With the Met Police, if you are innocent you have everything to worry about

Peter Francis's revelations show the need for a judicial inquiry – so the public can see how far our democracy has been eroded

• 
• • Michael Mansfield
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 June 2013 13.43 BST

Doreen Lawrence in 2008 at the memorial service marking 15th anniversary of the murder of her son, Stephen.

The revelations by the former NSA operative, Edward Snowden (now to be charged with espionage himself), about the massive extent of state snooping on telephone calls and internet traffic, shocked even the most sanguine. The authorities, however, on both sides of the Atlantic, came out with the same stock response verging on justification: if you are innocent you have nothing to worry about.

The quite disgraceful conduct of police undercover agents described by another whistleblower, Peter Francis, gives the lie to this complacent and arrogant mantra. The perfectly innocent family of Stephen Lawrence was targeted in an attempt to discredit and undermine its quest for truth. Not for the first time has the state tried to depict victims and their families as disreputable and unworthy of belief: Bloody Sunday, Jean Charles de Menezes and Hillsborough are other recent examples.

Besides institutional racism it seems the Metropolitan police was also guilty of institutional deceit. A whole unit was established in order to manage and practise this, within the special demonstration squad (SDS). So much for another mantra commonly trotted out by our leaders that we enjoy freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest. This will come as no surprise to experienced observers (eg CND in the 1980s, which faced a well-funded government anti-CND propaganda unit and constant surveillance). It is not remotely comforting or reassuring to know that the SDS was disbanded in 2008, given the existence of another outfit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which was charged with tracking green activists.

SDS employed in the region of 130 officers and a number of those were deputed to scratch around for anything they could find on the Lawrences at the very time they should have been devoting resources to what was to become a thoroughly incompetent investigation. They failed to make arrests based on reliable information received within 24 hours; instead we now know that Francis was acquiring alternative information on Stephen's friend and main witness Duwayne Brooks, which might undermine his credibility. Subsequent charges against him were later dismissed.

Additionally, it appears efforts were being made to discover who visited the Lawrence family home and who was involved in a support group, Youth Against Racism. Both home and group were being invaded on an entirely spurious basis.

The general background is far wider than the Lawrence case, embracing many other areas and activities. Officers have adopted false identities, often those of dead infants, played roles which involved intimate relationships with women who rightly feel desperately abused and has been described by one as "like being raped by the state". The Mark Kennedy saga is an exemplification of the scope and depth of infiltration.

In January this year, Maina Kiai, the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, provided a highly critical report on violations of human rights in the UK. One of the matters he focused on was the use of undercover policing. He recommended a review of the Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and a judge-led inquiry. Neville Lawrence has demanded exactly that in an interview with the BBC. He is right: we are dealing with potentially unlawful practices and fundamental breaches of the European convention, especially with regard to privacy.

At present there are 16 different inquiries taking place. One of them is Operation Herne, conducted by the chief constable of Derbyshire under the direction of the IPCC. Another is going to be an extension of the Mark Ellison QC review into the question of corruption.

This is manifestly inadequate. Fragmented, protracted and disparate inquiries behind closed doors, let alone carried out by police officers, will hardly restore public confidence already severely dented by denial and deceit. There has to be an independent judge-led public inquiry which incorporates the potential for accountability and transparency. A forum along the lines of Leveson is imperative, so the public can be made aware of how far our democracy has been eroded, and it needs to address the following questions:

1. Authorisation: a squad as big as this does not exist for more than 40 years without approval, if only tacit, at the very highest level. Who knew about it and to whom was it accountable?

2. What were its terms of reference, especially with regard to the unit described by Francis?

3. Funding: substantial sums of public money must have been devoted to this operation. Which budget was used? Who authorised it?

4. Method: who authorised the various techniques employed?

5. Monitoring: how was it regulated? What was Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary doing? Did they ask the right questions? Were they told the truth?

6. Who decided that the operation would not be disclosed to the Macpherson inquiry?

Once more we must expose collusion, corruption and manipulation. There can be no justice without truth.

Institutional Racism in the UK - the case of the Met Police

'If you complain about racism, your career is finished,' says Met detective

New Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe has promised to drive racism out of the force. But one officer, sacked after being smeared by his colleagues, believes his words are hollow

Nina Lakhani

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

An Asian police officer whose career was thwarted by institutional discrimination has dismissed promises by Britain's highest-ranking officer to drive out racism within the Scotland Yard as mere "lip service".

Detective Sergeant Gurpal Singh Virdi will today hand in his warrant card and become what he describes as one of only a dozen or so ethnic-minority police officers to survive 30 years with Britain's largest police force.

