Anthony Barker says police could have put family in danger by using identity of brother John, who died aged eight

John Dines, a police sergeant who adopted the identity of John Barker to pose as an environmental campaigner, pictured in the early 1990s

Undercover police were “reckless” when they stole the identity of an eight-year-old boy who had died of leukaemia, according to his brother, who is demanding an apology for putting his family at risk.

Anthony Barker, whose brother John Barker died in 1968, said he was shocked to discover the boy’s identity was resurrected and adopted by undercover police spying on political groups.

The Metropolitan police has admitted that two of its undercover units appear to have used the identities of dead children, a practice which has lasted four decades and was still going on in the 2000s.

The identity of John Barker was adopted by a police sergeant called John Dines, who posed as an environmental campaigner between 1987 and 1992.

“The danger the police put my family in – and all the other families this has happened to – is horrendous,” Barker said. An investigation by the Guardian has established police used the identities of dead children so their undercover agents could pose as real people. Barker said that in doing so, they placed innocent families at risk.

“In our case, we now discover, there was a girlfriend who was left behind when the policeman pretending to be my brother disappeared from the scene,” he said. “Apparently she was so worried about him that she tracked him down to the house we had moved out of a few years earlier.

“Now, imagine that policeman had infiltrated a violent gang or made friends with a volatile person, then disappeared, just like this man did.

“Someone wanting revenge would have tracked us down to our front door – but they wouldn’t have wanted a cup of tea and a chat, like this woman says she did.”

Although many police spies using dead children’s identities were infiltrating peaceful leftwing and environmental groups, many were also deployed in violent far-right groups.

“If we had told those sorts of people that the man they thought they had known for so many years has died as a little boy, they would have thought we were lying,” Barker said. “Who knows what would have happened to us then?”

He added: “These people could have found our family in a heartbeat. That was an absolutely reckless thing for the police to do.”

Anthony Barker, who was born the year after his brother died, said: “My parents always said he was a lovely lad. They could not afford more than one child. They only had me because John passed away.

“It totally shattered my parents when he died. You can see from photographs how much his death aged them. When I was a toddler they looked like my grandparents.”

Barker described the use of dead children’s identities as a “clinical, mechanic way of policing” and morally “horrific”. He believed his parents, who are now deceased, would have been appalled to discover a police officer was posing as their beloved son.

“In my view, these were politically motivated undercover operations. That is what I cannot understand. What kinds of crimes did these political activists commit? We’re not talking about drug dealers or terrorists. These operations must have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and all the while my parents were living in poverty.”

He added: “Not only is it horrendous to steal the identity of a child but by taking that identity into an unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation, they’re putting entire families at risk.”

The Met has declined to say how many dead children’s identities it believes have been used by covert agents, although the force has stressed that the practice is not currently in use.

A document seen by the Guardian indicates that the Special Demonstration Squad, one of two police units known to have used the practice, used the identities of around 80 dead children.

On Tuesday the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Patricia Gallan told a parliamentary inquiry that a second unit involved in spying on protesters appears to have used dead children’s identities.

The second unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, was founded in 1999 and operated throughout the 2000s.

It suggests the total number of dead children’s identities used by police could exceed 100.

MPs expressed their disapproval when Gallan, who is overseeing a £1.25m review of protest spying operations, refused to apologise for any hurt caused until her inquiries were complete.

She also refused to say whether she would contact the families involved, saying there were “legal and ethical issues” to consider.

Barker said: “I strongly believe all the families who this has happened to need to be told. They have been placed at risk. That is the bottom line. These were undercover operations. Anything could have happened.”

…

Amelia Hill, Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 February 2013 16.55 GMT

Find this story at 6 February 2013
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

When the man known to his activist girlfriend as John Barker disappeared, she embarked on a journey that led her to the former home of a child whose name he used as an alias

John Dines taking part in a race in the early 1990s when he was serving as an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police’s special branch

John Barker was an eight-year-old boy who died of leukaemia in 1968. Nineteen years later his identity was quietly resurrected by the police. The man who adopted the boy’s identity, claiming it as his own, was John Dines, an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police’s special branch.

In 1987 Dines was tasked with posing as an anti-capitalist protester, feeding intelligence to his handlers in a secret unit called the special demonstration squad (SDS). It was a controversial and morally dubious deployment that lasted five years and will now return to haunt him.

Like many SDS officers, Dines had a long-term girlfriend who was a political activist. She does not want to be identified and has asked to be referred to as Clare.

Her story lays bare the emotional trauma experienced by women whom police have described as “collateral” victims of their spy operations, as well as the risks police were taking by adopting the identities of dead children.

In 1990 the man Clare knew as John Barker asked to borrow money so he could fly to New Zealand for his mother’s funeral. “The night before he got the flight to go there, he stayed at my place and kind of poured his heart out. We became emotionally close. When he got back, we got together.”

There was no funeral in New Zealand and Dines had no need to borrow money. But Clare had known Dines as a fellow protester for three years and had no reason to suspect him. The couple would end up in an intimate relationship for two years.

“He said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and I was madly in love with him,” she said. “He said he wanted us to have kids. He used to say he had once seen an elderly Greek couple sitting on a veranda gazing into the sunset, and that he pictured us growing old like that.”

By the summer of 1991, as part of an exit strategy, Dines began exhibiting symptoms of a mental breakdown.

“He kept talking about how he had nobody left apart from me,” Clare said. “His parents had both died. He had no brothers and sisters. The only woman that he had ever loved before me, a woman called Debbie, had left him. He said he was convinced I was going to do the same to him.”

Dines gave the impression he wanted to run away to escape inner demons. “I saw him crying loads,” Clare said. “He told me that he had thrown all of his mother’s jewellery into a river because he thought she never loved him. He told me his parents had abused him.”

