Campaigners told the hearing that the lengthy infiltration by an undercover police unit of the women’s peace movement on Greenham Common was a “ridiculous waste of money and an outrageous intrusion”.
An undercover police officer, using the pseudonym Lee Bonser, collected personal information about activists, including their occupations, relationships and housing situations, and reported it to his superiors.
The investigation heard that the Metropolitan police sent Bonser to spy on peace campaigners for three years because then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wanted to know “what the women of Greenham were doing”.
In one of the most visible feminist demonstrations in recent history, thousands of women protested and camped outside Greenham Common military base in Berkshire to oppose plans to station US nuclear weapons there.
This monitoring is Public investigation The investigation looks at the activities of more than 130 undercover agents who have monitored more than 1,000 political organizations since 1968.
Wednesday’s investigation revealed that Ms Bonser joined the Lambeth Women for Peace (LWP), south London, between 1983 and 1986 and regularly compiled secret reports on its activities. The LWP had an average membership of around 12 people.
Bonser regularly recorded the protests of a local group, one of many supporting Greenham’s campaign across the country, which also held fundraising events such as junk sales and discos.
The report she submitted to her superiors included personal details about the Lambeth Women for Peace campaigners, such as their appearance, their occupations, the car owned by one of their members, the decision of three members to move into squatter accommodation, and their sexual orientation.
Bonser spied on the Greenham campaign and was a signatory on its bank accounts. She was a member of Scotland Yard’s secret unit, the Special Demonstrations Squad, which infiltrated mainly left-wing and reformist activists for 40 years. Her reports were regularly passed on to MI5.
She told the inquiry she had been recruited by a “superintendent who had indicated the First Minister wanted to know what the women of Greenham were up to”.
Bonser was one of at least five undercover agents who spied on anti-nuclear groups such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s, at a time when anti-nuclear campaigners were staging widespread, nonviolent protests against the Thatcher government’s nuclear weapons plans and millions of people feared all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Sir John Mitting, a retired judge leading the inquiry, said one of the issues to be investigated would be whether police were justified in using undercover officers to spy on anti-nuclear protesters who were seeking to achieve their aims through non-violent direct action, such as cutting through the fence at RAF Greenham Common.
Testifying, Hilary Moore, a former member of the Lambeth Peace Women’s Association, said Bonser’s activities “An outrageous intrusionand a terrible waste of money.”
Jane Hickman, another LWP member, testified that Bonser’s deployment was “totally unjustified…totally unnecessary, a betrayal and worse. I am deeply disappointed at how much public money has been wasted when there have been so many calls for public expenditure.”
Bonser said, She showed “some sympathy” with the Greenham women’s movement.said LWP activists “are always peaceful but there is a potential for disturbance of public order and members are likely to stage ‘sit-ins’ or ‘sit-in’ protests which may cause disruption… The group’s only criminal offence was attempting to break into their base on Greenham Common.”
