This article focuses on the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s (IOPC) Operation Hibiscus, which examined allegations from 2014 that officers of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) destroyed or mishandled documents potentially relevant to the Inquiry. The referral to the IOPC was not made until 18 May 2016. The investigation issued a final report in 2019.
The investigation addressed three core issues:
- A whistleblower reported that files connected to undercover policing were shredded;
- The discovery that a box of related material was missing;
- The Metropolitan Police’s internal investigation into those allegations.
It concluded that:
material [that] may have been relevant to the UCPI was shredded by MPS personnel after the Inquiry was announced and after a command circulation stating that material relevant to the UCPI should not be destroyed
Th IOPC also made the point that their investigation had been blighted by non-cooperation by officers they interviewed.
Unless stated otherwise, all references relate to the IOPC’s Operation Hibiscus report.
During Mark Ellison KC’s 2014 review into the Stephen Lawrence investigation, he found that ‘a lorry load’ of records from a 1990s Metropolitan Police corruption inquiry, ‘Operation Othona’, had been shredded.
Prior to that, the ‘Operation Countryman’ investigators into Metropolitan Police corruption (1978-82) found that many relevant documents were ‘missing’.
In the late 1990s, one part of ‘Operation Tiberius’ (2002) was to investigate how evidential material was being destroyed to assist organised criminals. The official report into the Metropolitan Police's corrupt investigation into the murder of Daniel Morgan also revealed officers destroying or stealing files, missing anti-corruption intelligence, as well as institutional failures to preserve and disclose records.
The IOPC took an exceptionally long time to complete the investigations into the shredding. This was for several reasons. To begin with, there was an unexplained six-month delay before a police whistleblower reported the allegation in December 2014 to a visiting officer from Operation Herne, the police’s internal investigation into ‘spycops’. The Operation Herne officer then passed the allegation on to the MPS’ internal anti-corruption unit, the Directorate for Professional Standards (DPS).
Despite the gravity of the allegation, the DPS decided to investigate the issue itself and did therefore not refer the matter to the IOPC until May 2016. This was despite another ‘live’ investigation concerning similar complaints about other members of the National Domestic Extremism Intelligence and Disorder Unit (NDEIDU) who were alleged to have destroyed the files.
Operation Hibiscus was triggered by a police officer, named in the report as Officer B1, who belonged to a successor unit to the National Police Operations Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), the National Domestic Extremism Intelligence and Disorder Unit (NDEIDU). Around June 2014, B1 witnessed a junior civilian staff member, Police Staff B2, shredding files. B2 stated that she had probably been asked to shred these files by B3, or another member of the Strategic Sensitive Intelligence Unit (SSIU), a sub-unit within the NDEIDU.
The IOPC notified B3 that he was under investigation for the criminal charge of ‘gross misconduct in public office’. The officer then refused to answer questions during an interview on 31 July 2017. Instead, he provided a written statement that he did not order the shredding of any materials related to the UCPI.
When later shown an email stating that he (B3) had ordered some shredding on 14 June 2014, B3 said this was connected to an imminent office move and would not have included materials relating to the UCPI. Police Staff B2’s account of the files she shredded significantly diverged from this, recalling that the files related to ‘NPIOU, NDET, Operation Elter and Operation Cathedral’.
B2’s recollection also contrasts sharply with those of other officers from the SSIU, none of whom recall any shredding.
B3 further stated that UCPI matters did not concern his work. However, the IOPC's Operation Hibiscus report revealed that the SSIU ran civilian informants – but not undercover police officers – as part of its operations. This indicates that B3 was responsible for the running of informers. Unfortunately, his precise role is redacted in the Operation Hibiscus report.
‘Do not delete’
B3 stated that the SSIU office – being the only secure office on the floor – was often used as a ‘dumping ground’ for all kinds of sensitive files. In revealing this, B3 opened up the possibility that someone else had ordered files relating to NPOIU undercover EN12 Mark Kennedy (‘Mark Stone’) to be shredded.
In an email sent on 12 May 2014, a month before the alleged shredding incident took place, senior SO15 officer B6 wrote:
Officers and staff will have seen recent reporting on Operation Herne and the Ellison report to the Home Secretary on the Lawrence Enquiry [sic], as well as the unrelated allegations of Police Corruption. The Home Secretary has announced that a Public Inquiry is to be held to investigate undercover policing and the operation of the SDS […]. We need to ensure that we do not delete any files or records which could be relevant to these matters.
Despite this, B3 stated that he did not recall reading an email from a senior officer forbidding the destruction of any documentation that might be relevant to the UCPI, even though the command was all-encompassing; no one from SO15 was to delete anything of ‘possible relevance’ without the commander's authority.
Operation Hibiscus noted that important-sounding ‘command circulars’ sometimes included matters of less operational importance, such as social events, implying that these messages may have gone unread. However, focusing on this particular email ignores the realities of the time, when extensive media coverage of the spycops scandal would have given these documents obvious significance to anyone working for the MPS.
