May rejected call for Scots inquiry into rogue undercover police spies

TOM GORDON

currently pursuing risks doing a disservice to people in Scotland affected by the activities of a force falling under the oversight of your department.”

Mrs May set up the inquiry in 2014 after revelations undercover police infiltrated political and environmental groups and had sex with some of the female protesters they were spying on. Officers often faked mental illness to disappear suddenly from longterm relationships.

Spies also collected information about grieving families, including the parents of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, and stole the identities of dead children.

Police in Scotland were seconded to a disgraced undercover unit called the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which was set up to 1999 to combat domestic extremism, but extended its surveillance to low-level protest campaigns. Although based south of the Border, NPOIU operated in Scotland, embedding officers such as the notorious “Mark Stone” – also known as Mark Kennedy – into groups at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005.

Originally known as the Pitchford Inquiry, the investigation is now known as the Undercover Policing Inquiry since the judge leading it stepped aside for health reasons. The correspondence, released by the Scottish Government, shows that the SNP Justice Secretary asked Mrs May in multiple phone calls and letters to extend the inquiry to Scotland.

After he wrote to Mrs May in December 2015, she replied the following month, saying the inquiry was “interested in the whole story” and “a complete picture”, but went on: “I am not minded to expand the terms of reference at this time, but I am happy to discuss further.”

The pair then had a telephone conversation on February 2 in which Mrs May agreed to look at whether the inquiry could “consider specific incidents where Metropolitan Police officers have been involved in national operations in Scotland”.

But in March she wrote that “after careful consideration” she was still “not minded to revisit the scope at this stage given the impact of doing so. I must therefore advise you that, regrettably, the inquiry will not be able to consider activities in Scotland.”

However later that month Mr Matheson persisted and expressed his “disappointment”.

Mrs May refused to budge in a third letter in April 2016 but Mr Matheson tried again the following month. The inquiry, now chaired by Lord Mitting, has so far cost around £7 million. It was due to be completed next year, but is now thought unlikely to start hearing evidence in public until the second half of 2019.

Jonathan Poole was jailed for four years.