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Tuesday, 28 July 2009

ACPO 'extremist' units operating at Climate Camp









The cop above is Ian Caswell, known to many of us as 1818 of South Yorkshire police - many thanks to those who have sent us his name! He is often seen in the company of PS Mark Sully, pictured here at the top of this post.

These two are regularly seen with their cameras at demonstrations, meetings and gatherings. They have been photographed at protests against Heckler and Koch in Nottingham, at No Borders demonstrations at Crawley, at Climate Camp in Kingsnorth, at Smash EDO in Brighton, and many more. They do not seem limited to one geographical area, but tirelessly travel up and down the country in search of protesters to photograph.

It is this aspect of their role that has led FITwatch to speculate that these two officers work for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). This is a sister organisation to NETCU, which many of the readers of this blog will be aware of. These organisations are run as private companies under the management of ACPO, who spend at least £2m a year on them. Their role is to provide intelligence (NPOIU), support the interests of business (NETCU) and manage prosecutions (NDET - National Domestic Extremism Team).

The recent report on the policing of Climate Camp by South Yorkshire police provides evidence that we were correct. A debrief report, containing comments from individual officers, makes frequent mention of the role of NPOIU at the Camp in managing FIT teams and surveillance in general - both overt and covert. It also contains one comment commending PS Sully in particular for his role as the FIT's NPOIU manager.

The NPOIU collects and collates huge amounts of data. Despite being a private company it has access to police databases. This information is presumably made available to NETCU. How much information they deem appropriate to pass on to the private sector businesses they support (EDO, Heckler and Koch etc) is anyone's guess.

Carswell and Sully are, then, in a strange position. They are serving police officers, apparently working for a private company. It is not clear whether they are contracted to the NPOIU, or are working on secondment. FITwatchers who find themselves standing in the way of their cameras may want to speculate as to whether there is a criminal offence of obstructing a police officer who isn't really a police officer....
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18 comments:

Lynn Sawyer said...

I have just seen Ian today at the Highgate Farm camp. He does not seem too chuffed that we are all calling him Ian now, that he apppears to have misplaced Mark Sully somewhere and that he is still driving vauxhall astra OU56GRK.
Both officers were also recently in Oslo as the guests of the Norweigan police following us around the city at the International animal rights gathering. They get everywhere!

28 July 2009 at 10:52
Really Fit said...

What perks they get - international jollies now! All at the taxpayers expense.

28 July 2009 at 13:24
Anonymous said...

The National Publc Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) are subject to the Data Protection Act.

You can make a Subject Access Request to

A Mitchell
OIC NPOIU
Room 1915
New Scotland Yard
London SW1H

You have to make the usual Subject Access Request for ALL information they keep on you, under the Data Protection Act, enlosing £10 and proof of who you are ie NHS card or passport.

If you can give them times and dates when you know you were photographed or other ways you believe you came to their attention this will facilitate their search of their records, but is not absolutely essential, just state that you request All the information they have on you.

If the above person/address is out of date please update it here when they get back to you.

28 July 2009 at 14:06
Anonymous said...

It's hardly surprisng they are watching the dodgy AR types - that lot are always getting nicked and banged up.

29 July 2009 at 00:30
Lynn Sawyer said...

the ar movement is indeed being repressed. Why anyone would think that an in effect 10 year sentence for simply holding a banner and updating a website is acceptable in a so called democracy is beyond me. I presume that protecting tne assets of those who test artificial sweeteners on innocent beings is so much more important than allowing any criticism?

