Police 5




I enjoyed this report in the Private Eye which just goes to show you as well as playing things for laughs, the magazine is at the heart of some of the best investigative journalism in the UK.

 POLICE 5

 The Metropolitan Police is refusing to say whether Special Branch spied on Hillsborough justice campaigners, saying it has to keep schtum :in order to safeguard national security". Really?

 Under freedom of information rules, Private Eye asked the Met for any files it held on the Hillsborough Family Support Group or the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC), the two groups that fought to uncover the truth after bad policing caused 96 deaths in the 1989 football stadium disaster.

 The request was prompted by revelations that Special Branch officers spied on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence during their campaign for justice.

 Intriguingly the Met said it would "neither confirm nor deny" that it held papers on Hillsborough, claiming that any response could form  part of a "mosaic" or "jigsaw" by which "determined" people like "investigative journalists, estranged partners, stalkers, or industrial spies" could work out who the police do and do not monitor.

 This "would enable those engaged in criminal activity or any form of domestic extremism to identify the focus of policing activity and would prejudice national security".

 This argument associates Hillsborough campaigners with criminals and extremists, when they are neither: and whether or not Special Branch kept files on campaigners is unlikely to be of use to real crooks.

 Rather than keeping quiet in order to "protect democracy', is the Met not simply trying to spare its own blushes at having to admit to spying on bereaved families who were trying to highlight bad policing?    

 Having had some experience on the Freedom of Information campaign trail - I have to say I couldn't agree more. 

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