Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

ALF Activists Jailed in 1980s Appealing Convictions Due to Police Involvement

EF! | 09.03.2014 12:16 | Animal Liberation

Andrew Clarke and Geoff Sheppard were convicted of planting incendiary devices at Debenhams stores in Romford and Luton in 1987. An undercover police officer allegedly planted a third device at a branch in Harrow to help convict the men.



The officer has denied this and said he would not have committed such a crime.

The two activists, who were members of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), have claimed they were victims of a miscarriage of justice.

They were convicted over the attacks in Luton and Romford, which it was claimed were staged by members of the animal rights group to stop Debenhams selling fur.

Andrew Clarke was sentenced to more than three years in prison in June 1988, and Geoff Sheppard to four years and four months.

In June 2012, Caroline Lucas MP used parliamentary privilege to name Bob Lambert as the undercover police officer who allegedly planted a bomb at the third department store.

Mr Lambert has admitted to infiltrating the ALF. At the time he was a senior officer in the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS), the same undercover unit which infiltrated the Stephen Lawrence campaign.
‘Miscarriage of justice’

The jailed men’s appeal to have their convictions quashed comes after Home Secretary Theresa May asked Mark Ellison QC on Thursday to identify specific cases where the actions of undercover officers may have caused miscarriages of justice.

It is not known if Mr Ellison, who wrote a damning report on the original police investigation into the Stephen Lawrence murder, has identified the ALF activists as one such case.

Mike Schwarz, who represents Mr Clarke and Mr Sheppard, said it appeared a miscarriage of justice had taken place.

“However, despite repeated representations, successive senior prosecutors have ignored or dismissed our representations,” Mr Schwarz said.

“In the light of the announcement by the home secretary, Mark Ellison QC and Operation Herne on March 6th, we plan to renew those representations and, in the absence of the co-operation of the Crown Prosecution Service, start appeals on behalf of our clients.”

Operation Herne is the name of the investigation by Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon into the use of undercover officers by the former Special Demonstration Squad.

Mr Schwarz said there was “some evidence” to suggest that an SDS officer played a “key role” before, during and after the events that led to his clients’ convictions.

“The case raises deep concerns not just that my clients spent a long time in prison when they should not have done so, but also, more broadly, about questionable undercover police practices over the last decades,” Mr Schwarz added.

“It is hoped that the police will finally be open about and account for its actions.”

When allegations about Mr Lambert were made in 2012, he said: “It was necessary to create the false impression that I was a committed animal rights extremist to gain intelligence so as to disrupt serious criminal conspiracies.

“However, I did not commit serious crime such as ‘planting an incendiary device at the Harrow store’.”

Approached for comment on Friday, he told the BBC he had nothing further to add.

The home secretary announced on Thursday that were would be a review to determine whether decades of secretive undercover police work had led to any miscarriages of justice.

The top-secret SDS was in existence for nearly 40 years, during which time police moles infiltrated hundreds of protest groups.

 http://earthfirstjournal.org

EF!

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Bob Lambert "weak and cruel" — Bob-Cobbler
  2. Bob the bomber's in trouble! — observer
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech