HN1593 Robert Quick was a senior Metropolitan Police detective who led the Stephen Lawrence Review Team between April and September 1998.
Although not an undercover officer, his evidence is significant to the Undercover Policing Inquiry because he directed the Metropolitan Police's internal analysis of the Inquiry at the very time the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was secretly reporting on individuals associated with the Lawrence campaign. Quick states that his team's role was to analyse the Inquiry evidence, identify emerging themes and prepare the Commissioner's response, rather than gather intelligence or monitor campaigners.
He recalls that the team quickly concluded that the Inquiry was likely to find the Metropolitan Police institutionally racist and advised senior management that the force needed to prepare for that outcome. However, he was ambiguous as to his own views on the predicted finding of institutional racism. He subsequently oversaw the drafting of the Commissioner's extensive submissions to the Inquiry.
Quick stated that he had never heard of the SDS while leading the Review Team and only became aware of its existence years later through media reports about undercover officers. He maintains that his team neither received nor sought intelligence from undercover units and says that, had they known officers were reporting on the Lawrence campaign, they would have questioned both the relevance and the ethics of such intelligence.
Full profile to follow.