In March 1992 an emotional-sounding Dines called from Heathrow airport saying he was about to fly to South Africa. After that, Clare received two letters with South African postmarks. Then her boyfriend vanished altogether.

Clare was left distraught and confused. “I was very worried about his mental state,” she said. “I was also sick with worry that he might kill himself.”

Clare contacted the British consulate in South Africa and frantically phoned hostels she thought he may have stayed in Johannesburg. She later hired a private investigator who could find no trace of Dines.

It was the start of a journey for the truth that would last almost two decades and eventually take her to New Zealand. It was not until 2010 that she found out for sure that the man she had loved was a police spy.

For some of the time that Clare thought her boyfriend was missing abroad, he was actually working just a few miles away. When his undercover work finished, Dines changed his mullet-style haircut and returned to a desk job at the Met headquarters in Scotland Yard where, according to a colleague, he appeared “very miserable”.

In her search for clues, one of the first things Clare did was locate a copy of what she assumed was her boyfriend’s birth certificate. The document confirmed the details he had always given her: it named a city in the Midlands where he was born in January 1960. She had no idea that the identity was a forgery, or that the real John Barker had died as a boy.

In April 1993, desperate after a year of searching, Clare decided to visit Barker’s family home in the hope of finding any surviving relatives, but when she knocked on the door of the terrace house there was no answer. She went back later but the occupants said the family no longer lived there.

Looking back, she wonders what would have occurred if the dead child’s parents had opened the door. “It would have been horrendous,” she said. “It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier.”

It was another 18 months before Clare decided to inspect the national death records. “I just suddenly got this instinct. It was a whim: I thought, I’m going to go in there and look through the death records.”

She recalls her horror when she discovered the real John Barker was dead. “It sent a chill down my spine,” she said. “When I got the certificate itself, it was so clear. The same person. The same parents. The same address. But he had died as an eight-year-old boy.”

The Guardian has been unable to find surviving relatives of the child.

The discovery turned Clare’s world upside down. “It was like a bereavement but it was not something I could talk to people about. Now suddenly he didn’t exist. This was a man I had known for five years, who I had lived with for two years. How could I trust anybody again?”

Clare now knew her boyfriend had lied about his identity, but still had no idea who he was. The idea that he might have been a police spy crossed her mind, but he might also have worked in corporate espionage or had a hidden criminal past. It was another 10 years of searching before she got closer to the truth.

Clare had two clues to go on. One was the name of a woman in New Zealand who Dines had told her was an aunt. The other was a letter in which he had made a curious reference to his biological father being a man he had never met, called Jim Dines.

The woman in New Zealand was not his aunt but, bizarrely, the mother of Dines’s real wife. Stranger still, Jim Dines was, in fact, the police officer’s real father and had brought him up in London.

Clare has no idea why the undercover police officer chose to compromise his deployment by giving Clare cryptic references to people in his real life. Perhaps he was psychologically traumatised by his dual identities and wanted to leave a trail that would allow Clare to find him.

Whatever his reason, the clues led Clare to a public archive in New Zealand. It was there, in 2003, that she made a crucial connection: a document that linked Dines with the woman he married, Debbie.

Clare instantly realised they must have been a married couple. Back in London, she ordered the couple’s wedding certificate. “What hit me like a ton of bricks is that he listed his occupation as a police officer,” she said. “When I read that, I felt utterly sick and really violated. It ripped me apart basically, just reading that.”

Clare was now agonisingly close to the truth. She knew that Dines was a police officer when he married his wife in 1977. But there was still a possibility that he gave up his job before becoming a political activist.

She shared the evidence with friends and family. Some cautioned her against concluding Dines had been a police spy. “I remember my dad and others said: ‘You’re being paranoid – that would never happen in this country.'”

…

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.21 GMT

Find this story at 3 February 2013
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan summoned before MPs to respond to revelations officers used IDs of children

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1980s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism. Dines’s alternative identity used that of a child who had died. Photograph: Guardian

A senior police chief has been summoned to parliament to explain why police secretly authorised undercover officers to steal the identities of around 80 dead children.

Pat Gallan, the Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner in charge of the complaints department, will respond to the revelations at a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday.

An investigation by the Guardian has revealed that police infiltrating protest groups have for three decades adopted the identities of dead children, without informing or consulting their parents.

Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children.

Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs select committee has said he is “shocked” at the “gruesome” practice.

“The committee will hear from those who have been involved in undercover operations as well as their victims,” he said. “I have asked the deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan to deal with the issues that have arisen.”

Gallan is head of the Met’s department for professional standards.

The Guardian has established how police officers were equipped with fabricated identity records, such as driving licences and national insurance numbers, in the name of their chosen dead child. They also visited the family home of the dead child to familiarise themselves with the surroundings and conducted research into other family members.

Scotland Yard has already announced an investigation into the controversy. It said it had received one complaint – believed to be a reference to a suspected police officer who was undercover in 2003 – and said it could “appreciate the concerns that have been raised”. The force said that the practice of using the identities of dead children is not currently authorised.

The operation is known to have been orchestrated by the Special Demonstration Squad, a secretive Met unit disbanded in 2008. Dozens of SDS officers are believed to have searched through birth and death certificates to find a child who had died young and would be a suitable match for their alias.

The officers then adopted the entire identity of the child as if the child had never died. One police officer has said the process was like “resurrecting” a dead person’s identity.

The disclosure comes after two years of revelations concerning undercover police officers having sexual relationships with women they are spying on. Eleven women are currently bringing legal action against the Met for damages.

Vaz said: “The activities of undercover police officers caused disbelief when they were revealed in 2011. These revelations [about the use of dead children’s identities] are shocking. I congratulate the Guardian on their investigation. To have used the identities of dead children without the knowledge or consent of their parents astonishes me. It sounds gruesome. ”

…

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 February 2013 12.36 GMT

Find this story at 4 February 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

The Metropolitan Police covertly stole the identities of about 80 dead children for use in operations by undercover police officers, according to a new investigation.

The practice, condemned as “gruesome” by Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, carried on for three decades as a means for police to infiltrate anti-racist, anti-capitalist and far-right protest groups. Officers obtained passports, driving licences and national insurance numbers under their new identities.

…

Tim Hume
Monday, 4 February 2013

Find this story at 4 February 2013

© independent.co.uk

Exclusive: Undercover officers created aliases based on details found in birth and death records, Guardian investigation reveals

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1990s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism

Britain’s largest police force stole the identities of an estimated 80 dead children and issued fake passports in their names for use by undercover police officers.

The Metropolitan police secretly authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children’s parents.

The details are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian, which has established how over three decades generations of police officers trawled through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches.

Undercover officers created aliases based on the details of the dead children and were issued with accompanying identity records such as driving licences and national insurance numbers. Some of the police officers spent up to 10 years pretending to be people who had died.

The Met said the practice was not “currently” authorised, but announced an investigation into “past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS [Special Demonstration Squad] officers”.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of parliament’s home affairs select committee, said he was shocked at the “gruesome” practice. “It will only cause enormous distress to families who will discover what has happened concerning the identities of their dead children,” he said. “This is absolutely shocking.”

The technique of using dead children as aliases has remained classified intelligence for several decades, although it was fictionalised in Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal. As a result, police have internally nicknamed the process of searching for suitable identities as the “jackal run”. One former undercover agent compared an operation on which he was deployed to the methods used by the Stasi.

Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children. One, who adopted the fake persona of Pete Black while undercover in anti-racist groups, said he felt he was “stomping on the grave” of the four-year-old boy whose identity he used.

“A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this,” he said. The Guardian has chosen not to identify Black by his real name.

The other officer, who adopted the identity of a child who died in a car crash, said he was conscious the parents would “still be grief-stricken”. He spoke on the condition of anonymity and argued his actions could be justified because they were for the “greater good”.

Both officers worked for a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008.

A third undercover police officer in the SDS who adopted the identity of a dead child can be named as John Dines, a sergeant. He adopted the identity of an eight-year-old boy named John Barker, who died in 1968 from leukaemia. The Met said in a statement: “We are not prepared to confirm nor deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations.”

The force added: “A formal complaint has been received which is being investigated by the DPS [Directorate for Professional Standards] and we appreciate the concerns that have been raised. The DPS inquiry is taking place in conjunction with Operation Herne’s investigation into the wider issue of past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS officers. We can confirm that the practice referred to in the complaint is not something that would currently be authorised in the [Met police].”

There is a suggestion that the practice of using dead infant identities may have been stopped in the mid-1990s, when death records were digitised. However, the case being investigated by the Met relates to a suspected undercover police officer who may have used a dead child’s identity in 2003.

The practice was introduced 40 years ago by police to lend credibility to the backstory of covert operatives spying on protesters, and to guard against the possibility that campaigners would discover their true identities.

Since then dozens of SDS officers, including those who posed as anti-capitalists, animal rights activists and violent far-right campaigners, have used the identities of dead children.

One document seen by the Guardian indicates that around 80 police officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994. The total number could be higher.

Black said he always felt guilty when celebrating the birthday of the four-year-old whose identity he took. He was particularly aware that somewhere the parents of the boy would be “thinking about their son and missing him”. “I used to get this really odd feeling,” he said.

To fully immerse himself in the adopted identity and appear convincing when speaking about his upbringing, Black visited the child’s home town to familiarise himself with the surroundings.

Black, who was undercover in the 1990s, said his operation was “almost Stasi-like”. He said SDS officers visited the house they were supposed to have been born in so they would have a memory of the building.

“It’s those little details that really matter – the weird smell coming out of the drain that’s been broken for years, the location of the corner Post Office, the number of the bus you get to go from one place to another,” he said.

The second SDS officer said he believed the use of the harvested identities was for the “greater good”. But he was also aware that the parents had not been consulted. “There were dilemmas that went through my head,” he said.

The case of the third officer, John Dines, reveals the risks posed to families who were unaware that their children’s identities were being used by undercover police.

During his covert deployment, Dines had a two-year relationship with a female activist before disappearing from her life. In an attempt to track down her disappeared boyfriend, the woman discovered the birth certificate of John Barker and tried to track down his family, unaware that she was actually searching for a dead child.

She said she was relieved that she never managed to find the parents of the dead boy. “It would have been horrendous,” she said. “It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier.”

The disclosure about the use of the identities of dead children is likely to reignite the controversy over undercover police infiltration of protest groups. Fifteen separate inquiries have already been launched since 2011, when Mark Kennedy was unmasked as a police spy who had slept with several women, including one who was his girlfriend for six years.

…

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.13 GMT

Find this story at 3 February 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Multimillion-pound plans by three police forces to outsource services to the firm at the centre of the Olympics security debacle have collapsed.

Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd said the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Strategic Alliance had discontinued negotiations with G4S.

The three forces were looking in to working with G4S in a bid to save £73 million by outsourcing support functions.

The proposals involved switching 1,100 roles, including human resources, IT and finance to the security contractor.

But doubts were raised after the company was forced to admit severe failings over the Olympics security contract last summer, which led to police officers and 3,500 extra troops being deployed to support the operation.

In a statement, Mr Lloyd said: “I have always said that I would make my decision once the evidence was received and assessed.

“It is now clear that the G4S framework contract through Lincolnshire Police was not suitable for the unique position of the three forces.”

But he added that outsourcing to other companies would still be considered.

Mr Lloyd said: “I am already in discussion with other market providers and will continue to talk with G4S about how they can assist policing support services in Hertfordshire. My clear position is that all elements of support work will be considered for outsourcing or other use of the market.

