Two Met officers running spycops unit were ‘incredibly racist’, inquiry told

The spycops inquiry was set up in 2014 to examine the conduct of undercover officers who spied on more than 1,000 political groups from 1968 to at least 2010. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Two senior officers who supervised an undercover Scotland Yard unit spying on political campaigns were “horribly and incredibly” racist, a whistleblower has told a public inquiry.

Peter Francis, a former member of the unit, testified that one regularly used the “N-word”, while the other used a repertoire of explicit racist slurs.