HN200 ‘Roger Harris’ was recruited into the Metropolitan Police in the mid-1960s and joined Special Branch in the late 1960s, where he took part in surveillance of left-wing groups. He entered the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in April 1974 and was deployed on active duty as an undercover in the summer of that year. Harris was one of the first SDS officers to use a deceased child’s identity – in this case a teenager’s – for his cover.
His SDS managers tasked Harris to infiltrate the International Socialists (IS) in west London. Between September 1974 and the end of 1975, he spied on the Twickenham branch of the IS, attending regular branch meetings and aggregate meetings of the IS West Middlesex District. In May 1975, Harris was elected branch contacts secretary. In January 1976, he, along with most of the Twickenham branch of the IS, defected to a new breakaway national organisation, the Worker’s League (WL).
Throughout the period of his active deployment, Harris supplied reports to the SDS on the activities of both IS and WL. This included interventions in industrial disputes, political discussions, collaboration with other left-wing groups and the political positions of the newly formed WL. His reports regularly carried lists of identified attendees, where they were located in the country, and details of their (ex)affiliations to local branches of the IS and trade unions.
At his own request, due to serious health problems, Harris was withdrawn from active service in the SDS in October 1977.
Unless otherwise indicated, the information below is either taken from the first witness statement or the oral evidence of HN200 ‘Roger Harris’.
Harris joined the Metropolitan Police in the mid-1960s and was posted to a central London police station as a uniformed officer. In this role, he policed political protests, stating that he ‘was at a demonstration virtually every week’.
In the late 1960s, Harris joined Special Branch as a constable and was eventually moved to C Squad , where he was tasked with investigating left-wing groups such as the Communist Party of Great Britain. His role included carrying out surveillance over short periods in plain clothes, and Harris altered his appearance by growing a beard and long hair, as an ‘extra security measure’. However, he maintained that this did not extend to creating any kind of formal cover identity, typically required for longer undercover assignments.
Harris claimed that he first became aware of the existence of the SDS when he was reporting on demonstrations in autumn 1968, as he ‘suddenly saw members from SB [Special Branch] mixing with the activists and made my own assumption’. Otherwise, Harris claimed the existence of the SDS was not widely known in Special Branch.
In October 1971, Harris, along with eight other Special Branch plain-clothes officers, took part in the surveillance of a meeting of the Hackney and Islington branch of the International Socialists (IS) in a pub in Stoke Newington, London. This fragment of information suggests that Harris had some knowledge of the politics and practice of certain left-wing groups, at least from the outside. This is demonstrated by his later judgement that the IS ‘was similar to a lot of my friends’ unlike ‘the Marxist groups’, which he claimed were ‘very serious’ and he would not have chosen to infiltrate them.
Recruitment
Harris was promoted to detective sergeant in the early 1970s and was approached at the beginning of 1974 by Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) HN294 , who asked whether he would like to join the SDS and gave him a week to decide. Harris, who suspected he had been recommended for the posting by one of his superiors, viewed it as a ‘reasonably exciting divergence from normal duties’. Having discussed it with his Special Branch line managers and secured his wife's agreement, he agreed to the move and joined the unit in April 1974.
Training
Harris stated that he was not provided with any formal training for his eventual deployment when he joined the SDS, instead, he spent around six months in the back office. This ‘informal training’, as he described it, involved conversing with the rest of the staff, learning about the formal reporting procedures, talking to senior officers, and to undercovers who were coming off deployments.
Like all SDS undercovers, Harris also attended the bi-weekly meetings, where the unit discussed future deployments, to prepare for what he was likely to face and to familiarise himself with how the unit worked.
The officer he was going to replace in the field, HN343 ‘John Clinton’ , was present at some of these meetings, so Harris took the opportunity to pick his brains. Clinton had infiltrated the Fulham and Hammersmith branch of IS. He was nearing the end of almost three years of deployment, so could explain how the branches operated and who the key figures in the organisation were.
While in his back-office role, Harris was presented by his managers with the Home Office circular 97/1969, titled ‘Informants Who Take Part in Crime’. This document asserted that police officers ‘should not counsel, incite or procure the commission of a crime’ or mislead a court. Harris added: ‘I was never given training on race or gender inequality issues.’
Tradecraft
Harris stated retrospectively that, other than the Home Office memo, there was no such thing as a Tradecraft manual and that he was given no advice on how far it was acceptable to become involved in the private lives of those he was spying on. Neither was he advised about engaging in sexual relationships with those whom he came into contact with in his undercover identity. Harris stated that he assumed this was not permitted.
Should he be arrested, Harris was given a phone number and told to ask to see a senior police officer. The number could then be discreetly handed over, allowing his SDS managers to be informed of his whereabouts. However, what would happen if Harris ended up in court was not discussed, though he claimed:
It was stressed that we should not get into a position where we could be construed as organising or leading a group in a particular direction.
