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A young Black Lives Matter organiser in south Wales recollects how her local police force approached her to get information on the anti racist group. Lowri Davies, who recently made national headlines when she worked with the Guardian on an exposé of the scandal, writes exclusively for voice.wales about what went down. We have exclusively published some of the recordings here.

Image: Lowri Davies, courtesy of Lowri Davies

When I recorded my calls with the South Wales Police, I knew that this would be a news story. I would be determined to show south Wales and the UK how the cops are trying to squash dissent through deceiving people in leftist spaces. 

They showed me their manipulative nature, grooming young people into working for them—scaring them into providing information with cloak-and-dagger meetings and telling you to keep quiet for your own safety. Because who do you go to for help when you’re being told by the cops to grass?

On March 30th 2021, I woke up in my student accommodation bedroom in the afternoon to some missed calls from an unrecognised mobile number. I just assumed they were scam calls despite it being a mobile phone number. Then, the phone rang again, and I answered. The conversation went along these lines:

“Hi, is this Lowri Davies?”

“Speaking, who is this, please?”

“Hi, my name is Rachel Williams, and I am from South Wales Police.”

“Okay, could I get your badge number and what station you work out of, please?”

Pause.

“I do not work out of a station due to the nature of my role.”

I can usually pick up when a police officer calls due to the language used, and I knew at this point that this was an officer because of my experience organising protests for Black Lives Matter Swansea. This conversation was going to be ominous. I want to stress that this was during COVID-19 and I had been protesting. I might have anticipated this wouldn’t be a normal conversation with the police, but what I didn’t anticipate was that it was an officer from the covert department. 

At this point in the discussion, I got out of my bed, walked through the small hallway in my bedroom, opened the door, and entered my kitchen. I opened my laptop, launched Photo Booth, muted the volume so the recording sound would not be heard, and the conversation continued. 

Rachel Williams’ pitch to me was that she and her unit were interested in information about the far-right. It might sound bizarre to ask a prominent BLM Swansea activist for information about the far-right because it is bizarre. All the information I know and have known has been very surface level from experience of counter-demonstrations when we organised antiracist rallies. 

The depth of my research didn’t go much further than social media sweeps on prominent fascists in the area. For context, I do not have some educational or career-based advantage that would mean I could recover data more efficiently, I don’t have any background in cyber security – I’m a law student. 

So it was evident that Rachel and her unit were not really after information from the far-right from me, but significantly more likely, after information on the Black Lives Matter movement across South Wales and the UK. 

At this point in the conversation, questions swirl around my brain whether this could be an officer or not. My gut was telling me, yes, and my head was telling me that it was not. I asked Rachel why she had not attended my address as police often do, and I also questioned whether I could verify her police status by visiting a police station and seeing her. 

The answer was a resounding, “due to the nature of our role; we are not seen anywhere.” The question of how to verify her police status was at the forefront. Rachel Williams offered to meet me and display her and her “boss’” badge. I agreed as I needed that closure and confirmation that they were, in fact, police officers, and covert ones at that. 

On March 31st, 2021, I woke up knowing I had an incoming call at noon from the cops. When it came, Rachel described where I would meet her and that I had to follow an explicit route and tell her when I got to the first location to be then told the second location and to meet there. Rachel reiterated multiple times throughout our phone calls that I couldn’t tell anybody, including BLM organisers. Rachel also ordered me “not to tell anybody where I was going.”

I had to ignore their orders for my own safety. I sent out my location to over 5+ friends, so a live feed of where I could be located, and two friends and my partner were in a car following my whereabouts. I was searched in the car as soon as I got in and I had to prove to the officer that the mobile was off. Eventually my friends lost me as I was being carted around Swansea for approximately 90 minutes. 

Some of the questions when I was in the car revolved around my family and some associates, and they made clear that they would be happy for me to give them information on left-wing groups as well as the fascist organisations they initially wanted to talk to me about. I wish I could go further into this meeting, but unfortunately, my memory and brain have frozen this out. At the end I was dropped off in the city centre and had to call my friends to come and collect me. I was quiet, reserved and withdrawn after what I had just experienced.  

What happened here was not an accident or a mistake; it was evident that this was targeted at anti-racist activists and an attempt to manipulate me to become an informant under false pretences to receive information on the Black Lives Matter movement. I can’t help but feel that they might have thought I was a gullible target because they knew I was autistic. 

Add to this that I’ve always maintained an open and honest relationship with my local police about when and where we were going to hold demonstrations, partly to avoid any pushback from draconian anti-protest legislation enforced by the cops I was talking to. It makes me feel like my better nature has been taken advantage of in an effort to spy on my friends during our fight for justice.

I didn’t expect the story to hit almost every major news outlet, but I am glad that this has come to light, and I do hope that this will give people the confidence that you do not have to do anything they recommend or instruct. We must remember, above all else, that we are stronger together.