Boom Box documentary casts spotlight on unethical tactics of undercover policing

The allegations of questionable tactics echo arguments raised during the original court proceedings. Defence lawyers initially put forward an abuse of process argument, claiming the operation amounted to entrapment and evidence gathered through the undercover operation should be ruled inadmissible.

The judge rejected claims that the Boombox studio itself amounted to a “honey trap” and allowed the case to proceed. After that ruling, many defendants were advised to plead guilty.

Oya Suleyman, of EBR Attridge solicitors, who represented two of the young men charged with serious offences, described Boombox as a warning shot. “It’s a crystal ball into the bleak future of judge-only trials. I urge the justice secretary to watch it and examine his conscience. If we lose juries in the way he plans, the people here in Tottenham are exactly the kind that will suffer disproportionately.”

Campaigners are now circulating the documentary amongministers in the hope it will prompt wider debate about undercover policing, similar to how Mr Bates vs the Post Office and Adolescence helped drive national debate about social policy.

Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of Liberty, said: “I do believe that the undercover officers in Operation Peyzac crossed a number of lines and groomed, enticed, incited and at times even coerced at least some of the young men and boys they were ‘investigating’.”

Chakrabarti said the operation should potentially be examined by the ongoing undercover policing inquiry and called for stronger safeguards around undercover policing.

Neil Woods, a former undercover police officer who spent 13 years infiltrating drug gangs, said when he worked undercover there were clear instructions prohibiting officers from acting as agent provocateurs.

“So the line is quite clear and, in my view, this operation absolutely stepped over this line in a really sinister way,” he said.

Chakrabarti and Woods said that if Operation Peyzac had taken place today, undercover officers may have been able to go further because of changes introduced by the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, which expanded the powers available to covert operatives.

Murray said he agreed to participate in the documentary because he wanted to challenge what he described as a “false narrative” being told that “horrible, nasty police fitted up a load of completely innocent people – which of course is absolutely not true.”

Fish, another undercover officer featured in the documentary, also rejected accusations of grooming. “I cannot enter into a conversation with someone who isn’t talking about criminality. I cannot just go up to someone and start talking about criminality or say, ‘can you get me a gun, can you get me drugs?’ All these people initiated the conversation.”

He added: “I was so proud of the job that we did because it was probably the hardest job I’d ever done.”

Toby Paton, the documentary’s director, said the central question raised by the documentary is ultimately a social rather than legal one.

“The young men in the series needed help,” he said. “They needed the real Boombox. They needed support. That’s the tragedy of it.”