“I made my decision based on evidence and on the recommendations from the Chief Constables. I still believe that substantial elements of policing support services will be best delivered by the private sector and will ensure that this option is immediately pursued.

“We will now move forward looking at organisational support services, as before.”

Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire, Olly Martins, said: “The concerns that I had about this proposal are on record but I am pleased that following the evaluation and subsequent discussions, the three Police and Crime Commissioners have ended up in agreement with a shared view that this contract does not deliver what we need.

“However, we do still have to save money. Strengthening the ways in which we collaborate with Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire is a crucial element of our on-going investment in all our police services.

“I now look forward to working with my fellow commissioners to develop new and innovative ways in which we can progress our collaborative approach.”

The force’s Chief Constable Alf Hitchcock said: “As an Alliance we have been working together to explore a range of options for making savings at a time when all three forces are facing significant financial challenges.

“Along with my Chief Constable colleagues in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire and the three commissioners, we are continuing to explore other opportunities, whilst in Bedfordshire we are using the Option 10 and Lean processes to achieve savings in-house and protect front line policing.”

Kim Challis, chief executive of G4S Government and outsourcing solutions, said: “We have put forward a compelling proposition to the police forces of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire which would have guaranteed them savings of over £100 million over the next ten years, allowing them to meet the financial challenge of the Comprehensive Spending Review without compromising on efficiency or public safety.

“Our proposition was to operate back office services at the volume and scale required to deliver significant savings to forces, enabling them to concentrate their resources on frontline roles: it was never about replacing police officers. This has already proved to be the case in Lincolnshire, where we have a successful partnership which, in less than a year, has seen us deliver savings in running costs of around 16%.

…

Jennifer Cockerell
Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Find this story at 30 January 2013

© independent.co.uk

Police to launch criminal investigation into deaths of 14 people after British paratroopers opened fire on crowd, in 1972

British troops behind a wire barricade in Derry, on Bloody Sunday, when 13 people were killed at a protest march, in 1972. Photograph: Bentley Archive/Popperfoto/Getty Images

A murder inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry is to begin in the new year.

Senior commanders from the Police Service of Northern Ireland on Thursday briefed relatives of the 14 people who died after British paratroopers opened fire on demonstrators in the city, in 1972.

Earlier this year, police signalled an intent to investigate the incident after they and prosecutors reviewed the findings of the Saville public inquiry into the controversial shootings. Until now it had been unclear when such an investigation would start.

After the 12-year inquiry, Lord Saville found that the killings were unjustified and none of the dead posed a threat when they were shot.

That contradicted the long-standing official version of events, outlined in the contentious 1972 Widgery report, which had exonerated soldiers of any blame.

…

Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 December 2012 17.31 GMT

Find this story at 20 December 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Ruling clears way for fresh inquest into 96 deaths, re-examining roles of police, Sheffield council and Sheffield Wednesday

Relatives of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster have said they feel vindicated in their 23-year campaign for justice after the original inquest verdict of accidental death was quashed in the high court.

The landmark verdict clears the way for a new inquest into the deaths next year, re-examining the roles of the police and other emergency services, Sheffield council and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, and leading to the possibility of new verdicts of unlawful killing.

The lord chief justice said it was “inevitable” that the emergence of fresh evidence about how and why the 96 victims died made it “desirable and reasonable for a fresh inquest to be heard”.

“However distressing or unpalatable, the truth will be brought to light,” Lord Judge said. “In this way, the families of those who died in the disaster will be properly respected. Our earnest wish is the new inquest will not be delayed for a moment longer than necessary.”

The decision came as a new police investigation into the disaster was announced by the home secretary, Theresa May. The former Durham chief constable Jon Stoddart will lead the new inquiry and liaise with a parallel Independent Police Complaints Commission review.

The application by the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, to quash the original verdicts was made in the wake of the publication in September of the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) report and accepted by three high court judges.

New medical evidence revealed that 58 victims “definitely or probably” had the capacity to survive beyond the 3.15pm cut-off point imposed by the original coroner, Dr Stefan Popper. In a further 12 cases, the cause of death remained unclear.

Grieve said the application was unopposed and supported by all the families and the defendants, the coroner for South Yorkshire and the coroner for West Yorkshire.

The original coroner said that no evidence gathered after 3.15pm, when the first ambulance arrived on the pitch, would be considered because he believed that by that point all 96 victims were already dead. As a result, the role of the police and the emergency services in the aftermath of the disaster was not considered.

The attorney general told the court that medical evidence from Dr Bill Kirkup and Prof Jack Crane formed “the essential basis” for his application, meaning that the premise of the original inquest was unsustainable.

“The new medical evidence presented by the panel’s report leads to the conclusion that justice has not been done,” he said.

The lord chief justice said there was “ample evidence to suggest that the 3.15pm cut-off was seriously flawed” and that was sufficient on its own to justify the quashing of the original inquest.

It raised new questions about the conduct of police and the emergency services, he said.

But he said there were other reasons for ordering a new inquest, including the 116 amendments to police statements designed to cast them in a better light, and new evidence about the safety of the stadium.

Set up to reconsider all evidence relating to the disaster, including new documents made available for the first time, the HIP report raised serious concerns about the adequacy of the original inquest in Sheffield in 1990.

The review found that the decision to impose the cut-off severely limited examination of the response of the police and emergency services to the disaster on 15 April 1989, in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium, and “raised profound concerns regarding sufficiency of inquiry and examination of evidence”.

The lord chief justice agreed, saying that “in our judgment the 3.15pm cut-off point provided not only the most dramatic but also the most distressing aspect” of the new evidence.

“In short, the unchallenged evidence of pathologists at the Taylor inquiry and the subsequent inquest is no longer accepted,” he said.

…

Owen Gibson
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 December 2012 21.50 GMT

Find this story at 19 December 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

“Leden van etnische minderheden zijn oververtegenwoordigd in de criminaliteitsstatistieken. In Nederland is veel onderzoek gedaan naar verklaringen voor het criminele gedrag van leden van etnische minderheden. Er is daarentegen nauwelijks aandacht besteed aan de mogelijkheid dat de oververtegenwoordiging een weerspiegeling is van selectief politieoptreden. Ik stelde daarom de vraag welke factoren van invloed zijn op de keuzes die politiemensen maken met betrekking tot het staande houden van burgers, een praktijk waarin selectief politieoptreden het duidelijkst op te merken is, en of deze selectiviteit mogelijk een verklaring is van de oververtegenwoordiging van etnische minderheden in de criminaliteitscijfers.”

Bovenstaande passage komt uit de afstudeerscriptie “Een verdacht profiel, selectief politieoptreden in Veenendaal”. Etnisch profileren binnen het politie en justitie apparaat lijkt steeds meer aandacht te krijgen. Lijkt omdat in de jaren negentig ook al onderzoek werd gedaan naar het selectieve optreden van de politie. Hier een overzicht van de afstudeerscripties en rapporten uit binnen- en buitenland. Niet al het onderzoek is opgenomen. Veel theoretisch werk wordt niet gepresenteerd, alleen een overzichtsartikel en een literatuurstudie. De scripties en rapporten gaan over de praktijk van de politie.

Find this story at 19 June 2012

In de afgelopen twee jaar worden in de chique buurten van Haarlem tientallen zwarte schoonmaaksters en klusjesmannen opgepakt. De vreemdelingenpolitie krijgt een tip van busmaatschappij Connexxion. Die heeft last van zwartrijders. In een aantal gevallen blijkt het te gaan om illegale vreemdelingen. De politie volgt zwarte mensen op weg van de bushalte naar hun werk om ze op heterdaad te kunnen betrappen op illegale arbeid. Maar volgens de rechter mag dat niet. De politie mag mensen niet op grond van hun huidskleur volgen en om hun papieren vragen.

Lees ook het nieuwsbericht: Vreemdelingenpolitie Kennemerland negeert rechterlijke uitspraken

We krijgen eind september informatie waaruit blijkt dat politie Kennemerland toch doorgaat met de aanhoudingen. We onderzoeken of de vreemdelingenpolitie zich houdt aan de uitspraak van de rechter.

150.000 schoonmaakhulpen
In het tijdperk van de tweeverdieners, hebben steeds meer gezinnen een schoonmaakhulp. Volgens een recente schatting van de FNV zijn er daar zo’n 150 duizend van in ons land. Het merendeel van de schoonmakers is van buitenlandse afkomst. Veel van hen zijn illegaal. Ze mogen niet werken en als ze worden aangehouden worden ze het land uitgezet. Ze zijn continu bang om opgepakt te worden.

Persoonlijk relaas
In ZEMBLA vertellen twee van de in de omgeving van Haarlem opgepakte schoonmakers over hun aanhouding. Emily werd in juni 2011 aangehouden in Heemstede: ‘De politieman vertelde me dat veel zwarte mensen zonder vergunning werken. Ik zei: ‘Niet alle.’ Hij zei: ‘De meeste.’

Joseph werd in maart 2010 opgepakt in Overveen: ‘Ze zeiden: ‘Jij gaat terug naar Afrika.’ Hij was aan het lachen: ‘Jullie Afrikanen, jullie komen hier maar, betalen geen belasting, allemaal zwart werk.’

Ethnic profiling
De vreemdelingenpolitie is aan strenge regels gebonden bij het aanhouden van Illegalen. Professor van Walsum, hoogleraar migratierecht aan de VU: ‘De politie mag niet zomaar iedereen in het wilde weg aanhouden en naar hun papieren vragen. Er moet wel sprake zijn van een gerechtvaardigd vermoeden van illegaal verblijf.’ Professor Staring, bijzonder hoogleraar Mobiliteit aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam: ‘Je zit natuurlijk al heel snel op het terrein van racisme, discriminatie, ethnic profiling zoals dat genoemd wordt, en dus willekeur ook. Dus je kunt niet zomaar iemand aanhouden op basis van huidskleur.’

De hoogste rechter, de Raad van State, maakt in juli vorig jaar korte metten met deze methode van de vreemdelingenpolitie in de dure buurten rond Haarlem. ZEMBLA ontdekt dat ondanks de uitspraak van de Raad van State in juli vorig jaar, de vreemdelingenpolitie doorgaat.

Research: Marieke van Santen
Samenstelling en regie: Sander Rietveld
Eindredactie: Manon Blaas

Find this story & video at 21 December 2012

Move comes as MPs and MSPs table questions to ministers after Guardian revealed ties between British and Maldives police

The Maldives police service is accused of serious and persistent abuses. Photograph: Ibrahim Faid/AFP/Getty Images

Foreign Office ministers are to raise serious concerns about human rights abuses in the Maldives after a Guardian investigation revealed close ties between the British and Maldives police.

Alistair Burt is to pressure the Maldives government to tackle serious and persistent abuses by its police service, including attacks on opposition MPs, torture and mass detentions of democracy activists, on an official visit next month.

MPs and MSPs are tabling questions to the foreign secretary, William Hague, and ministers in the Scottish government about disclosures in the Guardian that at least 77 police officers in the Maldives, including the current commissioner, Abdulla Riyaz, were trained by the Scottish Police College.

The college did not train Maldives officers in public order policing, but did include courses on human rights. Sources in the Maldives said a number of officers directly implicated in the recent violence were trained at the college, at Tulliallan in Fife.

Tory and Labour MPs at Westminster and MSPs active in a cross-party human rights group at Holyrood said the Foreign Office and Scottish ministers should immediately review those contracts.