The internal investigation by the MPS’ anti-corruption unit included a ‘covert fact-finding’ element, secretly putting a database trace on officers from the NDEIDU. There was also a separate, ongoing IOPC investigation into corruption and racism within the Directorate for Professional Standards itself.
An officer known as B4, who was in charge of the DPS’ covert investigation into the shredding, was put under investigation by the IOPC for failing to act on Officer B1’s allegations – specifically for failing to pass the accusations on to another officer from the DPS, who was involved in the same investigation.
B4 agreed only grudgingly to cooperate with the inquiry; his response was issued via a Police Federation representative. His defence was twofold. First, B4 said he could not remember anything about B1’s shredding allegation.
The second part of B4’s explanation was that as his role concerned only the collection of intelligence by covert means, he would not have seen any ‘overt’ evidence – i.e. the statement from B1 that triggered the investigation in the first place.
Officer B8, from Operation Herne, stated that she attended two meetings with DPS officer B4 regarding the matter. The IOPC did not accept any of B4’s responses. It stated that had he not conveniently retired in April 2018, B4 would have faced disciplinary charges.
During the IOPC investigation, it became apparent that a substantial number of documents of interest had gone missing. This included a whole crate of material relating to Mark Kennedy that disappeared. This material was relevant to the UCPI and could have supported Kate Wilson’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) case, and other civil law cases that were ‘live’ at the time.
The IOPC report provides a detailed account of the journey of several files, which may have included shredded ones.
Operation Hibiscus came across an email dated 14 June 2014 from ‘B13’ to an NDEIDU detective chief inspector (DCI), known as ‘Officer Charlie’. B13 had been asked to handle a crate of material relating to covert investigations (including Mark Kennedy), and wanted to make sure it would not get lost. He asked Officer Charlie if he could submit it to the MPS archives. Later, the IOPC sought to determine whether the box had been placed in storage. This request from Officer B13 was then passed on to Officer B3 on 16 June 2014. The box then went missing.
The Missing Box
- Police Staff B13 stated that, as instructed by email, Officer Charlie (an NDEIDU officer of DCI rank), B13 handed the crate over to Officer B3. No exact date was given for this, but it was presumably some time in mid-2014). This is the SSIU officer alleged in the original complaint to have ordered the shredding. B3 stated that he never had possession of this material.
- Operation Herne confirmed to the IOPC that it had no record of having received during this time either a crate or individual items directly matching the description.
- The MPS searched several databases and premises at the request of the IOPC for the box and its contents.
- The police ‘search’ located a report of 11 December 2014 by Officer B17 stating that the Operation Herne team attended premises on 4 December 2014, to assess three boxes located by Officer Charlie: ‘Two boxes were not relevant but the third contained materials relating to Mark Kennedy: a bag labelled hard drives and memory sticks etc; and reports and logs relating to the deployment of undercover officers, names of operations, etc.’
- The report seems to suggest – although the details remain unclear – that this last box, ‘one large blue plastic storage box of NPIOU material’, was then split into three separate files. Officers discovered inside the plastic box a pink box file sealed with the signature "RG". This box file contained hard drives and USBs. The cardboard boxes were designated numbers C299 and C305 and the blue box C309. A note on the contents of C309 indicated they were not relevant to the investigation.
- Investigators opened C299 and C305, and put the contents into other boxes, which were given an Op Elter box number[[Footnote: Operation Elter was a spin-off from Operation Herne]]. C305 contained a cardboard box with handwritten notes indicating that the box had been opened and resealed multiple times, along with the names of those responsible. One note stated that the box had been found lying unsealed on top of a cabinet. Several folders related to undercover policing. One was a red folder, its front page a file note dated 9 August 2011, written by Officer D20 NDEIDU.
- The other box C299, also subsequently transferred to Op Elter, had similar handwritten notes on top, detailing past openings and re-sealings. There was a red folder, with the front page titled ‘Operation Pegasus, table of contents’; point three was titled ‘PC Mark Kennedy’.
- Operation Herne also identified other materials received that could be connected to those mentioned in the email.
The IOPC concluded that, despite having identified several ‘suspect’ boxes, ‘it has not been possible to determine where the material referred to in ‘Police Staff B13’s email to Officer Charlie of 14 June 2014 was sent and if it has been retained’.
However, the IOPC confirmed that ‘material [that] may have been relevant to the UCPI was shredded by MPS personnel after the Inquiry was announced and after a command circulation stating that material relevant to the UCPI should not be destroyed’.
In the report, IOPC regional director Sarah Green concluded:
It is regrettable that a number of former police managers have refused to engage with this investigation to provide evidence about what steps, if any, were taken to ensure the documents were preserved for the undercover policing inquiry.