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Information on "Rod Richardson", suspected undercover cop

Potato Peeler | 06.02.2013 21:56 | Policing | London

Recently an article has appeared in the Guardian naming “Rod Richardson” as a suspected undercover police officer. Although this has not been confirmed beyond all doubt, it is certainly the case that he was using a false identity (that of a baby who died shortly after birth), and that numerous aspects of his involvement are entirely in keeping with certain patterns of operation of infiltrators – not least his disappearance and failure to keep in contact with friends and comrades. There is an overwhelming likelihood that “Rod” was an undercover police officer (or perhaps a corporate spy.)





“Rod” was involved in political activism between 2000 and 2003, and it is notable that he disappeared just before Mark Kennedy appeared in the same activist circles, and that both based themselves mainly in Nottingham and London. This has led to speculation that “Rod” was Kennedy's predecessor/trainer.

It is also notable that, unlike Kennedy and others, “Rod” pursued no sexual relationships with activists, but introduced a girlfriend who also seems to have been an infiltrator (see below), presumably authorised by “Rod's” superiors to help maintain his cover. This contrasts with the operations of other undercover officers, who presumably had other patterns of authorised behaviour.


SUMMARY OF KNOWN INFORMATION ABOUT "ROD RICHARDSON" BETWEEN 2000 AND 2003

His date of birth was (falsely) given as 5/1/73. A white male, about 5'7” tall, with short blondish hair, athletic build.

His email address was  rodchillout@yahoo.co.uk

He appeared on activist scene, mostly in London and Nottingham, in 2000, alluding to past involvement in anti-road campaigns in southern England. Rented a house, alone, in Nottingham in 2000/1 (dates uncertain), and moved into a communal activist house in Nottingham in summer 2001. He was mostly in Nottingham at weekends, telling people there that he had work as a self-employed personal trainer in London (where he claimed to spend most of his time in the week), and that he stayed with friends there. He had no known address in London.

He brought girlfriend “Jo” (previously entirely unknown in the activist scene) with him to Nottingham several times at weekends. There is a strong suspicion that “Jo” was also an infiltrator/police officer, working with “Rod”, and deployed by his handlers. “Rod” had no known sexual relationships with activists.


KNOWN INVOLVEMENT IN ACTIVISM IN LONDON

“Rod” was involved in Movement Against Monarchy around 2000, attending meetings with members of MAM and Class War to discuss protests around the Queen Mother's birthday.

He was also involved in WOMBLES from around 2000 onwards, taking part in numerous activities of this group, the most notable of which are described below:

Mayday 2001 - squatted “the Bacon Factory” in London for use as a convergence centre for the Mayday mobilisation, and participated in the WOMBLES action on 1st May 2001;
DSEi 2001 - drove a van full of equipment for the WOMBLES action at DSEi exhibition on September 11th 2001, where he was arrested and the van's contents seized by the police.
Mayday 2002 – was keen to find out what was planned, and asked activists a week before the action what was going on in a manner that unnerved them.


KNOWN INVOLVEMENT IN ACTIVISM IN THE REST OF THE UK

“Rod” participated in a workshop on summit mobilizations at the Earth First! Summer Gathering in Derbyshire in August 2001;
He was involved with hunt saboteurs in Nottingham, sabbing most weekends when he was in Nottingham;
Attended anti-fascist demos and other political events in Nottingham;
He participated in the “Peat Alert” action camp in Yorkshire in March 2002, including the blockade of the Scott's peat works on Hatfield Moor. He was amongst those arrested when the blockade was broken up by police (although charges against him were later dropped);
Took an interest in anti-GM campaigns in Norfolk.


KNOWN INVOLVEMENT IN ACTIVISM OUTSIDE THE UK

EU summit, Gothenburg, Sweden June 2001 : He was involved in the counter-mobilisation, and drove comrades from London to the airport;
G8 summit, Genoa, Italy, July 2001 : Travelled with a number of people to Bologna, then on to Genoa for the counter-mobilisation. A group photo was taken there, from which he scratched out the image of his face once it was developed;
PGA gathering, Leiden, Netherlands, Summer 2002 : Attended the meetings;
G8 summit, Evian, France, June 2003 : Attended counter-mobilisation along with others from WOMBLES.


DISAPPEARANCE

“Rod” was away, claiming to be in Australia, for a couple of months around Dec 2002/Jan 2003. In June 2003 he sent an email announcing that he was going to move to Australia, claiming his girlfriend “Jo” was doing a marine biology study course there. In July/August 2003 contact petered out, and emails to his address were not responded to – the most surprising instance was in August 2003, when emails telling him that a close friend of his was injured and imprisoned in Greece received no response. He moved his stuff from the house in Nottingham in autumn 2003, and was not seen or heard from again.

Potato Peeler

Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

Genoa 2001

06.02.2013 22:48



What a Player!