The Guardian can also disclose that the Scottish Police college could soon extend its role in the Maldives by helping run degree courses for a new policing academy, despite the growing international condemnation of Maldives police conduct over the last 10 months.

The college and the Foreign Office are considering a formal proposal to supply teaching to the new academy. The Maldives president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, who took power in February after the police helped to force the first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, from office, has used that deal to defend his regime’s track record on human rights.

In October Waheed wrote directly to senior public figures, including the airlines owner Sir Richard Branson and musician Thom Yorke, who had signed an open letter to the Guardian condemning his regime’s conduct, claiming that Scottish police were helping to reform policing in the Maldives.

John Glen MP, the parliamentary private secretary to the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, and a supporter of the opposition Maldives Democratic party, said he would be raising “grave concerns” that Waheed was using the Scottish Police college’s involvement to manipulate international opinion, in the Commons and directly with Burt.

Glen said: “There are grave implications for the Scottish Police college, which is in danger of being taken for a ride by a regime which is blatantly trying to legitimise the quality of its police force on the back of the established reputation of Scottish policing.”

John Finnie MSP, who chairs the Scottish parliament’s cross-party human rights group and is a former police officer, said he had written to Hague asking him to reconsider the training deal until democracy and civil liberties had been restored in the Maldives.

Finnie has also tabled questions to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, asking whether he had any powers to stop the college training police in oppressive regimes, and would be raising the Guardian’s investigation with Stephen House, chief constable of the new single police force for Scotland.

…

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 December 2012 07.00 GMT

Find this story at 19 December 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Scottish Police College and former officers have trained some of the Maldives police facing allegations of brutality against pro-democracy protesters, opposition MPs and journalists

Maldivian policemen block protesters after the ‘coup d’etat’ in February, when the island nation’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, stepped down. Photograph: Ibrahim Faid/AFP/Getty

The Maldives are marketed as a tourist paradise; a chain of idyllic coral islands with golden, palm-fringed beaches, where holidaymakers can bathe undisturbed in the warm, crystal-clear seas of the Indian Ocean.

But that image has been challenged by a series of damning reports by human rights investigators. They accuse the Maldives police service (MPS) of serious, repeated civil rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters, opposition MPs and journalists.

Violence in the Commonwealth nation sharply escalated this year after the forced departure of the Maldives’ first democratically elected president Mohamed Nasheed, in February. Human rights agencies believe that the alleged coup, and the violence since then, has shattered the islands’ slow, fragile journey to democracy.

That conflict, which has reportedly led to the mass detention of 2,000 opposition activists, assaults and arrests of 19 opposition MPs, as well as sexual assaults, torture and the indiscriminate use of pepper sprays – including twice against ex-president Nasheed, has raised significant questions about the role of British police in training and advising the islands’ controversial police service.

Opposition groups, Amnesty International and senior officials in the reformist Nasheed government, including the former high commissioner to the UK and the former chair of the Maldives’ police integrity commission, have told the Guardian about their serious concerns over the UK’s role.

They believe significant contradictions have emerged in the UK’s dealings with the Maldives police, which threaten to damage the UK’s reputation in south Asia.

Farah Faizal, the former Maldives high commissioner to the UK and a member of the UK-based Friends of the Maldives pressure group, said: “If they’ve been providing training all these years and the MPS in Maldives are carrying out all these brutal attacks on people then there are obviously questions for them [whether] it is the right training they’ve been getting.”

Opposition activists say the UK has been aware about the police force’s troubled reputation for years: senior British officers raised serious anxieties about human rights standards more than five years ago.

After a fact-finding mission in 2007, one senior retired Scottish officer, John Robertson, described the force’s special operations command as an “openly paramilitary organisation” and a “macho elite … most of whom lack basic police training”.

In 2009, two senior British officers recruited by British diplomats – Superintendent Alec Hippman of Strathclyde police and a former inspector of constabulary for England, Sir David Crompton, made a series of recommendations to improve policing, after discovering the Maldives police service was poorly equipped for modern policing.

After policing improved during Nasheed’s three-year term of office, the MPS has been heavily implicated in the violent, alleged coup when Nasheed was deposed in February this year. He stepped down – alleging that he was forced to at gunpoint – after several days of brutal clashes between the police, the Maldives’ military, senior members of Nasheed’s Maldives Democratic party and pro-democracy campaigners.

That violence has continued since the alleged coup, raising allegations that the opposition Maldives Democratic party is being suppressed before fresh but unconfirmed elections are due to take place next year.

That alarm intensified after former president Nasheed was arrested in October for allegedly arresting a judge, and ignoring a travel ban and several of his MPs were arrested on a private island for allegedly drinking alcohol.

In July, Amnesty International described the situation there as a “human rights crisis” following “a campaign of violent repression [which] has gripped the country since President Mohamed Nasheed’s ousting in February 2012.” Its report, The Other Side of Paradise, concluded “there are already signs that the country is slipping back into the old pattern of repression and injustice.”

Opposition groups are alarmed that former police officers acting privately and the Scottish Police College (SPC), backed by the Foreign Office, have continued training MPS officers and advising the force during a period of intense political conflict and mounting allegations of human rights abuses.

Faizal said she had been pressing the Foreign Office to take much tougher action on human rights in the islands. “I would hope they would definitely review what they’ve been doing because somebody has been paying for this: they should dramatically review what they’ve been doing and they need to tell these people in the MPS if they want to continue their relationship, they must be seen to be policing rather than act like thugs, just going around and beating people.

“They have to be a credit to the Scottish Police College if they do well, but right now, how the MPS is behaving is absolutely shocking.”

An investigation by the Guardian has found that Scottish police forces and the SPC have been closely involved in training Maldivian police, including its current commissioner, Abdulla Riyaz, for more than 15 years – when the Maldives were dominated by the unelected, autocratic President Abdul Mamoun Gayoom.

