Cameron Sinclair was born on 18 July 1930, and was a pupil at the fee-paying Berkhamsted boarding school in Hertfordshire from 1938 until 1948. He joined the Metropolitan Police in 1951, aged 20, and worked in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) before transferring to Special Branch at the rank of inspector. He had two spells in the SDS. He first joined the SDS in July 1968, leaving at the end of the year. He then returned as commanding officer in July 1972.
Having reached the position of detective chief superintendent, Sinclair retired from the police in the early 1980s, although he carried on working until 1987. He died in 2022.
Part of the original management team of the SDS in 1968 Sinclair, like other very early managers, did some plain-clothes work attending activist meetings. As a manager, Sinclair visited far-right activist Lady Jane Birdwood a month before the planned 27 October 1968 anti-Vietnam war protest, in response to concerns she had expressed about the demonstration turning violent.
Sinclair was also prepared to take risks with undercover officers’ lives when he approved a risky trip to Northern Ireland for HN297 Richard Clark ‘Rick Gibson’. Clark’s cover identity was blown just a year later.
Having left the SDS in mid-1969, Sinclair returned to the squad as its senior officer in July 1971. The Inquiry criticised Sinclair, along with four other Special Branch managers, for approving the continuation of the SDS after a review in 1976.
The Inquiry did not compel Sinclair to give evidence due to his ill health. Therefore, the only evidence about Sinclair the Inquiry has published comes from the documents he authored or signed, and brief mentions of him in other officers’ evidence.
Cameron Sinclair was born on 18 July 1930. From 1938 to 1948, he attended the fee-paying Berkhamsted boarding school in Hertfordshire, near where his father was stationed in the RAF. After National Service, he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1951, aged 20. He transferred to Special Branch from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the rank of inspector and joined the SDS in July 1968.
Sinclair occupied a management role in the SDS from its inception on 31 July 1968 until December 1968 along with three other detective inspectors. His exact role is not entirely clear – he seems to have had a variety of duties.
HN3093 Roy Creamer , a back-office detective sergeant in the first days of the SDS, is one of just two police witnesses to recall him, saying that although Sinclair was part of the management team he was ‘half in a group and half in the office’. Creamer added that he was a ‘strong leader but pleasant enough’.
The Inquiry stated that there was no record of a cover name for Sinclair, although a member of his family said he came close to having his real identity compromised while deployed, suggesting he did use an undercover identity. He went to several meetings of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) and Poster Workshop , which are discussed in the Target Groups section.
Visit to Lady Jane Birdwood
The SDS was seemingly set up to monitor the ‘New Left’ and did not deploy any officers into far-right groups between 1968 and 1982. Inquiry Chair John Mitting’s Interim Report nonetheless concluded there was no political bias in the unit’s activities.
A unique report authored by Sinclair reveals the differences in the SDS’ attitude towards the far right compared to left-wing groups.
It is a very unusual part of the Inquiry disclosure as, rather than reporting on a meeting or demonstration, it is an account of a visit to leading anti-Semite Lady Jane Birdwood in response to her contacting the Metropolitan Police.
Birdwood was a prominent figure on the British far right. Her trajectory within the overtly racist right wing of British politics began in 1962.
Later, Birdwood was part of several far-right groups, including the National Front. She has been described as the ‘largest individual distributor of racist and antisemitic material in Britain’ , including notorious blood libel The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and was later prosecuted several times. She was also involved in several anti-trade union and anti-communist groups.
Sinclair and Detective Inspector PN1748 Riby Wilson visited Birdwood on the orders of Chief Superintendent HN2857 Arthur Cunningham in response to concerns that Birdwood had expressed to the Metropolitan Police about potential violence at the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign’s forthcoming 27 October demonstration.
In his report, Sinclair described Birdwood as ‘politically well-informed’, a neutral assessment that contrasts with the SDS’ often mocking and derogatory descriptions of the political views of the left-wing activists they spied upon.
The reason Birdwood merited such a visit could have been her title and wealth; the report mentions Birdwood met the two officers ‘in the middle of the lawn’ of one of her late husband’s family’s stately homes. Other commentators have mentioned the visit exemplifying the unit’s bias against left-wing activists and towards the right.
Part of the moral panic around the planned October 1968 demonstration was that it would be taken over by foreign militants.
During the mobilisation for the demonstration, a campsite at Crystal Palace in south-east London was set up for visiting protesters. Sinclair sent a police constable to check the campsite for ‘foreign students’, who reported back by telegram that none were staying there.
Target Groups
Sinclair was one of nine SDS officers who attended the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) October 27th Ad Hoc Committee; a public meeting on 17 September 1968. He attended other VSC meetings alongside his boss HN325 Conrad Dixon and HN329 ‘John Graham’.
Attendance at these meetings does not necessarily prove that Sinclair was using a cover identity; he may have just attended in plain clothes. The only meeting recorded in Inquiry disclosure that Sinclair attended alone was of the Camden branch of the VSC on 29 November 1968.
Poster Workshop
A document authored by SDS boss Detective Chief Inspector HN325 Conrad Dixon, reflecting on the first four months of the SDS, lists Sinclair’s responsibility as reporting on the Poster Workshop. This was a printing collective based in Camden, London that created publicity material for campaigners.
There are a few mentions of the Poster Workshop in the Inquiry disclosure but only in reports on other groups, suggesting the group was not specifically targeted.
The posters that the collective produced intersected with many of the groups that were spied upon, for instance promoting the occupation of London School of Economics on October 27 1968.
For that reason, monitoring the Poster Workshop’s premises would have been helpful to the SDS, although aside from Dixon stating that Sinclair had responsibility for monitoring the collective, there is no other evidence that it was a major target for the SDS, see Penetration of Extremist Groups.
