Nothing new to Taxi drivers, they've been spied on by TfL at virtually ever demo they've held.
The first time I personally noticed we were being watched as individuals, was in Trafalgar Square November 2011.
This young lady above was seen taking photos of Taxi licence plates and then walking round taking another photo of the driver. At first we thought she was a member of the paparazzi, but after observing her for a while, noticed these were in fact the only photos she was taking, "Plates and Faces".
When we approached her to asked what she was doing she walked towards two burley minders wearing hi-vis jackets with TfL logos and hurried towards the underground. But she surfaced again in Whitehall, a bit later.
This has now become a common sight a Taxi demos. The photos below are from the second Windsor House demo, where a number of what looked to be bus inspectors, walked amongst Taxis jotting down ID badge numbers and cab plate numbers.
Round the back of Windsor house seemed to be the rendezvous point, where these TfL spies gathered to exchange notes.
Probably to discount duplicated entries on their clip boards.
The "Blacklist Support Group" recently revealed hey had photographic evidence of undercover police spying on RMT union officials.
Photographic evidence shows that in October 2004 the spy cop was present at the industrial dispute following the sacking of the prominent union militant Steve Hedley (now elected as Senior Assistant General Secretary of the RMT union) at the Kings Cross terminal for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link .
The presence of this particular spy from the Met's disgraced Special Demonstration Squad was actually captured himself on camera, by the freelance photographer Andrew Wiard.
The photographs allegedly show the police spy standing behind an RMT banner with the slogan ‘Reinstate Steve Hedley’ while handing out leaflets to construction workers who had walked out in support of the victimised union activist.
Steve Hedley commented:
"I am appalled that a secret police spy thought that it was justified to turn up on a peaceful RMT picket line in order to gather information. I had earlier housed this person rent free as he claimed he was being made homeless and feel shocked that taxpayers money could be used like this to betray the trust of people engaged in completely legitimate industrial action. We heard a lot growing up about police states in other countries whilst it turns out our state was doing exactly the same thing here".
The photographs were discovered by Dave Smith while researching for the updated version of the book Blacklisted and first made public at the GMB conference in Bournemouth on Sunday (5th June).
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