Undercover Policing

Police spies stole identities of dead children

Exclusive: Undercover officers created aliases based on details found in birth and death records, Guardian investigation reveals

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.13 GMT

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1990s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism Britain's largest police force stole the identities of an estimated 80 dead children and issued fake passports in their names for use by undercover police officers. The Metropolitan police secretly authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children's parents. The details are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian, which has established how over three decades generations of police officers trawled through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches. Undercover officers created aliases based on the details of the dead children and were issued with accompanying identity records such as driving licences and national insurance numbers. Some of the police officers spent up to 10 years pretending to be people who had died. The Met said the practice was not "currently" authorised, but announced an investigation into "past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS [Special Demonstration Squad] officers".

Keith Vaz, the chairman of parliament's home affairs select committee, said he was shocked at the "gruesome" practice. "It will only cause enormous distress to families who will discover what has happened concerning the identities of their dead children," he said. "This is absolutely shocking." The technique of using dead children as aliases has remained classified intelligence for several decades, although it was fictionalised in Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal. As a result, police have internally nicknamed the process of searching for suitable identities as the "jackal run". One former undercover agent compared an operation on which he was deployed to the methods used by the Stasi. Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children. One, who adopted the fake persona of Pete Black while undercover in anti-racist groups, said he felt he was "stomping on the grave" of the four-yearold boy whose identity he used. "A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this," he said. The Guardian has chosen not to identify Black by his real name. The other officer, who adopted the identity of a child who died in a car crash, said he was conscious the parents would "still be grief-stricken". He spoke on the condition of anonymity and argued his actions could be justified because they were for the "greater good". Both officers worked for a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008. A third undercover police officer in the SDS who adopted the identity of a dead child can be named as John Dines, a sergeant. He adopted the identity of an eight-year-old boy named John Barker, who died in 1968 from leukaemia. The Met said in a statement: "We are not prepared to confirm nor deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations." The force added: "A formal complaint has been received which is being investigated by the DPS [Directorate for Professional Standards] and we appreciate the concerns that have been raised. The DPS inquiry is taking place in conjunction with Operation Herne's investigation into the wider issue of past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS officers. We can confirm that the practice referred to in the complaint is not something that would currently be authorised in the [Met police]." There is a suggestion that the practice of using dead infant identities may have been stopped in the mid-1990s, when death records were digitised. However, the case being investigated by the Met relates to a suspected undercover police officer who may have used a dead child's identity in 2003. The practice was introduced 40 years ago by police to lend credibility to the backstory of covert operatives spying on protesters, and to guard against the possibility that campaigners would discover their true identities. Since then dozens of SDS officers, including those who posed as anti-capitalists, animal rights activists and violent far-right campaigners, have used the identities of dead children.

One document seen by the Guardian indicates that around 80 police officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994. The total number could be higher. Black said he always felt guilty when celebrating the birthday of the four-year-old whose identity he took. He was particularly aware that somewhere the parents of the boy would be "thinking about their son and missing him". "I used to get this really odd feeling," he said. To fully immerse himself in the adopted identity and appear convincing when speaking about his upbringing, Black visited the child's home town to familiarise himself with the surroundings. Black, who was undercover in the 1990s, said his operation was "almost Stasi-like". He said SDS officers visited the house they were supposed to have been born in so they would have a memory of the building. "It's those little details that really matter the weird smell coming out of the drain that's been broken for years, the location of the corner Post Office, the number of the bus you get to go from one place to another," he said. The second SDS officer said he believed the use of the harvested identities was for the "greater good". But he was also aware that the parents had not been consulted. "There were dilemmas that went through my head," he said. The case of the third officer, John Dines, reveals the risks posed to families who were unaware that their children's identities were being used by undercover police. During his covert deployment, Dines had a two-year relationship with a female activist before disappearing from her life. In an attempt to track down her disappeared boyfriend, the woman discovered the birth certificate of John Barker and tried to track down his family, unaware that she was actually searching for a dead child. She said she was relieved that she never managed to find the parents of the dead boy. "It would have been horrendous," she said. "It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier." The disclosure about the use of the identities of dead children is likely to reignite the controversy over undercover police infiltration of protest groups. Fifteen separate inquiries have already been launched since 2011, when Mark Kennedy was unmasked as a police spy who had slept with several women, including one who was his girlfriend for six years. On Tuesday the select committee will hear evidence from lawyers representing the 11 women who are suing the Met after forming "deeply personal" relationships with the spies. Kennedy, who worked for a sister unit to the SDS, is not believed to have used the identity of a dead child. Vaz said MPs were now likely to demand answers from the Met police about the use of children's identities. "My disbelief at some of the tactics used [by undercover police] has become shock as a result of these latest revelations. It is clear that inappropriate action has been taken by undercover police in the past. But this has now taken it to a new level," he said.

