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https://archive.is/ZELG2

A former Metropolitan police commissioner has admitted that the surveillance of the family of Stephen Lawrence by undercover officers was institutionally racist, the spycops inquiry has heard.

While Paul Condon was in command of the Metropolitan police in the 1990s, a controversial undercover unit spied on the family as they sought to persuade Scotland Yard to properly investigate Lawrence’s racist murder.

The officers reported information about the separation of Lawrence’s parents, Doreen and Neville, to their superiors.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Condon said the covert monitoring of the Lawrences and their campaign “meets very well the parameters of institutional racism”.

The failure to rigorously investigate the 1993 murder was one of the biggest and most contentious issues he had to handle, and caused enormous damage to the reputation of the UK’s biggest police force.

Speaking more widely about the undercover unit, Condon also said the Metropolitan police had failed over decades to control the special demonstration squad (SDS), which committed “horrendous” abuses.

He said he was appalled by the wrongdoing of the unit, which spent 40 years spying on tens of thousands of political activists. He told the inquiry there were “rogue officers who’ve done some bad things” but that the greater fault lay with the Met’s systemic failure to supervise the unit rigorously.

He said the undercover officers were told daily to “lie, cheat and deceive as a way of life”, but added that the Met should have realised the covert work “can be corrupting” if strong rules were not in place.

Condon, who became a member of the House of Lords after his police career, is the highest-ranked officer to have given evidence to the long-running public inquiry, which is headed by the retired judge Sir John Mitting.