Failings over undercover officer

6 December 2011 Last updated at 13:51 ETBy Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent

Undercover officer Mark Kennedy denied he "went rogue" while working with the activists

Failures by police and prosecutors led to the collapse of a controversial trial involving an undercover police officer, a report has said.

The case failed when it emerged that the officer, Mark Kennedy, had infiltrated and potentially entrapped environmental activists.

A further 20 activists had their convictions quashed on appeal following the officer's unmasking.

A prosecutor is now facing disciplinary action over his alleged failings.

In a report into the affair, retired judge Sir Christopher Rose said that if the Crown Prosecution Service's reviewing lawyer, Ian Cunningham, had fully understood Mark Kennedy's role, nobody would have been tried.

He said Mr Cunningham had "relied too heavily" on what police told him about the undercover officer, who was managed by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Mark Kennedy spent years underground, infiltrating green groups involved in high profile climate change protests.

In 2009, Nottinghamshire Police arrested more than 100 people from a group that Kennedy had infiltrated. Twenty of them were convicted in December 2010 of plotting to shut down the massive coal-powered Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station near Nottingham.

But a second proposed trial of six more protesters collapsed after it emerged that the officer wanted to use his secret recordings to help the defence.

The collapse of the trial led the Court of Appeal to quash the convictions of the first 20 protesters - but also triggered inquiries into the affair and the role of undercover police officers.

In his report into whether prosecutors had suppressed evidence, Sir Christopher Rose said Mr Kennedy's activities and evidence were "never effectively distributed between all relevantly interested police officers or to the CPS", even though they clearly undermined the prosecution.

"[Reviewing lawyer Ian Cunningham's] statutory responsibility to keep disclosure under review meant that he should have continued asking... questions," said the report.

"All those involved in [managing] the case were well aware, or should have been if relevant guidance had been consulted, of what they needed to do."

Although the report cleared the Crown Prosecution Service of deliberately or dishonestly withholding information, the former judge criticised senior police officers in Nottinghamshire Police and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

He said an early case note between senior police officers described Mr Cunningham as "danger - environmentally friendly" and that the lawyer was not even initially told about the existence of Kennedy.

Sir Christopher said: "I accept that the [senior NPOIU officer] was entitled to do all he properly could to protect his asset. But at the disclosure stage, he was not entitled to withhold from the Senior Investigating Officer, the deputy SIO or Mr Cunningham material... they needed to know."

Ben Stewart, one of the 20 protesters whose convictions was quashed, denounced the report as "the whitest of whitewashes".

But the Director of Public Prosecutions, Kier Starmer, said: "I take very seriously the findings of individual failings on the part of the CPS, including failures properly to comply with disclosure obligations, failure to ask questions of the police and failure to oversee the case effectively."

Mr Starmer said he had written to the Association of Chief Police Officers, saying that in future cases police must disclose everything about undercover officers as soon as prosecutions are being considered.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is still investigating Nottinghamshire Police's actions in the case. A separate report by the inspectorate of constabulary has been delayed until the New Year.

Continue Reading... Labels: Failings, Officer, undercover

Lawrence officer clothing denial

22 November 2011 Last updated at 13:03 ET

Gary Dobson (left) and David Norris both deny murdering Stephen Lawrence

A police officer who visited Stephen Lawrence's home has denied possibly tainting evidence by wearing the same clothes to search a suspect's house.

Det Con Linda Holden said she did not wear the same clothes during a search of Gary Dobson's house as those worn a week earlier at Stephen's family home.

Mr Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, both from south London, deny murder.

Prosecutors say DNA evidence links them to the black teenager, who was murdered in Eltham, south London, in 1993.

They say a group of white youths attacked the 18-year-old A-Level student, forced him to the ground at a bus stop and then stabbed him twice.

Prosecutors claim that microscopic fibres found on clothes belonging to the defendants prove that they took part in the gang attack.

But defence counsel for the pair say the fibres, blood and hair were transferred on to the clothes by contamination.