"The committee will need to seek answers from the Metropolitan police, to find out why they allowed these gruesome practices to happen."

Police spy: 'I thought, how would they feel about their son's name being used'
Undercover officers were conflicted about 'jackal run' tactic of using identities of dead children

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.00 GMT

The officer known as Pete Black said he worried that the parents would be visited by suspicious activists Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian The undercover police officer who posed as Pete Black was preparing for his deployment when he visited the national registry of births, marriages and deaths. He trawled through the archive in search of a dead child whose identity he could steal. Black recalls the "real moment of discomfort" when his eyes alighted on the records of the appropriate match. It was a boy who had died aged four. Black's son was a similar age. He was left wondering how he would feel if the identity of his child was used without his permission by a covert operative working for the police. "For me that was a little pang going on," he said. "You have to use people. You end up using a lot of people." Black, whose real identity is known to the Guardian, is one of an estimated 80 undercover police officers believed to have used the identities of dead children while spying on political campaign groups for a secretive unit called the special demonstration squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008. The Metropolitan police indicated the practice was no longer used, saying it was not "something that would currently be authorised" by the force. It said Operation Herne, a longrunning review of the SDS, would now investigate "past arrangements for undercover

identities used by SDS officers". The resurrection of dead people's identities was previously considered to be a technique used in the criminal underworld, fictionalised by Frederick Forsyth in his 1971 bestselling novel The Day of the Jackal. In recognition of the book, Black said, he and other police officers described their visit to archives at St Catherine's House in search of an identity as the "jackal run". "You are looking for someone of a similar age to you who died, starting at age three or four and up to age 14 or 15," Black said. "Surnames always have to be general. You don't want something which is going to stand out too much or be too memorable, like Aardvark. You don't want to draw any unnecessary attention to yourself. Green and Black are good. But you don't want something like Smith. No matter what your first name is, that surname will always sound fake." Black spent the summer of 1993 combing through the archives and encountered a number of boys named Pete who had died at the correct age but for one reason or another did not fit. The child he settled on was the ideal match. He had a "totally English" surname and had died overseas in the 1960s while his father was on a foreign posting with the Royal Marines. Black had wanted to integrate a "violent" streak to his undercover legend. "I actually built into my identity the fact that my father was a trained Royal Marine and he used to beat me up," he said. Like other SDS officers, Black visited the home of the boy who had died to familiarise himself with the surrounding local landmarks, ensuring he could speak convincingly about his pretend upbringing. Black has not revealed the name of the boy because he does not want to involve the family concerned. However, the Guardian has corroborated his account. Undercover police used the identities of real people to lend credibility to their alter ego and as a layer of protection in case anyone became suspicious. The idea was that if activists ever researched a police spy's background to check out whether they were who they claimed to be, they would come across the birth record of a real child. Black, who infiltrated a group called Youth Against Racism in Europe, concedes there was a risk that the parents of the child would receive a visit from suspicious protesters. "They will knock on her door and say 'where is your son, I want to hurt him because he is an infiltrator'. And all she will be able to say is 'what are you talking about? My son died.' These are the kind of things you start to imagine. You worry about all the random hurt being dished out to people who don't deserve it, all because of what you are doing." A second SDS officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, chose an infant killed in a road accident and said he also paused to consider the morality of taking an identity in the knowledge the parent would "still be grief-stricken". "I thought, what would his family think if their son's name was being used for the greater good, how would they feel about it, and should they be consulted," he said. "There were dilemmas that went through my head." He added: "Your choice of name was of fundamental

importance because on that would rest your whole identity, sense of security, confidence and ability to do the job." He said to bolster the identity, police spies were given fake passports, driving licences and tax codes in the dead child's name. "You are feeling vulnerable right from the first day. All the work you did before you started the job you felt paid off because you felt more comfortable, more confident and stronger within that identity." He believed the tactic was probably justified "because we had this mission to accomplish and this was the only way of doing it". The operation to monitor political activists was in "the greater good". Black, on the other hand, was more ambivalent. Each year he celebrated the birthday of the dead child, realising its parents were at that point "thinking about their son and missing him". "I used to get this really odd feeling I wish I had not done it. It was almost like jumping on the grave." Jules Carey, a solicitor who represents victims of the undercover policing operations, said: "It would be deeply shocking if inquiries establish that police have been harvesting these children's identities, but I would not be surprised. We already know how callously undercover police have deceived and used women to gain access to information. It is hard to imagine how these spying operations on protesters could be more repugnant by design or implementation."

