Richard Walton

This article is part of the Undercover Research Portal - a project of the Undercover Research Group in conjunction with SpinWatch.

Richard Walton

Richard Walton is a Metropolitan police officer who rose to the rank of Commander in charge of Counter-Terrorism Command (SO15). In March 2014, it was revealed in the Ellison Report into corruption around the Stephen Lawrence Murder Inquiry that Walton had interviewed an undercover officer who had infiltrated campaign groups who worked closely with the Lawrence family. At that very moment, Walton was drafting the submission for the Metropolitan Police to the MacPherson Inquiry into the failed murder investigation. The meeting had been set up by Bob Lambert, acting chief of the Special Demonstration Squad, and handling the undercover identified as "N81".

Following stinging criticism in the Ellison Report of his evidence, Walton was "temporarily" removed from his post - only to be reinstated eight months later, 1 December 2015. Meanwhile, his case was referred to the Independent Police Complaint Commission; in May 2015 the commission announced to have widened its investigation, to include to more former-officers implied in spying on the Lawrences.

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry

Disputed Meeting in Bob Lambert's Garden

The Ellison Review zoomed in on a meeting between Walton, N81 and Bob Lambert that took place on 18 August 1998 in Lambert's garden. Ellison tried to find out what was discussed, who set it up and who authorised it. We have included a summary based on the Ellison Review on a separate page: N81: Meeting with the Lawrence Review Team, here we focus on the consequences for Walton.

N.B. The page numbers in the reconstruction below refer to Volume 1 of the Ellison Review.

In short, recollections of police officers involved and a 'File Note' written by Bob Lambert right after the meeting show that Walton introduced himself as working for the Lawrence Review Team, and that talking to someone 'on the inside' with knowledge of campaigning groups was very useful for both himself and the then-Commissioner Paul Condon.

During his first interview with the Ellison Inquiry, in October 2013, Walton confirmed the official record of the meeting and his role in the Met's Lawrence Review Team. However, on learning that he was to be criticised in the Ellison Report, he changed his story. In his new statement to Ellison in February 2014, he said he had not worked on the Commissioner’s submission to the Macpherson Inquiry at the time of the disputed meeting. He claimed that his meeting with N81 was solely in his capacity as a member of the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force (also known as SO24), set up by John Grieve to deal with the devastating conclusions of the McPhearson Report.(p. 265)

Ellison concluded that there probably was overlap between Walton's time at the Lawrence Review Team and his joining of the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force. However, at the time of the disputed garden meeting, Walton was definitely still working for the Lawrence Review Team.(p.266)

Mark Ellison was not amused with Walton changing his story, and took the extraordinary step to include the full transcriptions of interviews held with Walton in his report. He called Walton's position "less than straightforward to establish and somewhat troubling" and decided that the official record was a “more reliable description of what happened at the meeting that Mr Walton's altered version of events”.(p.265)

After the disputed meeting in Lambert's garden, a formal route was set up in September 1998 to channel information gathered by N81 and other undercover officers to Walton. SDS intelligence was to be forwarded, via DS Brian McDowell to John Grieve heading SO24 tasked with reinvestigating the Lawrence murder and restoring relations with black communities; Walton was to join SO24 in October 1998.

The channel was a secret operation; Commander Colin Black wrote in a memo: "I have reiterated to [Walton] it is essential that knowledge of the operation goes no further. I would not wish him to receive anything on paper."(p.244)

• For more detail, see
• N18: Meeting with the Lawrence Review Team
• N81: Profile from the Ellison Report
• N81: File Note by Bob Lambert

Ellison's Findings

In his report, Ellison has a detailed overview of Walton's actions, quoted here at length, to add some insight (p.266/267):

