Who is involved

Core participants

Core participants are individuals or organisations that are likely to have been significantly involved or affected by undercover policing in England and Wales.  They can also be individuals or organisations that could be significantly impacted by the work of the Inquiry.

In some cases, core participants can have their reasonable legal costs paid.

There are currently 236 core participants, although some are unincorporated associations made up of multiple individuals.

Police

Two undercover policing units – the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) – have particular prominence for the Inquiry; however, other units across England and Wales also fall within its general remit.

SDS

The SDS was a covert unit that existed within the Metropolitan Police Service between 1968 and 2008.

Cover names

To date, the Inquiry has released the cover names of 69 undercover officers from the SDS. This is to enable members of the public to determine whether they were affected by undercover policing and come forward with evidence.

As with all participants in the Inquiry, officers have the right to request anonymity through a restriction order.

Cover names not subject to a restriction order continue to be published by the Inquiry once pre-publication checks have concluded.

NPOIU

In or around 1986, the Special Branch network set up the Animal Rights National Index (ARNI). The ARNI developed into the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) in or around 1999. In or around 2010, the NPOIU merged with two other units to become the National Domestic Extremism Unit.

The NPOIU’s role was to manage all intelligence considered to relate to domestic extremism. Their work included carrying out undercover policing operations.

Four NPOIU officers did not pursue applications to restrict their cover names, and they have already been identified on the Inquiry website: “Mark Stone”/Mark Kennedy, “Lynn Watson”, “Rod Richardson” and “Marco Jacobs”.

Anonymity

The Inquiry aims to be as open and transparent as possible. The default position for all core participants and witnesses is that they do not receive any anonymity; however, they are all entitled to make applications. Applications could be made because:

• Some core participants – including people who have been deceived into relationships with officers – want their privacy respected.
• Exposure of identities could put individuals at a present and ongoing serious risk of injury, or in extreme cases, death, because of the nature of the deployments they have undertaken.
• Revealing identities could damage individuals or their family’s private life and contravene their human rights.

After considering applications, the Chairman makes a ruling on whether to grant or reject the application either in full or in part. If the application is successful, it will be followed by a restriction order, which is a protective measure under the Inquiries Act 2005.