Harris employed the name of a deceased teenager throughout his period in the field. When he asked whether this approach was appropriate, SDS management responded that it was ‘the normal procedure’ to create a fake identity. Harris recalled going to the Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths with someone from the SDS back office who was experienced in the process.
Harris chose a teenager’s name rather than an infant's to provide a further level of security on the basis that:
It just seemed to me silly to take the date of birth of a child who'd died shortly after birth, because obviously anybody from the left who was checking that would get the death certificate and also could collect the two, because they were close together.
So taking a teenager’s name instead meant that:
…anyone checking would have to go through a lot of binders to find the death certificate and the chance was they would not persevere that long.
Despite the effort required to obtain the name, Harris stated that he did not create a ‘particularly detailed background persona’ and that the only false paperwork he was provided with by the SDS was a driving licence and a birth certificate. There was no passport, as at that time, SDS undercovers were not permitted to travel outside Britain using their created identities. Despite this, HN326 ‘Doug Edwards’ and HN340 ‘Andy Bailey’ had attended a political conference, using temporary passports in 1972.
Outside the formal documentation, Harris had cover employment as a mechanic and van driver at a small garage in the Crystal Palace area. The SDS provided him with a vehicle, a Morris Traveller, which was registered under his false name. His cover accommodation was a single-bedroom flat in Hounslow, west London. Harris rented the property using his false identity and paid cash to the landlord each month.
International Socialists
Harris was tasked by SDS manager HN819 DCI Derek Kneale with infiltrating the IS in west London, partly because HN343 ‘John Clinton’ had been withdrawn from working undercover in the Hammersmith and Fulham branch of IS.
Harris targeted the nearby Twickenham and West Middlesex IS branch. He did not make a direct approach, instead waiting until he was asked to join, which he recalled was around September 1974. Confirmation of Harris’ membership appears in a Special Branch report on 1 October.
Apart from a minor report on an attempt by the West Middlesex district organiser of the IS to persuade a member to take employment on the M3 motorway extension, the first significant intelligence from Harris came in January 1975, nearly five months after his deployment. This was a report on an aggregate meeting of the West Middlesex District of the IS, which included a list of the names of some of the 32 attendees.
Throughout the rest of the year, Harris produced reports on the branch's activities in both public and private meetings. These featured news on recruitment activities, local industrial disputes in factories and on the railways, details of potential and actual interventions by the branch, the organisation of shop stewards’ committees and political discussions over entry to the Common Market and the Labour Party.
Harris also took time to report on political arguments between named members of the branch at both private and public meetings. Where possible, Harris identified attendees to these meetings.
In a meeting of Twickenham IS branch on 29 May 1975, held in a private residence, Harris was elected as contacts secretary for the group. This gave him access to the branch membership list.
Workers League
The depth of Harris’ reporting underwent a significant change in February 1976. In what appears to be his first report of the year, Harris provides a detailed account of the history of splits from the IS, commencing a year or more before his deployment in 1973, and concluding with the recent formation of a faction known as the IS Opposition (ISO). Harris explains the various reasons for the emergence of the ISO, the refusal of the IS party council to call a conference to deal with the issue and the consequent split, which led to the Twickenham branch of the IS leaving the party en masse, along with many other members.
In the same report, Harris documents the founding conference of the ISO in Birmingham in January 1976, which renamed the faction to create a new organisation, the ‘Workers League’ (WL). Harris identifies and lists the members elected to the editorial board of the planned fortnightly paper of the WL, Workers News and executive committee.
Harris also provides a list of the names of 154 members of the WL, including their trade union membership and ex-branch of the IS. The extent and detail of this list suggests he gained access to the membership records of the new organisation.
This significant split from the IS and the detailed accounts that Harris provided of the founding of a new left-wing organisation focused on the workplace and trade unions, would have been very useful to MI5’s F branch. Membership lists, organisational structure – even down to the seating plans in party offices were of apparent interest to the Security Service.
After this, Harris remained with the WL, reporting on its meetings in London, providing lists of identified attendees, and noting the involvement of other left-wing groupings, such as the International Marxist Group (IMG).
In May 1976, Harris attended the first aggregate meeting of the WL in Birmingham, providing another very detailed report. This contained more information regarding the organisation’s finances, numbers, location in the country and trade union membership. It also documented debates over party discipline, the relationship with IS and the Labour Party and a series of resolutions concerning immediate demands.
Attached were lists of the names and location of more than 60 members who attended the conference, along with those elected to the executive committee, plus a draft of the WL draft constitution. Finally, a series of position papers was circulated in the WL covering topics such as the war in Ireland, relations with other left-wing groups, and relations with trade unions.