• We find therefore that, on a balance of probabilities, on 14 August 1998, DI Walton was not so completely detached from the Lawrence Review Team that his visit to see this undercover officer was concerned only with another function in CO24.
• Mr Walton has maintained throughout, however, and we accept, that the meeting was not his idea, but a request from a more senior officer in the SDS. We also accept that he agreed to the meeting without any detailed knowledge of the actual role and intelligence gathered by the undercover officer.
• It follows that we accept that Mr Walton may well have simply taken up the invitation without realising that he was going to meet an undercover officer who was positioned close to the Lawrence family campaign.
• We are also prepared to accept that these events suggest a degree of ‘naivety’ on his part, rather than a coherent plan to achieve some real advantage in relation to the MPS submissions to the Inquiry.
• Mr Walton does not remember asking anyone about whether he ought to go to the meeting, or telling anyone that he had been to the meeting. In so far as we have been able to enquire, no one has indicated that they knew about him going.
• We have found no evidence to indicate that what Mr Walton discovered from N81 at the meeting was actually incorporated into or used towards the final submissions made on behalf of the MPS.
• Nevertheless, on 14 August 1998, during the break between the end of the evidence received by the Public Inquiry and final submissions being presented, a meeting took place between an undercover officer deployed into an activist group engaged with the Lawrence family campaign and an MPS officer appointed to assist the MPS in formulating its submissions to the Inquiry.

In our view, such a meeting was wholly inappropriate.

• Given the contested issues at the Public Inquiry as to the honesty, integrity and openness of the MPS, and the disputes as to the true causes of the seriously flawed investigation of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, the objective impression created by any public revelation of the fact of such a meeting could only have been dire for the MPS. It would have been seen as the MPS trying to achieve some secret advantage in the Inquiry from SDS undercover deployment.

• There was no conceivable ‘public order’ justification for this meeting. Nor was there any other discernible public benefit, and certainly none that could possibly outweigh the justifiable public outrage that would follow if the fact of the meeting had been made public when the Inquiry resumed in September 1998. In our opinion, serious public disorder of the very kind so feared by the MPS might well have followed.

Temporarily removed from his position - and reinstated

To deal with the ensuing outcry, the announcement that Walton was 'temporarily removed' from his position went out on the day the Ellison Report and the Herne Report were published. Scotland Yard transferred the head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command ("Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer") to a 'non-operational' role, while MPs such as David Lammy called for him to be suspended outright.

The case was referred to the IPCC, which subsequently decided to start an investigation into "discreditable conduct and breaches of honesty and integrity on the part of Commander Richard Walton" and the "inconsistent accounts to Mr Ellison's review team regarding his actions". Then Detective Inspector Robert Lambert and Commander Colin Black, who were both identified in the review as having played a part in facilitating the meeting with the undercover officer would be investigated for "discreditable conduct".

In response to the outcry, Walton said: 'I welcome any scrutiny of my role in these events over more than 16 years ago, including in the forthcoming public inquiry'.

At the moment he was suspended in 2014, his tasks as Commander in charge of Counter-Terrorism Command (SO15) included the responsibility for undercover policing units dealing with domestic extremism today, as is explained below.

Commander Richard Walton was allowed to resume his role on 1 December 2014; he was reinstated to full duties despite still being under investigation. Scotland Yard stated the decision to let him return to his post was taken in June - if no new information from the IPCC would arrive.

In May 2015, the IPCC disclosed to have widened its investigation; two more former-officers had been placed under investigation, their names not disclosed. The IPCC described them as being “retired” Metropolitan Police officers who have been “identified within the management structure of the Special Demonstration Squad at the relevant time who may have some involvement or knowledge of the meeting with the undercover officer.”

Walton, Lambert and the third officer known to be under investigation, former Met commander Colin Black, the Operations Commander of Special Branch at the time, have been interviewed by the IPCC in December 2014.

Policing extremism

Walton and the policing of 'right-wing extremism'

In 1999, John Grieve's Racial and Violent Crime Task Force which included Walton - took part into a new "giant task force to target right-wing hate mail that had seen a large upsurge in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Set up by Denis O'Connor, then an assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan Police, it also included: "SO13 - our anti-terrorist squad - together with our organised crime group and our special branch". Given the emphasis on intelligence in this operation, there is a question as to whether infiltrators were used and did Richard Walton have role given his earlier contact with the SDS.

Walton and the policing of 'domestic extremism'

In a reorganisation that was to take away the responsibility for undercover operations into political groups from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the unit that employed Mark Kennedy and other recently exposed spies, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) was transferred to the Metropolitan Police Service. Merged with the National Domestic Extremism Team (NDET) and the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU) it is now called National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit.

The new Unit was brought under the Counter Terrorism Command (SO15), which aims to protect London and the UK from the threat of terrorism and headed. The Command was formed in October 2006, with the merger of its two predecessor units; the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) and Special Branch (SO12). Since June 2011, CTC is headed by Richard Walton.

Walton and the policing of 'jihadism'

In an "exclusive interview" with the Standard in January 2014 (his first interview since becoming chief of Scotland Yard’s SO15 counter-terrorism unit three years earlier) Walton explained that the Met is trying to divert would-be combatants away from radicalisation through the government’s Channel programme, and appealed for further assistance from British Muslims to “safeguard their children”, and praised the backing that police had already received.

Walton warned that British law sees those going to Syria to fight as a terrorist who will be arrested upon return. Likewise, the police go after people supporting terrorism, saying there are operations running against facilitators. In the interview he also supported the introduction of new powers proposed by a counter-extremism taskforce established in 2013 following the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich:

They include extremism disruption orders, which would use civil law to impose restrictions on radicalisers, and powers to bar venues from hosting events involving extremist speakers.

Other proposals include making it a crime for three or more members of a banned extremist group to reform under a new name; and a new dispersal power giving police greater ability to halt intimidatory protests, such as demonstrations in east London against shops selling alcohol.

He also backed the retention of “Schedule 7” stop-and-search powers at airports and ports, which are under scrutiny following their use at Heathrow against David Miranda, the partner of former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald who has written articles on state surveillance.

Walton said police would use such powers “carefully and proportionately”, but were “absolutely four-square behind those proposals”.

In February 2015, shortly after he was re-instated, Walton made a public appeal for information on the three school girls who took off from the UK to Islamic State territory in Syria.

Police Career

• 1986: Joined the Metropolitan Police Service.

• 1989 - 1995: "Worked in Special Branch covering pretty much the whole range of SB activity. ... He had never been attached to the SDS and he never worked as an undercover officer," according to his statement to the Ellison Inquiry. However, at a different page in the Ellison Report, Walton stated he 'worked extensively' with Colin Black, the Operations Commander of Special Branch, and also knew Bob Lambert.

• 1995: Promoted to Detective Sergeant.

• 1998: Asked to be a member Lawrence Review Team because he was on the accelerated promotion scheme, being supervised by Bob Quick., who in turn was answering to AC Ian Johnston.

• August 1998: Appointed as Acting Detective Inspector with the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force (CO24), under DAC John Grieve. The Task Force had been set up in August 1998, indicating Walton was a member of the founding team.

• 5 October 1998: Posted to CO24 as a Detective Inspector (according to Met Human Resources Posting and Rank records).

• March 1999: Promoted to Detective Inspector and posted to Harrow, according to Walton's own account.

• 2002: Headed up Project Sapphire, the Metropolitan Police's high profile operation to target rape and sexual assault, including rolling out dedicated teams ("Sapphire units") in each London borough. He held rank of Detective Chief Inspector, and the ACPO lead for Project Sapphire was Bob Quick. In this he also worked with Tim Godwin.

• Between 2002 and 2007: Inspector in the boroughs of Camden, Paddington Green, Stoke Newington, Barnet and Harrow.

• April 2007: Borough Commander for Harrow with rank of Chief Superintendent.

• July 2009: Appointed as the Staff Officer (chief of staff) to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson.

• June 2011: Appointed Commander Counter-Terrorism Command (SO15)., serving directly under DAC Stuart Osborne (Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism) and AC Cressida Dick (head of Specialist Operations).

• 2012 Head of Counter Terrorism for London during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic and Paralympic Games.

• 2013 and Jan 2014: Focus on British citizens who have joined the civil war in Syria as jihadists returning home and planning to carry out attacks in the UK. Has operations running against facilitators (see above).

• March 2014: Suspended from the Counter Terrorism Command.

• October 2014: Restored to his post as head of the Counter Terrorism Command.

• December 2014 Interviewed by the IPCC in the investigation against him.

• May 2015 IPCC announcement of widening the investigation

Education

• a BSc Hons degree in Policing and Police Studies from Portsmouth University.
• an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.