Undercover tactics by a secret unit of the Met Police that infiltrated left-wing groups over decades was 'unjustified', an inquiry has found
Authorisation for the SDS had to be given every year by the Home Office. In 1976 a group of senior police officers found the squad should continue work with at least 12 undercover officers.
"Putting to one side the risk that sexual relationships might develop, this intrusion into the lives of many hundreds of people in this era required cogent justification before it should have been contemplated as a police tactic."Sir John went on: "None of these issues appears to have been addressed by senior officers with the MPS or by Home Office officials during this period.
"Long-term deployments into left-wing and anarchist groups did make a real contribution to achieving this end, even though this was or could have been achieved to a significant extent by other, less intrusive, means."The question is whether or not the end justified the means." This is the first report to come from the Undercover Policing Inquiry, which was set up in 2015 by then home secretary Theresa May in response to outrage over various tactics used by undercover officers. The inquiry, which has so far cost £64 million, is expected to finish in three years' time.
He said: "The fact that in this period no decision was made to infiltrate right-wing groups did not result from political bias on the part of those responsible for targeting, but from the belief that existing coverage sufficed and through concern about the risk of violence which such a deployment might pose."
"It is reprehensible that Sir John Mitting does not take a stand on the very evidence of discriminatory policing his inquiry uncovered." The Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance claimed that the report was "full of astonishing credulity".
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