Mar 08

Matthew Gibbons

Matthew Gibbons (Informant)

Statement posted 15 September 2009 by the “Central Animal Liberation Intelligence Unit”.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/09/438057.html

The Animal Liberation Central Intelligence Unit has recently discovered information concluding that Matthew Gibbons, (now) formerly of York Action for Animals and York AntiFa, has been acting as a police informant. (For information purposes only, Gibbons’ details are pizzamatic@hotmail.com // mattgibb@talktalk.net // Mob: 07590 922288)

When he is not sat in his shop getting overly drunk and adding people he doesn’t know on facebook (yes, one of those people with over 2,000 ‘friends’!), or being the lone ‘vegan’ working at the York branch of Pizza Express, Gibbons is passing details of actions and groups onto his handler, David Hall at North Yorkshire Police. Information passed on concerns both York and Leeds Antifa, plus Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty.

If yo thought it couldn’t get any worse than that, you were wrong – Gibbons is now an active member of the fascist football hooligans English Defence League!

We have attached a number of images of Gibbons, so please circulate them and beware of him.

EMAILS BETWEEN GIBBONS AND THE N.Y.P.

—– Original Message —–
From: Matt
To: Hall, David
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 5:09 PM
Subject: Leeds – DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL

Hello David,

Please do not reply directly to this email, other people also have access to my computer. I would like to recieve an acknowlegement, however, do not include any substantive detail.

The event in Leeds, that I have previously told you about, is of course to be on the 18th of October, and not the 8th of October – I think that I may have passed on the incorrect date in error due to imperfect keyboard typing. – It is definatly on the Saturday.

The neo-nazi ‘British Peoples Party’ (Kevin Watmough and Kate McDermody) are planning to hold a racist anti-‘hip hop’ demo outside HMV in Leeds city centre – the word is that this is just a pretext for a fight with anti-fascists.

They are in for a big shock.

No matter how many ‘hard men’ they bring along, they will simply be outnumbered, anti-fascists have already begun distributing leaflets in York and next week plan to give out leaflets and mobilise support from the Black areas of Leeds and Asian areas of Bradford to encourage people to be in Leeds city centre on the 18th to confront the racists.

It has almost got to the point of no return, and the only way that I can think of, that complete chaos can be avoided is if the Police find some pre-text to forbid the racist demo from going ahead and dis-bar the BPP from Leeds city centre on that day. (and crucially, let it be known that this is what has happened).

I plan to be in Leeds on that day – let me know if there is any info that I could obtain that could be of use.

I hope that this info is useful, and I hope that you take this email in the spirit that it is sent.

Matthew,

==============================================================

From: pizzamatic@hotmail.com
To: david.hall@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk
Subject: Political Information – THIS EMAIL IS IN STRICT CONFIDENCE
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:04:09 +0000

Dear David Hall,

You may not recognise this e-mail address, however, I am Matthew Gibbons of [Personal info removed as per: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/privacy.html#Personal_Information].

At one stage I was providing information to the North Yorkshire Police Intelligence, however I have lost the mobile number that was given to me to contact them with information.

So I am contacting you, in strict confidence.

I have just returned from the anti-fascist demo in Leeds city centre (13/06/09)

Although I have not been involved in the political scence for the last 6 months or so, I attended the demo and filmed most of the event, both with covert hidden video cameras that were in my bomber jacket and also in my basball cap, as well as an overt camcorder.

Although it is generally accepted that the West Yorkshire Police lost control of the the demo at one point, and up to 500 protesters took charge of the streets of Leeds for a brief period of time, the police were by and large, well behaved, except for one incident when a mature police officer assaulted a 16 year old boy by grabbing him by the scruff of the collar and shaking him – not too serious I know, but I have the entire incident captured on video.

I am in the process of creating a video of the day to publish on ‘you-tube’, however I will not publish this incident at this stage, for tactical reasons

THE REASON THAT I AM CONTACTING YOU NOW

is that I have now made contact with the Leeds anti-fascist “Anti-Fa” cell. ( www.antifa.org.uk ) and I am now privy to various bits of information that may of of value to the police – for example the plans for Leeds Antifa to involve and recruit the support of the Leeds United Football Club supporters group and in particular, the notorious “Leeds United Service Crew” football gang who apparently are about to declare themselves anti-fascist and against the BNP and ready to take on and fight any football team supporters, including West Ham or Glasgow Rangers (fascist/orange)

On the demo, in Leeds, I was followed around by “Mr Scrivens” from the ‘Forward Intelligence Team’ (FIT Team – photo and video available) – even after the event he followed me into a pub and asked how my girlfriend was doing – clear harrasment – however in the spirit of co-operation I will not follow up on this matter at this stage.

