The inquiry – which has cost £114m so far – began in 2015 after allegations emerged of abuses by undercover officers, including deceiving women into sexual relationships.
In an opening statement on Monday, the inquiry’s lead lawyer David Barr KC said it would hear “deeply moving” evidence from justice campaigners including the Lawrence family and Sukdev Reel, whose son Ricky died in 1997 in what many suspect was a racist murder.
Mr Barr said that the inquiry would look at why Scotland Yard had deployed undercover officers to gather information relating to campaigns such as these and to what extent those operations may have been motivated by racism.
One of those officers was a man known only as HN81 or “David Hagan” due to an anonymity order.
By 1997 he had been deployed to gather intelligence on the anti-racism movement in London at a time when the force was preparing to face a public inquiry over how it had botched the investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder.
Stephen, 18, was stabbed by a gang as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London.
While the thrust of the evidence so far is that HN81 did not get close enough to the family to have become a key figure in their campaign, he has admitted being part of infamous clashes on the day that the five murder suspects gave evidence to the Lawrence inquiry in 1998.