Camp 020 at

Latchmere House Latchmere House is a building and grounds south-east of Ham Common in Ham, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, in south west London, England. The southern part of the site lies in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Original ...

in southwest London was a British

interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

centre for captured German agents during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was run by Lieutenant Colonel Robin "Tin Eye" Stephens. Although other wartime interrogation centres were alleged to have used

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

to extract confessions, Stephens denied claims that torture had been used at Camp 020. His instructions for interrogators ordered: “Never strike a man. In the first place it is an act of cowardice. In the second place, it is not intelligent. A prisoner will lie to avoid further punishment and everything he says thereafter will be based on a false premise.” It is known that Stephens punished those who disobeyed this order, and in one case ejected a senior

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

interrogator from the camp. After the war, Stephens ran another in Bad Nenndorf in Germany but was tried for the maltreatment of prisoners, some of whom died. He was tried in a British military court of inquiry in Germany and found not guilty, but others involved were convicted. In 2012,

Ian Cobain Ian Cobain (born 1960) is a British journalist. Cobain is best known for his investigative journalism into human rights abuses committed by the British government post- 9/11, the secrecy surrounding the British state and the legacy of the Northe ...

in the book ''Cruel Britannia'' claimed that documents obtained at the National Archives proved that torture methods had been used at Camp 020 to extract information and that 30 rooms there had been turned into cells with hidden microphones, further that there were

mock executions A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that their execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. The subject is made to believe that they are being led to their own executio ...

and several inmates were treated brutally by the guards. Members of the British Union of Fascists had been held at Latchmere House during this period. They included the environmental pioneer

Jorian Jenks Jorian Edward Forwood Jenks (1899 – 20 August 1963) was an English farmer, environmentalism pioneer and fascist. He has been described as "one of the most dominant figures in the development of the organic movement". Early life Born in Oxf ...

. There was a reserve camp, Camp 020R, at Huntercombe, which was used mainly for long term detention of prisoners. The BBC docu-drama ''Spy!'' depicted Camp 020 in one episode in 1980. The depiction stirred controversy, as the BBC dramatisation showed the use of physical assault on individuals being interrogated. In 2013, a pair of characters, based on Stephens, also appears in "The Cage", the second episode of series 7 of ''Foyle's War''.

Inmates

Known wartime inmates included: *

James Larratt Battersby James Larratt Battersby (5 February 1907 – 14–29 September 1955) was a British fascist and pacifist, and a member of the Battersby family of hatmakers of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. He was forced to retire from the family firm du ...

Hugo Bleicher Hugo Bleicher (1899–1982) was a senior non-commissioned officer of Nazi Germany's Abwehr who worked against French Resistance in German-occupied France. Early life and World War I Hugo Ernst Bleicher was born in Tettnang on 9 August 1899. He ...

Gösta Caroli Gösta Caroli (6 November 1902 – 8 May 1975) was a double agent working for MI5 during the Second World War under the codename SUMMER. Gösta Caroli and Wulf Schmidt Wulf Dietrich Christian Schmidt, later known as Harry Williamson (7 Decem ...

Eddie Chapman Edward Arnold Chapman (16 November 1914 – 11 December 1997) was an English criminal and wartime spy. During the Second World War he offered his services to Nazi Germany as a spy and subsequently became a British double agent. His British Se ...

* Jacques de Duve *

Josef Jakobs Josef Jakobs (30 June 1898 – 15 August 1941) was a German spy and the last person to be executed at the Tower of London. He was captured shortly after parachuting into the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Convicted of espionage unde ...

Werner von Janowski Werner Alfred Waldemar von Janowski, (Abwehr-codenamed "Bobbi"; Allied-codenamed WATCHDOG), was a captured German Second World War Nazi spy and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's first double agent. He is believed to have been a triple agent by ...

* Christiaan Lindemans * Karel Richard Richter *

Wulf Schmidt Wulf Dietrich Christian Schmidt, later known as Harry Williamson (7 December 1911 – 19 October 1992) was a Danish citizen who became a double agent working for Britain against Nazi Germany during the Second World War under the codename Tate. H ...

Duncan Scott-Ford Duncan Alexander Croall Scott-Ford (4 September 1921 – 3 November 1942) was a British merchant seaman who was hanged for treachery after giving information to an enemy agent during the Second World War. Early life Scott-Ford was born i ...

* Gastão de Freitas Ferraz

References

{{reflist, 2 United Kingdom intelligence community Intelligence services of World War II Interrogations Torture in the United Kingdom Detention centers British World War II crimes

Inmates

See also

References