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“Spycops” in Scotland: Matilda Gifford's Judicial Review – No Right to the Truth?

Document Cited authorities 5 Cited in Related
Vincent
Author
Published date01 May 2019
Date01 May 2019
DOI10.3366/elr.2019.0554
Pages253-258
INTRODUCTION

“There is no evidence of any systemic failings within undercover policing by Scottish police”.1 Michael Matheson, the then Cabinet Secretary for Justice in the Scottish Government was confident in this assertion when refusing to order a public inquiry into Scottish undercover policing in early February 2018. The announcement was overshadowed somewhat by the formal resignation of Chief Constable Phil Gormley that day after long-running bullying allegations,2 but had been a long time in the making. Matheson had ordered Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (“HMICS”) in September 2016 to look into the practice within Scottish policing. The report has been in Government hands since November 2017.3

 THE UK CONTEXT

The context for such discussions, unusually for policing matters in Scotland, was a UK one. Since 2015, under the orders of then Home Secretary Theresa May, an inquiry had been established into undercover policing in England and Wales.4 This followed whistleblowing revelations of police infiltration into environmental and protest groups with evidence that intimate relationships were formed by London-based police whilst undercover. Indeed, the Metropolitan Police released an unprecedented apology for their officers’ actions coupled with a substantial financial settlement.5 An attempt to gain a criminal prosecution for rape for these officers under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 failed in December 2018.6

One of the key individual London “spycops” involved in these incidents, Mark Kennedy, had operated throughout the 2000s including in Scotland where major protests had been held during the G8 summit in the summer of 2005.7 The HMICS report confirmed he had been deployed in Scotland fourteen times. This overlap with Scottish jurisdiction led to calls from the Scottish Government and from a cross-party group of backbench MSPs for the inquiry to stretch its jurisdiction to include Scotland. This request was refused8 and confirmed in letter from a UK Government Minister to a backbench Labour MSP in July 2016.9 There were a number of reasons for this, including the worry of going outwith the scope of the inquiry and causing further delay to proceedings which had already begun.

 MATILDA GIFFORD'S BACKGROUND

In light of the above, the Scottish Government's decision of February 2018 therefore confirmed that any potential “victims” of undercover policing based in Scotland would not have access to any public inquiry process. One person who felt aggrieved by this was Matilda “Tilly” Gifford. She was an environmental activist in the “Plane Stupid” group which undertakes direct action around airports.10 Tilly herself had been convicted of breach of the peace for disrupting Aberdeen Airport in 2010.11 Around the same time she was also approached by covert police officers in Glasgow and offered money to act as an informant. She recorded this and the tapes appeared in the media.12 As she remained based in Scotland, and it was unclear on whose authority those officers were acting, this incident would not be investigated by the Pitchford Inquiry. Ms Giffford therefore found herself directly affected by the decisions of the UK Government not to extend its inquiry into Scotland and of the Scottish Government not to set up its own inquiry. Thus, a petition for judicial review was entered in her name...

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