Cameron Sinclair succeeded HN1251 Phil Saunders as head of the SDS in July 1971. HN103 David Smith , a back-office sergeant for the SDS between 1970 and 1974, described Sinclair as ‘uncomplicated and straightforward; he was also enthusiastic and energetic’.
During his time as head of the SDS, Sinclair made several questionable decisions about undercover deployments that showed a disregard for civil liberties and for the risk to his own officers.
Robertson and Lynch
During his deployment, HN45 ‘Dave Robertson’ was invited to take over running Maoist bookshop, Banner Books, by its owner GV Bijur, who Robertson had befriended.
In a memorandum to the Commander of Special Branch, dated 7 February 1972, Sinclair strongly recommended that Robertson be allowed to take this position for several reasons, perhaps most controversially, to acquire keys to the buildings, so that a copy could be taken. However, Robertson denied that he took the position in the end.
This seems to suggest that copying of keys was normal practice, as there is a further example involving HN336 ‘Dick Epps’ , to allow MI5 to gain entry to the International Marxist Group’s office.
HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’ was deployed undercover from 1968 to 1974, infiltrating numerous groups including Sinn Féin. In Inquiry Chair John Mitting’s Tranche One Interim Report, Lynch’s infiltration was one of only three deployments he thought justifiable.
Sinclair himself judged that Lynch’s infiltration of Sinn Féin was ‘among the SDS’s most significant achievements’. However, there are significant controversies in this deployment as Lynch took formal positions within the groups and clearly influenced decision making.
SDS managers and undercovers often asserted that recruiting married officers meant they were less likely to have welfare issues and would be less tempted to enter into sexual relationships. This theory has been definitively proved wrong by the number of deceitful sexual relationships involving married SDS officers while they were undercover.
In the 1971 SDS Annual Report, however, Sinclair stated the opposite view, writing: ‘The high proportion of single officers has helped to reduce the inherent social problems encountered by this type of work.’
Why Sinclair deviated from the commonly expressed view that married men were a safer bet is not known.
Later, when Sinclair was in charge of S Squad , he recommended two officers for the SDS who went on to deceive women they were spying on into sexual relationships. HN297 Richard Clark ‘Rick Gibson’ had at least three sexual relationships under his cover name, including with Inquiry core participant ‘Mary’.
HN300 ‘Jim Pickford’ was also deployed during Sinclair’s time as head of S Squad and had at least one sexual relationship in his cover identity, despite being married. Uniquely, Pickford went on to marry this activist and had a child with her, though they later divorced.
At the end of 1974, Sinclair was promoted to the rank of detective chief superintendent, the most senior officer in Special Branch’s S Squad , which oversaw the SDS. He seems to have had significant input into the running of the SDS during his time as chief superintendent, which lasted until 1978.
One of his duties was recommending officers from other Special Branch squads to the SDS. A memo from Sinclair said that HN297 Richard Clark ‘Rick Gibson’ had served time in the back office of the SDS and was ready to be deployed. Clark infiltrated the Troops Out Movement (TOM) , where he had at least three sexual relationships with activists he was spying on.
In 1975, Clark was invited to go to Belfast with TOM, possibly to meet members of the Provisional IRA. Despite the apparent risk that Gibson would have faced, had his true identity been exposed in that situation, Sinclair said it was a ‘good idea for DC Clark to visit Northern Ireland’.
Sinclair reasoned that this could get the SDS access to Irish Republican strongholds within the six counties. He was overruled by senior officers, who blocked the trip as a potential risk to Clark’s life.
Events a year later confirmed Sinclair’s poor judgement when Gibson had to end his deployment because members of another group he was infiltrating, Big Flame , discovered he was using a false identity.
Sinclair identified another likely candidate for the SDS, HN13 ‘Barry Loader’ , who was later involved in a miscarriage of justice. Sinclair also discussed the recruitment of HN296 ‘Geoff Wallace’ and HN351 ‘Jeff Slater’ to the SDS.
As chief superintendent, Sinclair permitted HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ to attend a residential course at the Workers Revolutionary Party’s training centre in Derbyshire, known alternatively as White Meadows or The Red House, in September 1975.
However, before Scott acted on this permission, the police raided the premises on orders from MI5. Because of this, permission for Scott to attend the course was rescinded. However, before this new advice could be communicated to Scott, he accepted an invitation to attend a course in February 1976 and reported on the party’s reaction to the raid.
1976 Review of the SDS
In 1976 Special Branch Commander HN585 Mathew Rodger set up an internal review to consider the future of the SDS. The review group members were Sinclair, chief superintendents HN1254 Rollo Watts and HN3990 Riby Wilson and detective chief inspectors HN819 Derek Kneale and HN34 Geoff Craft.
All the reviewers except Rollo Watts had served in the SDS and therefore had a vested interest in concluding that it had value. Despite assessing that the threat of public disorder had diminished since 1968, they determined that the unit should carry on.
In one of the most critical comments contained in his Interim Report, Inquiry Chair John Mitting wrote of the 1976 review: ‘It is hard to see how any conclusion could legitimately have been reached which would not have resulted in the closure of the SDS.’
Cameron Sinclair retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1980. When Sinclair died in 2022, his obituary stated that he had gone on to work as a ‘government officer’ in central London until 1987.
In May 2018, Mitting ruled that he would restrict Sinclair’s real name due to his ill health. However, on 26 October 2022, due to Sinclair’s death, Mitting revoked the restriction despite Sinclair’s family's objections that Sinclair’s reputation would be damaged posthumously, as this fell short of causing harm to any living person.
All procedual material can be found under the Documents tab.