 1977, Loader began his infiltration of the Progressive Cultural Association (PCA) , a sub-group of the CPE-(ML), formed in 1976 by artists, musicians, and actors. The PCA focused on political music and theatre and organised cultural events for the CPE-(ML). It is unclear why Loader decided to spy on this particular offshoot of the CPE-(ML) but the branch that he attended met at Swiss Cottage in north-west London, relatively close to where he lived in Hounslow, suggesting it may have been a matter of geography.
Over the next eight months Loader reported on several meetings and events held by the PCA. Typically, the meetings discussed culture, music and politics with an international perspective. The PCA planned and carried out public events such as an anti-monarchy campaign in response to the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, performed political plays and music at CPE (ML) social events and organised anti-colonial public concerts.
Loader’s accounts of these largely social events read like a reporter from a local newspaper outlining the plot of a play or theme of a song, describing the audience reactions and the debates afterwards. After relating in some detail an anti-fascist play performed by the PCA at a CPE-(ML) social event, Loader turned his critical eye to the music that followed:
The final item for the evening should have been singing to the accompaniment of [redacted] (guitar) and [redacted] (oboe) but after several attempts by [redacted] to tune his guitar the singing was aborted in favour of a solo from [redacted]. In any event an irate publican entered the room at this point and ordered everyone out immediately. The disgruntled gathering left with a minimum of cooperation.
However, unlike a local journalist, and in keeping with SDS reporting policy, he provided lists of identified attendees at PCA events at the conclusion of each report. This is exemplified by his report of September 1977, which lists, over two pages, all those who left their contact details with organisers at concerts over several months. The purpose of these detailed reports on PCA cultural events to Special Branch is clearly questionable, if not absurd, and it is surprising that their content was ever signed off by senior SDS managers.
Two weeks or so before the Battle of Lewisham , on the evening of 25 July 1977, a meeting of the OELARAFC was called in the Co-op Hall, Ilford, Essex. The West Indian Defence Committee (WIDC) and the Indian Defence Committee (IDC) were invited; both, according to Loader, were front organisations for the CPE (ML). The PCA also planned to perform the anti-fascist play, reviewed by Loader for Special Branch, as part of the evening’s entertainment.
Some PCA members were rehearsing in the hall before the event started. The local police had taken an interest in the meeting and began trying to arrest ELCPE (ML) members who were giving out leaflets outside the venue. This led to altercations and a crowd gathered outside. Eventually, police stormed the building, arresting some individuals, shutting down the meeting and evicting everyone.
The OELARAFC meeting was hastily rearranged to a nearby venue, where the meeting went ahead. Loader reported that:
One Trotskyite urged a large attendance at the anti-NF demonstration to be held in Lewisham on 13 August, describing it as the most important confrontation ever to be held. [Privacy], grudgingly agreeing, invited all present to a meeting on Wednesday 3 August of the Outer East London Anti-Fascist Anti-Racist Committee at the North East London Polytechnic where plans for 13 August would be discussed.
Later, in an ad-hoc meeting of ELCPE (ML) members that evening, the reason for the party leadership's reluctance to endorse the OELARAFC meeting became clear. Loader noted that the decision had been made to withdraw from, or even dissolve, the OELARAFC in favour of new broad People’s Front organisations controlled by the party.
Consequently, Loader entered the East London People’s Front (ELPF) , however, before the party could organise the inaugural meetings for the People’s Front branches, events in the borough of Lewisham took centre stage.
The response of the militant, anti-fascist left to the proposed NF march from Deptford to Lewisham town centre was to create the August 13th Ad Hoc Organising Committee (AAHOC). This was principally an alliance of the SWP, IMG and CPE (ML) but other left-wing groups supported the initiative. The AAHOC was the primary organising body for the attempt to stop the NF march at its origin in New Cross, Deptford.
