HN344

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
'HN344'
Alias:	unknown
Deployment:	1971
Unit:	Special Demonstration Squad
Targets:	unknown

HN344 is the cipher given to a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer who was deployed in 1971 (or 1960s).

* For the N cipher system see N officers page.'

In the Undercover Policing Inquiry

• Nov 2017: Inquiry needs more details before making decision on restricting details.

• March 2018: Inquiry Chair, Sir John Mitting, states he is minded to refuse restriction order over real name.In his note on HN344, Mitting say that the officer recalls their cover name but has refused to disclose it to risk assessors. Nothing reliable known of his deployment. Does not consider himself at risk from the groups he targeted or their members. They resigned from MPS in 1980s, and were later arrested for unauthorised possession of official documents, though not prosecuted on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Thereafter undertook private security work in Asia. In his 70s and lives abroad. The Chair concluded:

Given his unwillingness to disclose his cover name to the risk assessor or to the Inquiry, and the lack of information about his deployment, the only (faint) chance of discovering anything about his deployment is to publish his real name.

• April 2018 Minded to: cover name can be published; decision on real name deferred, with Mitting writing:

Since the publication of the fifth 'Minded to' note on 27 February 2018, HN344 has disclosed the cover name or names under which he was deployed and the group targeted. no confirmatory evidence of these statements has yet come to light... I will defer ruling on the [MPS]'s application for a restriction order in respect of his real name, to await developments. Meanwhile, the provisional restriction order in respect of it will remain in place.

• 23 May 2018: no decision as yet reached in respect of the real name, but any cover names will be published. Mitting also wrote:

HN344 is in his 70s. He does not live in the United Kingdom. He claims to have been deployed undercover by Special Branch in the late 1960s under the supervision of HN332 and HN294. He has given a detailed account of his deployment and subsequent police activities in a response to a request for information made by the MPS dated 25 May 2017 which, for a reason unknown to me, was not made available to the Inquiry until May 2018. It contains detailed assertions of fact which I know to be wrong. I have identified one in the closed note which accompanies these reasons. Consequently, I doubt the accuracy of his claims about his deployment, including his identification of the cover names under hich he says he was deployed. No trace of them has yet been found in contemporaneous documents. For what it is worth, they will be published. I doubt the utility of publishing his real name, but will keep the position under review, should it transpire that there is some purpose in doing so.