That the Parliament notes the Court of Session’s ruling dismissing the claim by an alleged victim of illegal and/or unethical undercover policing that her human rights were breached by the decision of the Home Office not to extend the existing UK inquiry into undercover policing to Scotland and the decision of the Scottish Government not to establish its own public inquiry; understands that the petitioner, the environmental activist, Tilly Gifford, was kept under surveillance, followed and approached to be recruited as a spy; further understands that other victims entered into intimate relationships with officers living under an assumed identity, including having children by them, but that it is not known to what extent undercover policing took place in Scotland; is aware that undercover officers from across the UK visited Scotland on many occasions and infiltrated social justice and environmental groups here, and that such practices may have been undertaken by legacy forces prior to the formation of Police Scotland, and is concerned at what it considers a serious inequality in the system, where victims in England and Wales have access to a full public inquiry but victims in Scotland are denied the same opportunity.
Supported by:
Claudia Beamish, John Finnie, Iain Gray, James Kelly, Monica Lennon