Dónal O’Driscoll, June 2019 (updated September 2019)

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Wider evidence of police collusion in blacklisting

The Report provides several short accounts of statements by a number of officers discussing contact between Special Branch and the Economic League. Most of them refer to the links between the two organisations as being informal. The various police and other witnesses maintained the exchange of information was mostly one way, from the Economic League to the police, and not vice versa.

However, the redactions in this part of the report and lack of any detail on the position of the officers interviewed make it impossible to draw conclusions on the extent to which intelligence gathered by the SDS, or Special Branch as a whole, was ending up in the Leagues’ files.

Nevertheless, despite citing statements to the contrary, material quoted in the Report makes it is clear that contact between Special Branch and the Economic League was sustained over decades and included sharing of information in both directions. Though only lightly covered in the report, it is apparent such would have required a degree of tacit approval from police management. Not least as the durability of it indicates methods for facilitating ongoing contact through changes of staff.

While the Report focuses on the illegality of unauthorised passing of information from police to private hands, what it does not address is legality and proportionality of their own use of intelligence gathered by other sources. In accepting and using material from the Economic League and The Consulting Association, the police were tacitly endorsing these illegal operations – if not taking part in them. The Report does acknowledge that prior to the 1984 Data Protection Act, policy on the sharing of police information and oversight relating to it was lax. However, there is no evidence that the new legislation had any real effect in curbing Special Branch’s relationship with the blacklisters.

What the Report does note is that both the Economic League and The Consulting Association drew on media reports, hired private investigators to compile ‘special’ in-depth reports, and used informers. It also reveals that The Consulting Association employed people with police and military backgrounds, though, again there is no revelation of any individual names and little discussion of how this may have been a source of particular information in the blacklist files. It is not stated if any of these ex-police officers were known to be former Special Branch or linked with the SDS or NPOIU.

In their reliance on the police’s defence that material could have come from other sources, the Report’s author is not keen to address the likelihood that this was the case, or that such statements are a comfortable way of sanitizing such material. There is no mention of effort being made to rule out these alternative routes, or to demonstrate that they did actual exist in the specifically cited cases. Thus, it seems unlikely Operation Reuben conducted this crucial aspect of the investigation – other than one example, discussed in the next section.

1978 and the Economic League

One of the few examples given in the Reuben report details how someone was blacklisted in 1978 due to erroneous information being exchanged between Special Branch and the Economic League (sections 11.1.7-11.1.10). A union activist applied for a job to make educational videos with a company that also carried out work for the construction industry. The Economic League identified him as a left-wing organiser and contacted a Special Branch department over the perceived risk of the individual being involved in education.

Special Branch asked for more details of the Economic League on this matter, alleging the individual was potentially linked to terrorism. In turn, the Economic League recorded this as a fact, leading to the person being denied the job – they were informed it was due to them being ‘Blacked by the security people’.

‘Fortunately’ (in the words of the Report’s author) the person had a relative who was a police Chief Superintendent who was able to make some inquiries. This led to an investigation and the erroneous information that had come from Special Branch being corrected.

The same incident is also seemingly noted in the Rupret Allason’s history of Special Branch:^[1]Rupert Allason, The Branch: a history of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch 1883-1983, Seeker & Warburg, 1983.

The difficulty in assessing the misuse of the Branch’s information lies in the very nature of the material. On one well-publicised occasion an employee of the BBC of a television company nearly lost her job because her husband had been mistakenly identified as a Baader-Meinhof terrorist suspect while on a holiday on the Continent. The information, unchecked had been entered on a Special Branch file. Fortunately the situation was rectified by the intervention of the suspect’s father-in-law, who happened to be a retired Scotland Yard man himself.

The language is here is telling and the use of the word ‘Fortunate’ indicates that the authors of Reuben were using the book as one of their sources. It also shows that they were relying on material known to be in the public domain already.

As a result, according to the Reuben report (11.1.10):

Consequently, Special Branch standing orders were re-circulated, which show that policy restricted contact with any such organisations and forbade searching for and sharing information with “commercial organisations”.

 

MPSB Industrial Unit / Industrial Intelligence Section and its links with industry

The Metropolitan Police Special Branch (MPSB) had an Industrial Unit (or Industrial Intelligence Section). Op. Reuben report says of this unit:

MPSB Industrial Unit Formed in 1970 to monitor growing Industrial unrest, officers from the Industrial Unit used various methods to report on the whole range of working life, from teaching to the docks. This included collating reports from other units (from uniform officers to the SDS), attending conferences and protests personally, and also developing well-placed confidential contacts from within the different sectors. There is no knowledge or record of the Industrial Unit using undercover officers.

 

This, it should be noted, does not rule out plain clothes officers from the unit simply turning up a more public meetings and recording what occurred.

The mention of the docks is worth exploring further, as it is likely a reference that includes Special Branch interest in the national dock strikes of 1970 and 1972. The latter strike produced a cause celebre when five union leaders were imprisoned over their alleged leadership of the strike. Known as the Pentonville 5, part of the evidence against them was gathered by private security firm Euro-Tec which had been hired by Special Branch.

This is yet another example of links between private security and British intelligence services as Euro-Tec was set-up in 1968 by former MI5 operative Gary Murray. Later in the 1980s, disillusioned by what he was being asked to do, Murray turned whistleblower and authored a book on the private intelligence industry and its links to the security services.^[2]Graham Stevenson, The Pentonville 5: dockers in action, solidarity and the anti-union laws, Our History (Communist Party), Pamphlet No. 7, July 2012.^[3]Gary Murray, Enemies of the State, Simon & Schuster, May 1993.

Though the Reuben report states the Industrial Unit did not deploy undercovers directly, there were links though. The Undercover Policing Inquiry has revealed that at least one undercover officer (HN336, using the cover name Dick Epps when he infiltrated the International Marxist Group and British Communist Party for the SDS from 1969-72) went on to work for the Industrial Intelligence Section. He also appeared on the True Spies documentary as ‘Dan’.^[4]Sir John Mitting, In the matter of section 19 (3) of the Inquiries Act 2005 Applications for restriction orders in respect of the real and cover names of officers of the Special Operations Squad and the Special Demonstrations Squad ‘Minded to’ note 2, Undercover Policing Inquiry, 14 November 2017.

Domestic Extremism units of the 2000s

From 1999, the Association of Chief Police Officers began establishing a number of Special Branch units to operate on a national basis. The first of these was the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, a sister unit to the London-focused SDS, that ran undercovers across the country. The NPOIU itself was formed from the Animal Rights National Index which had been collecting information on animal rights activists since the 1980s.

Another unit was the Cambridgeshire based National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU), initially founded in 2003 / 2004 to protect animal testing firm Huntingdon Life Sciences, but spread its remit to all forms of protest. According to the Reuben report:

National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit NETCU performed a Liaison role with different contacts from the Life Sciences sector, Oil, Gas and Energy, Banking, Commerce, Farming as well as other Government Agencies that connect with Industry affected by extremism. NETCU was dissolved upon reintergration into the MPS; however a similar Liaison Unit was set up within the NDEU/NDEDIU.

 

From 2006 NETCU and NPOIU were subsumed into the National Domestic Extremism Unit, headed by National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism, Anton Setchell. Following the exposure of NPOIU undercover Mark Kennedy, the domestic extremism units were in 2011 placed under the wing of Counter-Terrorism Command / SO15 – the successor of the old Metropolitan Police Special Branch.

That these Special Branch units have survived reorganisations under the guise of different names – more recently as the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit – shows there is a continuity in gathering intelligence by undercover officers in direct liaison with industry (see more below).

NETCU & the 2008 Woodstock meeting

The Report briefly mentions the presence of NETCU officer DCI Gordon Mills at a meeting of the Construction Industry Forum in Woodstock, Oxfordshire on 6 October 2008. The Forum was made up of directors of large building companies.

Among the material seized from The Consulting Association were notes the TCA’s head Ian Kerr had made of a talk given by Mills. Mills denied to Reuben investigators that he knew Kerr was present or having any knowledge of the blacklisting firms. He also claimed that the material in presentation was based only on open source material.