Ms Holden visited the Lawrence household on 23 April 1993, the day after Stephen died, and then again on 25, 27 and 28 April, with a final trip on 29 April.

Then, working as an exhibits officer, she searched Mr Dobson's bedroom on 7 May.

The court heard that police seized jackets and a cardigan during a search of the house, placing them in unsealed brown paper evidence bags before Mr Dobson, who was 17 at the time, was arrested.

It also learned that a team of police running into double figures and a dog section had arrived at the large Chislehurst house belonging to David Norris's family before leaving with several items of clothing in evidence bags.

And it emerged that the defendant's belongings were handled by people who had been handling the victim's possessions.

Ms Holden told the Old Bailey jury that she was certain she had not worn the same clothes to the Lawrence and Dobson homes.

Timothy Roberts QC, representing Mr Dobson, asked if she had been wearing the same clothes on both visits and could have contaminated the Dobson evidence with fibres from the Lawrence household.

'Basic' contamination training

She said: "It was well over a week later and I didn't think that I had any risk of contamination and certain senior officers knew that I had been to the Lawrence family home."

Later in cross examination, the defence barrister asked: "Are you absolutely sure and can you swear on oath that you didn't wear the same shirt?"

She replied that she was "positive", prompting Mr Justice Treacy to ask what made her certain she had not worn the same outfit.

"As I said earlier I knew that I was going into a search so I chose that morning to wear clothes that if they got soiled or whatever it didn't matter," she said.

Ms Holden went on: "I knew that what I wore on that morning was not the same outfit that I'd worn the week before."

Stephen Lawrence died in April 1993

Det Ch Insp Alison Funnell, who was then a police constable and used the surname Rickell, helped in the search of Dobson's home and told the court she had only received "basic training" in avoiding cross-contamination of fibres.

DS John Bevan also visited the bereaved family in Woolwich, south London, after Stephen's death and before the searches were carried out.

The court heard that he last visited the Lawrence family on 4 May before taking part in a search of Mr Norris's parents' house in Chislehurst, south London, three days later.

Mr Bevan admitted that he may have worn the same "outer garments" on those two days.

He insisted that he had never sat down in the Lawrence family home, a claim which Stephen Batten QC, representing Mr Norris, dismissed as "simply implausible".

Forensic evidence

Meanwhile, the jury was told that after Mr Dobson's clothes had been sealed into police bags at Bromley police station, they were taken back to Eltham and stored in the same disused cell where Stephen's clothes had previously been kept.

The court has already been told that cold case forensic teams found a speck of blood on the collar of Mr Dobson's jacket that was a billion-to-one match to Stephen's DNA.

And there were minute flecks of blood on the jacket itself that did not contain a full DNA profile.

There were, in total, 16 fibres which could have come from three separate items of clothing worn by the dead teenager, found either on the jacket or its evidence bag.

And two hairs were found in an evidence bag used to store a pair of jeans seized from Mr Norris's home, one of which was 2mm long and found to match Stephen's DNA to a certainty of one in 1,000.

Seven fibres were also found on a sweatshirt seized in the same search which potentially came from two items of clothing owned by Stephen.

The case continues.

Continue Reading... Labels: clothing, denial, Lawrence, Officer

Officer stabbing suspect charged

20 November 2011 Last updated at 18:30 ET

The officers were injured outside a butchers in Kingsbury

A man has been charged with attempted murder after four police officers were stabbed in north-west London.

Christopher Houghton, 32, of Milford Gardens, Wembley, is due at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday.

Three Met Police officers needed surgery after being injured outside Kingsbury Halal Butchers, in Kingsbury Road, on Saturday.

The fourth officer, who was slashed and suffered a broken hand, was discharged from hospital on Saturday afternoon.

Mr Houghton faces a total of eight charges, including one count of actual bodily harm (ABH) on a police officer and two counts of attempted grievous bodily harm (GBH) on a police officer.

Continue Reading... Labels: charged, Officer, stabbing, suspect