ANTI-WAR campaigners have been granted core participant status in the ongoing undercover policing inquiry.

CND will be represented by the Public Interest Law Centre in the inquiry, which is now set to examine evidence that the peace organisation was targeted for infiltration by both the Metropolitan Police’s special branch and its special demonstration squad in the 1980s.

According to files released under a 30-year disclosure rule, special branch officers snooped on a number of CND events, including a national demonstration in October 1983 attended by over 200,000 people.

Police spies under the cover names John Kerry and Timothy Spence infiltrated an east London CND group and the organisation’s head office, sending regular reports to Scotland Yard and MI5 on the organisation’s activities. The true identities of the spycops are not publicly known.

CND general secretary Kate Hudson said: “CND has a long record of democratic engagement, working in a peaceful and open way to question and challenge government policies that put citizens in the way of great harm.

“We have been part of the very fabric of British society for over six decades, working widely across civil society.

“It is shocking to discover that public resources were wasted on ‘infiltrating’ CND as if we were a risk to life and limb or a threat to the security of the realm.

“We hope that the inquiry will provide us with an understanding of why this happened and help to ensure that our democratic rights to peaceful protest are assured.”

The group’s legal representatives are looking to hear from current or past CND members who may have information about the activities of the two officers that can be used in the judge-led inquiry.