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Nine spycops snooped on anti-nuclear protests in Scotland

The Ferret Rob Edwards, August 11, 2024

At least nine officers from London’s secret undercover policing unit, known as spycops, aided the infiltration and surveillance of anti-nuclear protests in Scotland between 1978 and 1983, The Ferret can reveal.

Two spycops, who had adopted the names of dead children and pretended to be anti-nuclear activists, joined attempts to occupy the site for a nuclear power station at Torness in East Lothian in 1980 and 1981. They were both picked up, detained and then released by Lothian police. 

The pair, one of whom said he was nicknamed “Trotsky”, were supported by three senior officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), who travelled to Scotland to liaise with local police. 

Along with four other spycops, they produced 16 reports for the Met’s Special Branch and the UK security service, MI5, on anti-nuclear groups active in Scotland. The groups included the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), the Torness Alliance and Friends of the Earth.

The SDS reports contained minutes of meetings, mailing lists, internal briefings and funding appeals. They included details of hundreds of individuals and groups across the UK, and gave inside accounts of campaigners’ plans, problems and disagreements.

The revelations come from documents and statements released by the SDS and MI5 and published by the UK government’s Undercover Policing Inquiry in London. The inquiry was launched in 2015 and is aiming to produce its final report in 2026.

Activists who were spied upon have condemned the SDS’s undercover operations, with one saying he felt “sick and angry”. They claimed their campaigning had suffered “profound damage”.

Anti-nuclear campaigners in Scotland have also been very critical, suggesting that spycops were “out of control” and “an affront to the very idea of democracy”………………………………………………………….

The SDS was disbanded in 2008. In July 2023 an interim report by the inquiry’s judge, Sir John Mitting, concluded that the spying was not justified. 

The inquiry’s remit, however, is only to investigate undercover policing in England and Wales. Campaigners have challenged the failure to inquire into undercover policing in Scotland, but so far without success.

In 2021 The Ferret reported initial evidence to the inquiry suggesting that Scottish anti-nuclear groups had been spied upon. In July 2024 the inquiry released more than 100 SDS reports on the surveillance of the anti-nuclear movement across the UK in the 1980s.

According to the Guardian, they revealed extensive spying on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in England, as well as on women who protested against nuclear missiles at Greenham Common in Berkshire.

Inquiry documents have also disclosed the hitherto unknown extent of spying on anti-nuclear protests in Scotland. Spycops active north of the border have been named, and some of their undercover activities exposed…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://theferret.scot/spycops-torness-anti-nuclear-scotland/

August 12, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK