The Threat Response Spy Files - Sources
Security firm spied on road protesters
THE INSIGHT TEAM, October, 5, 2003
Group 4, the security firm hired by the government to protect its controversial road-building projects, has become the latest public company to admit paying a private intelligence agency to spy on protest groups.
Last week The Sunday Times
revealed that BAE Systems, Britain's leading arms manufacturer, used the same
agency; R&CA Publications, to monitor the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)
and other anti-arms groups. The agency, run by Evelyn Le Chene, a 67-year-old
grandmother from Gravesend with close links to the security services, employed
undercover agents to infiltrate the pressure groups on behalf of BAE, then called
British Aerospace.
They downloaded computer files, rifled through personal property and copied
confidential correspondence and financial information before passing it via
Le Chene to BAE. In return Le Chene was paid £120,000 a year, though BAE
insists it did not ask her to do anything illegal.
Now Group 4, whose clients range from the prison service to the royal family
and the government, and boasts of its ability to guard its customers against
espionage, sabotage and subversion, has also admitted paying for information
obtained by the spy network.
The revelation is certain to infuriate anti-road campaign groups such as Reclaim the Streets. The fact that government money paid to Group 4 was being used to finance Le Chene's covertly obtained information will fuel the controversy further.
The relationship between
Group 4 and Le Chene appears to have been most active in the late 1990s when
the Newbury bypass became the focus of anti-roads groups when thousands occupied
woodland earmarked for destruction.
The 8½-mile bypass finally opened in 1998 after years of protests delayed
completion. The total cost of the project was £74m, of which nearly a
third, £24m, was spent on security.
Tape-recorded conversations involving Le Chene reveal that she regularly passed information from her network of agents to Group 4. She said she had agents posted permanently at Newbury and passed on highly confidential personal information about protesters to the company. These included accommodation addresses, vehicle registration details, National Insurance numbers, unemployment benefit details and income support information.
Group 4, which carried
out work on behalf of the Highways Agency as well as construction companies
such as Costain and Tarmac, helped police many of Britain's most controversial
road-building projects.
Last week a Group 4 spokesman
admitted buying information on protesters: We've certainly been obtaining information
about protests at our customers' sites. It is the sort of information that would
be obtained in the pub about activities that may effect our customers; people
or property", he said. "We were getting information about where protesters
would be and what times in advance. We would have paid for that information."
There is no suggestion that Group 4 asked or encouraged Le Chene in any illegal
activities.
Barry Gane, a former director
of Group 4, is now a co-director with Le Chene in a risk consultancy company
that provides threat assessments for corporations. Gane is also a former deputy
director of MI6.
The documents show that Le Chene employed her son Adrian to spy on protest groups.
Using the name Adrian Mayer or Adrian Franks, he claimed to lead a small protest
group called EcoAction committed to fighting the oil and arms industries. He
was exposed as he attempted to infiltrate a protest group based on the Continent.
Wil van der Schaus, who
helped to expose him, said "He has sought to convince corporate clients
of the necessity of his services." The Highways Agency said the government
had funded security operations around road-building sites but it was the responsibility
of the contractors involved. "Clearly we worked closely with the police
and the contractors to ensure that this was carried out in a lawful way,"
a spokesman said.
Many environmental campaigners
have long suspected they were the subject of spying operations. The transport
department working on orders from Treasury solicitors, spent more than £700,000
in the early 1990s employing a Southampton-based detective agency to help them
identify protesters. Private detectives were seen filming people and noting
down public conversations.
Despite this, campaigners believed this type of surveillance alone could not
account for some of the information contained in the dossiers issued by the
department to support legal injunctions against them.
Le Chene, a member of the
exclusive Special Forces Club in London, claims to corporate clients that she
has a database containing the names of more than 148,000 people who belong to
left-leaning pressure groups such as CAAT, Reclaim the Streets and CND.
She sells the names for £2.25 each to large corporations. She also makes no secret of her close contacts with police Special Branch officers.
After Le Chene's son was exposed for infiltrating European protest groups, several of them wrote to the corporations that he was allegedly working for. These include British Aerospace and Rio Tinto Zinc, the mining giant. Their letter said:
"The person we knew
as Adrian Frank from the French environmental citizens group EcoAction has for
at least 1½ years under the names Adrian Lechene and Adrian Mayer been
actively contacting companies, particularly in the oil and arms industry.
"He has offered these companies information about the activities of environment
and peace organisations in different European countries, asking significant
amounts of money in return for his services.
"We consider these espionage practices and the fact that companies were
willing to use the services offered by Mr Frank/Lechene/Mayer to be highly disturbing"
Evelyn Le Chene did not
respond to requests for an interview last week.
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