Police snooped on leading Labour politicians for decades and engaged in ‘racist targeting’ of MPs

Police snooped on leading Labour politicians for decades and engaged in ‘racist targeting’ of MPs and campaigners, an inquiry heard yesterday.

Undercover officers allegedly compiled files on figures including former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, Lord Peter Hain and Dame Joan Ruddock because they campaigned against racism and apartheid.

They are also accused of spending 20 years monitoring Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy.

The ‘spy cops’ inquiry into undercover policing heard yesterday that covert officers targeted family campaigns protesting about injustices for black victims of crime.

Duwayne Brooks, the friend of Stephen Lawrence who witnessed his 18-year-old friend being murdered by racist thugs in 1993, was among those monitored.

Met officers have denied being racist and sexist, and claimed that MI5 encouraged them to monitor thousands of political activists.

But Matthew Ryder QC, representing more than 100 individuals and groups who were spied on, said undercover policing was ‘severely tainted [and] corrupted’ by both political and racial bias.

Among those monitored from the Labour Party was Piers Corbyn, who MI5 first opened a file on when he was a student president of the Imperial College Union in 1969.

From 1971 to 1990, Scotland Yard went on to collect 53 intelligence reports on the one-time Labour councillor who became heavily involved in supporting squatters and most recently is known for his anti-lockdown protests. 

Along with Miss Abbott – a former lover of Jeremy Corbyn – the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) also spied on ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone and Labour MP Bernie Grant because they raised issues of racial inequality or campaigned for justice for black victims of crime.

Mr Ryder said: ‘Undercover policing was severely tainted – corrupted – by political motivations and political bias. 

‘A lack of structure and oversight allowed political biases and improper motives to become commonplace in the selection of target groups.’

He added that the selecting of targets ‘had a racial dimension’. 

Yesterday the inquiry was told that as a result of some undercover operations, there were miscarriages of justice when covert officers ‘engaged in entrapment and acted as agent provocateurs’ or there was ‘complicity in crimes by the officers themselves’. 

At least 26 SDS officers have been arrested on a total of 52 occasions, but the courts were often not told of their secret roles.

The inquiry heard claims that an undercover officer who infiltrated an animal rights campaign may have set fire to a high street department store, causing £340,000 of damage.

Animal rights activists Geoff Sheppard and Andrew Clarke are appealing against their 1988 conviction for arson alleging that Bob Lambert, a Met undercover officer who pretended to be a radical protester for five years, helped them plant an incendiary device at a Debenhams in Harrow, north-west London, in July 1987.

The inquiry continues.

 Judge accuses lawyer representing women duped into having relationships with undercover police of trying to sabotage ‘spy cops’ probe

By Simon Walters 

The retired judge overseeing the ‘spy cops’ inquiry has accused a human rights lawyer representing women duped into having relationships with undercover police of trying to sabotage the probe.

Sir John Mitting claims barrister Una Morris, pictured, attempted to wreck his investigation by demanding he reveal the identity of the officers who had targeted the women in order to infiltrate activists’ groups.

Her last-minute legal challenge on the eve of the public inquiry, which opened this week, was ‘obviously calculated to disrupt’ it, he said in a statement.

Sir John, 73, refused point blank to reverse his ruling to keep secret the names of many undercover officers who worked for the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad.

The inquiry chairman called the award-winning lawyer’s demand ‘unreasonable and impractical’, adding: ‘I do not intend to disrupt preparations for the hearing… I reject the submission out of hand.’

A spokesman for the judge last night admitted his letter to the barrister could be seen as ‘high-handed’, saying: ‘Some might interpret it that way. He is open and frank.’

The row is the latest in a series of clashes between the targeted women and Sir John over his decision on the officers’ anonymity.

Two years ago the women threatened to boycott the inquiry, dismissing the former judge as ‘the usual white, upper middle-class, elderly gentleman whose life experiences are a million miles away from those who were spied upon’.

Sir John, an ex-High Court judge, is a member of London’s men-only Garrick Club. He attended £35,000-a-year Downside boarding school near Bath and lists his hobbies as wine and bridge. 

The protests against Sir John’s handling of the huge investigation, looking at undercover policing since 1968, have been backed by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, mother of the murdered teenager Stephen.

She is giving evidence regarding claims that police spied on her family to try to smear them when they campaigned for justice for Stephen, but has complained that the inquiry was ‘cloaked in secrecy and anonymity’.

Lisa, of campaign group Police Spies Out of Lives, which represents nearly 200 of those targeted, said she feared the inquiry could be a waste of time.

‘The judge has restricted not only the real names but the cover names of these officers. So how in the hell are you supposed to get to the truth?’ she said.

It has also emerged that the cost of the inquiry, set up in 2014, has doubled to nearly £60million.

Sir John’s 90-strong team of officials have run up a bill of more than £29million, while the Met has spent more than £30million in the past five years preparing to defend its officers.