Please can you ask the Police Intelligence Unit that I was previously involved with to get in touch with me because I have information that they will be interested to hear – I now have a new mobile number, it is 07590922288.

Regards

Matthew.

——————————————————————————–
Subject: RE:
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:48:39 +0100
From: David.Hall@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk
To: pizzamatic@hotmail.com

Matthew,

Many thanks for feeding this into me and I am very appreciative of your kind assistance.

It is quite pertinent in so much as I now head up operational policing for NYP and therefore any insight into such tactics is particularly helpful. Accordingly I will be grateful for any further information of this nature.

As you know from our previous dealings I am very much an individual who wants to ensure that we police protests at the right level and in recognition of fundamental / lawful rights to do so. With this in mind I am very happy to maintain our dialogue in the future.

Best wishes,

David

==============================================================

 



Animal Liberation Central Intelligence Unit

Mar 08

Lynn Watson

ActivistSecurity.org statement on Lynn Watson

Earlier this week it was reported in The Guardian [1] that the Leeds based activist known as “Lynn Watson” had been an undercover police officer serving with the CIU/NPIOU – the police unit that places infiltrators in protest movements. As the only public report of this came from a mainstream newspaper and had no follow up statement there has been doubt expressed in some quarters as to whether she was an undercover policewoman or not.

Recently, our collective have had a chance to speak to various individuals involved with the story in order to understand and confirm it.

It is not our intention to give a full account of Lynn’s activities, though it is now known that she was involved between 2004-2008, including groups such as Trident Ploughshares, Clown Army, the mobilisation around the G8 at Gleneagles, the Drax Climate Camp and The Common Place social centre [2]. The email address she used was watwatson@hotmail.com and possibly watwatson@gmail.com – these are now known to be active until relatively recently.

Lynn was not ostentatiously present in the way that other infiltrators were, and provided considerable practical help to groups. She lived in outer Leeds before moving to the more central location of Hyde Park. This house was privately rented. She claimed to be a care worker, temping through an agency, so she was a way for several weeks at a time.

In 2008 Lynn left Leeds, moving to Coventry with her partner “Paul”. At the time friends were not suspicious and thought that this was simply her moving on to another stage of her life. She continued to be in regular contact. In May 2008 she said she was moving to Lithuania with Paul who had a job there. She would be there for several months before planning to move once more, this time to the US for two years, again due to Paul supposedly getting work there.

It was after the supposed move to Lithuania that contact dropped off dramatically and suspicions began grow. Initially, people who had considered her a close friend were worried that she was in trouble and tried to contact her. Lead after lead turned up negative. Paul, supposedly a photographer in Coventry, could also not be contacted or identified, despite considerable effort being expended on this. Likewise the story of another boyfriend, a locksmith from Northampton could not be confirmed.

It was only at this point that people’s suspicion were aroused that she might have not been all that she seemed to be. An analysis of what was known about her threw up circumstantial evidence that her story was leaking in various places. However, in all of this, there was no definitive piece of evidence that she was a police officer. Thus, there was a decision not to go public. Where it was known that those who had been involved closely with her could were potentially at risk, they were informed of the suspicions.

Lynn was subsequently twice encountered by chance in the South West of England. She was friendly enough and indicated that she was still with Paul though he may have been in some sort of trouble. Attempts to keep in touch with her continued to fail.

The ActivistSecurity.org collective believes that in the light of the evidence the group had at the time that this was the correct approach to take. There was no way to be certain, and while there was some circumstantial evidence warranting suspicion it was all indirect and constructed from holes rather than concrete events. That is not sufficient to justify a formal statement, being little better than rumour-mongering. Warning people who might be at risk that there was a question to be asked, but keeping the rumour mill in check was responsible behaviour.

When Mark Kennedy / Stone was exposed, he was asked about Lynn and he replied that she was in the same unit as he was. Mark was one of those who knew of the suspicions around Lynn, and given that he had just spent seven years lying to people it was not known if his word could be trusted or not. ActivistSecurty concur, in that while it added weight to the body of suspicion, the word of a copper against another should not be taken at face-value. While there has been various reports in the media of Mark having ‘gone native’ with the implication that his word could be relied upon, that is pure speculation.

It seems that The Guardian had independent knowledge of Lynn as well, but not enough to go public without risk of libel. This changed with the collapse of the Ratcliffe 6 “deniers” trial and the subsequent media furore. The Guardian appears to have then obtained the confirmation they needed from the police, gave her the time to be extracted and then named her alias with a photo of her. Her career as an undercover is now effectively over, something we have no problem with. We are told that a leading police officer went to the journalists house to ask that her identity was not immediately released to give time for her to be extracted, would also, if true, add strength to this.

