Spy cop Inquiry Starts today

[Imnobody4]

I'm not sure I have the stomach for this at the moment but definately important.

twitter.com/helensteel12/status/1323174497424449536?s=19
#SpycopsInquiry
The Undercover Policing Public Inquiry finally starts today, after 5 years of delay & attempts by the police to cover up the human rights abuses committed by these secret political policing units. Don't let them hide the #SpycopsInquiry news - please share
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Oh I hadn’t seen that the Centre for Women’s Justice are involved. They are BRILLIANT.

And YY to these demands from the women who have been exploited and harmed by this (and I didn’t mention their children before but absolutely them too). I can’t see how, individually or organisationally, anyone could argue credibly against these demands, given what these women and children and the bereaved families and the victims and witnesses of crime and the peaceful demonstrators and everyone else spied on and deceived in the most brutal way, have been through?

We want it to be a crime for an undercover officer to have an intimate relationship with a member of the public.
YES.
We want the inquiry to make a finding of institutional sexism in the police.
YES, then they will have it take action against it.
And we want our files
YES.

The Inquiry isn't just about women deceived into relationships, that's true.

Celia Stubbs, partner of Blair Peach murdered by the police is a core witness. Also spied on were the mother of Joy Garner, Sharon Grant, wife of Bernie Grant, Diane Abbott, so so many people who have had no answers from the Met as to why they were spied on.

Over 30 women were deceived into long-term relationships and over 1,000 groups spied on.

There have been discrete actions by the women deceived into long-term relationships, who received an apology and compensation from the Met some years ago, although this info hasn't been mentioned yet in the Inquiry.

The psychological damage inflicted by having a relationship, including marriage and children in some cases, with someone who doesn't actually exist and who was employed to disclose any amount of information about you with their colleagues is a particular legacy of spycops.

Some of the women had been planning their futures with what they thought were their partner and spent many years after the said partner disappeared searching for them, worried that they'd taken their own life etc. Their lives were effectively on hold while the spycops went back to work.

That systematic abuse needs to be held up for public scrutiny.

Everything ChattyLion says and an obligation for far greater scrutiny and accountability in situations where the Met and other forces judge that it is in the public interest for officers to work undercover.

This segment from Newsnight is from 2016. The police need to be held accountable, if they can't follow the law there have to be consequences. The wholesale male arrogance and entitlement badly needs reigning in. Institutional racism and sexism in British policing needs to stop.

Just been watching the opening statements detailing the women and their experiences. Starts again at 15.30

www.ucpi.org.uk/hearing/opening-statements-6/

The more I read into this, the more jaw-dropping it becomes.

Sometimesonly I agree, it's beyond shocking listening to how those women were manipulated and abused by the state.

From the BBC article in the OP :

"Mr Francis, the former officer who accused his bosses of running an operation against the Lawrence family, also wants recognition for the mental scarring that many officers live with - and transparency about who at the top of policing knew what was happening."

Never mind the women. What about the menz?

Crikey. Phillippa Kaufmann telling the judge in no uncertain terms that he should have a panel to advise him on racism in relation to the justice campaigns of Jean Charles Demenzes and the Burke-Monerville family because of his unconscious bias. Judge has refused.

I know it's not the point, obviously, but I'm really fascinated about how the arrangements worked from the employment angle.
Was all time spent with these deceived women, in intimate relationships, charged as overtime? Given that some of these men had an unsuspecting wife and family, and their own home set up, when they moved in with the spy target, and presumably contributed to household expenses, was that charged on their expense account?
Costs of dates, gifts, wedding costs for those that married?
If they went on holiday together, was that overtime (as oppose to annual leave) and again charged to expenses?

One can certainly see how the arrangement must have been a very attractive one to a certain type of man.

The mind really boggles, as to how many people knew about all this and were signing it all off.

Well, it is one of the many, many points FannyCann.

The Met have always pushed the 'rogue officers, they were different times' line when it's very clear that this was a systemic abuse of power.

Peter Francis (spycop whistle-blower) has said several times that his instructions were given to him verbally in the car on the way to work. It will be impossible to discover the information about employment terms as it will either have not been written down or shredded if it ever was.

Phillippa Kaufman QC (and Heather Williams QC) were both amazing today. Helen Steel's opening statement was postponed, not sure when to.

Link to recordings if anyone wants it www.ucpi.org.uk/hearing/opening-statements-6/