Another, unnamed, NETCU staffer said Kerr had been invited by one of the companies and there was no direct link between The Consulting Association and the unit.

Not mentioned by Reuben is a posthumous interview with Kerr in The Times, published in January 2013, where Kerr not only refers to this meeting but directly contradicts the above positions. The newspaper quotes him saying that a two way information exchange began with NETCU. In the same interview he also disclosed the sort of codes used to indicate which individuals were of interest to Special Branch.^[5]Billy Kember, Police were briefed on industry extremists and ‘bad eggs’, The Times, 23 January 2013.

Anton Setchell, who by that stage had oversight of NETCU, told Reuben he only became aware of blacklisting after he left the firm to become global head of security for construction firm Laing O’Rourke. Notably, the company is an amalgamation of several companies known to have been active in the blacklists put together by the Economic League and The Consulting Association. That Setchell is not challenged at this point is telling for the depth of Operation Reuben if not the knowledge of its investigators.

According to Op. Reuben, when it sought out the records of NETCU it was told they had all been conveniently destroyed in the period 2011-2012. This was following the transfer of its parent unit to the Metropolitan Police.

Not mentioned in the report is another significant transfer from police to the corporate. Steve Pearl, the founder and head of NETCU, went on to become a director of vetting agency Agenda Resource Management, which has strong links controversial animal experimentation firms.^[6]Re-visiting NETCU – Police collaboration with industry, Corporate Watch, 6 August 2014. Not mentioned either is that under him, NETCU had actively encouraging companies to take out civil injunctions against protestors for which he regularly provided supporting statements. In one case, Pearl handed over details of campaigners convictions without the necessary court order.^[7]Huntingdon Life Sciences v Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, EWHC (Queen’s Bench Division), 2004, unreported.

Ongoing liaison

The Report notes how changing legislation such as Data Protection Acts and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 had their impact on the police regime. Though the exchange of information now requires officially sanctioned agreements between police an industry, the following three paragraphs found in the report demonstrate a degree of historical continuity of links between Special Branch units and industry:

6.14 …NETCU was dissolved upon reintegration into the MPS; however a similar Liaison Unit was set up within the NDEU/NDEDIU. 6.18 SO15’s Operation Fairway Engagement Team Liaising with all sectors of industry and the community, they deliver counter-terrorism briefings to raise awareness of suspicious activity and encourage reporting to the Anti-Terrorist Hotline. 11.1.17 The modern equivalents of MPSB’s Industrial Unit would be Operation Fairway and the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU)’s Industrial Liaison section […] Although operating within ostensibly secret departments, their role is much more open, with officially sanctioned Information Sharing Agreements (ISAs) completed for each organisation since 2007. ISAs are agreed when sharing personal information (data) with an outside, non-police organisation to achieve a common aim (i.e. public protection, preventing crime and/or reoffending).

 

That ‘Operation Fairway’ is mentioned in this context is curious. It is publicly presented as an operation to raise awareness of terrorism issues, giving workshops to staff of shops, commercial and public buildings on how to respond to it ‘to detect, deter or disrupt terrorist activity’.^[8]Operation Fairway Sessions, The Galleria (newsletter), 26 May 2011 . Yet, it is also described as one of the ‘key intelligence-gathering operations for the United Kingdom’. In 2008, the Metropolitan Police wrote:^[9]Ch. Insp. Geoff Bishop, Section 44 Terrorism Act 2000: Standard Operation Procedures, Metropolitan Police Service, 7 February 2008 (archived by Statewatch.org).

Under the name ‘Operation Fairway, [the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC)] produces a variety of reports tailored to meet the needs of individual customer departments. These are sanitised intelligence reports that are disseminated to a wide range of Police customers via Special Branches. They are predominantly intended for use as background briefing documents among officers and staff engaged in operations duties, in order to heighten awareness of the current international terrorist threat.

 

The Times, however, has noted that Fairway has also been used to gather information on journalists.^[10]Jules Mattsson, Journalists named on secret files, police admit, The Times, 11 November 2014.

The following report from a 2010 police presentation to a logistics conference gives considerable insight into the scope of Fairway’s intelligence gathering remit:^[11]Logistics security scrutinised at DHL & Reliance conference, Logistics Handling (trade newsletter), 28 June 2010.

Conference delegates were informed of the role of Operation Fairway, the umbrella title given to various workstreams which feed into an intelligence database designed to counter terrorism in its earliest stages of planning. The programme asks police officers and security personnel to be aware of the constant threat of terrorism and feed any gathered intelligence, including any concerns regarding individuals behaviour, to their local Special Branch for inclusion on to the National Fairway database. This suspicious behaviour can be anything from employee failure to disclose details of higher education; discrepancies in dates of work history or gaps in employment; supplying forged documents such as P45s; the purchase of commercial vehicles that are sign-written or parked for periods in residential areas; or individuals taking photographs of public places, entrances to car parks or service areas.

 

The National Fairway Database is clearly an update of the earlier National Domestic Extremism Database and the National Special Branch Intelligence System which carried out the same functions.^[12]Peter Salmon & ors, National Domestic Extremism Database, Undercover Research Group (powerbase.info), 2015.

So while names are changed and new guises adopted, the ongoing process of broad data collection in relation to political and trade union activity, a hallmark of Special Branch, continues unabated. The standard pattern of embedding such units within those devoted to national security or counter-terrorism permits the masks a wider domestic extremism programme which targets all forms of dissent across civil society.

Operation Creel & Richard Walton

Prior to Reuben, there had been a earlier investigation into blacklisting by the Metropolitan Police MPS). This was ‘Operation Creel,’ set up in April 2012 after MP George Howarth wrote to the MPS on behalf of a blacklisted constituent. Creel was overseen by SO15 Counter Terrorism Command which had subsumed both Special Branch and the National Domestic Extremism Unit (which had ran the other main spycop squad, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit).

SO15 at that point was headed by Commander Richard Walton,^[13]As head of SO15, Walton also had oversight of the protests around the Olympics. Once such protest, which took place two months before Walton became head of the unit was by the Blacklist Support Group, but was one he would have been made aware of. who would later be revealed as playing a role in the scandal of the SDS spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence during the Macpherson Inquiry.^[14]Eveline Lubbers, Peter Salmon & ors, Richard Walton (profile), Powerbase.info, 2015-2018.

According to the Op Reuben report, Walton closed down Creel when ‘it was concluded that there were a number of alternative sources for such information, combined with little evidence of any SO15/MPSB involvement’. A set of conclusions which Operation Reuben also adopted. Walton did recommend to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police that further investigation be taken up by the Directorate of Professional Standards, but this proposal was not taken up.

World In Action programme / Chris Mullins complaint

In 1987, TV current affairs programme World in Action aired a three part series on blacklisting^[15]The Operation Reuben report mistakenly says it is 1989. See: Boys on the Blacklist, World in Action, season 23, episode 20, first aired 16 February 1987 – source: IMDB.com. alleging illegal information sharing was taking place between the police and private companies. Specifically, the programme interviewed Alan Harvey of the Economic League openly talking about collusion with Special Branch.

This was raised in Parliament by Chris Mullins MP, who stated that several officers had been disciplined for offences under the Data Protection Act.

Creedon followed up on this, and asked police forces to send details of any cases which this might have happened in the period 1987-89. It appears that due to the length of time, relevant records had again been disposed of. However, five cases were identified – one from MPS in 1988, two from Lancashire police in 1989 and two from British Transport Police in Glasgow. According to the Op. Reuben report, based on available material, none of these were linked to the blacklist.

The Reuben report also noted that North Yorkshire Police investigated Alan Harvey’s statements at the time, but ‘concluded there was no detrimental findings’, so dismissed the claims. The report was not retained by that force.

Missing: the revolving door with private security

It is known that a number of MPSB officers have gone on to work in the private intelligence industry.^[16]Re-visiting NETCU – Police collaboration with industry, Corporate Watch, 6 August 2014. Since in their new job they theoretically have the opportunity to make use of information gathered while serving offices or of their contacts within Special Branch, this would offer a potential route for police information to turn up in private intelligence files. Operation Reuben fails to address this issue.

The 2012 HM Inspectorate of Constabulary investigation into the NPOIU, reporting before Op. Reuben was established, indeed did note inappropriate contact between the domestic extremism units and ex-officers:^[17]A review of national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, 2012.

A close relationship was built-up over a number of years between the [National Domestic Extremism Unit] and those industries which found themselves the target of protests, to raise awareness of threats and risk so that damage and injury could be prevented. A number of police officers have retired from NDEU’s precursor units and continued their careers in the security industry, using their skills and experience for commercial purposes. Whilst this is perhaps no different from any other retired officer finding similar employment, HMIC acknowledges NDEU’s concerns about attempts by retired officers to then contact and work with NDEU as this, on occasions, led to potential conflict of interests. Given this, HMIC welcomes NDEU’s policy that it will have no contact with private security companies which operate in the same type of business.

 

The most noted of these companies is Global Open, set up by Rod Leeming, the former head of the MPSB’s Animal Rights National Index.^[18]Global Open (company profile), Powerbase.info, 2011-2015. Global Open made an appearance in evidence bundles relating to the injunctions supported by NETCU, and facilitated the infiltration of anti-arms trade protestors by other private operatives. It also hired other Special Branch officers.

Global Open came to wider attention when it emerged that it had hired Mark Kennedy to spy on activists after he had left the police.^[19]Rob Evans, Amelia Hill, Paul Lewis & Patrick Kingsley, Mark Kennedy: secret policeman’s sideline as corporate spy, The Guardian, 13 January 2011. It remains unexplained how Leeming and Kennedy knew of each other.

Another such firm is C2i which had former Special Branch officers in senior positions and targeted environmentalists, etc.^[20]C2i International (company profile), Powerbase.info, 2011. One of its operatives, who later formed her own company, was Rebecca Todd, Notably, she began infiltrating London Rising Tide, while SDS undercover ‘Dave Jones’ deployment within the same group was coming to an end.^[21]Rebecca Todd (profile), Powerbase.info, 2011.

The Undercover Policing Inquiry has also noted that ‘Dave Jones’ went on to work in private intelligence.^[22]Additional information from closed risk assessment to be considered with open application with HN66/EN32’s restriction order application, Undercover Policing Inquiry, 21 February 2019.

In 2000, the Metropolitan Police settled out of court a complaint by Helen Steel and Dave Morris (the ‘McLibel Two’) regarding Special Branch exchanging their personal details with private intelligence companies hired by McDonald’s. The fastfood company had taken the two to Court over a leaflet handed out in front of their shops. The settlement also required the London police commissioner to remind all officers of their responsibility not to disclose such information. ^[23] The settlement also included apologies the claimants and a payout. See: Eveline Lubbers, McSpy: case study, in Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark, Pluto Books, 2012, p. 106. It has been revealed since that SDS officer Bob Lambert was involved in authoring the disputed leaflet. See Paul Lewis & Rob Evans, McLibel leaflet was co-written by undercover police officer Bob Lambert, The Guardian, 21 June 2013.

Relation to Herne 2 report: The Allegations of Peter Francis

The Cenotaph incident in Reuben also provides context to a section in the second Operation Herne report. Herne is the Metropolitan Police’s wider investigation into the undercover policing scandal, formerly led Chief Constable Mick Creedon of Derbyshire Constabulary, which Operation Reuben was also part of. The second Herne report explicitly looked at the allegations of Peter Francis and wrote in relation to blacklisting:^[24]Mick Creedon, Operation Herne – Report 2: Allegations of Peter Francis (Operation Trinity), Metropolitan Police Service, March 2014.

