Last week, the British retail chain Lush had a rather unusual message on the window displays of its over 100 branches. “Paid to lie,” was the tagline on a large image of a man — half his face that of a police officer, half of a plainclothes person dressed in a yellow T-shirt — staring intently at the camera. Crime-scene tape with the words “police have crossed the line” was stretched across the windows.
The #spycops ad campaign, also accompanied by a social media drive, comes amid an ongoing inquiry into undercover police operations that ran for several decades, often deploying questionable tactics to gain information. The inquiry was set up in 2015 after revelations about alleged misconduct by the Special Demonstration Squad — a unit of the Metropolitan Police Service set up in 1968 — emerged. In a number of instances, undercover police officers assumed false identities to form physical relationships with some of their targets. In 2015, London’s Metropolitan Police “unreservedly” apologised to seven women who had been deceived into relationships. “These relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma,” it said.
These revelations fed into wider concerns about police tactics as other instances emerged. These included the fact that an undercover police officer had been involved in gathering intelligence on the grieving family of Stephen Lawrence, a Black teenager killed in a racist attack in 1993. As the family fought for justice, an officer gathered personal details on the family.
“In many of these secret undercover operations, the police have admitted to violation of human rights, abuse of police powers and causing significant trauma, including inhuman and degrading treatment breaching Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights,” wrote 74 campaigners and victims, including Doreen Lawrence, Lawrence’s mother and a human rights campaigner, in a letter to The Guardian , defending the Lush campaign. Others who backed the campaign included trade unionists as it emerged that in some cases undercover officers had infiltrated trade unions and sought to gather information on activists, which was then passed onto industry bodies who blacklisted some workers.
‘Inquiry is years behind schedule’
While the 2015 investigation aimed at completion within a three-year period, it is still ongoing, with many campaigners expressing concerns over the progression of the case and the secrecy involved in its proceedings. Several contributors — including a police whistleblower — have at different stages chosen to boycott the proceedings. It is “years behind schedule and in a state of crisis… we have been sorely disappointed by the direction taken by its current chair,” said the campaign group Police Spies Out of Our Lives.
Lush was forced to defend itself after police expressed concerns. Some raised questions about the appropriateness of brands participating in political campaigns. Even Home Secretary Sajid Javid intervened. “Never thought I would see a mainstream British retailer running a public advertising campaign against our hard-working police,” he tweeted.
“This is not an anti-state/anti-police campaign... An undercover policing inquiry is taking place, but many campaigners have a complete lack of confidence in the public inquiry’s approach,” insisted Lush. “We’re standing with them to put pressure on the U.K. government to make the inquiry more effective, and we’re asking you to join us.”
