Eveline Lubbers, Undercover Research Group, 20 March 2018

Yesterday the Undercover Policing Inquiry published the Special Demonstration Squad Tradecraft Manual, written in 1995, and updated in 1996. It was authored by Andy Coles, straight after his own undercover deployment in London animal rights groups as Andy Davey from 1991 – 1995. On the same day, the Chair of the Inquiry, John Mitting, confirmed that Coles had indeed been a spycop – almost a year since we exposed him in May 2017.Undercover Policing Tradecraft Manual – a vile document

Before we look at the timing of the publication, let’s have a look at the content of the Special Demonstration Squad Tradecraft Manual.

Vile Content

The Manual is a bundle of advise for future undercover officers. It includes a chapter from the activist book Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching warning against ‘Police Undercover Operation’, as well as an example of how a group on the extreme right investigated someone they did not trust – unfortunately that bit has been redacted. There are sections on the law, the little there is on undercover operations, and a long list of the names that are most common in the UK – to choose your cover name from.

The heart of the bundle is a 44 page guide, written by Andy Coles. In short, the content is so vile and abhorrent that is seems a waste of space to include too many examples. The entire guide is steeped in disdain not only for the people being spied on – dismissively nicknamed ‘wearies’ – but of anyone else the officer will come into contact with or affect. Quite shocking is the section on building a fake identity, which included finding a birth certificate of a child that had died early that fitted specific requirements. Coles choses to make some morbid jokes:

Further research would follow to establish the respiratory status of the dead person’s family, if any, and, if they were still breathing, where they were living. If all was suitably obscure and there was little chance of the SDS officer, or more importantly, one of the wearies running into the dead person’s parents/siblings etc., the SDS officer would assume squatters’ rights over the unfortunate’s identity for the next four years.

There is the advice to have only ‘fleeting and disastrous relationships’, which is cynical knowing that undercover officers moved in with their activist’ partners, took part in their family life, in some cases went to counselling together, or even proposed marriage, and at least one had a planned a child. The exit strategy, including fabricating ‘personal difficulties’ before disappearing, appears without any thought on the impact of the people left behind.

If anything, it shows how much the undercover officers hated the people they spied upon. How all of this was some kind of a game to this secret unit, a game that you had to be good at – good not just at lying, but at living a lie.

Missing

So much for what is in there, now for what is not included.

First the redactions. Although there are fewer redactions than previous versions, essential parts are still blacked-out. There is a lot we are not allowed to know on Preparation and Withdrawal, and about Compromise and Absence. An appendix section misses A view from the street and some more advice regarding the tradecraft, probably from another former spycop. We’re not even allowed to know why Appendices G and H are missing.

What does the Table of Contents tell us?

It confirms that the Special Demonstration Squad focused almost uniquely on groups on the left. Of the twelve target groups discussed, the Manual distinguishes varieties from anarchists to militant, there is the category ‘Irish’, while the last one is a catch-all ‘the extreme right’.

Furthermore, it’s utterly amazing how little the Manual has about the actual gathering of intelligence, what the spycops should be looking for, and how they would get it. The Table of Contents jumps from Launch to Living a Normal Life to Withdrawal, without any mention of the aim of the operations. It appears that the ultimate goal of a deployment is not getting caught.

The Tradecraft Manual is written as if undercover operations are in fact a reality game, a survival show, requiring nothing but a set of instructions. The key difference being that no-one but the mole has agreed to join, everyone else’s lives and privacy are being part of it without their consent – or knowledge even.

Or, as Simon McKay, a barrister specialising in national security law including covert policing, said in a tweet:

Having read the Coles’ “manual” for undercover officers insofar as published, it strikes me the author was immersed in an existence where he couldn’t distinguish fact from fiction and discarded those he/his officers interacted with like characters in a third rate novel.

Timing

The Tradecraft Manual was published just before the Inquiry’s next set of hearings on Wednesday 21th March. The Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance and Police Spies Out of Lives have called for a protest in front of the Royal Courts of Justice 9-12am. The people who have been spied upon, the ‘core participants’, are increasingly frustrated with how slow and how secret the Inquiry has been up to this point.

The release of the Tradecraft Manual can be seen as a win, as a result of the pressure building up. If anything else, it proves that we need to know the real names in order to be able to scrutinise the careers of officers after their undercover deployment. Andy Coles moved on to be head of training for the Terrorism and Allied Matters Committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO-TAM) which at that time oversaw the unrolling of Special Demonstration Squad tactics to the rest of the country. Towards the end of his career, he returned when the Committee supervised the National Domestic Extremism Unit, which by then included the spycop unit National Public Order Intelligence Unit, NPOIU.

As for publishing the Tradecraft Manual in conjunction with the confirmation of Andy Coles as a spycop, it certainly helps to point out that he is a professional liar and a fantasist. No doubt the currently-redacted section on Compromise includes advice along the lines of sit tight and shut up , and if the moment has come, strenuously deny anything and everything.

That is exactly what Andy Coles did yesterday the first time he has spoken out since he was exposed. Perfectly timed after the Inquiry’s confirmation and with the local Peterborough Telegraph as his mouthpiece, Coles flatly denies targeting ‘Jessica’ at all, let alone deceiving her into a relationship when she was just 19. Though she has been accepted by the Inquiry as a core participant, Jessica was not granted the right of reply before the article was published. She is preparing further legal steps.

Otherwise, it is difficult to see the publication of the Tradecraft Manual as a major step in the right direction. Although the Inquiry is finally starting to release fundamental evidence, there are too many redactions, too many deficits, and only very little substance.

In reality, it’s another slap in the face. Seeing the schemes so coldly laid out, especially over the exit strategy, is damaging for those who experienced it. To be given it now, and told it was written by an officer who is still traumatizing his main victim is especially cruel. It’s violation all over again.

Join the protest in front of the High Court, tomorrow, Wednesday 21 March 9am.

Stop the cover up, release officers’ cover names, open the files.