Stephen Lander

From Powerbase
Revision as of 21:07, 27 June 2013 by Tom Griffin (talk | contribs) (→‎Director H Branch)
Jump to: navigation, search
Eyekeyhole.jpg This article is part of SpinWatch's Spooks Portal, tracking intelligence agencies and dirty tricks.
Stephen Lander
© Crown Copyright 2007

Sir Stephen Lander is the former Chair of the Serious Organised Crime Agency.[1]

Lander served for 25 years in the Security Service MI5, serving as Director-General from 1996 to 2002.[2]

Education and Academic Career

Lander was a pupil at Bishop's Stortford College, which had previously produced MI5 officers including Peter Wright and Director-General, Sir Dick White.[3]

Lander took a BA in History at Queen's College, Cambridge. he then took a PH.D, writing a dissertation on the diocese of Chichester in the reformation which won him a post-doctoral post at the Institute of Historical Research in London.[4]

MI5

Lander joined MI5 in 1975.[3]

F5 Section

Lander served in the F5 section in around 1981. He was struck by the caution of senior officers such as Director-General Sir John Jones and his deputy, in contrast to the ambitious younger officers in the Irish Joint Section Belfast station.[5]

B2 Section

Lander was serving as Deputy head of the B2 section in autumn 1985, when he proposed ending the traditional practice of placing new MI5 officers in F2 Section to learn the basics of counter-subversion work. This was strongly opposed by Director F.[3]

Serves under Rimington

At some point during the mid-1980s, Lander served under Stella Rimington, who he described as "far and away" the best assistant director, he ever had.[6]

G5 section

Lander was head of G5 Section in 1990. Christopher Andrew quotes him as writing at this time; "Since 1988, PIRA has come to dominate the exchanges of terrorist intelligence between the security intelligence services in the centre of Western Europe... In all this work, European services work closely with the Security Service.[7]

According to Andrew, Lander had argued for some time that, in dealing with the threat from the Provisional IRA, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch were hampered by "their natural wish to pursue criminals rather than to obtain information" and that "The police should leave us to do the intelligence work while they, in the form of SO13 should do what they are internationally respected for, after-crime investigations."[8]

T5 Section

In 1990, responsibility for Irish counter-terrorism was hived off from G Branch to the new T Branch.[9]

In 1991, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir Percy Cradock was persuaded by intelligence co-ordinator Sir Gerry Warner to visit MI5 for a briefing by Lander, then head of T5 section, and Director A, as part of MI5's campaign to take over the lead intelligence role against republicanism from the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.[10]

Director T Branch

Christopher Andrew states that Lander became Director T in February 1992, which would be the same month that Stella Rimington became Director-General.[11] Elsewhere, Andrew contradicts this by stating that Lander had been Director T for two years when Stella Rimington became Director General.[3] Given that he also describes him as T5 in 1991, this would appear to be a mistake.

MI5 took the lead role against the IRA from the Metropolitan Police on 1 October 1992. According to Andrew, Lander, who was "not known for being a shrinking violet" among his fellow directors, found the negotations with the police, "Just awful, awful, awful" and urged MI5 personnel to be conciliatory towards Special Branch.[12]

Director H Branch

Lander became Director H in 1994.This came at a time of significant job losses within MI5, and he later acknowledged that "our success at handling this painful episode was mixed".[13] Rimington did not initially think of Lander as her natural successor, although by 1995, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, Sir Richard Wilson, had concluded that he was her first choice from his attendance in meetings.[3]

In this role, Lander decided to replace MI5's Unix word-processing system, codenamed GIFTED CHILD, with the Microsoft compatible Linkworks. Andrew characterises this as a "risky but ultimately successful decision."[13]

Director-General

Lander succeeded Rimington as Director-General in April 1996, at a time when the end of the IRA ceasefire two months earlier had dampened fears of a cut in MI5's budget.[14]

Lander's experience in Northern Ireland was a key factor in his appointment. He was the first MI5 Director-General not to have been a Deputy Director General (DDG), and one of the two DDGs had been a rival candidate.[3]

SOCA

The Guardian reported in 2006 that Lander retained a number of directorships in the security industry following his SOCA appointment:

Sir Stephen Lander, the head of Britain's elite crime-busting squad, is a paid director of a company that has IT contracts with every police force in the UK. He is also on the board of a second firm whose parent company has IT contracts with other law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Since taking up his post as chairman of the serious organised crime agency in September 2004, Sir Stephen, 58, has remained as a non-executive director of Northgate Information Solutions and StreamShield Networks, with a total remuneration of £60,000. As head of Soca his starting salary was £75,000.[15]

Notes

  1. ↑ SOCA's Governance, Serious Organised Crime Agency, accessed 30 June 2009.
  2. ↑ Press Association, Blunkett appoints former MI5 Chief, guardian.co.uk,13 August 2004.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.789.
  4. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.561.
  5. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.696.
  6. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.774.
  7. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.748.
  8. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.751.
  9. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.772.
  10. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.773.
  11. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.775.
  12. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, pp.775-776.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.781.
  14. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.788.
  15. ↑ David Pallister, Crime squad chief's links to IT firm are revealed, The Guardian, 12 June 2006.
Retrieved from "https://powerbase.info/index.php?title=Stephen_Lander&oldid=185283"