Last month the Met's Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, vowed to become an "implacable enemy" of racists within Scotland Yard, promising to "drive them out of the Met". But DS Virdi, whose career has been defined by a racially motivated character assassination and a subsequent smear campaign by his own colleagues, says he doesn't believe the Met has changed.

Speaking to The Independent, the retiring officer said: "The Met never wants to learn lessons from people like me."

The 53-year-old was sacked in 1998 after being erroneously charged with sending racist, National Front hate mail to black colleagues at Ealing police station. His house was searched for seven hours in the presence of his children.

DS Virdi says the raid, authorised by then Deputy Commissioner John Stevens, came weeks after he had threatened to go over the head of his superiors regarding what he felt was a sloppy investigation of a racist, near-fatal stabbing of an Iraqi and an Indian boy by five white males. DS Virdi had pointed out the parallels between the investigation and that into Stephen Lawrence's murder five years earlier; weeks later he was arrested and suspended.

"My career finished in 1998," he said. "As soon as you raise your head above the parapet, your career is finished, and everyone in the police service knows that... Most people keep silent because they know that, even if you complain, the investigation won't be done properly... That hasn't changed."

It took a year for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Nevertheless, Scotland Yard seemed determined to make an example of him and he was sacked in 2000. Later that year an employment tribunal found that the Met's investigation had racially discriminated against DS Virdi.

Unlike his white colleagues, it ruled, he had been subjected to an entrapment operation, been formally interviewed, had his house searched, been arrested and suspended "without sufficient evidence to support the allegations". He was awarded a six-figure settlement, mainly for the "high-handed" way the Yard had behaved and the way it had manipulated media coverage.

The Independent Advisory Group, which monitors the Met's performance on race crime, described the investigation as "disgraceful" and "a high-profile character assassination". In 2001, DS Virdi and his wife, Sathat, were assured by the then Commissioner, John Stevens, that lessons had been learnt, and he was sent an apology. An independent inquiry by the newly formed Metropolitan Police Authority concluded that there had been a smear campaign against him.

DS Virdi went back to the Met in 2002 against the wishes of his wife. In 2004 DS Virdi was assured by Lord Stevens and Mr Hogan-Howe, then assistant commissioner for human resources, that his career would not suffer as a result of a negative internal report claiming there was still "strong evidence" of his guilt.

For the past five years, he says he has "pushed pen around paper" for the Met's Sikh Association, awaiting a suitable post. "I had to go back and face them; I am not the type of person to run away," he said. "I wanted to do 30 years, and I'm glad that I've done it. I've enjoyed what I've done, but feel sad as I could have done so much more. I have been stopped from reaching my potential." Over the past five years, DS Virdi says he has supported a number of ethnic minority officers, from trainees to high-ranking officials, who have made allegations of racism but do not believe their complaints were properly investigated.

"The majority of allegations of racism and corruption have not been properly investigated – in fact they usually protect the racists rather than the victims," he said. "That has not changed.

"There have only been a dozen people, including mixed-race officers, who have survived 30 years. Most of them realise that their careers will never go anywhere and so they just go."

Born in India, Virdi grew up in Southall, west London. His father served in Delhi police, but when Virdi joined the Met in 1982, it was against his parents' wishes. He had an unblemished career in uniformed, CID and specialist squads until he was arrested in 1998.

Despite all that has happened, he says he has no regrets about returning to the police. "I can leave today with my head held high, as I can honestly say I didn't tolerate corruption or bad practice. There will be no leaving do. It wouldn't feel right after all that has happened."

The officer, or officers, who were responsible for sending the racist hate mail in 1998 have never been found; the criminal case remains unsolved. "There is nothing stopping the Commissioner [Hogan-Howe] from reopening the case should he want to, but I don't think he will, because they won't like the answers."

The Met said it did not comment on individual cases, but pointed to the Commissioner's public statements on driving out racism.

Lawrence corruption review 'imminent'

The Metropolitan Police is expected to make an announcement this week about its review into allegations of corruption within the original Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry.

The review was set up after Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the teenager killed in 1993 by a white racist gang, called for the reopening of the public inquiry into the circumstances of his death.

Mrs Lawrence's request to the Home Secretary, Theresa May, followed publication in The Independent of previously unseen intelligence reports about Detective Sergeant John Davidson, who played a leading role in the hunt for the killers, which said he was involved in "all aspects of criminality".

A former Scotland Yard commander, Ray Adams, was also the subject of an inquiry, but the findings were not passed to the Stephen Lawrence inquiry panel.

Paul Peachey