As well as Lynn, people have had suspicions in regards to her last known partner, “Paul”. While, again, is no definitive proof, his continued role in Lynn’s cover story for her ‘extraction’, his untraceability and given that people did actually have suspicion of him at the time he was introduced to them as her partner, we believe that enough of a cloud hangs over him that his photo should be published. If someone knows who he is we are interested in hearing more. If they wish to dispute why his photograph should be removed published we will listen to arguments and re-consider our decision if necessary.

Ideally a statement would have be put out at the same time as the Guardian’s initial expose. This is perhaps a lesson to be learned from. In a number of cases, those investigating have been a small, ad hoc group of people formed for the purpose rather than a formal group with an established identity. This has meant that the main repository for stories and release has been Indymedia UK, something which leads to difficulty in verification of how true things are – the same occurred with Matthew Gibbons, Mark Stone, etc.

It is also important that a vacuum is not created in which all sorts of disinformation and dangerous speculation takes place. This is a short coming of the protest movement as a whole. ActivistSecurity is interested in examining this issue further and is interested in receiving comment on how this might happen.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/19/undercover-police-officer-lynn-watson?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/12/second-undercover-police-officer?intcmp=239

[2] https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/01/472363.html
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2011/01/472317.html?c=on

 

Mar 08

Becki Todd

Rebecca Todd / Vericola Ltd

Statement from ActivistSecurity.org

Over the last year climate action groups have become aware that they have been targeted by a private security firm who has been gathering information to sell on to a variety of companies. The following is an account of what is known about them.

The centre of this particular web is one Rebecca “Becki” Todd, from Kent. She is a former employee of C2i, a private security and intelligence gathering firm best known for their employment of Toby Kendall / Ken Tobias who attempted to infiltrate Plain Stupid. She has since struck out on her own to set up her own company, Vericola Ltd.

Ms Todd came to light in 2010 when it became clear that she was signing up to the lists of various environmental groups and passing them on to various companies, including Scottish Coal. At first it was thought that this was simply ‘open source’ intelligence gathering, but on digging a bit further it became clear that she was up to more. It turned out that she was hiring people to come to meetings and gather more detailed information.

The evidence for this was slight for some time, however a mistake by Becki Todd provided conclusive evidence, that is, when she forwarded on an email naming some clients to one of the groups being monitored. We have seen these emails and verify that they both identify some of her clients and that she was collecting this sort of information.

The evidence for her working on direct infiltration is not as clear. It is known that this is something she is doing, and a number of people have been potentially identified. We believe that the Guardian[1] through their own sources have been able to confirm this. In particular it is now known that some of them came to Kingsnorth Climate Camp and to the ‘Swoop’ at Ratcliffe on Soar. A number of them have been approached to be given them a chance to put their case forward. However, none of them have replied to deny it.

While there appears to be interest in direct action it does not appear that they were interested in being directly involved but had a hands-off approach. What is worth noting from this situation is the use of a variety of people to quickly pass through groups and the use of multiple identifies for signing up to lists rather than any attempt for deeper infiltration.

Carl Bishop is another individual associated with Becki Todd. There is evidence that he came to various London Climate Camp events and the ‘Great Climate Swoop’. A review of the documents make it clear that he is very close to Becki Todd and we concur with the investigating group that he is working on her behalf in the full knowledge that he is gathering information for her business. He was approached and given a chance to put his side of the story but did not responded to disassociate himself from her.

We are aware that the Guardian [2] have independently confirmed that Vericola’s clients include Scottish Coal (a.k.a. Scottish Resource Group), Scottish Power and e.on.

The position of the ActivistSecurity.org collective, who have seen the work of the investigating group, is that they have been successful in exposing a genuine attempt of low-level information gathering by a private security firm. Some of the sources of information need to remain confidential, but having viewed them we believe them to be genuine. We support the publication of this story [3] and the exposing of Becki Todd / Vericola Ltd, and encourage groups to examine their email lists in particular to ensure that she is removed.

List of known email addresses for Rebecca Todd:
izzybizzy55@hotmail.com
maxi_thomas123@hotmail.com
amyleggattsra@yahoo.co.uk
rt@vericola.com
vandango007@hotmail.co.uk

Crabgrass identities
izzybizzy55
maxi_thom

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/14/environmental-activists-protest-energy-companies

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/14/energy-firms-activists-intelligence-gathering

[3] http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/02/474116.html