29 July 2009 at 07:04
Anonymous said...

digging up peoples grand parents doesn't seem to fit that definition Lynn

29 July 2009 at 11:59
Lynn Sawyer said...

Aha, so anonymous you are of the belief that every single person who has ever protested against animal abuse digs up bodies? Sean Kirtley stood on a pavement, he held a banner, he occassionally shouted "vivisection is scientific fraud" and he updated a website, at no stage was he ever accused of grave robbing so why pretend he was? So explain why he should serve a 4 and a half year sentence followed by a 5 year CRASBO and please tell me why you think that protesting against vivisection is worse than abusing a child given this obscene sentence? Gerrah Selby as a teenager said one thing which was a bit ill advised on a demo in France, again if she had battered an old lady half to death she would have served much less time. Why do you think this is acceptable?
There are those who are trafficking young people into this country for sexual slavery, others organise atrocities such as dog fights. None of the perpetrators of these atrocities will face anything like the scrutiny which activists are under in fact the Met's people trafficking team had their budget slashed to a measley 3 million last year. Does it not interest you at all that the state spends such a huge amount of resources on stopping legitimate protest whilst virtually ignoring gross human rights violations?
I even read of one young girl who was forced into sexual slavery from the UK into Amsterdam her life was threatened daily, she was repeatedly raped, once the police caught some of those responsible they served a year, no crasbo. Whatever the rights and wrongs of sentencing it is blatantly obvious that the knives are out for animal rights activists. The state have virtually announced that to be opposed to speciesism is a heresy worse than child abuse, worse than killing someone in a drunken rage and worse than enslaving another person going by sentencing and resources allocated.
A serious question to police officers; which is worse activists who have never killed anyone or the slave traffickers who kill many and destroy lives? Why is the budget for dealing with animal rights activists who have peacefully protested bottomless (about £4 million for the Sequani trial alone) and the budget for dealing with atrocities the horror of which we can barely imagine slashed? Are FIT scared of dealing with actual violence?

30 July 2009 at 00:39
Anonymous said...

Some progress at least - Lynn admits her co-conspirators guilt! So her new tack is to compare the relative impacts of crimes – unsurprisingly, just like every other criminal she doesn’t think her particular crime should be policed or punished as severely as other types of crime. Luckily (for all) Lyn doesn’t get to decide these matters.

30 July 2009 at 00:52
Really Fit said...

This blog tolerates a wide amount of discussion, and very rarely have any comments been removed. But if we have reached the point when people cannot comment on this blog without being pushed into justifying their campaigns all the time, then perhaps things have gone too far.

I suggest that if the police and / or others want to slag off animal rights campaigns they find somewhere else to do it.

What is relevant here is that it is undeniable that AR campaigners have been targeted by the likes of NETCU and NPOIU, and this has had significant consequences. As someone who has long been critical of some elements of animal rights protest, even I have been shocked at the level of surveillance used, the amount of public money that has been spent, and the way that legislation has been manipulated to make certain behaviour a serious offence only when it is associated with animal rights.

It is at least questionable whether such a response is reasonable, proportionate or in the public interest. I think it may also be interesting to trace ACPO's involvement in the decision to target animal rights protesters in this way - after all, they have done very nicely out of it, with increased funds and surveillance capability.

Can it ever be appropriate to allow a section of the police (ACPO TAM) to lobby for powers, money and legislation that will directly benefit that same section of the police? ACPO is a private company who have direct interests in 'advising' companies who are the target of political campaigns.

It has also not passed us by that the tactics developed to deal with animal rights activists are now being deployed on environmentalist, arms trade and globalisation campaigners. And they certainly havent dug up anyones grandparents.

30 July 2009 at 01:37
Anonymous said...

It would be a pity to see FITWATCH resort to censorship to silence dissent but would hardly be a surprise.
A couple of points arise:- Tactics developed to counter AR now being used against other campaigns – yes as the AR campaigns increased the level of criminality the response was raised accordingly. As other campaigns increase the criminal aspects of their protests they can expect enforcement action. There is little point in the equivocation of ‘peaceful protest’ to justify ‘unlawful protest’. If the laws you are breaking are unjust in your eyes – change them.
Oh, in anticipation of the predictable historical references to emancipation, the abolition of slavery etc. remember that those protesters were all arrested tried and imprisoned as well – why complain about your part in history?

30 July 2009 at 02:04
Anonymous said...

Personally I'm not a big fan of most animal rights protesters. However, I still think that the way they're being treated is worrying.

The fact that one group sometimes resorts to criminal actions doesn't make me want another group (the police) to end up an even bigger source of crime and intimidation. There's also the fact that when an animal rights protester does something illegal, they're doing it on their own behalf. When a police officer beats somebody, refuses to display their badge number or gives a false statement we're paying them to do it out of our taxes.

