Christabel Gurney was an activist in the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) from 1969 until 1994. A historian, she is secretary of the AAM archives committee and a member of the advisory council of Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA).
A member of the AAM executive committee from 1970-1980, Gurney was the editor of monthly newspaper Anti-Apartheid News. She was spied on from November 1969 to December 1972 by at least five undercover officers, who included HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ and HN346 Jill Mosdell.
In 1972, Gurney and others were tried and convicted, alongside SDS undercover officer ‘Michael Scott’, for obstructing the British Lions’ tour bus, en route to play in apartheid South Africa. Evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry confirmed that Scott was tried and convicted under his fake identity. This led to Gurney’s conviction being overturned in January 2023.
Gurney received an OBE in 2014 and in 2023 the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo from South Africa, recognising her campaigning work to end apartheid.
Christabel Gurney is a historian and human rights campaigner, born in Hampshire in 1943 to a family that valued social justice. Having joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) as a teenager, she worked briefly as a typesetter and copywriter.
In the late 1960s, Gurney joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) , taking part in the Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) protests against the Springbok cricket and rugby tours of the UK. A Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) member in the 1970s, Gurney was active in AAM from 1969 until 1994, when apartheid finally ended.
In 1970, Gurney became secretary of the Dambusters Mobilising Committee (DMC). The African National Congress (ANC) formed DMC as an umbrella for anti-apartheid and anti-colonial groups to oppose plans by Portuguese-ruled Mozambique to build the Cabora Bassa dam to supply hydropower to apartheid South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. In the UK, DMC pressed Barclays Bank to divest from apartheid-linked businesses.
For ten years, Gurney was editor of AAM’s monthly newspaper, Anti-Apartheid News. She later became secretary of Notting Hill Anti-Apartheid Group, which focused on boycotting South African consumer goods.
Since apartheid ended, Gurney has continued to campaign for social justice, via the charity Action for Southern Africa, which presses for regional justice, equality and human rights. She remains secretary of the AAM Archives Committee.
Gurney holds an OBE and South Africa’s Order of the Companions of OR Tambo, awards that honour her campaigning legacy.
The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) was one of the Special Demonstration Squad’s earliest targets. It sent a series of officers to infiltrate the movement, including HN330 , HN135 Michael Ferguson , HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , HN336 ‘Dick Epps’ , HN339 ‘Stewart Goodman’ , HN346 Jill Mosdell and HN90 ‘Mark Kerry’.
In 1970-1971, the SDS sent undercover officers HN326 ‘Doug Edwards’ and HN339 ‘Stewart Goodman’ to infiltrate AAM sister campaign the Dambusters Mobilisation Committee (DMC). Inquiry disclosures revealed to Gurney that five officers – Edwards, Ferguson, Goodman, Mosdell and Scott – had reported on her.
In her written statement , Gurney said SDS reports ‘grossly mischaracterise’ the groups she joined, one describing activists who blockaded the British Lions’ tour bus outside the Star and Garter pub as ‘anarchist-oriented extremists under the control and direction of Ernest Rodker’. Gurney said:
I was neither an anarchist nor an extremist and I acted of my own free will.
Miscarriage of justice
HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , who infiltrated anti-apartheid groups from 1971, including Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) , was among 14 people arrested, charged and fined for blockading the exit to the Star and Garter pub to prevent the British Lions travelling to Heathrow to tour South Africa.
Scott appeared in court under his fake identity; his managers decided that it would benefit his cover story to stand trial alongside the 13 STST activists.
When the Undercover Policing Inquiry revealed this, Inquiry chair Sir John Mitting referred the 1972 convictions of Christabel Gurney, Ernest Rodker and Jonathan Rosenhead for review. This was a first for the inquiry. The three activists had their convictions overturned in January 2023.
Rodker, Gurney and Rosenhead issued a joint statement on their acquittal:
The undercover policeman who had infiltrated our group was charged and convicted under his false name. He was party to key discussions with our lawyer about our defence, which hinged on the location of our action. At the trial, the arresting police asserted that we were in the roadway, and we were convicted on that basis. Neither counsel nor magistrate was informed that “Michael Scott” was a police officer.
Details in reports by HN346 Jill Mosdell indicated that the UCO had insider access to AAM’s Charlotte Street offices, including membership records. Gurney said this posed a risk for South Africa-based members ‘who would have attracted the attention of the South African Security Police if they were known to be in contact with the British AAM’.
In December 1972, Mosdell filed a report about Gurney hosting a small Christmas party in her home, to raise funds for AAM. ‘I am still disturbed by the thought that a police officer entered my flat under false pretences,’ Gurney wrote.
Gurney questioned why police were so interested in the non-violent anti-apartheid movement. She wrote:
I am concerned that the police considered the AAM to be an organisation whose activities should be spied on by UCOs. The AAM’s only purpose was to help bring about the end of apartheid, a system of racial discrimination that was opposed by a large proportion of the UK population at the time and is now universally condemned. The AAM’s activities were always lawful and open.
Gurney pressed the Inquiry – without success – to reveal what information on activists the UK and apartheid South Africa intelligence services shared. She believes spycops infiltration went beyond gathering intelligence, noting concerns ‘that state agents provocateurs… sought to encourage criminal offences during demonstrations’.
She also noted that the Inquiry did not disclose documents to reveal what intelligence – if any – Special Branch gathered on the bombing in March 1982 of the African National Congress’ (ANC) London headquarters.
Later, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard that Minister of Law and Order Louis le Grange had authorised the London firebomb attack from Pretoria.
Christabel Gurney was invited to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry in December 2019. She submitted her written statement in March 2021 and gave evidence in person on 29 April 2021.
She received 40 documents from the Inquiry, mostly intelligence reports, including seven – dating between 25 October 1970 and 13 December 1972 – that mentioned her by name. The documents ‘raise serious concerns about the nature and methods of UCO surveillance of the campaigns, events and individuals’, Gurney said.
The Inquiry heard that undercover officer HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , who infiltrated Stop the Seventy Tour (STST) , had been tried and convicted for obstruction under his fake identity. Rosenhead, Christabel Gurney and Peter Hain argued that their own 1970 trials were based on a miscarriage of justice.
All three had their convictions overturned in January 2021.