SO15 records show one documented instance of the exchange of information between Special Branch and Economic League, dating from 1978. This related to a police enquiry about terrorism offences. The officer-in-the-case inadvertently disclosed the terrorism link to emphasise the importance of the inquiry. The Economic League recorded this disclosure as fact, leading to the individual being refused work at a later stage. A complaint was made which was investigated and subsequently corrected. This complaint was brought to the attention of both Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations and the Home Office. This incident was widely reported in 1981, subject to newspaper reports and a Panorama programme. On 3 November 1978, Special Branch issued a Memorandum to all officers in relation to the disclosure of information and how seriously they regarded it. It reiterated Metropolitan Police Standing Orders, Paragraph 13 that prohibited searches of Special Branch on behalf of commercial organisations. It also documented that such ‘improper’ disclosure constituted a disciplinary offence. This memo came directly from the then Head of Special Branch. Operation Herne has established that the individuals identified by Peter Francis appear on the blacklist. However, Peter Francis claims to have been deployed between 1993 and 1997. The CA record is dated from 1999, two (2) years after Peter Francis alleged deployment ceased. There is no evidence to suggest that SDS exchanged any information with either the Economic League or the Consulting Association. Twenty (20) test records have been highlighted by the ICO as being the most likely to be the result of police information. These records have been investigated, revealing numerous alternative sources for information. A Special Branch officer has stated in interview that, ‘The flow of information was purely one way’ the Economic League were a ‘conduit of information’ driven by their sense of ‘civic duty’. The Economic League was treated as a source of information. It was not Special Branch policy to pass information to them or any other external organisation. There is no evidence that any information reported by SDS operatives was ever shared with the Consulting Association.

 

The above is clearly based on the work carried out in Operation Reuben. However, Creedon has selectively picked a set of things that amount to misleading the public and do not accurately reflect the Operation Reuben report’s conclusions (for all that’s  investigation’s weaknesses).

Herne ignores the general conclusion was that indeed information from police was passed on. It also mis-states the allegations made by Peter Francis and seeks to sweep them under the carpet, while ignoring other more salient facts. Another mis-statement is to say that ‘numerous alternative sources for information’ are presented; this was only done in the most general of terms. As we have pointed out above in the specific complaints made (which are not referenced in Herne), those conclusions are questionable. Finally, Creedon relies on one officer’s statement as being indicative of the flow of information from industry to police, when even Operation Reuben does not conclude this.

Conclusion

As an investigation into blacklisting, and particular the role of undercover police in it, Operation Reuben is fatally flawed in its narrow and selective approach. It refrains from a detailed examination, instead limiting itself to a few specific complaints which it readily dismissed as ‘not proven’. Something it does by taking the expedient approach of applying the general proposition that the blacklisting organisations could have got the material through other routes – without apparently testing just how more likely that hypothesis was.

It also looked for something that was never likely to exist – a formal mechanism with a paper trail in which personal details of individual trade unionists were passed on to private companies. The apparent informal and ad hoc nature of the information breaches is used by the reports authors to downplay the significance of clearly sustained contact between Special Branch and private blacklisting organisations.

The placing of Operation Reuben in Herne, an operation designed to investigate undercover policing within Special Branch is problematic in that it leads to a focus on particular units. As such, it misses the wider context of Special Branch’s role in the illegal vetting industry and both the scale and duration over which that has occurred. Or indeed the appropriateness of ongoing programmes on that front.

However, that such a limited investigation was nevertheless able to touch on significant material demonstrates that a more thorough would be likely to discover considerably more. Ultimately, the impact of Operation Reuben is not to the individual conclusions arrived at, but to demonstrate that a broader and more in depth examination is needed of the role of police generally in blacklisting and its relationship to the modern vetting industry.

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Resources

• Read the Operation Reuben report (external link).
• Blacklist Blog & Facebook page (hosted by Hazards.org)
• Mark Hollingsworth & Richard Norton-Taylor, Blacklist: the inside story of political vetting, Hogarth Press, 1988.
• Mike Hughes, Spies at Work, 1993. The associated website contains considerable resources on the Economic League.
• Dave Smith & Phil Chamberlain, Blacklisted: The secret war between big business and union activists, New Internationalist, 2nd Edition, September 2016. See also
  • Dave Smith & Phil Chamberlain, On the Blacklist: how did the UK’s top building firms get secret information on their workers?, The Guardian, 27 February 2015.
  • Dave Smith, Police spied on trade unionists for an illegal blacklist. We demand justice, The Guardian, 6 March 2016.
• Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The true story of Britain’s secret police, Guardian / Faber & Faber, 2012.
  • See also Rob Evans, Covert police unit spied on trade unions, whistleblower reveals, The Guardian, 13 March 2015.

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