30 July 2009 at 02:34
Lynn Sawyer said...

I must say that whilst I have been convicted of protest related offences for example section 14, obstructing the highway or abstracting electricity (making a phone call from an HLS phone)I have done nothing to compare to what I was talking about ie gross human rights violations such as forcing vulnerable people into slavery.
Of course many will criticise some actions carried out by AR activists indeed I do not agree or condone every single action done in the name of animal liberation and criticism is a GOOD thing when done constructively and we should all reflect upon our activism on moral and tactical grounds.
The police break the law all the time as do hunters and vivisectors. The idiot who threw a dead rabbit at the peaceful Highgate Farm camp last night will (if ever caught)not face 5 years in prison. In fact the worse sentence I can recall anyone on the other side getting was 3 months in prison for deliberately riding a quad bike over a sab' who was restrained by other hunt supporters to facilitate the attack.
The sab had a fractured pelvis. 4 other animal rights activists have been killed by animal abusers none of whom were even arrested.
I will ask again why does FIT and ACPO side with big corporations and have infinate resources to deal with all protestors but then plead poverty when it comes to protecting those who actually need protection from torture and death?

30 July 2009 at 04:25
Really Fit said...

The infinite resources is a very good point. I have repeatedly asked for the budget for FIT surveillance, and keep being told that this information is not recorded.

The ACPO units make use of police resources, seemingly to whatever extent they want to. There does not seem to be any restriction on this, or even accounting of it. Requests I have made to obtain the level of police resources from individual forces made available to the ACPO extremism teams have been refused.

If there is no budget, no accountable accountancy, no cost benefit analysis, it's no wonder they have a bottomless pit of money.

30 July 2009 at 07:31
Lynn Sawyer said...

Another point. The old "conspiracy" argument I have never met Gerrah or communicated with her in any way. I presume what is being referred to is the fact that I know Sean and that he was disgracefully incarcerated for peaceful and indeed legal protest unless you stretch 145/146 SOCPA to the extent that ANY protest against "an animal testing facility" becomes an imprisonable ofence (whether or not the protest is against vivisection). You seem toimply that because I with others stood about for an hour or so holding banners that we "conspired". No dear a conspiracy is when NETCU and FIT and ACPO prostrate themselves in front of their corporate masters brown nosing them at every opportunity. If I break a window I expect to get arrested but not if I am simply standing quietly exercising my duty to protest. Whatever next, if I talk to a colleague at work or speak to a freind in the street is that "conspiracy" too? Indeed Operation Tornado DID define as "conspiracy" freindships between defendants, phone calls were mapped and conversations about cake recipes, companion animals and personal tragedies were exhibited as "evidence" of "conspiracy". I have nothing but the utmost disgust and revulsion for the lowlife in the police, the CPS and judiciary who attacked democracy in this vicious manner. To pretend that the courts are fair or that a criminal record is indicative of "bad character" (Jesus was a criminal, ditto Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, the Pankhursts etc) is rather pathetic. Having power does not mean having integrity.

30 July 2009 at 09:32
Clovis said...

FIT budget: FIT excursions in Essex, in Laindon for example, have cost Essex police £5k a time.

30 July 2009 at 10:27
Anonymous said...

Police filming the occupiers of the Vestas building on the IOW. Police filming football fans everywhere they go. Its about time we started watching them.

31 July 2009 at 11:57
Anonymous said...

Hi ReallyFit

re Cost of FIT

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/re_fit_team_photographers_cost

Also, conspiracy trials are almost always political trials -
mainly because they require no evidence: hearsay, gossip and rumour are admissable in court,
so what is on trial is a persons beliefs.

and by the way - censor the Stasi troll who only seems out to wind you up, it can always write to the Daily Hatemail.

Well done so far, and keep up the pressure on the Secret State

31 July 2009 at 17:42
Anonymous said...

saw Ian at edinburgh nato demo today. What an ugly bastard.

13 November 2009 at 11:41

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