It is interesting that Loader does not report on the AAHOC. This was probably a sign of his lowly status within the CPE (ML) structure. This is supported by the lack of information supplied by him on planning and tactics by the party prior to the event, as part of their security measures. As Loader noted in the aftermath:
Details of the Party’s [CPE (ML)] strategy for Lewisham had, rather typically, been given to the rank and file supporters and contacts at the ‘very last minute’ on the Saturday morning [13 August].
However, Loader was present among the rank and file of the CPE (ML) in some violent confrontations with the police and the NF and their supporters in Deptford and Lewisham. He was injured after being struck on the head, though it is unclear whether this was from being assaulted by police or the NF.
Ten days after the clashes in Lewisham, a report provided by Loader and based on internal discussion amongst the CPE (ML) over its tactics on the day was signed off by SDS manager DCI HN1668 Leslie Willingale. This account explained that the CPE (ML) leadership had directed its members and supporters not to take part in the ALCARAF march on the morning of 13 August.
Instead, they organised into two groups. The first joined the main body of the counterprotest at Clifton Rise, and a second group was strategically placed on Tanner’s Hill which linked Lewisham Way and New Cross Road, the two principal routes for the NF march into Lewisham.
The latter contingent planned to ambush the NF march if it managed to leave New Cross. The two groups would communicate using runners. However, on the day, the CPE (ML) runners got trapped in the violent confrontations in New Cross and communications broke down between the two contingents, something the party hoped to rectify in the future by using walkie-talkie radios.
Loader, along with 17 other Special Branch officers including at least five other SDS undercovers, was debriefed after the Battle of Lewisham and the officers’ testimony was used to generate a report to ‘define the tactics of demonstrators and to examine the effectiveness of police action to neutralise them’. This, and a report based on SDS undercovers’ evidence, was signed off by DCI Willingale.
Loader was also selected to give evidence, with SDS undercover HN303 ‘Peter Collins’ , by SDS managers DSI HN608 Kenneth Pryde and DCI Willingale at a rare meeting to discuss policing tactics with the Deputy Assistant Commissioner (DAC) David Helm of ‘A’ (Operations) of the Metropolitan Police, the department tasked with organising the policing of large protests. Helm had been operational commander during the events in Lewisham.
Loader may have been chosen for this meeting because of his proximity to the violence at Lewisham, and the fact that the CPE (ML) was gaining a reputation in Special Branch as the ‘most violent organisation of the ultra-left’.
The first meeting of East London People’s Front was held in Barking, Essex at the end of August 1977. Loader attended and reported to Special Branch that the ELPF had launched a bulletin to expose the extent of ‘fascist and racist attacks’ in east London. It was also planning an anti-fascist protest on Saturday, 17 September, starting in Ilford and ending at the Magistrates Court in Barking.
Loader took part in the ELPF protest and was arrested on East Street in Barking, along with seven others, for insulting behaviour under the Public Order Act 1936. Clashes took place with police after protesters confronted a suspected NF photographer. In a memo a few days after the event, SDS manager DCI HN34 Geoffrey Craft described:
HN13 “Barry Loader” being “knocked to the ground” while trying to shield some children and being “battered by police” prior to his arrest, resulting in injuries that required examination by the Divisional Surgeon at Barking Police Station.
One complication for Loader was that he recognised one of the arresting police officers as a colleague he had previously worked with. Another was that he was due to appear in court a few days later under his false name. At some stage, it was likely that he would appear in court(with his arresting officer present), posing a significant threat to Loader’s cover and the secrecy of the SDS.
Loader informed his SDS managers immediately, and they acted. DCI Craft investigated whether Loader’s police colleague had recognised him, choosing to bring the arresting officer only ‘partially in the picture’. Having satisfied himself that Loader’s undercover identity would remain intact, Craft turned to the more difficult issue of the public-order charge.
Craft contacted a court official and disclosed that one of the defendants was a police informant whom senior officers were ‘anxious to safeguard’ from any prison sentence. The court official apparently accepted this and complied with Special Branch's wishes.
