Robert Lambert/Police career

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Metropolitan Police

Lambert is reported to have joined the Metropolitan Police in 1977, aged 25, had a 31 year long career before retiring in 2007[1][2][3] - though some discrepancies in his claimed biography have been noted.

Little is known about his earliest years in the Met, except for a passing reference by him to working a beat in the North London district of Camden.[4] He is reputed to have joined Metropolitan Police Special Branch (MPSB) in 1980, before being recruited to its secretive Special Demonstration Squad sometime between then and 1983. He was deployed undercover as ‘Bob Robinson’ from at least early 1984 until late 1988.[5]

Subsequently he worked in E Squad, a section devoted to non-Irish international "terrorism",[6] until 1993. He returned to SDS as its Operational Controller, with the rank of Detective Inspector. He left SDS in 1998, and it is not clear what his role was until January 2002, when he set up the Muslim Contact Unit. He led the MCU from this time, through the 2006 merger of MPSB (also known as SO12) with the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch (ATB or SO13) which created Counter Terrorism Command (also known as SO15), until his retirement in December 2007.[7] Lambert has at times indicated that he was unhappy with the merger,[8] noting his divergence from the investigatory-minded direction in which the first CTC head, Peter Clarke, took it.[9]

In June 2008, Lambert was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) “for Services to the Police”.[10]

After leaving the Met, Lambert built upon his MCU work and began a successful second career as an academic specialising in engagement with British Muslims, purportedly to stem their "radicalisation".[11][12][13][14][15]

Lambert timeline(2).png

Overview of undercover tour as 'Bob Robinson'

Full article: 'Bob Robinson'

‘Bob Robinson’ first appeared in the animal rights and environmental milieu in north London late 1983 or early 1984.[16][1][17] His deployment followed that of the first known SDS officer sent to live amongst animal rights activists, Mike Chitty, who appeared in South London in early 1983.[18]

His infiltration into animal rights groups began with regular attendance at demonstrations, where he made the acquaintance of genuine activists, including Jacqui.[1][16] He soon became a familiar face at protests, and offered to drive people to and from events. He took part in hunt sabotage, protests against businesses associated with animal products, and joined London Greenpeace, an anarchist-leaning group involved in environmental and social issues.

Having established himself on the scene, he took on more responsibilities and a more active role in various campaigns and groups, and “set about befriending campaigners suspected of being in the ALF” [Animal Liberation Front].[19] He wrote or co-wrote a number of activist documents, including London Greenpeace's What's Wrong With McDonald's? factsheet - which was later subject to a notorious libel suit issued by McDonald's. Throughout his undercover tour as ‘Robinson’, Lambert implied to activists that he was interested in or already involved in more clandestine forms of political activity, such as that associated with the cells of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).[20]

As an activist in an ALF cell,[21] he was implicated in the burning down of the Harrow branch of the Debenhams department store as part of a coordinated incendiary device operation which also saw branches in Luton and Romford targeted at the same time on the same night.[22][23][24][25][23] The 1987 attacks, which caused an estimated £340,000 worth of damage on the Harrow branch alone, with £4 million in fire damage and £4.5 million in trading losses across all three,[26][27] was credited with precipitating the ending of Debenhams' involvement in the fur trade.[28]

The other two members of ‘Robinson’'s cell, Geoff Sheppard and Andrew Clarke, were both arrested and subsequently imprisoned.[24][25][29][30][31] The 2015 “forensic external examination” of SDS-related documents undertaken by Stephen Taylor for the Home Office obliquely references Lambert's involvement in securing the arrests of Sheppard and Clarke, and indicates that the then-Home Secretary Douglas Hurd complimented the unit on its operation.[32]

Lambert remained deployed in the field as ‘Robinson’ until late 1988.[33][34] Using the pretext of being under investigation by police for his involvement in the 1987 Harrow Debenhams' arson - which included a Special Branch raid on the home of non-activist Belinda Harvey “to add credibility to Lambert's cover story”[35] - ‘Robinson’ told Harvey and other friends, including his son's mother Jacqui, that he needed to go ‘on the run’ to avoid capture; to some he said that he planned to move to Spain until things quietened down.[36] He then “abandoned his flat and stayed for a couple of weeks in what he called a ‘safe house’”,[35] before spending a farewell week with Belinda at a friend's house in Dorset in December 1988.[37] With this, he disappeared out of their lives, with a few postcards postmarked Spain and sent in January 1989 the only indication that he still existed.[37]

E Squad (1989-1993)

After being pulled out of his SDS undercover tour, Lambert was redeployed elsewhere in MPSB, first finding a new home in E Squad,[38] which dealt with worldwide "terrorist" threats[6] (excluding those related to Northern Ireland, which were handled by B Squad).[39][40][41]

In his 2011 book (and elsewhere[42]), Lambert refers to how “in the 1980s Special Branch officers would meet Sikh community representatives in London to discuss the terrorist threat posed by Sikh extremists,”[43] a theme he returned to in a Chatham House lecture where he explicitly noted the involvement of E Squad (“a wonderful department”).[44] However, in neither version is it clear whether he himself was involved in this community engagement work with Sikhs.

It was whilst working in E Squad that Lambert appears to have first engaged with Muslim communities. In 1991 he arrested Omar Bakri Mohammed[45][46] for making threats against Prime Minister John Major in relation to the Salman Rushdie affair. Bakri had issued a ‘fatwa’ against the PM and suggested him a target for assassination; for this Bakri was detained and questioned for two days by MPSB before being released without charge.[47]

Lambert's early engagement with Muslims centred around the London Central Mosque, where “prominent figures” such as Zaki Badawi and security manager Fasli Ali had success in “combating violent extremism and maintaining order in the face of serious challenges”. He notes that this made London Central Mosque “a role model and source of partnership support” on which he would later draw in his Muslim Contact Unit work, particularly at the Finsbury Park Mosque in the early 2000s.[48]

Lambert has claimed that he “helped colleagues from the FBI on the first World Trade Center attack” in 1993[49][50] and that he “was involved in the investigation”,[44][51] stating that he “was able to ask a Muslim community leader in London for help in clarifying the details of the time spent in the UK of one of the suspects.”[4] (Possibly this suspect was Ramzi Yousef (nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) who had lived and studied in the UK for four years before going first to Kuwait then to Pakistan, before next heading to the US.[52][53][54])

Return to SDS (1993-1998)

In November 1993 Lambert returned to SDS, taking on the role of Controller of Operations.[55] This put him in the position of running the whole unit on a day-to-day basis,[56] working under its titular head, Detective Chief Inspector Keith Edmondson.[57][55][58][59] According to the Ellison Review, by August 1998 he had overall lead of the unit, having been made up to Acting Detective Chief Inspector. Lambert states he left SDS sometime in 1998.[57]

Management decisions

In 1997 it seems that Lambert unilaterally broadened the mission of the unit, extended its reach beyond the Greater London area to the whole of the UK, and changed its name from "Special Demonstration Squad" to "Special Duties Section" in order to "reflect the increasing remit, and to meet customer requirements". In his third Operation Herne report Chief Constable Mick Creedon registers surprise that this appears to have been executed without being directly sanctioned by Lambert's seniors, noting that it “demonstrates the considerable autonomy and influence that the Detective Inspector had within the management structure of the unit, and the apparent lack of Senior Management and Executive oversight.”[60]

Authorship of SDS documents

Lambert is believed to have contributed significantly[61][62] to the SDS Tradecraft Manual, which the first Herne Report describes as “an organic document of initiatives, operational learning, guidelines and suggestions from established UCOs to assist other UCOs [undercover officers] in their deployments”.[63] In addition, it is claimed that in 1997 Lambert penned a confidential Special Branch document called Withdrawal Strategy, which discussed Peter Francis' exfiltration from his undercover deployment.[64]

According to Evans and Lewis, at some point around June 1992 (when still in E Squad) Lambert was tasked by UK Special Branch superiors “to discreetly study the rogue officer” Mike Chitty,[48] who had been Lambert's contemporary as an SDS undercover officer infiltrating animal rights activists in the mid-1980s. The culmination of Lambert's eighteen month covert inquiry into Chitty was a “highly confidential” forty-five page report written in May 1994 (by which time he had returned to SDS as its Operational Controller), which was then “stored under lock and key in a Scotland Yard archive”.[65] (For more detail, see the profile on Mike Chitty)

