Peter Francis says he had ‘hostile’ exchanges over telling 1990s Macpherson inquiry into racist murder about covert operation
Senior police officers resisted the idea of disclosing the covert monitoring of the family of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence to a public inquiry, a whistleblower has alleged.
Peter Francis, the whistleblower, said that he wanted to reveal the surveillance of the family and their campaign by undercover police officers to the public inquiry that was led by Sir William Macpherson in the late 1990s.
Francis said he was opposed by his managers in “hostile and heated” exchanges.
The Macpherson inquiry was examining how the Metropolitan police had failed to investigate properly Stephen’s racist murder in 1993. The police faced intense criticism from the Lawrence family and their supporters in a case that came to symbolise police racism.
The Lawrences did not find out about the secret monitoring until more than 15 years later. The Met has since apologised to the family for putting them under surveillance.
Francis has now given details of the “sensitive” row to a different public inquiry. The spycops inquiry is examining the conduct of about 139 undercover officers who spied on tens of thousands of political activists between 1968 and at least 2010.
This week, the inquiry has been hearing evidence from Francis, the only undercover officer sent to spy on political campaigns who has blown the whistle on its covert work and abusive behaviour. The ...
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