The mother of Stephen Lawrence has alleged at the undercover policing public inquiry that the Home Office was “directly involved” in the “egregious and unlawful” surveillance of her family’s campaign for justice.
Doreen Lawrence also questioned why a politician who had held the post of home secretary had “keenly” sought her out and was “at pains to reassure her” that the government department “had nothing to do” with the surveillance.
She said this had raised her suspicion that it was an attempt by the Home Office to “get their defence in early”. She is considering whether to identify the politician when she gives evidence to the inquiry next month.
Lady Lawrence said the evidence so far disclosed to the inquiry showed “plainly and unequivocally that, for at least a decade, whilst fighting for justice for her son, she was spied upon without any justification whatsoever and that this was not only sanctioned but rewarded by those at the top”.
In a statement to the inquiry that was published on Monday, she said that the then commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Paul Condon, who is now a peer, and Scotland Yard’s senior ranks were behind the surveillance.
She added that “during the course of her grief she was, quite undeservedly and unlawfully spied upon by those meant to serve and protect her”.
Her blistering criticism comes as the inquiry, led by the retired judge John Mitting, will over the coming months examine why undercover officers working for a covert Scotland Yard unit gathered information about the campaign to force police to properly investigate the racist murder of her son. Police officers, including Condon, and campaigners are due to be questioned.
One of the undercover officers, who used the fake name David Hagan, reported back to his superiors that Lawrence was splitting up from her husband, Neville. Lawrence said that Stephen’s murder in 1993 had “led to her becoming divorced from her husband who she had been married to for over 20 years. It led to her suffering extraordinarily painful mental ill-health”.
The spycops inquiry was set up in 2014 after the Guardian revealed testimony from whistleblower Peter Francis, an undercover officer who spied on anti-racist groups between 1993 and 1997. The activists supported the Lawrence family’s campaign for justice.
In her statement, Lawrence cited evidence by Francis in which he said that during his deployment, his manager “gave me specific instructions to gather any intelligence that I possibly could get to help stop the anti-racist campaign following the death of Stephen Lawrence and made reference to ‘stopping’, ‘undermining’, combating’ and ‘smearing’ the campaign”.
Francis added that his unit, the special demonstration squad (SDS), “wanted information to be able to tarnish the campaign with accusations of it being nothing more than an extremist front”. Other police officers deny this took place.
The whistleblower added that throughout his deployment, “the gathering of intelligence on the Stephen Lawrence campaign was the SDS’s number one priority”.
At the time, Scotland Yard was facing heavy pressure from the Lawrence family and their supporters to catch Stephen’s racist killers.
Hagan infiltrated an anti-racist group which supported the Lawrence family’s campaign. For six months in 1998, he gathered information about the campaign and its supporters while a crucial public inquiry, headed by Sir William Macpherson, a retired judge, scrutinised why police had failed to investigate Stephen’s murder.
Hagan was told that his reports were “going straight to Commissioner Condon’s desk each morning” and that he received a message back: “Congratulations from the Commissioner for your excellent reporting.”
In August 1998, Hagan met secretly with Richard Walton, a senior Scotland Yard officer who was part of a high-level team defending the police’s failure to investigate Stephen’s murder.
An official note of this meeting recorded that “it was a fascinating and valuable exchange of information concerning an issue which, according to [Walton], continues to dominate the commissioner’s agenda on a daily basis”.
The note also recorded that Walton “explained a lot of the behind the scenes politics involving the Home Office. It emerged that there is great sensitivity around the Lawrence issue with both the home secretary and the prime minister extremely concerned that the Metropolitan police could end up with its credibility – in the eyes of London’s black community – completely undermined”.
In her opening statement, Doreen Lawrence said: “Given the involvement of the Home Office, the commissioner and the seniority of officers involved and the hierarchical nature of the Metropolitan police, the assertion by officers like [Hagan] that he, in effect, followed orders, confirms that the surveillance was not collateral, but directed from the very top.”
On Monday, Neil Sheldon, a barrister for the Home Office, told the inquiry: “Whilst the Home Office appears to have remained a recipient of indirect SDS intelligence, the Home Office is unaware of any cogent evidence of direct tasking of the SDS by the Home Office.”
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