Barry Cade


its that easy

06.02.2013 23:49

Ob can infiltrate anything. Football firms. Criminal firms. And protest groups. No ones to blame except us we got infiltrated fights at football ob was steaming in aswell you would never have known. Loads lads got jailed.

were all mugs


Pissed off

07.02.2013 00:02

I was involved in some of these groups and what pisses me off is that for a chunk of my life I was simply wasting my time.

Dave S


me too

07.02.2013 00:55

Yeah me too. It creeps me out that people I've met, socialised and worked with have turned out to be the rozzers. Fuck knows what it must do to people who've unknowingly had long lasting relationships with these nasty scum.

me too


Dave

07.02.2013 07:47

Why do you think you were 'wasting your time'? It's a very odd conclusion to come to.

Anarchist


Not such a big deal really

07.02.2013 08:10

Pissed off - you weren't wasting your time, but he was most likely wasting police time.

Look at the campaigns he was involved in; anti-capitalism, anti-GM crops etc

Can't really say we lost the argument there......

Martin Porter
mail e-mail: thesnufkin@sky.com
- Homepage: http://thesnufkin.blogspot.co.uk/


Unknowns.

07.02.2013 15:01

I am in the anti-Capitalist movement and the anti-Globalisation movement.

Never heard of this tit and certainly never seen him either. There have been a few coppers playing at being undercover nark but they have all been tossed off behind the scenes if you catch my drift.

The only people who could possibly be interested in this rubbish are nark and plastic nark.

For instance none of you will of heard of JP who was a particularly unfortunate (and clumsy) nark who got served up in 2004 in Berlin. The nark have never mentioned him and funny enough, neither did the group that allowed him in. He just slunk away after his embarrassing failure and was never seen again. The group were sussed and that, as they say, was that. Our movement went from strength to strength.

Nothing to see here, move along.

anonymous


question

12.02.2013 18:11

Whats a nark?

not streetwise


i recall

13.02.2013 15:59

him being at a wombles do, being very 'on it' before the DSEI arms fair protest which was 9/11 in 2001. i regarded him as being 'bait', 'something about him' and low and behold, he arranged for us to emet in the open at kings cross, where myself and another comrade watched two uniform cops appear and enter fast food chain across the road to start filming the arrival of wombles at kings cross. i told him that we were being filmed and he said 'that is obvious what they would do'. however, i distinctly recall it was him who told us to meet there at that time. so the police knew where to meet, as they arrived early to film. he must/could have been the link...?

thanks for this. i recognised him straight away before any mention of the wombles.
i also recall at the time that other wombles 'knew' that we were infiltrated.

ACAB

Hmmm...interesting


please confirm

14.02.2013 13:16

in my above comment i seem to have possibly contradicted what the original poster has stated.

i believed him to have been at kings cross on the morning of 9/11 2001, so at what time or when on the day did he drive a van full of kit and when was he arrested? i am sure he was at kings cross, directing us on to trains and basically coming across as being 'in charge'?


some clarity on that would help me recall, if ya dont mind?
if you do mind, no worries, as i certainly recall him during the wombles days and i was at the earth first gig as well. i generally stayed clear of him, i thought he was 'too fresh', 'too clean'.

interested comrade


He got us all pissed on the slow train to Genoa

16.07.2013 17:41

Kids, do be careful what you say on here - the filth are still at it, and when they ain't trolling indymedia, they're trawling it. So let's not give 'em tips on how well they did, or how to do better next time.

But then again, I knew Rod and I want to chuck in my tuppence worth and I'll leave it at this:- Personal Trainer? In the Wombles? Nuff said.

As for the DSEI van, somebody else was driving that all day on 11/9/01 and got nicked with it. My money was on that driver as the undercover. But Rod was in the van - he either got in on the way to Canning Town where it was nicked, or got out on the way there - I don't recall which. Clarification anyone? Hey, NETCU- maybe could you pull up the arrest records for us?

Trainspotter


"Rod" first appeared in 1999

09.06.2014 10:45

"Rod" first came on the scene at the Rettendon Bypass protest in Essex in 1999. He was certainly around by late autumn in the guise of "local supporter" - he had a flat nearby and took some of us there at times for baths and also donated food and the people who were in the tunnel eviction stayed at his flat after the eviction. He was in one of the treehouses at the beginning of the eviction and left before the treehouses were actually evicted on the basis that he had a knee operation scheduled. He then became more involved in activism. He came to the 2000 Earth First gathering at Snowdonia, giving some of us from the Essex campaign a lift to the camp. I believe that he also previously took some people from the Essex camp up to Townhead, saying he had to deliver a package to someone there, and they all went and picked or took mushrooms - that would have been autumn 1999.

Jo Wilding


I remember Rod

21.03.2016 19:25

Yes Jo, I was in that car to Snowdonia with you guys in the summer of 2000. I remember seeing him later at a heavily surveilled Movement Against the Monarchy action and we hung out the whole time. He was always very friendly and seemed to know a lot of detailed information about you. When we were in the car I remember he listed off the actions you had done and what had happened with them (in a sense like, "isn't she amazing." Creepy in hindsight.

Julie Chadwick