The mother of Ricky Reel was spied on by undercover police officers, according to reports this morning.
Sukdhev Reel, mother of the Brunel University student who died aged 20 when the family was living in West Drayton , says she has been told she was the target of intelligence gathering for two years after her son died in mysterious circumstances in Kingston-upon-Thames.
Ricky had been for a night out with friends in October 1997 when the group was scattered following an allegedly racist incident. Ricky became separated from his friends. His body was recovered from the River Thames six days later.
Mrs Reel told the BBC she had been informed by senior officers that members of the Met Police Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) had been spying on her.
The information apparently came from an officer engaged in Operation Herne, an enquiry into undercover policing. Chief Constable Mick Creedon of Derbyshire Police, who is leading that enquiry, will publish a report today (Thursday, July 24) into claims officers targeted certain families and individuals involved in justice campaigns.
The Reel family worked with civil rights campaigner Suresh Grover, and has always claimed that Ricky was the victim of a racist attack and may have been murdered. His 1999 inquest recorded an open verdict.
A separate enquiry found that the family of Stephen Lawrence was spied on, and there is speculation that the family of Jean Charles De Menezes, the Brazilian man shot dead by police on a Tube train in 2005, was also spied on. Channel Four news said last night that the electrician’s family’s ‘privacy was breached’ in the months after his death.
No one has ever been charged or brought to trial in connection with the death of Ricky Reel.
In September 2013, Mrs Reel claimed she had been contacted by someone who gave her the name of the person who killed her son. Police said there was insufficient evidence to take the matter further.