The Ellison Review mentions additional pieces of SDS paperwork written by Lambert. These include a “briefing note” outlining the work of undercover officer N81 and how it touched upon the Stephen Lawrence family campaign;[66] and a “file note” dated 18 August 1998 which summarises the 14 August meeting hosted by him between Richard Walton and N81.[67]

The Stephen Lawrence murder investigation, Macpherson Inquiry and Ellison Review

In April 1993, black teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a gang of white youths whilst he waited for a bus in the south-east London neighbourhood of Eltham. The failure of the Metropolitan Police to promptly secure evidence, follow up on information received, protect witnesses or interview suspects led to a public outcry, and subsequently to the Macpherson Inquiry, which found the MPS investigation to have been stymied by incompetence, corruption and “institutional racism”.[68]

In August 1998, when the leadership of the Met under Commissioner Paul Condon was formulating its response to Macpherson Inquiry, Bob Lambert hosted a meeting at his home in north London between undercover officer ‘N81’ and Acting Detective Inspector Richard Walton. At the time N81 was infiltrating a left-wing political group close to the Stephen Lawrence family justice campaign, whilst Walton was a member of the Met's ‘Lawrence Review Team’, and soon to join John Grieve's newly established Racial and Violent Crime Task Force, or CO24.[69].

The existence of this clandestine meeting were not publicly known until March 2014, when Mark Ellison QC revealed details about it in The Stephen Lawrence Independent Review, with a less in-depth account in the simultaneously released third Herne report.[70][71][72][73][74]

1998-2001 - the ‘missing years’

It is not clear what Lambert did between leaving SDS sometime after August 1998 and the establishment of the Muslim Contact Unit in January 2002.

Biographies - in writings he authored - indicate that he remained with Metropolitan Police Special Branch throughout that time.[75] No evidence has so far come up to suggest he was involved in, for example, Territorial Policing, that he was transferred to other Branch-level units such as the Anti-Terrorist Branch, or that he transferred to a police force other than the Metropolitan Police Service.

By implication, Lambert seems likely to have been working in a different unit or units within MPSB during this time period. One biography notes that from beginning in MPSB in 1980 until 2006 or 2007, Lambert had dealt “with all forms of violent political threats to the UK, from Irish republican to the many strands of International terrorism.”[76] Whilst his work on international terrorism at E Squad has already been noted, an involvement in Irish republican matters would suggest time was in B Squad (though it is by no means clear whether that would have occurred at this point of his career or in Lambert's pre-SDS years).

Muslim Contact Unit

In January 2002 Lambert set up the Muslim Contact Unit (MCU) within Special Branch, “with the purpose of establishing partnerships with Muslim community leaders both equipped and located to help tackle the spread of al-Qaida propaganda in London.”[77][2][78][79]

The avowed strategy of the MCU under Lambert was to “set about identifying the Muslims they believed were best equipped to take on the so-called “hate preachers”, chief among them the infamous Egyptian Abu Hamza, who were believed to be serving as propagandists for al-Qaeda in London”, most notably at Brixton and Finsbury Park.[80] Typically this approach meant working with Muslims characterised as "Islamists" or "salafis" - a path which Lambert himself notes conflicted with prevailing "counter-terrorism" opinion on dealing with political Islam, which cautioned “against accommodating ‘traditionalists’” and “lump[ed] salafis and Islamists together as ‘radical fundamentalists’”.[81][82]

Reflecting on his time at MCU, Lambert has latterly claimed that the unit “was a graveyard in career terms,” and that he realised he would never rise above Detective Inspector.[49]

