‘Officer HN81’ has had his true identity protected

UNDERCOVER detectives filed reports on a family justice campaign after a former Islington Council care worker died following a police restraint, the spy cops inquiry has heard.

The family of Roger Sylvester – who died aged 30 in the Whittington Hospital after being forcefully restrained by eight police officers in 1999 – was targeted by the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad, a covert branch of Met officers that has become known as “spy cops”.

A coroner’s inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing in 2003. But this was quashed following an appeal in the High Court and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute the officers.

Statements read out at the Undercover Policing Inquiry last week revealed that a campaign led by his father Rupert, who worked as a carpenter for Islington Council, and mother Sheila, who worked in a maternity unit at the Whittington, was put under surveillance by the SDS.

Mr Sylvester’s brother Bernard is giving evidence in the latest “tranche” of hearings at the inquiry that is now investigating whether institutional racism was the driving force behind the tactics used by the undercover policing unit.

Acting for the family Leslie Thomas, KC, added: “The Justice for Roger Sylvester Campaign was peaceful. The family were engaged in legal processes for six years. All of their efforts were focused on raising awareness and to seek justice through those processes.

“They were acutely aware that any disturbances or public disorder would only serve to undermine their campaigning.

Roger Sylvester’s father Rupert worked for Islington Council

“The campaigns were public. Their whole purpose was to raise public awareness and all events were publicised. There was never any need for subterfuge.”

An opening statement from the family’s legal team last week expresses shock at the nature of the reports by the SDS that were factually inaccurate and appeared intent on “smearing the victims of police misconduct”.

The SDS was set up in the late 1960s to infiltrate groups seeking to create public disorder but ended up spying on hundreds of peaceful campaign groups over four decades. Some of the interventions were deeply inappropriate – with some officers fathering children with people they were spying on using fake identities and aliases of dead children.

Mr Sylvester was living in Tottenham at the time he died and had been working for Islington Council part time as a care worker. He had previously worked as a computer operator for the Met.

He had suffered from psychosis following a serious assault in 1986, the inquiry heard, and died after being rushed to the Whittington following a police restraint in a mental health unit.

A jury in the inquest into his death ruled that “more force was applied than was reasonably necessary”, returning a verdict of unlawful killing that was later quashed.

The family’s opening statement said that following the death there had been “racism inherent in the police’s response to his brother”.

“As Bernard Renwick puts it, ‘rather than recognising he was a vulnerable young man showing signs of mental ill health who needed their help, they saw him as black man who posed a danger…”.

Joy Gardner died after being handcuffed, bound by belts and gagged by police

It argues that the SDS reports contributed to the police response, and also fabricated evidence of “political manoeuvring” between racial justice campaign groups that “was a dehumanising and distressing response by the police to a grieving family”.

In 1999, forensic pathologist Freddy Patel was reprimanded by the General Medical Council (GMC) for releasing medical details about Roger Sylvester to reporters outside an inquest hearing. Mr Patel told reporters that Sylvester was a crack cocaine user, something his family denied.

Mr Patel was struck off after post mortem into the death of Ian Tomlinson after being struck by a police officer at the G20 London summit protests in 2009.

The spy cop who was reported on Sylvester family campaign, “HN81 Dave Hagan”, has recently been exposed for mounting a surveillance operation on the Stephen Lawrence family and the family of Joy Gardner, who died following a shockingly savage restraint by immigration officers in 1993. His true identity is being concealed by the inquiry.

In the same opening statement, the inquiry was told “Joy was forced face down on the floor and her hands were bound to her side with a leather belt to which she was handcuffed.

“Her legs were strapped together. An officer wound an elastic, adhesive bandage around her head several times.

“A second bandage was then wound around her head in the opposite direction. She was gagged with a total of thirteen feet of surgical tape. Her son saw some of this restraint and heard all of it.”

She died in hospital from brain injuries – again no officer faced justice over the scandal.

Ms Thomas told the inquiry: “The police are the public, the public are the police. The SDS forgot they were citizens in uniform and treated fellow citizens as enemies.

“Our democracy recoils to the nation that those who challenge the state can be spied upon.”

The Undercover Policing Inquiry – already the longest and most expensive inquiry in British history – is expected to conclude next year.

It was launched in 2014 following revelations about decades of unlawful tactics by undercover officers.

The inquiry continues.