Secret Police

The Scottish government has called for the inquiry into the activities of undercover Metropolitan Police officers to be extended to Scotland. The Pitchford Inquiry is to look at how undercover officers infiltrated political campaigns over 40 years. But the inquiry is only currently able to examine undercover operations in England and Wales.

It has been claimed that some of the officers spied on activists ahead of the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005.

The officers had been working undercover for the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was part of the Metropolitan Police until it was shut down in 2008, and the separate National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). Both teams deployed officers on long-term undercover operations to infiltrate radical political or social causes, such as environmental campaigns, anarchy and animal rights.