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References

  1. ↑ a b c Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p27.
  2. ↑ a b Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence staff page, ‘Dr Robert Lambert - Lecturer in Terrorism Studies’, University of St. Andrews website (accessed 15 March 2014).
  3. ↑ Tom Foot, ‘Holloway Road uni defends crime lecturer former cop who had undercover affair’, Islington Tribune, 31 October 2014 (accessed 8 November 2014).
  4. ↑ a b Richard Jackson, ‘Counter-terrorism and communities: an interview with Robert Lambert’, Critical Studies on Terrorism volume 1 number 2, August 2008 (accessed 16 June 2014), p295.
  5. ↑ See later sections on ‘Bob Robinson’ for more details.
  6. ↑ a b Metropolitan Police Special Branch, Special Branch Introduction and summary of responsibilities, MPSB, August 2004 (released via Freedom of Information Act), p5.
  7. ↑ See section on Lambert's subsequent career for more details.
  8. ↑ Robert Lambert, Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, Hurst & Company, 2011, p60.
  9. ↑ Robert Lambert, Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, Hurst & Company, 2011, pp11 & 138.
  10. ↑ The London Gazette, ‘Supplement No. 1’, The London Gazette, 14 June 2008 (accessed 16 March 2014).
  11. ↑ Robert Lambert, Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, Hurst & Company, 2011, p230.
  12. ↑ Robert Lambert, ‘Salafi and Islamist Londoners: Stigmatised Minority Faith Communities Countering al-Qaida’, Arches Quarterly, Summer 2008 (accessed 22 November 2014).
  13. ↑ Nasar Meer, ‘Complicating ‘Radicalism’ - Counter-Terrorism and Muslim identity in Britain’, Arches Quarterly, Spring 2012 (accessed 22 November 2014).
  14. ↑ Robert Lambert, ‘Empowering Salafis and Islamists Against Al-Qaeda: A London Counter-terrorism Case Study’. Political Science and Politics, Volume 41 Issue 1, pp. 31-35 (2008).
  15. ↑ Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace, Rethinking Radicalisation,Conference report, 12 October 2011 (accessed 18 November 2014).
  16. ↑ a b Lauren Collins, ‘The Spy Who Loved Me: An undercover surveillance operation that went too far’, The New Yorker, August 25 2014 issue (accessed 30 September 2014).
  17. ↑ Andy Davies, ‘I'm sorry, says ex-undercover police boss’, Channel 4 News, Channel 4, 5 July 2013 (accessed 15 April 2014).
  18. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, pp 76-77.
  19. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p34.
  20. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p28.
  21. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p36.
  22. ↑ BBC News, ‘Undercover policeman 'fire-bombed shop,' MPs told’, BBC News, 13 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  23. ↑ a b Rob Evans, Paul Lewis, Richard Sprenger, Guy Grandjean & Mustafa Khalili, ‘Claims that police spy 'crossed the line' during animal rights firebombing campaign’, The Guardian, 13 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  24. ↑ a b Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, ‘Call for police links to animals rights firebombing to be investigated’, The Guardian, 13 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  25. ↑ a b Paul Lewis & Rob Evans, ‘Questions remain over animal rights activists' case’, The Guardian, 13 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  26. ↑ unknown author, ‘Animal Front trial told of raid finding firebombs being made’, Glasgow Herald, 14 June 1988 (accessed via Google News archive, 3 February 2015).
  27. ↑ BBC News, ‘Green MP Caroline Lucas names undercover officer as shop fire bomber’, BBC News, 13 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  28. ↑ Kevin Toolis, ‘In for the kill: Is human life of greater importance and worth than animal life?’, The Guardian, 5 December 1998 (accessed 29 August 2014).
  29. ↑ Rob Evans, ‘Home Office silence over Bob Lambert claim’, The Guardian, 29 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  30. ↑ Kirsty Walker & Chris Greenwood, ‘Undercover policeman planted bomb in 1987 Debenhams blast that caused millions of pounds worth of damage to 'prove worth' to animal rights group he was infiltrating, claims Green Party MP’, Daily Mail, 13 June 2012 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  31. ↑ Suzannah Hills, ‘Mother claims missing father of her child was undercover policeman accused by MP of leaving bomb in department store’, Mail Online, 6 February 2013 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  32. ↑ Home Office, Investigation into links between Special Demonstration Squad and Home Office, Home Office, 12 March 2015(accessed 22 March 2015), pp3 & 19.
  33. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber/Guardian Books, 2013, p54.
