The mother of Stephen Lawrence is pressing for the “cowardly” undercover police officer who spied on her family’s campaign for justice to be questioned at a public inquiry.
The spycops inquiry has previously ruled that the undercover officer, David Hagan, was too ill to give live evidence, after submissions by his lawyers.
But this ruling is to be challenged on Monday by Doreen Lawrence and many victims of covert surveillance who argue that Hagan is a key witness in a crucial issue that is being examined by the inquiry.
The long-running inquiry was set up after a whistleblower revealed that undercover officers working for a Scotland Yard unit had in the 1990s monitored the Lawrences’ campaign to expose Stephen’s racist killers.
The surveillance occurred while the Lawrences and their supporters sought to persuade the Metropolitan police to properly investigate the 1993 murder.
Hagan was told by his superiors that his surveillance reports were being sent directly to Sir Paul Condon, the then Metropolitan police commissioner and now a peer, who congratulated him on his “excellent” work, the inquiry has heard.
He reported back to his managers that Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville, were splitting up. He also reported on their associates and their attitudes to political groups.
Sir John Mitting, a retired judge, is leading the inquiry that is examining a wide range of misconduct allegations relating to about 139 undercover officers who spied on thousands of mainly leftwing activists between 1968 and at least 2010. Many of the officers formed intimate relationships with women without telling them their real identities.
Hagan was an undercover officer in the unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), and spied on anti-racist and leftwing activists between 1996 and 2001.
Mitting ruled in September that Hagan would not be called in front of the inquiry to be questioned.
Hagan’s lawyers had cited a report by a doctor that said he suffers from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and that “the giving of oral evidence would risk a significant impact upon his behaviour and wellbeing”. The doctor also reported that “there was an 80 to 90% chance that [Hagan] would be unable meaningfully to engage with the inquiry”.
Imran Khan, Doreen Lawrence’s lawyer, will argue that Mitting “should approach this medical evidence … with caution and suspicion”.
“This is because there appears to be a growing pattern of undercover officers raising mental ill-health as a reason that they should not attend the inquiry to give oral evidence”, he added in a submission arguing to have the ruling overturned.
Khan pointed out that Hagan had been able to produce a 77-page written statement that had been sent to the inquiry. Mitting’s ruling means that at the moment Hagan cannot be tested by lawyers on what he has asserted.
At an earlier hearing, Lawrence had criticised “cowardly and disgraceful” police officers such as Hagan who sought to avoid “the full glare of public scrutiny” by hiding behind anonymity or not appearing at all at the inquiry.
Among those supporting her are Suresh Grover, an anti-racism campaigner who has long assisted the Lawrences and was himself spied on by the undercover unit.
Also calling for the ruling to be overturned is the whistleblower Peter Francis. He infiltrated anti-racist and leftwing campaigners between 1993 and 1997, while he worked for the SDS. In a letter to the inquiry, Francis said he had “very significant concerns” that Hagan was not being called to give live evidence.
Meanwhile, a former head of the SDS who is also at the centre of the controversy over the covert surveillance of the Lawrences’ campaign is taking legal action that would prevent him being questioned at the inquiry.
Francis has told the inquiry that the former SDS head between 1991 and 1994 was a “thoroughly and overtly racist man” who said, when referring to black justice campaigners, “the monkeys were being organised” and they had to stop it “before all the monkeys in London got out of their trees”. The officer, who is known only as HN86, denies the allegations.
HN86 is also alleged to have instructed Francis to gather information that could have been used to discredit the Lawrences.
