POLICE officers spied on anti-arms trade campaigners and “exaggerated threats” of protests against the world’s largest arms fair, a government inquiry heard.

Evidence from the reopening of the Undercover Policing Inquiry this week included claims that officers surveilled peace organisations, including the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

Tranche 3 (Phase 2) of the probe into the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) infiltrated mainly climate, anti-war and left-wing groups between 1993 and 2008.

Allegations were also heard regarding the police’s deliberate exaggeration of risks to the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair, which takes place at the ExCel centre in London every two years.

Witness statements from an officer known as “Jason Bishop” (HN3) described actions against the DSEI summit as “issues of concern” which could “influence the financial well being of the state.”

According to undercover cop Robert Hastings, risks associated with these actions were due to “the high-profile nature of the event and the amount of money involved and the embarrassment that would be caused to the government.”

Despite not initially being allowed to testify over alleged spying, representatives from the CAAT will join other witnesses in this latest phase of the inquiry.

Emily Apple, the group’s current media co-ordinator, was volunteering with the group during the time when the SDS was deployed.

She was a very close friend of a corporate spy who infiltrated the CAAT between 1997 and 2003 named Martin Hogbin.

Ms Apple has also asked the inquiry look into the relationship between the police and spies hired by weapons manufacturers such as BAE Systems.

She questioned whether BAE-hire spooks had passed information to the Met’s SDS.

“It is very clear that CAAT and other anti-arms trade campaigns I was involved in were deliberately and intrusively targeted by undercover officers to protect the arms trade, and its value to the state,” she said.

“Street party gatherings were described as ‘serious disorder’ while little or no investigations were carried out against the arms companies marketing illegal weapons at DSEI.

“There are serious questions that need answering about the complicity between successive governments, the police and the arms companies to repress our right to protest to protect a trade that is complicit in multiple genocides and human rights abuses.”

Ms Apple is set to give her full statements to the inquiry on March 23.