In June and July 1976, Harris produced three reports on meetings of the WL: the first with the International Communist League (ICL) discussing the conflict in Ireland, and the second with the South Asia Socialist Forum debating the war in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The final internal meeting discussed recruiting ‘Black’ people to the WL and called for educating ‘prominent Asian community leaders in Marxist philosophy’. In all three cases, Harris provided lists of identified attendees.
After this point, there is a gap in Harris’ reporting for five months. This may have been the period when he was ill and then in hospital. His final report concerning the WL came in May 1977.
One thing that is noticeable in Harris’ spying is the distinct lack of reporting that is concerned directly with demonstrations or violence, the supposed primary justification for SDS operations. As stated, much of this information could have only been of interest to MI5. This issue is examined in the profile of HN34 Geoff Craft.
Harris claimed he reported on many demonstrations, but his written statements do not appear among the final Special Branch reports. Furthermore, he could only recall one incident where he was present and there was the potential of a clash between a protesting crowd and the police. He stated that the ‘incident could have escalated but it did not’. He added:
I saw attacks on cars and shop windows being broken around 3 or 4 times during my whole SDS deployment. I was never particularly close to any violence or felt in danger.
Life undercover
Harris stated that his typical routine in the field involved going to his cover job each work day morning, spending a couple of hours on the premises to appear to be working and checking he hadn’t been followed, before heading off. Most afternoons and evenings, Harris would return to his cover flat, though he only stayed there about once a week, using the other trips for counter-surveillance purposes, before returning to his real home.
Beyond simulating his work-life activity during the mornings and evenings, Harris was attending one or two activist meetings per week and often going to demonstrations at the weekend to sell Socialist Worker or Workers News. He also admitted taking part in social events with his IS/WL ‘comrades’; this included going out to pubs after meetings and demonstrations and attending at least one beer-fuelled garden party at an IS/WL member’s house.
Harris stated that he did not engage in any sexual activity while in his role as an undercover with the SDS. He was a friend and colleague of the late HN297 Richard Clark (‘Rick Gibson’). The pair had known each other before being assigned to the SDS. Clark deceived four women into relationships while undercover. Harris denied that he was aware of this but when asked if he remembered HN300 ‘Jim Pickford’ having a ‘similar reputation’, replied in the affirmative.
Beyond these social activities were Harris’ required routine tasks for the SDS unit. He submitted reports to his SDS managers on Mondays, which he said were then filtered through the back office to be put into ‘decent English’. If a large demonstration took place, then he would submit the report collectively with other SDS undercovers who had been present.
This process was aided by the regular bi-weekly meetings of SDS undercovers in the field and their managers which occurred in two safe houses on Mondays and Thursdays. The first safe house was in south-east London, but later moved to another address in south London, and the other was in the west of the capital. Harris, as an experienced undercover by that stage, was involved in setting up the south London house. Once Harris was deployed, he never visited the back office in Scotland Yard.
The majority of active SDS undercovers frequented the bi-weekly meetings along with their managers. Harris recalled that he usually spent around four hours at these meetings on a Monday and that:
They were normally fairly light hearted… It was just basically an open forum that people could throw anything in.
The undercovers and their managers would discuss their deployments in a group setting with the option of being able to speak privately in a separate room to a manager about personal issues.
Harris stated that the Thursday meetings were longer, around six hours, and were more social occasions. They would cook and share food, talk about problems and share experiences. Sometimes, the SDS undercovers would be asked by their managers for their advice on infiltrating more extreme groups or events.
Harris also remembered that they were visited at these meetings by the most senior officer in the Metropolitan Police, Commissioner Robert Mark and his successor, David McNee.
Harris’ deployment by the SDS finished in October 1977. A Special Branch report from September states that he:
had not been fully fit for some time and has been quietly withdrawing himself from the SDS field. The operation is now virtually complete.
Harris’ exfiltration strategy had been to tell his ‘comrades’ in the WL that he was planning to move to Canada as he had family there, was going to visit them and then look for a job. To support his story, he travelled to Canada for a month and sent a few postcards back stating that he had got work picking fruit.
His SDS managers were fully aware of his strategy and once he returned to the UK, he did not maintain any contact with the members of his target groups. Harris claimed he ‘never even saw an activist that I knew after leaving the SDS’.
After finishing his deployment with the SDS, Harris was given a ‘restful posting to recover from the pressure of undercover work’. He stated that he ‘didn’t think my SDS deployment had any long-term effect on my welfare’. Harris retired from the Metropolitan Police in the mid 1990s, having obtained the rank of detective chief inspector when he left.
On 26 February, 2018, lawyers for the Metropolitan Police made an application to restrict the real name of HN200 ‘Roger Harris’. Inquiry Chair John Mitting indicated his inclination to grant the request in a Minded-To notice on 8 November, 2018.
No application was made to restrict his cover name, which was published on 30 July 2018. HN200 ‘Roger Harris’ made a witness statement on 21 August 2019.
You can find the documents mentioned in this page via the Procedural tab of this profile.