Skip Navigation | Sheffield IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

UK Indymedia UK Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia Sheffield Indymedia

Exposed: police spy in Worthing

Porkbolter | 07.02.2011 19:36 | Ecology | Repression | Sheffield | South Coast

A POLICE spy pretending to be an environmental campaigner targeted the Save Titnore Woods! campaign in its early years, The Porkbolter can exclusively reveal.

After the woman, who called herself Lynn Watson, was outed on the Indymedia website and in The Guardian, a Durrington resident contacted us to reveal the Worthing link.

She recalled how she had met ‘Watson’ on a protest march in Titnore Lane, which we have worked out would have been the one on May 26 2002. Watson introduced herself as a ‘care worker from Bournemouth’ and expressed an interest in attending future protests, if her shiftwork allowed, handing over a slip of paper with her contact details (which has now been passed to us).

Our reader got on well enough with her on the day and did send her details of future protests, though she never met her again. But when she saw Watson’s name in the paper, and recognised her photo, she realised she had been conned by a cop.

She told us: "It sent a shiver down my spine when I read it. I thought - no, it can’t be! But it was. Why were they doing that for something like Titnore? It’s totally disproportionate."

Our research reveals that the email on the paper is the same as one given to environmentalists targeted by Watson in Leeds and elsewhere - she is thought to only recently have been forced to withdraw from her shady activities, which will remind many of the sinister secret police tactics of the Soviet KGB or the Nazi Gestapo.

It’s interesting to note that it seems Watson’s 2002 spying in Worthing is her first recorded mission - The Guardian reported (January 19) that she "first surfaced in 2003 at a protest at Aldermaston, Britain's nuclear weapons centre".

The 350-strong Durrington protest was the start of a long-running campaign and was a reflection of a widely-held local view that Titnore Woods should not be destroyed to make way for a massive housing estate - an opinion ultimately shared by Worthing Borough Council’s planning committee.

There was no excuse at all for the police to be taking an interest in the campaign, although over-aggressive filming and policing on the day did succeed in scaring off some supporters - as was presumably the aim - and cops’ lies about campaigners were only revealed thanks to video evidence produced in court (see issue 50).

Watson didn’t even work for Sussex Police, but for a shadowy outfit called the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. This begs a whole load of questions. What the pork was she doing there? Was she or her unit linked with subsequent dirty tricks used against campaigners, such as the lying copper who pretended to be from a local radio station? (issue 49).

What other police interference and fibbing has been undermining our local democracy in Worthing?

On a wider level, why exactly is taxpayers’ money spent spying on and attacking local campaigns to protect our countryside? Why does the British state act in the interests of property developers and huge corporations rather than the public it is supposed to serve?

Could it just be that that is in fact simply what the state is and what it does? While pretending to be some kind of practical voluntary arrangement set up to protect and look after us, it is in fact nothing but a tool used by an arrogant ultra-rich mafia to keep the rest of us in our subservient place.

From the Porkbolter, Issue 100, February 2011
Full edition at  http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter

Porkbolter
- e-mail: porkbolter@eco-action.org
- Homepage: http://www.eco-action.org/porkbolter

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Wasting our money

08.02.2011 12:57

Great article - I can't believe the levels of police (or not even police in this case - has anyone even heard of the 'National Public Order Intelligence Unit'..?!) surveillance directed at peaceful environmental/left wing protests. Perhaps they should redeploy these people to infiltrate meetings of banks and big businesses to chase up the billions of pounds of tax evasion instead.

zarniwoop
mail e-mail: zarniwoop@aktivix.org


Have you asked the Guardian to cover this?

08.02.2011 17:57

It might be something they cover, together with the Tintore things. Worth a try.

A N Other


Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Sheffield Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Sheffield [navigation.actions2016]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2015]

Sheffield [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

Sheffield Actions 2013

G8 2013

Sheffield Actions 2012

Workfare

Sheffield Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

Sheffield Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

Sheffield Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

Sheffield Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

Sheffield Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

Sheffield Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

Sheffield Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

Sheffield Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

Sheffield Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech