Stephen Lawrence: Will the Metropolitan Police ever tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Recent news that the family and supporters of the Stephen Lawrence campaign were subjected to a covert police intelligence surveillance with a view to criminalising, smearing and undermining the credibility of all those associated with the Lawrence campaign for justice has shocked the nation. That the police could have targeted the Lawrence family in this way is utterly reprehensible and an offence to all decent people.

The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was a Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) covert unit based in Special Branch at New Scotland Yard. I was Policing Director for London for 8 years and at no point during that time was I ever made aware of the existence of this SDS unit.

Although disbanded in 2008, the SDS was a secret-police unit that may have employed undercover officers and registered informants to spy on campaign leaders or so called ‘radicals’. Such units have a history of employing ‘agent provocateurs’ to incite campaigning groups to engage in criminal acts where upon they are usually arrested. Secret police have a history of opening mail, hacking telephone conversations and email; breaking into homes and offices, conduct covert surveillance and usually operate outside the rule of law.

The new and damaging allegation that the SDS was tasked to ‘dig dirt’ on the Lawrence’s is beyond the pale and has left many people sick to their core.

The Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons that the allegations against the SDS would be investigated by two separate inquiry teams. The allegations of improper conduct include the practice of undercover officers using the identities of dead children, the infiltration of environmental groups, the fact that MPS officers formed relationships and went on to have children with green campaigners and the allegations that police corruption caused the initial failure of the MPS to prosecute Stephens Lawrence’s killers.

How a family who lost their son in a bloody racist gang murder can be seen by the MPS as the ‘enemy’ is testimony to the powerful culture of institutionalised racism that existed then and I believe still exists within the MPS.

Additionally, we now know that the SDS is said to have targeted all the Lawrence support organisations such as the National Black Caucus, the Anti Racist Alliance, the Brian Douglas Justice Campaign and Newham Monitoring Project for special attention.

Furthermore, in seeking to smear the Lawrence family and their supporters, it appears that there was a determined attempt by the MPS to falsely jail and undermine Duwayne Brookes which led directly to the eventual collapse of the first prosecution of Lawrence’s killers. Brooks suffered incredibly as a result of the activities of the MPS. He was arrested on ‘trumped” up charges and meetings with him and his lawyers were bugged. His life was almost ruined by a corrupt public service seeking to take him out in order to protect their tarnished reputations.

As a consequence of the recent revelations, both Neville and Doreen Lawrence have rightly demanded a public inquiry and you can support that demand by signing this petition here.

The Home Secretary Theresa May has told Doreen that ‘all options are open’. We should make it absolutely clear to this Government that there is only one credible option that is acceptable to the British public and that is a judge led independent inquiry.

We cannot allow the Government any political space to evade that most obvious of conclusions. A full judicial public inquiry is what they deserve, what they need to finally put these matters to rest. Such an inquiry will also allow for the full exploration of all the allegations that black campaign groups were targeted and deal with the complex ethical and legal issues that arise in the course of any inquiry into these issues. Such an inquiry must have the absolute judicial power to summons individuals and all the necessary evidence required in an open public forum.

There can be no retreat from this basic demand to ensure that the Lawrence family now, and finally, get the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Lee Jasper

( This is an abridged version of the article. To read the full article, visit http://leejasper.blogspot.co.uk/ )