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.

Former undercover cop’s media circus is just a big show

Bradley Day (repost) | 16.06.2011 09:02 | Other Press | Repression | Social Struggles

Yesterday morning BBC Radio Five Live demonstrated, once again, the utter futility of interviewing former undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. Mr Kennedy is a man who has carved out a career as a professional liar. Pouring his heart out to Victoria Derbyshire, he apparently deeply regrets the endless lies he had to tell in his former role. However, he seems to show no sign of giving untruths a rest.

When asked whether he ever acted as an agent provocateur, Kennedy claimed he had “never encouraged anyone to do anything they weren’t already going to do”, and that he only ever came in at a very late stage to planned direct actions.

However, in the case of the 114 people arrested for conspiring to commit aggravated trespass at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in April 2009, we know this to be far from the truth.

Audio - mp3 48M

The police get rough with protestors. Again!
The police get rough with protestors. Again!


We’ve long known that Kennedy was one of the first to learn of the proposed plan to shut down the power station. He was the driver for the first reconnaissance mission to the site in January 2009, and then continued helping plan and finance the action until it brought more than 100 climate campaigners together in Nottingham on the day of the arrests.

Unlike Kennedy, most of those arrested had only learnt of the plan that day, and many had still not made up their minds at the time of their arrests.

Leaked documents have since confirmed this fact, revealing that police applied for clearance for Kennedy to gather intelligence on the Ratcliffe plan as early as November 2008, before Ratcliffe was even selected as the target power station. How is being involved from a plan’s inception ‘coming in at a very late stage’? How is providing the expensive vehicle to transport equipment to the power station ‘not encouraging others’?

However, the key point that stemmed from this morning’s interview is that Kennedy’s words actually don’t matter. He may have been the symbol at the centre of the scandal, but he is just a pawn in a much bigger affair that relates to our civil liberties and right to privacy from the state.

Kennedy acknowledged this point repeatedly in Five Live’s studio when he failed to provide answers to key questions. He had no knowledge about how information he gathered was handled by the police and Crown Prosecution Service in the many other protest actions he spied upon, he had nothing to say on what the overarching motivation behind his deployment was, and no knowledge of what selection criteria is in place for which political groups are subject to infiltration.

He can’t even say whether or not his bosses knew about his alleged sexual misconduct.

However, unlike Kennedy, those with the answers to these questions are not flocking to radio and television studios. My guess is that they won’t be anytime soon. For this reason our campaign continues…

Bradley Day is the co-founder of No Police Spies, a group fighting for an end to police infiltration of protest groups

Bradley Day (repost)
- Homepage: http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/06/former-undercover-cop-mark-kennedy-media-circus-just-a-big-show/

Additions

hang on a sec...

16.06.2011 12:01

YES, Kennedy is still a lying piece of shit, and YES, he is lying about 'coming in at a late stage'..

BUT the essence of his point is true, at least in the 114 case, that he didn't encourage "anyone to do anything they weren’t already going to do”... there were plenty of people determined to do that action who would have made it happen anyway, and we should be proud of that, not try and hide it in a pile of bollocks about 'Agent Provocateurs'.

All this talk of 'Agent Provocateurs'...
...implies that we are easily manipulated when in fact we consider our actions carefully
...implies that the 114 action idea was extreme or foolish, at a time when we should be encouraging more people to do these kinds of actions.

Will NPS *PLEASE* stop going on about Agent Provocateurs? It's really misleading and undermines the symbolic power of our actions.

(Unless you know of other cases where Kennedy *did* act as an AP, in which case talk about those, not the 114 case)..

proud to be in 114


Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Kennedy mania in the Guardian

16.06.2011 09:26

More articles from the Grauniad;

Secret policeman Mark Kennedy offers to help infiltration inquiry
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/15/secret-policeman-mark-kennedy-infiltration

Mark Kennedy case: independent inquiry ordered over CPS claims
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/09/mark-kennedy-case-independent-inquiry-cps

Affordable spying – for all
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/surveillance-mark-kennedy-spy-watch

lynx


The police should be doing proper policing.

16.06.2011 10:14

The campaign against white middle class kids being arrested for peaceful protests continues. Good for you. If you succeed you'll be freeing the police to be able to do more real non-political police work. Like murdering black people in their cells.

top cop


:(

16.06.2011 18:12

Please stop peddling the myth that everyone in the building on the day would never have considered breaking the law if a cop hadn't told them to. It is deeply damaging to our movement.

J


re spies

17.06.2011 08:44

"No Police Spies, a group fighting for an end to police infiltration of protest groups"

What do you think the police ( and their role ) is anyway...? Have you not noticed who and what they are protecting? Do you subscribe to the good/bad protestor myth?

"There is no other way now. Direct action. Civil disobedience. Unerring" - John Pilger ( The party game is over. Stand and fight )


evading standards


Revenge will be sweet.

17.06.2011 17:52

When we find you Kennedy we'll fuck you up real good.


It's not over yet.

'


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