LONDON — As the adventures of globetrottingwhistleblower Edward Snowden dominate headlines around the world, the UK has been hit by allegations from a very different leaker of information. In a documentary put together by The Guardian and television Channel 4, broadcast on Monday night, a former undercover police officer revealed details of how he had been ordered to spy on the family of a young black man murdered in 1993.
These are grim revelations. The murder of Stephen Lawrence, 18, killed at a bus stop by a gang of white men on April 22, 1993, marked a significant change in how the UK dealt with racism. The subsequent investigations and botched trials also exposed a level of police involvement and cover-up that has dogged the force ever since. It has been long acknowledged that nothing the police did in the investigation it conducted was free from criticism.
The original trial, in 1993, acquitted the five suspects due to a lack of evidence, and it was not until, after a long, protracted and painful battle by the Lawrence family, new evidence was uncovered in 2011 that two of the suspects were convicted in 2012.
It has also been common knowledge for some time that undercover police officers have infiltrated activist movements. In 2011 it was suggested by some of these officers that they had not been banned from having sexual relations with activists as part of their infiltration, and only last week it was announced that an anti-McDonald’s leaflet produced by Greenpeace, known as “McLibel,” was in part written by an undercover officer.
Additional details, such as the suggestion that police officers used the names of dead children as part of their cover stories, have only increased the deeply unpleasant flavour of the case. Undercover police activities have been an embarrassing thorn in the force’s side for several years.
However, Monday’s revelations, announced by The Guardian in its daily edition in advance of the documentary shown that evening, have succeeded in connecting the two. Former undercover police officer Peter Francis stated that in the wake of the 1993 murder, he was ordered to investigate the Lawrence family and the victim’s best friend — with the explicit intention of digging up dirt that could undermine their cause.
The response, quite rightly, has been outrage. Police corruption since the first investigation has sadly become less of a surprise and more of a standard, but the notion that the police would spy on a victim’s family with the explicit remit of uncovering information that could discredit them suggests an unprecedented level of grimy disrespect and underhandedness that has come as a nasty shock to all.
The fact that no evidence against the family was uncovered, and that evidence that led to the arrest and charging of Duwayne Brooks, the victim’s best friend, was thrown out by the court, hardly make this easier to swallow.
The immediate political response has also been angry, and rightly so. Politicians from across the spectrum have totally condemned the suggested activities: David Cameron demanded the “full truth” regarding the allegations and two separate inquiries were announced yesterday by Home Secretary Theresa May — although neither of these was the public inquiry requested by the victim’s family.
The week has been revelatory because it has reminded the British public about the things that anger it. The extended story about NSA leaks and their implications regarding British intelligence are still lurking in the background, but the reaction to both the police allegations and also suggestions of how NHS whistle-blowers have been treated by the government has generated an actual backlash.
Cyber-spies and nefarious deeds in the ether are one thing; murky behaviour by those who have been entrusted to look after us in our daily lives is quite another.
As a nation, the British public is used to scandal, and even expects it to a certain degree. However, the reopening of wounds over the Stephen Lawrence case is the equivalent of lifting a very large rock and finding something truly unpleasant underneath. This is shameful behaviour and has deserved the wide condemnation it has received.
In that sense, the difference between how the public and the media in general have reacted to the NSA leaks and the most recent exposé reveals what the UK can stomach and what it can’t. International spying by governments on its citizens or others is almost run of the mill when compared with allegations that the police would actively seek to discredit the most wounded of victims.
The fact that these events happened over twenty years ago is little consolation. The grubby nature of the police force is just one of the elements of society that disgusts the British public, and these are the scandals that affect it.
What is remarkable is that although both the NSA and police allegations refer to cases in which the state is spying on its citizens, it is the latter that angers most. However,what the public deems acceptable is being defined by each subsequent scandal, broken in turn by the media — which means that our limits, the threshold of the public’s patience, are re-drawn on a weekly basis.
@archiewhit
First published on June 26, 2013
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