Woman's 18-year search for truth about police spy who used dead child's name
When the man known to his activist girlfriend as John Barker disappeared, she embarked on a journey that led her to the former home of a child whose name he used as an alias

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.21 GMT

John Dines taking part in a race in the early 1990s when he was serving as an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police's special branch John Barker was an eight-year-old boy who died of leukaemia in 1968. Nineteen years later his identity was quietly resurrected by the police. The man who adopted the boy's identity, claiming it as his own, was John Dines, an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police's special branch. In 1987 Dines was tasked with posing as an anti-capitalist protester, feeding intelligence to his handlers in a secret unit called the special demonstration squad (SDS). It was a controversial and morally dubious deployment that lasted five years and will now return to haunt him. Like many SDS officers, Dines had a long-term girlfriend who was a political activist. She does not want to be identified and has asked to be referred to as Clare. Her story lays bare the emotional trauma experienced by women whom police have described as "collateral" victims of their spy operations, as well as the risks police were taking by adopting the identities of dead children. In 1990 the man Clare knew as John Barker asked to borrow money so he could fly to New Zealand for his mother's funeral. "The night before he got the flight to go there, he stayed at my place and kind of poured his heart out. We became emotionally close. When he got back, we got together." There was no funeral in New Zealand and Dines had no need to borrow money. But Clare had known Dines as a fellow protester for three years and had no reason to suspect him. The couple would end up in an intimate relationship for two years. "He said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and I was madly in love with him," she said. "He said he wanted us to have kids. He used to say he had once seen an elderly Greek couple sitting on a veranda gazing into the sunset, and that he pictured us growing old like that." By the summer of 1991, as part of an exit strategy, Dines began exhibiting symptoms of a mental breakdown. "He kept talking about how he had nobody left apart from me," Clare said. "His parents had both died. He had no brothers and sisters. The only woman that he had ever loved before me, a woman called Debbie, had left him. He said he was convinced I was going to do the same to him." Dines gave the impression he wanted to run away to escape inner demons. "I saw him crying loads," Clare said. "He told me that he had thrown all of his mother's jewellery into a river because he thought she never loved him. He told me his parents had abused him." In March 1992 an emotional-sounding Dines called from Heathrow airport saying he was about to fly to South Africa. After that, Clare received two letters with South African postmarks. Then her boyfriend vanished altogether.

Clare was left distraught and confused. "I was very worried about his mental state," she said. "I was also sick with worry that he might kill himself." Clare contacted the British consulate in South Africa and frantically phoned hostels she thought he may have stayed in Johannesburg. She later hired a private investigator who could find no trace of Dines. It was the start of a journey for the truth that would last almost two decades and eventually take her to New Zealand. It was not until 2010 that she found out for sure that the man she had loved was a police spy. For some of the time that Clare thought her boyfriend was missing abroad, he was actually working just a few miles away. When his undercover work finished, Dines changed his mullet-style haircut and returned to a desk job at the Met headquarters in Scotland Yard where, according to a colleague, he appeared "very miserable". In her search for clues, one of the first things Clare did was locate a copy of what she assumed was her boyfriend's birth certificate. The document confirmed the details he had always given her: it named a city in the Midlands where he was born in January 1960. She had no idea that the identity was a forgery, or that the real John Barker had died as a boy. In April 1993, desperate after a year of searching, Clare decided to visit Barker's family home in the hope of finding any surviving relatives, but when she knocked on the door of the terrace house there was no answer. She went back later but the occupants said the family no longer lived there. Looking back, she wonders what would have occurred if the dead child's parents had opened the door. "It would have been horrendous," she said. "It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier." It was another 18 months before Clare decided to inspect the national death records. "I just suddenly got this instinct. It was a whim: I thought, I'm going to go in there and look through the death records." She recalls her horror when she discovered the real John Barker was dead. "It sent a chill down my spine," she said. "When I got the certificate itself, it was so clear. The same person. The same parents. The same address. But he had died as an eight-year-old boy." The Guardian has been unable to find surviving relatives of the child. The discovery turned Clare's world upside down. "It was like a bereavement but it was not something I could talk to people about. Now suddenly he didn't exist. This was a man I had known for five years, who I had lived with for two years. How could I trust anybody again?" Clare now knew her boyfriend had lied about his identity, but still had no idea who he was. The idea that he might have been a police spy crossed her mind, but he might also have worked in corporate espionage or had a hidden criminal past. It was another 10 years of searching before she got closer to the truth.

