HN18

This article is part of the Undercover Research Portal at Powerbase - investigating corporate and police spying on activists

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Part of a series on undercover police officers
'HN18'
Alias:	unknown
Deployment:	'last period of existence of SDS'
Unit:	Special Demonstration Squad
Targets:	unknown

HN8 is the cipher given to a former undercover officer with the Special Demonstration Squad, deployed in ' the 'last period of existence' of the unit into at least two group and reported on others.

• For details of the N-numbers cipher system see the N officers page.

In the Undercover Policing Inquiry

• 11 May 2018, directed that anonymity applications for HN18 were to be filed by 31 May 2018 for both the MPS legal team and the Designated Lawyers team.

• 21 June 2018: announced that the Chair of the Inquiry, John Mitting was 'minded to' restrict the real name of HN4 but refuse the application over the cover name. However, he gave HN18 an opportunity to provide notification by 26 June 2018 if they wished a closed hearing in respect of their application, with skeleton argument setting out objects to be provided by 29 June 2018.

In his 'minded to' note, Mitting wrote:

The risk to the safety of HN18 posed by members of the targeted groups is negligible and the risk of interference by them in family and private life is low. The deployments are of interest to the Inquiry, as is the evidence which HN18 can give about the management and closing down of the Special Demonstration Squad.

In the opinion of Prof Fox, who reported on the condition of HN18 on 12 March 2018, HN18 suffers from two moderately severe mental health conditions, which would be exacerbated by publication of the real or cover name. I accept that, if the real name were to be published, there is some risk of interference in the right of HN18 to respect for private and family life and of some impact on HN18's mental health. Publication of the real name is not necessary to permit the Inquiry to fulfil its terms of reference... However, for reasons which are explained in the closed note which accompanies these reasons, I am unconvinced that a restriction order in respect of the cover name of HN18 would have a material impact on mental health or well-being. Further, the giving of evidence about the deployments would be likely to lead members of targeted groups to identify HN18's cover name for themselves. A restriction order in respect of the cover name would, therefore, probably serve no useful purpose.

• 30 July 2018: Mitting refuses to restrict cover name and remains minded to restrict real name.

• b2 October 2018: Inquiry publishes risk assessment for SDS cover officer known by the Herne Nominal: HN30. Within the Risk Assessment it is revealed that HN18 was arrested at the Defence Security Equipment International (DSEi) anti-arms fair protest. [An analysis by Emily Apple arrives at a close reading of the document arrives at reasonable oif not certain conclusion that it must have been at the 2007 DSEi protests:

First, Bishop was still active in 2005, although mid-exit strategy. This in itself is inconclusive as several spycops overlapped in terms of campaigns and dates.

Second, and more significant, is information from N30’s risk assessment. It states that [p4]:

   Gist: Although she was a supervisor and had been a cover officer for N18, N72 was the operational DI and took responsibility for the matter. N30 stated that in her opinion senior management used the perceived mismanagement of this arrest to close the unit.

Given the SDS closed in 2008, for N30’s statement to make sense, it is highly likely that N18’s arrest took place during DSEi 2007. Protests at DSEi in 2007 were some of the smallest of any of the DSEi protests. Unlike other years where there were hundreds of arrests, 2007 was different. According to the BBC, there were 17 arrests.

15 of those arrests (10 men and five women) took place during an attempted invasion of the site. N18 was arrested “with others”. Those arrested were charged with aggravated trespass. On the first court hearing, the Crown Prosecution Service asked for two weeks to review the evidence against those arrested. The charges were then quietly dropped before the defendants received any disclosure.;::