Jonathan Rosenhead has campaigned, inside and outside the Labour Party, for human rights since the 1960s. In 1970, he was a prominent anti-apartheid activist and a member of Stop The Seventy Tour, which sought to sever sporting ties between the UK and South Africa.
In 1972, Rosenhead and others were tried and convicted for obstructing the British Lions’ tour bus, en route to play in apartheid South Africa. Evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry revealed that HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ was tried and convicted under his fake identity. This led to Rosenhead’s conviction being overturned in January 2023.
Rosenhead rejoined the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn became leader but has since left. He remains active in Jewish Voice for Labour.
Jonathan Rosenhead was born in 1938, the grandson of émigrés who fled from Poland and Ukraine to Leeds, and the son of eminent maths professor Louis Rosenhead. His parents moved from Leeds to Liverpool, where Rosenhead went to grammar school with Paul McCartney.
A mathematician like his father, Rosenhead gained his BSc and MA from Cambridge University and an MSc in statistics from University College London. At Cambridge, he joined the Labour Club, became its treasurer and ‘engaged in a series of political campaigns, mostly focused on bad things happening overseas’.
In 1966, Rosenhead joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM). He also became chair of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS), founded by Hilary and Steven Rose to campaign against weapons-related academic work. BSSRS criticised the use of teargas and rubber bullets in Northern Ireland, which drew Rosenhead into UK civil rights campaigns.
By the late 1960s, Rosenhead was active in anti-apartheid campaign group Stop The Seventy Tour (STST). STST used non-violent direct action to disrupt South African, whites-only cricket and rugby sporting tours from 1969 through the early 1970s.
In May 1972, Rosenhead was one of 14 people arrested for blocking the English rugby team’s tour bus. Another was Special Demonstration Squad officer HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , who infiltrated the Anti-Apartheid Movement , the Young Liberals and other groups from 1971-1976.
Scott was tried and convicted under his false identity. When the Undercover Policing Inquiry revealed this, the appeal court quashed the convictions of Rosenhead and fellow activists Ernest Rodker and Christabel Gurney.
Having joined London School of Economics in 1967 as a lecturer, Rosenhead became a professor in 1987. He retired in 2003.
The Special Demonstration Squad sent undercover officers HN135 Michael Ferguson , HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , HN336 ‘Dick Epps’ , HN339 ‘Stewart Goodman’ , HN346 ‘Jill Mosdell’ and HN338 to infiltrate or report on Stop The Seventy Tour (STST) and related anti-apartheid groups.
Jonathan Rosenhead’s witness statement noted that the unit disproportionately targeted anti-apartheid groups:
The Annual Report for 1970 confirmed that: “The SOS had one officer privy to the militants’ most closely guarded plans and four others on the periphery.” It follows that 5 out of a total of 13 staff… were involved in targeting the STST… In contrast, far-right groups do not appear to have been targeted in the same way. This appears to have been a deliberate decision rather than the result of any difficulty obtaining infiltration.
The STST, Rosenhead noted, ‘on any reasonable view was not subversive or extremist in any way’. He addressed SDS claims that HN135 Michael Ferguson so successfully penetrated anti-apartheid groups that he became Peter Hain’s ‘right-hand man’.
Rosenhead quoted SDS founder HN325 Conrad Dixon writing that ‘a firm line must be drawn between activity as a follower and a leader, and members of the squad… must not take office in a group, chair meetings, draft leaflets, speak in public or initiate activity’.
The SDS crossed its own lines, Rosenhead concluded:
If Mike Ferguson took on any sort of decision-making role within STST then that was a distortion of the political process. STST was a political campaigning organisation… It is wrong in principle for UCOs to take on such roles and subvert the aims and objectives of political groups.
Miscarriage of justice
HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ , who infiltrated anti-apartheid groups from 1971, was among the 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.
Scott’s managers decided that it would benefit his cover story to stand trial. In his witness statement , Rosenhead noted that Scott’s arrest and trial breached Home Office rules, dating back to 1969, that barred informants from taking part in crimes.
Undercover Policing Inquiry chair Sir John Mitting referred the convictions of Ernest Rodker, Jonathan Rosenhead and Christabel Gurney for review. That decision was a first for the Inquiry. Their convictions were overturned in January 2023 – 50 years after the event.
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.
Rosenhead argued unsuccessfully that the Inquiry should disclose the real names, cover names and contemporaneous photos of every officer who spied on him.
He was ‘surprised’ to learn how many there were – ‘I had no reason to believe that our unthreatening actions were worthy of the diversion of so many State resources’.
Asked about the impact of learning that HN298 ‘Michael Scott’ had been a spycop, Rosenhead said there was no reason to deploy undercover police against non-violent political groups. He said Scott’s deployment breached legal-profession privilege, reporting confidential details from meetings between activists and their solicitors.
Neither court nor prosecution knew of Scott’s true identity, Rosenhead stated, and so the 1970 trial was unfair. ‘The outcome, potentially contributed to by the covering up of the UCO’s status, is that I have had this criminal conviction for over 45 years’. He said:
Even with the benefit of hindsight, it seems extraordinary that the police were targeting their scarce resources on groups with a peaceful philosophy and aiming to defend the rights of oppressed people, rather than targeting others who were violent or anti-democratic, such as the National Front.
At the Inquiry, he concluded:
I do think that the emphasis then entirely on radical, liberal or radical and trade union organisations, to the virtually complete neglect of any danger from the right, which arguably was much greater, is striking. And I’m worried – I think we should think about this in terms of what’s going on now…
And the general picture that’s going on at the moment of reinforcing police powers is worrying given the evidence that we have in this case. And there is a continuing police culture, if you like, the abuse of power.
Jonathan Rosenhead was invited to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry in December 2019.
He submitted his statement in February 2021 , and a joint opening statement with Ernest Rodker and Lord Peter Hain in April 2021. Appearing by video link, Rosenhead gave evidence to the Inquiry in February 2023.
The Inquiry disclosed around 15 documents to Rosenhead, including 12 SDS reports that mentioned him. In the first report, dated 9 March 1970 , HN135 named Rosenhead a delegate at the founding conference of Stop The Seventy Tour (STST).
The most recent report was dated 22 September 1982, when HN96 ‘Michael James’ reported that Rosenhead was to speak at a Troops Out Movement (TOM) rally. TOM had called the meeting to object to Kenneth Newman being appointed commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
As detailed above, the Inquiry overturned Rosenhead’s and two others’ convictions in 2021. Rosenhead signed a joint closing statement with fellow activists Lord Peter Hain and Ernest Rodker in February 2023.