If Labour wins the next election, Keir Starmer may have to give evidence as prime minister about his past. Awkwardly he may have to face his close former Doughty Street chambers colleague at a long-running public inquiry into the police. The Labour leader has been urged to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, which is examining the activities of the Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit – so-called “spy cops” – since 1968.
The inquiry was set up by Theresa May while Home Secretary in 2015 to investigate how more than 100 secret police officers targeted individuals and groups linked to political and social justice campaigns. Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013. A group of 18 environmental campaigners want him to answer questions over whether he helped to conceal how some spy cops caused the wrongful prosecutions of activists.
Starmer’s former chambers colleague, Maya Sikand KC, is representing ex-spy cop turned whistle blower Peter Francis. His revelations, which include claims that undercover police spied on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, triggered the inquiry.
In an embarrassing twist, another of Starmer’s ex-girlfriends, Phillipa Kaufmann KC, with whom he lived between 1997 and 2001, is also representing alleged victims at the Undercover Policing Inquiry. The inquiry, which was only expected to last three years, has gone on for almost a decade so far costing taxpayers £82 million. The inquiry has revealed that law enforcement officers were improperly having illicit sexual relations whilst on the job.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is agog today as an inquest in Gibraltar outlines how fragile their relationships with the rest of the world really are. A hugely expensive KC-fuelled inquest into the resignation of the former Chief of Police in Gibraltar, Ian McGrail, will focus on the fractious relationship between Britain and Spain over the future of the British controlled “Rock”. A dispute that continues to this day.
Evidence will hear that the hapless McGrail – whose force was described as a mix between The Sweeney and Life on Mars – drew opprobrium from FCO careerist Nick Pyle as acting Governor, when the Royal Gibraltar Police Force smashed into an alleged smuggler’s boat in Spanish waters killing two men in 2020. Pyle was vastly concerned that this action, and a subsequent legal action by the dead men’s families, would affect the delicate post Brexit negotiations over Gibraltar and used it as an excuse to encourage McGrail from office.
Luckily for the FCO, help is at hand from leftie lawyers at Doughty Street Chambers whose young KC Ben Cooper is furthering McGrail’s “early retirement.” Which is odd. As batting for McGrail are two other Doughty Street Chambers briefs Adam Wagner and Caolifhionn Gallagher KC, who have racked up a combined £212,672 in bills so far. Whoever comes on top from the Doughty Street Chambers teams the FCO will be sweating.
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”