2024-10-16 16:47:00
Wednesday 16 October 2024, 6.47pm
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There were no legal or moral limits to the activity of a shadowy Scotland Yard unit, the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS), which was formed in the heat of anti-Vietnam War protests in 1968. Its agents infiltrated thousands of trade unions, groups, associations and left-wing parties, where they conducted missions and perpetrated other abuses that are coming to light in an independent investigation, chaired by retired judge John Mitting since 2014. To do this, they even formed families with the activists.
“This was a political policing unit that exceeded the normal bounds of legality,” said lawyer Peter Weatherby, who represents the Hunt Saboteurs Association. Nearly 140 SDS officers are under scrutiny for actions and falsehoods committed since at least 2010, including interference and manipulation of judicial proceedings.
This is the case of Dave Morris, a professional postman and community activist since 1974, who gave oral evidence this week. Morris and his colleague Helen Steel – whose testimony was postponed until November – won a popular battle against McDonald’s, in a defamation case against the hamburger multinational, which lasted from 1990 to 2005. “The longest trial in history of English law,” Morris noted of McLibel (nickname adapted into English) in his electronic testimony.
“They fought until the end and won”
The current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, who graduated in Law in 1985, provided legal advice to the couple, without asking for any compensation, in the bitter battle against the American giant. “They fought to the end and won,” the human rights and civil liberties lawyer proudly recalls in a campaign video for the Labor leadership.
The public inquiry is now looking into SDS’s involvement in McLibel, which targets Starmer. Morris identified two officers complicit in the trial: Bob Lambert, who had a child with an activist and disappeared from their lives for years; and John Dines, who, he explained to the judge, “engineered a long, fraudulent, cynical and abusive relationship” with Steel.
The false report lasted two years, the “most important in setting the direction and strategy” of McDonald’s lawsuit. Morris referred to a section of the undercover officer’s testimony in which he admits having access to confidential information passed on by Starmer. The lawyer’s advice would reach the top of the brigades and even the multinational team.
“It is fair to say that I stood alongside Helen Steel and Dave Morris in 1991 and provided legal advice to my bosses at SDS,” the corrupt officer read in the written statement. The investigation continues.
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