Craft maintained contact with the court official throughout the proceedings, which lasted several months after the arrestees and their supporters disrupted the hearings in January 1978. The cases were finally heard in Barking Magistrates Court in April 1978. Loader’s charge was dismissed, two of the co-defendants were found not guilty, one failed to appear and four were found guilty and fined.
DSI Pryde reported that the court official had given ‘invaluable assistance and co-operation … without question’ throughout the legal proceedings. Pryde noted that he had personally thanked the official to ‘show our [Special Branch’s] appreciation’. Commenting on Loader’s arrest, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner HN2182 Robert Bryan stated:
Given that he [Loader] and his colleagues, if they are doing their jobs properly, are inevitably going to be part of the general crowd confronting police, it is almost equally inevitable that there will be the occasional arrest, it is indeed fortunate that such occasions are very rare. I nevertheless think that the risk - provided it is controlled, supervised and measured in the way we do it - is commensurate with the importance of the intelligence we derive.
In the period between Loader and his comrades’ arrests in August 1977 and their final appearance in court in April 1978, the CPE (ML) planned a campaign to support them and other members of the party arrested at various events over the previous months. This consisted of pickets at magistrates courts and fundraising rock concerts organised by the PCA. Loader reported on these protests and social events.
A few days after Loader’s case was dismissed in April 1978, he was arrested again after clashes between fascists and anti-fascists during the Lambeth Central by-election in south London. Three of Loader’s comrades were arrested after they had infiltrated a NF meeting held at Loughborough School, while he was detained outside for ‘shouting anti-NF slogans’. Loader was charged again, this time with threatening behaviour, under the Public Order Act 1936.
Despite some pressure to withdraw Loader from active deployment because of his second arrest, the Commander of Special Branch HN1254 Rollo Watts leapt to his defence:
As you are aware, this officer [HN13], through excellent work and no little courage, has securely penetrated the CPE(M-L)…The information he has supplied, and continues to supply, is of great value to Uniform Branch in the public order field…I shall be seeing DC HN13 personally on Thursday 20 April, and will discuss the arrest as well his continuing role in this field. Clearly his security and well-being must take priority but I would be very reticent to recommend his withdrawal from the field at this time, in view of the considerable potential for violence in the right wing/left wing confrontations now taking place.
Consequently, DSI Pryde established and maintained contact with a court official at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court. Pryde told the official that one of the defendants was:
a valuable informant in the public order field whom we would wish to safeguard from a prison sentence should the occasion arise.
In contrast to the previous arrest, this time Pryde gave Loader’s cover name to the official and, at the subsequent hearing, the magistrates decided to hear his case alone. This was on the somewhat dubious basis that Loader had supposedly been involved in a separate incident to the other defendants.
On 29 June 1978, Loader was convicted, fined £40 with £20 costs, and bound over for £100 for 12 months. The other three defendants were also all found guilty. At the conclusion of the legal proceedings Pryde contacted the court official on behalf of Special Branch, to thank them for their ‘assistance and co-operation’ in the matter. A few days after Loader’s conviction in July 1978, the assistant commander of Special Branch commented on the positive effect of the bind-over:
The liaison work undertaken by Supt Pryde had the desired effect, which was reflected in the sentence. The £100 bind-over was very useful insofar as DS HN13 [Loader] may be able to preserve a somewhat lower profile for a while. The officer only has five more months to serve in this field, and under the circumstances there would appear to be no need to withdraw him at the moment.
On 23 July 2023, the Inquiry referred the convictions relating to HN13’s court appearances to its Miscarriages of Justice panel.
Additional evidence provided by an unnamed SDS undercover indicates that Loader may have been arrested a third time. In Unattributed Excerpts from Closed Officer Evidence, a respondent recalled a redacted event where there were clashes between the Maoist anti-fascists, the police and NF. The undercover remembered:
A: I saw several people fighting. There were things thrown at people, as usual bricks and whatever and then, when I think it was the Maoists who were involved in it, there was a quite considerable disorder with them because they were joining around, if I recollect, from a lorry, singing Maoist songs and I recognised that one of my colleagues from SDS was actually on that wagon and I saw him arrested.
Q: Which colleague?
A: [Gist: HN13], and that's when I phoned up a bit later to tell them [SDS] that [Redact] [Gist: HN13] had been arrested, but that was, that was … really quite a messy day.
It is unclear to which event the unnamed undercover is referring in this testimony and, other than this account, no evidence was provided regarding this arrest.
CPE (ML) members interviewed in 2020 recalled Loader, but did not mention his involvement in the ELCPE (ML). Instead, the respondents remembered him with respect to the Lambeth Central by-election of April 1978. The CPE (ML) supported a candidate representing the South London People’s Front in the by-election. One party member claimed in retrospect that:
A campaign centre was set up in a private house in Stockwell, where mailing out of election leaflets, organising of canvassers, and other activities took place. It was only at this time that Barry Loader [...] appeared and offered to help. Given he had no known links to any progressive activity and his general bearing, he was immediately suspected of being an undercover policeman. … he was assigned to washing-up duties in the kitchen, large-scale cooking being required to feed the election volunteers. Loader carried out his duties diligently, but was not invited to any discussions or to participate in any planning activities.
This lack of recognition may have been the result of Loader having ventured outside his normal areas of operation in the CPE (ML) and PCA in east and west London. These respondents, probably from south London, may not have known Loader at all.
The Inquiry stated that there was no evidence to suggest that Loader engaged in any sexual relationships in his cover identity.
In notes taken from an Operation Herne interview, Special Branch Commander Donald Buchanan in 2013 mentioned having had discussions with Loader after he left the Metropolitan Police.
When his deployment was over Loader was apparently given an office job which he claimed was the ‘worst thing we [Special Branch] could do’. This was because Loader found it ‘awfully difficult to readjust’ and he ‘couldn’t rehabilitate into [the] real police world’.
Loader apparently didn’t discuss or express these feelings to his SDS managers and ‘needed help to reintegrate’, which apparently wasn’t available to him. Thus, Loader left the Metropolitan Police Service some time after his SDS deployment concluded.
A Special Branch memo from July 1978 states that Loader had ‘five more months to serve in the field’. This suggests his SDS managers planned for him to exit by the end of 1978, which would amount to a four-year deployment.
This is supported by the apparent paucity of reports by Loader after this point, which amounted to one in September 1978 providing details of a member of the CPE (ML) who had failed to appear at Barking Magistrates Court in April. After this, there is very little information from or concerning Loader, apart from a mention in a Special Branch meeting in February 1979 that he had been withdrawn from the CPE (ML).
According to a member of the CPE (ML) at the time, after the ‘election period ended’, presumably the Lambeth Central by-election of April 1978, Loader disappeared and a ‘visit to the address he had given revealed only an empty bed-sit’. However, it is more likely that Loader continued his activities in the east London branch of the CPE (ML) until after the court case in June, and into the latter part of 1978.
In January 2018, Inquiry Chair Sir John Mitting decided he would likely restrict HN13’s real name; there was an application in relation to the cover name.
Mitting noted that HN13 had been survived by a widow, now in her early 70s, who claimed her husband was assured lifelong confidentiality and would not have become an undercover officer otherwise. She wished for her husband’s memory, herself and her family to be left in peace, and requested a restriction order in respect of HN13’s real and cover names.
On 24 July 2018, HN13’s cover name was released, but on 6 November 2018, it was confirmed that his real name would be restricted.
Later, on 23 July 2023, The Inquiry referred the convictions relating to HN13’s two court appearances to its Miscarriages of Justice panel.