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A whistleblower has told a public inquiry that two senior Scotland Yard officers overseeing an undercover unit that spied on political movements were “shockingly and deeply” racist.
Peter Francis, a former undercover officer in the unit, said one of them frequently used the N-word, while the other regularly deployed a range of explicit racist insults.
Francis stated at the spycops inquiry on Monday that he also witnessed “racist jokes and commentary” among undercover colleagues during his time in the Metropolitan police unit in the 1990s.
He is the only member of the unit—known as the special demonstration squad (SDS)—to publicly expose its covert operations. Over the years he has revealed details of the unit’s misconduct and internal culture.
The inquiry, led by retired judge Sir John Mitting, was launched in 2014 after Francis disclosed to the Guardian that the SDS had secretly monitored the efforts of Stephen Lawrence’s family following his murder.
The Lawrence family had been campaigning to pressure the Met into properly investigating the 1993 killing and prosecuting those responsible.
According to Francis, special branch—the secretive department that directed the SDS—displayed “total racism” towards the Lawrence family, seeing them as incapable of organising their campaign independently and assuming they were being manipulated by others.
One of the central aims of the inquiry is to explore why and how SDS officers collected intelligence on Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, and those supporting them. The Met has since apologised for spying on the family.
Approximately 139 undercover officers surveilled tens of thousands of mostly left-wing activists from 1968 until at least 2010.
Francis—who infiltrated anti-racist and left-wing organisations between 1993 and 1997—is giving testimony over four days this week.
In a statement released Monday, he described one of the unit’s senior commanders, Det Ch Supt Robert Potter, as “horribly racist”. Potter, widely known as “Potty Bob”, was a high-ranking special branch officer involved in overseeing SDS activities.
Francis said Potter would attend SDS meetings and discuss black justice campaigns using the N-word—stressing the need to shut down these “effing [N-word]s”. Potter, now deceased, had denied the accusations during his lifetime.
He was eventually removed from the force after drunkenly making racist and offensive remarks at a Gala bingo hall in October 1993.
Francis further claimed that the head of the SDS early in his service—a detective chief inspector referred to as HN86 due to anonymity rules—was also “extremely racist”.
HN86 allegedly believed black justice campaigners were incapable of independent thought and were merely being controlled by radical left-wing groups seeking to advance their own agendas.
Francis reported that HN86 referred to black justice activists in “vile racist” language, including calling them “monkeys” who were being “led by a ring through their noses”.
During Francis’s period in the SDS, only one black police officer, Trevor Morris, was employed in the unit. Morris infiltrated the Anti-Nazi League and the Socialist Workers party between 1991 and 1995. Francis said HN86 distrusted Morris because he was “one of them”, suggesting he might sympathise with black justice campaigns rather than report on them.
HN86 disputes the allegations and is currently attempting legal action to prevent having to answer questions during the inquiry.
Francis has also claimed that some of the anti-racist activists he monitored engaged in violent altercations with far-right groups—a claim rejected by those activists, who accuse him of inventing or exaggerating incidents.
