Met chief's plea to undercover cop

Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has urged the ex-undercover officer who claims smear tactics were used on the family of murdered Stephen Lawrence to speak to police.

Peter Francis, who worked as in the Met's elite Special Demonstration Squad in the 1990s, has so far refused to liaise with investigators looking at the activities of undercover officers.

He claimed that covert officers were told to look for information they could potentially use to smear the Lawrence family as they campaigned for justice for their murdered son.

Additional allegations have been made that police bugged meetings with Mr Lawrence's friend Duwayne Brooks, who was with 18-year-old Stephen on the night he was stabbed to death in Eltham in 1993, and his lawyers.

Today Sir Bernard said: "One of the critical things is to talk to Peter Francis. We've seen him appear on television, we know he's talked to journalists, it would be really helpful if he talked to the investigators because that will help to get to the bottom of it."

Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon is running Operation Herne, an investigation into the activities of undercover police officers, and has prioritised the Lawrence smear claims.

Last month he told MPs that his team had found no evidence to back the allegations.

Appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee, he said: "There is nothing in Operation Herne which suggests any attempt whatsoever to do two things: firstly to be tasked against the Stephen Lawrence family, and secondly to besmirch the Stephen Lawrence family."

Stephen's parents Neville and Doreen have called for a public inquiry into the claims, which they believe is the only way to get to the truth.

Mr Francis has told the Guardian newspaper he will only give evidence to a public inquiry.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said it could not properly assess the claims without speaking to Mr Francis. IPCC deputy-chairwoman Deborah Glass said last month: "I have written to Mr Francis to ask if he would be willing to speak to the IPCC. I have not yet had a response, so can only rely on his statements as reported in the Guardian that he is only willing to assist a public inquiry."

The SDS was disbanded in 2008; since then there have been allegations of officers employing the so-called "Day of the Jackal" ploy of using dead baby's identities to secure false identity papers and claims of officers having affairs and fathering children with women involved in the protest movements being monitored by the unit.

It was the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of 1968 that prompted the Met to set up the SDS; and they soon earned the nickname of "the hairies" because undercover officers would adopt an unkempt appearance to blend in with the groups being monitored. Successful SDS applicants were ghosted out of the Met's ranks before undertaking an arduous training process that involved acquiring skills passed on by the Army's top special forces units.