Since then, more than 67 MPS officers have been trained at the college at Tulliallan in Fife, their fees helping the SPC earn millions of pounds of extra income from external contracts. In 2009-10, the college received £141,635 from training MPS officers. The SPC said those fees did not make a profit, but was breakeven income.

The course, a diploma in police management in which human rights was “covered”, was taken by 67 Maldives officers. A separate group of MPS officers were also given human rights training in 2011, the college said. At least 10 middle- and senior-ranking Maldives officers are believed to have attended previously.

Links between Scottish and Maldives police began in 1997 when Riyaz and three other officers – then part of the Maldives’ military national security force, which ran all internal policing before a civilian police service was set up in 2003, had a five-month visit to Scotland the Highlands and islands.

Seconded to the Northern constabulary, Riyaz spent a month in the Western Isles and four months in Inverness, before taking a postgraduate diploma in alcohol and drugs studies at Paisley University in 1999. That tour of the Highlands was seven years before Gayoom, reacting slowly to pressure from its allies, including the UK government, split up his national security force into a military arm and a civilian police service in 2004. In January 2007, as Gayoom came under growing pressure for democratic reforms, including relinquishing his control over the judiciary, the police and state prosecution service, the SPC signed its open-ended training deal with the MPS.

The Foreign Office admitted it had “serious concerns” about the alleged police brutality and was pressing President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, to tackle the problem but added: “Targeted police capacity-building programmes can lead to increased police professionalism, responsiveness and accountability.

“Although progress is not always swift, we judge that UK engagement can make a positive contribution to consolidation of democracy and respect for human rights.”

The Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA), which runs Tulliallan, admitted it does not monitor policing in the Maldives, or check on how its former students perform, and admitted it had no knowledge of the critical report by Robertson from 2007. It said that monitoring links with the Maldives was the Foreign Office’s responsibility, through the British high commission in Sri Lanka.

John Geates, the interim chief executive of the SPSA and the former police college director who signed the original deal with the Maldives in 2007, defended its relationship with the force.

“We believe that sharing our wealth of experience and expertise is a positive way of contributing to the development and delivery of fair and effective policing across the world,” Geates said.

“We are passionate about showing other police forces how to deliver community policing by consent which, by its nature, means the college does not work with western democracies where that culture and ethos already exists.”

Bruce Milne, a former head of training and educational standards at Tulliallan college and retired chief superintendent, now works in the Maldives as a private consultant through his firm Learning & Solutions, but there are differing accounts about his work there.

Milne, who left Tulliallan in June 2010, initially signing a deal to provide training up to degree level with a private corporate security firm set up by Riyaz called Gage Pvt, and an organisation called the Centre for Security and Law Enforcement Studies.

According to Gage’s Facebook page, that deal was signed at a famous Maldives tourist resort called Sun Islands in December 2011, when Riyaz was not working for the Maldives police. Formerly an assistant commissioner, Riyaz had been sacked in early 2010 during Nasheed’s presidency for alleged fraud. He was reinstated as commissioner in February 2012, after Nasheed was deposed.

Riyaz told the Guardian that the deal signed last December lapsed after he rejoined the police. Milne’s company website said his firm “is in the process of forming a partnership with the MPS to create and support the Institute for Security and Law Enforcement Studies (Isles), in affiliation with the Scottish Police College, a world-renowned police training establishment.”

The college denied that. It said: “There is no formal affiliation between Learning & Solutions and the SPC in relation to the Maldives.”

Milne refused to discuss his dealings with the MPS with the Guardian, but his profile on the social networking site LinkedIn states he has been “responsible for the provision of advise [sic] on organisational development to the Commissioner of Police and to provide assistance and direction in the development of Isles, a professional institute offering competitive education and training for police and security staff in the Maldives”.

Superintendent Abdul Mannan, a spokesman for the MPS, denied that Milne was working with the MPS. He said: “Learning & Solution [sic] is working with Police Co-operative Society, a co-operative society registered under the Co-operative Societies Act of Maldives, and not MPS, to deliver a BSc course through Isles.

“Learning and Solutions is one out of the many foreign partner institutions working with Polco to deliver courses through Isles and Polco welcomes all interested parties to work in partnership to help Maldives deliver its security and justice sector training needs.”

Mannan said the MPS was committed to improving the force’s standards and its human rights record; it now had an internal police standards body that was modernising its policies and procedures. The force was “trying to professionalise the organisation and solid international partners are helping us achieve this goal.

…

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 17 December 2012 19.01 GMT

Find this story at 17 December 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

UNITED STATES EMBASSY THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
Security Message for U.S. Citizens: Crime in Wassenaar and Police Searches in Rotterdam
November 27, 2012

The U.S. Mission to The Netherlands informs U.S. citizens of increased crime in Wassenaar and new police search procedures in Rotterdam.

Wassenaar

According to police officials, non-violent residential crime is up significantly throughout Wassenaar, compared with the previous two years.

Criminal activity can occur anywhere, however police have noted a particular increase in residential burglaries in the South Wassenaar area and vehicle break-ins in the central portion of Wassenaar. U.S. citizens and expatriate residences are not specifically targeted. Instead, the criminals seem to be targeting residences that appear to be empty or unoccupied. Car thieves are targeting expensive vehicles with airbags, GPS units, and other valuables.

Although the State Department rates residential crime throughout The Netherlands as low, the Embassy’s security team recommends that you periodically review security procedures at your residence and vehicle — locking doors and securing accessible windows, turning on exterior lights after dark, not keeping valuables in view in your car, parking your car in a well-lighted area, and being aware of your surroundings.

Rotterdam

We also call your attention to changes in police procedures in Rotterdam. The Mayor of Rotterdam has authorized police to search any person in public areas in the center of Rotterdam and in the suburbs of Carlois and Hoogvliet for possession of weapons or ammunition; vehicles, packages, and suitcases are also subject to police search. This policy began on November 5, and will remain effective until February 1, 2013 (for Carlois and Hoogvliet) and until April 1, 2013 (for Rotterdam). The Embassy’s security team encourages U.S. citizens, if stopped, to cooperate fully with law enforcement officers.

