Anonymity for the police is a privilege. I was undercover for years and can see this privilege is being abused in the spycops inquiryI’m increasingly disturbed by the “spycops” public inquiry into the undercover policing of political protest groups,which is having yet another hearing on Wednesday to decide whether or not individual officers should be identified. The Metropolitan police is dictating the terms of this public inquiry and, even to a former undercover police officer like me, and it has begun to perceive like a whitewash.
In 2015,in the spirit of transparency, police misconduct hearings were made public. This means that any constable accused of wrongdoing now features in local newspapers or the national press. So why isn’t the behaviour of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit – at the centre of this inquiry – being examined with the same transparency?Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk