The colossal scale of internet and phone interception, mainly against unknown targets, carried out by the NSA in the US and our very own GCHQ provoked screaming headlines around the world. But the secret attempts to smear the Lawrence family by undercover Met police hit home more directly.
Neville (pictured) and Doreen Lawrence lost their son, Stephen, to a racist gang of thugs and were consistently denied justice by a police force shown to be institutionally racist. It was hard to say at the time, in 1999, when the Macpherson report was published. The senior cops, far removed from the canteen culture and Policeman's Balls accepted some managerial repositioning on diversity but resisted Home Sec Jack Straw's bolder statements on change to rank and file attitudes.
We already know there was barely any enthusiasm for finding evidence in the Lawrence murder case and the assailants seemingly became immune to prosecution. What we didn't know, until now, was there were, simultaneously, mighty efforts made to dig dirt on the family and monitor all their friends and house visitors by the Met Police's Special Demonstration Squad. They even corrupted the trust between the Lawrences and Family Liaison Officers. The stated justification of preventing public disorder has been used by tyrannical regimes for decades.
It would appear that Jack Straw was deceived throughout by a Special Branch campaign, presumably through the friendly tabloids, to destroy the Lawrence's family name by formulating false links to criminality. Straw, said yesterday, the secret operation was, "a perversion of police resources, priorities and principles." Duwayne Brookes, Stephen's best mate, now a Councillor was set up on a charge of criminal damage. He was well used to this hostile treatment having been falsely accused of two petty crimes carried out within Eltham police station on the night of Stephen's murder.
Neville Lawrence said the family's decisions throughout was to, "use the courts". It is the ultimate irony that it was the police, the upholders of the law, who were pursuing an obsession to taint the Lawrences as criminally dubious while the family themselves maintained their faith in a corrupt Criminal Justice System.
We have already learned of the revelations of undercover police forming long-term relationships, fathering children and using dead children's identities. There will be more to come: there were about 130 officers leading double lives to trap families and protestors into criminal charges for what appears to be political motives against liberals, environmentalists, campaigners and civil rights activists. This operation amounts to an assault on democracy.
As Straw has said, the critical question is, "how high up" the knowledge and authorisation went. An investigation chaired by a judge would struggle to uncover these deep layers of official deceit. The offer of the current Home Sec to leave it to other police and one barrister to determine the truth is derisory. Small wonder Neville Lawrence has dismised this offer out of hand as "unacceptable". The police have not even felt it necessary to apologise to the women whose lives have been ripped apart by this serial undercover operation when they fell into relationships with spying officers and so could not have given "informed consent".
Chief Constable Mick Creedon, Head of Operation Herne, which will not report until at least 2016, hardly fulfills our confidence by his blase attitude to human dignity and happiness. In an inteview with the Guardian, he said he did not feel like exposing the whole scale of surveillance and duplicity: "'The way the world is now, that will fizz around the internet networks instantly,' he said, adding that he saw little benefit in "raking up" the issue with parents who would otherwise remain oblivious."
Creedon already appears to be unable to seek the transparency which would properly expose these outrageous actions and we will be waiting years in any case. Few could seriously expect one of their own to bring down a fellow senior officer. I mean, when did that last happen? The precedents are not all inspiring.
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