General security information

U.S. citizens in The Netherlands are reminded, in general, that if at any time you feel threatened or in danger, please call the Dutch authorities immediately by dialing 1-1-2 for emergency service response from Dutch police, rescue, and fire departments.

We strongly recommend that U.S. citizens traveling to or residing in The Netherlands enroll in the Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. Enrollment gives you the latest security updates, and makes it easier for the embassy or nearest consulate to contact you in an emergency. If you don’t have Internet access, enroll directly with the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate.

We also recommend you regularly monitor the Department’s website, where you can find current Travel Warnings, Travel Alerts, and the Worldwide Caution. You can also read the Country Specific Information for The Netherlands.

Contact the embassy or consulate for up-to-date information on travel restrictions. You can also call 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States and Canada or 1-202-501-4444 from other countries. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays). Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and download our free Smart Traveler iPhone App to have travel information at your fingertips

The U.S. Consulate General in Amsterdam is located at Museumplein 19, 1071 DJ, Amsterdam and is open from 8 AM to 4:30 PM. If you are a U.S. citizen in need of urgent assistance, the emergency number for the Consulate is (31) (0)70-310 2209.

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Bij elke thuiswedstrijd is er in De Kuip een videoteam van de politie aanwezig. De heren (en soms dame) beschikken over een videocamera en een enorme telelens. Gedurende de gehele wedstrijd maken zij honderden, wellicht duizenden foto’s van Feyenoord-supporters. Wie niets doet heeft niets te verbergen gaat in deze echter niet op. Na de wedstrijd worden de foto’s uitgelezen waarbij een gedeelte netjes wordt gearchiveerd. U en ik zitten zonder hiervan op de hoogte te zijn gesteld, onschuldig en wellicht zonder strafblad, in een politiedossier. In Nederland (en dus niet in één of andere bananenrepubliek) ben je onschuldig tenzij het tegendeel wordt bewezen. Met andere woorden: dergelijke dossiers behoren niet te bestaan.

Feyenoord werkt hier vrolijk aan mee. Enerzijds onder druk van de convernant partners (politie Rotterdam-Rijnmond, Openbaar Ministerie en de gemeente Rotterdam), anderzijds omdat ook zij willen weten wie te gast zijn in stadion Feijenoord. Zo beschikt Feyenoord over een uitgebreid videosysteem in en rondom het stadion. Maar het wordt pas vervelend als er informatie uitwisseling plaatsvindt tussen Feyenoord en de convernant partners.

Vanochtend presenteerde Feyenoord, vanwege 12-12-’12 een FANCAM. Niet alleen kunnen er prijzen worden gewonnen (al we zien liever dat er een supportersraad wordt gerealiseerd) maar ook kan iedereen zichzelf zoeken en ‘taggen’ via facebook, twitter of email dankzij een 360 camera met een hoge zoom kwaliteit.

Hoe makkelijk willen we ze het maken als we de ‘term of condition van FANCAM’ moeten geloven…
We collect information about you such as: your full name, e-mail address, postal/zip code, mobile number, identification number and any other information you may choose to provide to us (“Personal Data”). The Personal Data collected from you will be stored together with your log-in details to form your FANCAM profile.
We may add information to your profile that we receive from the Event Partners or which we collect by virtue of your use of the FANCAM Photo, FANCAM Websites or any related FANCAM service, such as your log-in history;
we may use the information we have collected from you to compile non-personally identifiable and/or aggregated statistics about your use of our FANCAM services and products and we may share such aggregated information with third parties;
Please note that even after the FANCAM profile has been de-activated, we shall keep a record of your FANCAM profile for a period of 3 (three) years after it has been terminated for our records. However, we shall no longer process any of your Personal Data.

Gepubliceerd op 12 December 2012 – 16:00

Find this story at 12 December 2012

A Russian whistleblower who had been helping authorities in Western Europe investigate a gigantic money-laundering scheme involving Russian government officials, has been found dead in the United Kingdom. Alexander Perepilichnyy, who had been named by Swiss authorities as an indispensible informant in the so-called Hermitage Capital scandal, was found dead outside his home in Weybridge, Surrey, on November 10. The 44-year-old former businessman, who sought refuge in England in 2009, and had been living there ever since, is the fourth person linked to the money-laundering scandal to have died in suspicious circumstances. The company, Hermitage Capital Management, is a UK-based investment fund and asset-management company, which Western prosecutors believe fell victim to a massive $250 million fraud conspiracy perpetrated by Russian Interior Ministry officials who were aided by organized crime gangs. In 2006, the company’s British founders were denied entry to Russia, in what was seen by some as an attempt by the administration of Vladimir Putin to protect its officials involved in the money-laundering scheme. The scandal widened in late 2009, when Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been arrested in connection with the case, died while in police custody. According to the coroner’s report, Magnitsky, who was 37 and in good physical health, died suddenly from acute heart failure at a Moscow detention facility. Some observers speculate that the lawyer was killed before he could turn into a whistleblower against some of the perpetrators of the fraud scheme. Following Magnitsky’s death, Alexander Perepilichnyy was elevated as a key witness in the case, after providing Swiss prosecutors with detailed intelligence naming several Russian government officials involved in the money-laundering scheme, as well as their criminal contacts outside Russia. This led to the freezing of numerous assets and bank accounts in several European countries. There is no word yet as to the cause of Perepilichnyy’s death. British investigators said yesterday that the first post-mortem examination had proved inconclusive and that a toxicological examination had been ordered for next week.

November 30, 2012 by Joseph Fitsanakis 3 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

Find this story at 30 November 2012