  34. ↑ The New Yorker article appears to suggest that Lambert was preparing to exfiltrate himself from as early as Autumn 1987: “[One morning] in the fall of 1987... [Bob] said that he had to leave because of the investigation into the Debenhams bombing. He was going abroad, and, for a while, it might be difficult to communicate. As soon as it was safe, he said, he would write. Jacqui could bring their son to visit him in Spain.” Lauren Collins, ‘The Spy Who Loved Me: An undercover surveillance operation that went too far’, The New Yorker, August 25 2014 issue (accessed 30 September 2014).
  35. ↑ a b Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p53.
  36. ↑ Paul Peachey, ‘Deceived lovers speak of mental 'torture' from undercover detectives’, The Independent, 1 March 2013 (accessed 8 November 2014).
  37. ↑ a b Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p54.
  38. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p55.
  39. ↑ unknown author, ‘Commander John Wilson’, Daily Telegraph, 27 February 2006 (accessed 8 November 2014).
  40. ↑ Paula Gilford, LinkedIn profile of Paula Gilford, LinkedIn.com website, 2014 (accessed 25 November 2014).
  41. ↑ Nigel West, Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence, Scarecrow Press, 2005, p586.
  42. ↑ Richard Jackson, ‘Counter-terrorism and communities: an interview with Robert Lambert’, Critical Studies on Terrorism volume 1 number 2, August 2008 (accessed 16 June 2014), p298.
  43. ↑ Robert Lambert, Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, Hurst & Company, 2011, pp241-242; he references this from ‘participant observation’ of a number of Special Branch officers and an interview with a further officer.
  44. ↑ a b Dr Bob Lambert & Professor Rosemary Hollis, Partnering with the Muslim Community as an Effective Counter-Terrorist Strategy, Chatham House, 20 September 2011 (accessed 17 April 2014).
  45. ↑ Bakri is a Syrian-born Islamist who was long involved in activity in the UK from 1986 until his departure - consolidated by a government banning order preventing his return - in 2005. He led the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir and later founded al-Muhajiroun with Anjem Choudary.
  46. ↑ We have used the same spelling of Bakri's name used by Lambert (and others, e.g. Jon Ronson, THEM: Adventures with Extremists, Picador, 2001 and Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Secret Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tail, 2010), though it should be noted that Wikipedia and some other sources render it ‘Omar Bakri Muhammad’.
  47. ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Secret Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tail, 2012 (updated edition), p273.
  48. ↑ a b Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p81.
  49. ↑ a b Anonymous author, Notes on Bob Lambert at ‘9/11 Ten Years On’ conference, University of Strathclyde, 8-11 September 2011, September 2011, private document, September 2011.
  50. ↑ Anonymous author, Notes on Bob Lambert at Chatham House 20 September 2011, private document, September 2011.
  51. ↑ It is possibly of note that “By 2000, the FBI reassigned one of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate ELF arsons in Long Island, New York. The task force had previously investigated the...first bombing of the World Trade Center.” Will Potter, Green Is The New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege, City Lights, 2011, p58 (based on Christine Haughney, ‘Teenagers' Activism Takes a Violent Turn - New York Youths Linked to Ecoterrorist Group’, Washington Post, 27 March 2001.). The New York JTTF, comprising Federal and local law enforcement agencies, was the lead for the 1993 WTC attack, and the point of liaison for foreign detectives, such as Bob Lambert, assisting the inquiry. Given Lambert's career-defining two areas of experience - animal rights/environmental anarchists and Islamic radicals - it seems possible that he would retain contact with NYJTTF over the years as a professional courtesy, given its own interest in those same two topics.
  52. ↑ Robert Lambert, ‘What if Bin Laden had stood trial?’, The Guardian, 3 May 2011 (accessed 22 November 2014).
  53. ↑ Robert Lambert & Jonathan Githens-Mazer, Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime: UK Case Studies 2010 - An introduction to a ten year Europe-wide research project (first edition) (research project) European Muslim Research Centre/University of Exeter, November 2010 (accessed via counterextremism.org 11 June 2014).
  54. ↑ Robert Lambert & Jonathan Githens-Mazer, Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime: UK Case Studies 2010 - An introduction to a ten year Europe-wide research project (second edition) (research project), European Muslim Research Centre/University of Exeter, January 2011 (accessed via archive.org 11 June 2014).
  55. ↑ a b Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber/Guardian Books, 2013, p55.
  56. ↑ Chief Constable Mick Creedon, Operation Herne - Report 2: Allegations of Peter Francis (second edition), Derbyshire Constabulary, 2014, p22 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  57. ↑ a b Andy Davies, ‘"We did not target Stephen's family", says undercover boss’, Channel 4 News, 1 July 2013 (accessed 16 March 2014).
  58. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber/Guardian Books, 2013, p81.
  59. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, The Stephen Lawrence Independent Review: Volume One, Home Office, March 2013 (accessed 1 April 2014), p213.
  60. ↑ Derbyshire Constabulary, Operation Herne - Report 3: Special Demonstration Squad Reporting - Mentions of Sensitive Campaigns, Derbyshire Constabulary, July 2014, pp8-9 (accessed 21 November 2014).
  61. ↑ Private source, August 2014.
  62. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, pp57-58.
  63. ↑ Chief Constable Mick Creedon, Operation Herne - Report 1: Use of covert identities, Derbyshire Constabulary, 2013, p8 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  64. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber/Guardian Books, 2013, p158.
  65. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p82.
  66. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence review: volume 1, HMSO, 2014 (accessed 16 April 2014), p226.
  67. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence review: volume 1, HMSO, 2014 (accessed 16 April 2014), p227.
  68. ↑ BBC News, ‘Stephen Lawrence: Chronology of events’, BBC News, 25 March 1999 (accessed 18 February 2015).
  69. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence review: volume 1, HMSO, 2014, p251 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  70. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence independent review: summary of findings, HMSO, 2014 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  71. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence review: volume 1, HMSO, 2014 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  72. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence review: volume 2, part 1, HMSO, 2014 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  73. ↑ Mark Ellison QC, Stephen Lawrence review: volume 2, part 1, HMSO, 2014 (accessed 16 April 2014).
  74. ↑ Derbyshire Constabulary, Operation Herne - Report 3: Special Demonstration Squad Reporting - Mentions of Sensitive Campaigns, Derbyshire Constabulary, July 2014(accessed 21 November 2014).
  75. ↑ See, for example, Bob Lambert, ‘Reflections on Counter-Terrorism Partnerships in Britain’, Arches, issue number 5, January-February 2007 (accessed 22 November 2014) - this biography notes that “Bob worked continuously as a Special Branch specialist counter-terrorist / counter-extremist intelligence officer from 1980” until the setting up of MCU at the beginning of 2002.
  76. ↑ Bob Lambert, ‘Reflections on Counter-Terrorism Partnerships in Britain’, Arches, issue number 5, January-February 2007 (accessed 22 November 2014).
  77. ↑ Robert Lambert, Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, Hurst & Company, 2011, p35.
  78. ↑ Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber/Guardian Books, 2013, p57
  79. ↑ Lambert's account in both his book and CSTPV profile is that MCU was founded by himself and one other colleague; the Evans/Lewis book claims Lambert “and two other former SDS spies were given the resources to set up the Muslim Contact Unit.” Subsequent clarification from Evans to the author is that his understanding is that MCU was conceived and set up by Lambert and one other former SDS officer. The accounts all agree that MCU was established in the aftermath of 9/11 in January 2002. Source CAVALVANTI (who has some familiarity with Lambert's academic reinvention) has added to the author that the actual foundation of MCU came, to paraphrase Lambert's own words, “following discussions in October-November 2001”. It has been speculated that Lambert's cohort in creating MCU was Jim Boyling (e.g. merrick, ‘bob lambert: still spying?’, Bristling Badger, 23 February 2012), who elsewhere has been acknowledged as involved in the unit (e.g. Paul Lewis & Rob Evans, ‘Police spy tricked lover with activist 'cover story'’, The Guardian, 23 October 2011; Paul Lewis, Rob Evans & Rowenna Davis, ‘Ex-wife of police spy tells how she fell in love and had children with him’, The Guardian, 19 January 2011; and Rob Evans & Paul Lewis, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, Faber & Faber, 2013, p194). However, it is the author's understanding that whilst Boyling was and remains a close friend of Lambert's, he was not co-creator with Lambert of MCU, though he was an early recruit to the unit.
  80. ↑ Paul Sims, ‘Crossing the line?’, New Humanist, 4 November 2011 (accessed 3 February 2015).
  81. ↑ Robert Lambert, Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, Hurst & Company, 2011, p55.
  82. ↑ Cheryl Benard, Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies, RAND Corporation, 2003 (accessed 16 April 2014).
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