A sales engineer from Angus was in charge of a secret police squad being investigated by a public inquiry.
Paul Hogan’s CV on LinkedIn claimed he was a former detective inspector with Police Scotland who was once in charge of a Met Police unit now accused of abusing its powers.
The online information said he was seconded to the Metropolitan Police in 2003 to work with the now disgraced National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) to investigate domestic extremism.
The NPOIU is a main focus of the Pitchford Inquiry which was set up investigate undercover policing in England and Wales.
Our revelation that an officer seconded from Scotland was in a senior position has prompted new calls for the inquiry to be extended north of the Border.
Met officers infiltrated hundreds of political groups and monitored animal rights activists, environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners.
But some officers duped women into long term relationships and stole the identities of dead babies.
One undercover Met officer fathered a child with a woman he was spying on before abandoning her.
Last November the Met paid compensation to seven women who had been deceived by policeman and issued unreserved apologies.
One women claimed she had suffered psychological torture.
There are also allegations that the NPOIU was responsible for numerous miscarriages of justice.
The Pitchford inquiry was set up to cover England and Wales but revelations that undercover police worked north of the border have led to calls for it to cover Scotland too.
Hogan’s LinkedIn page said he retired from Police Scotland last year and now works with a company called Alba Power, based near Stonehaven.
Information was removed from the page after the The Ferret contacted Hogan last week to ask questions about his role with the NPOIU.
Extensive details of his police career had been listed.
He claimed he was seconded to the NPOIU in January 2003.
Hogan’s biography said: “Seconded to a National Unit responsible for gathering, assessing and disseminating intelligence relating to Domestic Extremism, including Animal Rights, Left & Right Wing Extremists and Environmental Extremism.”
“Attending force areas throughout the UK I would work with covert assets to assist with the planning, preparation and implementation of any operational policing response to planned demonstrations where there was potential for extremist activity.”
In September 2003, his biography said he was promoted to detective sergeant with the NPOIU and “coordinated the activities of 5 Field Officers who had liaison responsibilities across all Police Forces within the UK.”
He claimed to have been involved in policing at the G8 Summit at Gleaneagles in 2005 when undercover Met police were working in Scotland.
They included the most notorious, Mark Kennedy, who was attached to the NPOIU between 2003 and 2010 until being exposed.
He infiltrated environmental protest groups.
In June 2015 prosecutors were ordered by the courts to pay the legal bill of 29 environmental protesters who were unjustly convicted.
The Crown Prosecution Service was forced to pay £43,000 after conceding that crucial evidence gathered by Kennedy was improperly withheld from the protesters’ trial.
So far, more than 50 protesters have been wrongly convicted or prosecuted because the activities of undercover police officers had been unfairly buried in legal proceedings.
In March 2005, Hogan said he was promoted to temporary Detective Inspector with NPOIU and led a team of 19 people.
His biography said: “I controlled all the department’s covert intelligence assets and ensured legislative compliance. Managing Intelligence Officers and Analysts I provided guidance and advice on how best to develop and disseminate intelligence received.”
“Contributed to covert policing activity at the G8 Summit providing logistical support to all officers and particularly those unfamiliar with the location.”
“Having objectively assessed the 2005 G8 experience I was invited to Germany to provide an overview of the lessons learned and potential policing challenges which may come as a result of hosting the G8 Summit which Germany had been identified to do in 2007.”
“This was the first of a meaningful collaboration between the NPOIU and the German authorities and contributed to their strategic planning leading up to the event in 2007.”
Hogan said he left the NPOIU in July 2007 and returned to Scotland as a sergeant with Tayside Police.
His role with the NPOIU has prompted fresh calls for the Pitchford Inquiry to be extended to Scotland.
Eveline Lubbers of the Undercover Research Group, an organisation that’s been exposing police spies, said: “From his resumé it is perfectly clear that Hogan’s work as an undercover took place in Scotland and all over the UK.”
“His own career path shows that there is a flawless cooperation between the Scottish police and the undercover units, with a stint in the NPOIU a useful intermezzo to rise up the ladder to Detective Inspector back in Scotland.2
“Yet another example of Scotland’s involvement in the undercover policing scandal!”
Neil Findlay, the former MSP and Labour candidate for Almond Valley and Lothian Region at the Scottish Parliamentary elections, said: “Here is yet more evidence of the Scottish link to the undercover policing scandal.”
“We know a number of Scottish officers were seconded to the now discredited NPOIU and SDS and that both units were involved in undercover surveillance at Gleneagles and in other events in Scotland.”
“We need full disclosure about the activities of these units via a full public inquiry.”
The Ferret made repeated requests to Hogan for a comment but he did not reply.
The Met Police said in a statement: “The operation of the NPOIU, along with the Special Demonstration Squad, will be thoroughly examined during the upcoming Public Inquiry into undercover policing. We are providing our fullest possible support to that Public Inquiry.”
Police Scotland declined to comment and said it was a matter for the Met.
Scotland’s chief constable Phil Gormley was in the Met from 2003-2007.
For the latter half of that period he was head of Special Branch and he was on the Association of Chief Police Officers’ Terrorism and Allied Matters Committee (ACPO-TAM) which oversaw the NPOIU.
Last week the Met Police announced it had opened an investigation following allegations that an undercover officer who had infiltrated animal rights campaigners set fire to a high street department store, causing £340,000 of damage.
Police will investigate the planting of an incendiary device in Debenhams, Harrow, London, in July 1987.
The launch of the investigation came after Green MP Caroline Lucas aired allegations in parliament that Bob Lambert, a Met undercover officer who pretended to be a radical protester for five years, had planted the device.
Lambert was a lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the University of St Andrews until last December when he resigned.
A version of this story was published by the Sunday Mail on 24th April 2016.
Cover photo by Jason Howie | CC | https://flic.kr/p/e5wZ3t