Clare had two clues to go on. One was the name of a woman in New Zealand who Dines had told her was an aunt. The other was a letter in which he had made a curious reference to his biological father being a man he had never met, called Jim Dines. The woman in New Zealand was not his aunt but, bizarrely, the mother of Dines's real wife. Stranger still, Jim Dines was, in fact, the police officer's real father and had brought him up in London. Clare has no idea why the undercover police officer chose to compromise his deployment by giving Clare cryptic references to people in his real life. Perhaps he was psychologically traumatised by his dual identities and wanted to leave a trail that would allow Clare to find him. Whatever his reason, the clues led Clare to a public archive in New Zealand. It was there, in 2003, that she made a crucial connection: a document that linked Dines with the woman he married, Debbie. Clare instantly realised they must have been a married couple. Back in London, she ordered the couple's wedding certificate. "What hit me like a ton of bricks is that he listed his occupation as a police officer," she said. "When I read that, I felt utterly sick and really violated. It ripped me apart basically, just reading that." Clare was now agonisingly close to the truth. She knew that Dines was a police officer when he married his wife in 1977. But there was still a possibility that he gave up his job before becoming a political activist. She shared the evidence with friends and family. Some cautioned her against concluding Dines had been a police spy. "I remember my dad and others said: 'You're being paranoid that would never happen in this country.'" In 2010 she was contacted by a woman who had recently divorced a police officer who had worked undercover for the SDS shortly after Dines. The woman said her ex-husband had revealed that Dines was a fellow spy. The Met refused to comment on the Dines case, adding: "We neither confirm nor deny the identity of any individual alleged to have been in a covert role." Dealing with the confirmation has been an emotional ordeal for Clare. "Although it was massively painful, there was a sense of relief that I finally knew the truth. I didn't have to keep wondering." For nearly 20 years she hoped that, despite his betrayal, Dines may have genuinely loved her. It was only recently that she decided his love was also fake. "I got out all the old letters that he sent me and read them again, with the knowledge he was an undercover police officer," she said. "What had once seemed like heart-wrenching stories in these letters, disclosures that made me really worried about his wellbeing, were completely false. That is manipulation. It is abuse."

Progressive academic Bob Lambert is former police spy

Lambert, an expert on Islamophobia, posed as environmental activist then ran police spy unit that infiltrated anti-racist groups

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis The Guardian, Sunday 16 October 2011 21.30 BST

Bob Lambert, right, posed as an activist with the environmental group Greenpeace London while working undercover as a police officer. An academic and prominent supporter of progressive causes has been unmasked as a former spy who controlled a network of undercover police officers in political groups. During his current career as an academic expert on Islamophobia, Bob Lambert has regularly spoken at political rallies to promote campaigns against racism and fascism. However, in his previous career as a special branch officer, which lasted 26 years, he ran operations at a covert unit that placed police spies into political campaigns, including those run by anti-racism groups. The unit also disrupted the activities of these groups. Lambert became head of the unit after going undercover himself. Since becoming an academic three years ago, he has made no secret of the fact he was a special branch detective between 1980 and 2006, working on what he describes as "countering threats of terrorism and political violence in Britain". However, he has kept quiet about his undercover work. Lambert, who was involved in the secret unit for around 10 years, becomes the seventh police officer to be exposed as a police spy in the protest movement.

The disclosure comes before a major review of the use of such methods is published on Thursday. The report by Bernard Hogan-Howe, the new commissioner of the Metropolitan police, was commissioned by police chiefs after a series of revelations about Mark Kennedy, the officer who spent seven years embedded in the environmental movement. Lambert was confronted about his past by a group he once infiltrated, while at a conference on Saturday. In one of many appearances on political platforms, he was a speaker at the conference, organised by Unite Against Fascism to promote anti-racism and multiculturalism. Last week he urged people to attend the conference to "show a united front against hatred and bigotry and celebrate the diversity of our multicultural communities". Using the alias "Bob Robinson", Lambert posed as an activist in the group London Greenpeace between 1984 and 1988, say other members. The group, which had a libertarian philosophy, campaigned against nuclear power and weapons, as well as on other environmental issues, and says "Robinson" attended protests and meetings. It is understood that he also infiltrated animal rights protests. On Saturday, members of the group pressed him to apologise for long-standing infiltration of political campaigns. He refused to comment, according to them. At the time, he was acting as a member of a secretive police unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, which embedded undercover officers into groups it believed posed a threat to public order. During the late 1990s, Lambert took charge of operations for the SDS, which penetrated both left and rightwing campaigns. He was responsible for undercover police officers such as Pete Black, who spent four years pretending to be an anti-racism activist, and Jim Boyling, who was embedded in an environmental campaign against cars, Reclaim the Streets. Between 2002 and 2007, Lambert ran the Muslim Contact Unit, a Scotland Yard department which sought to foster partnerships between police and Muslim community groups to prevent Islamist terrorist attacks. In recent years Lambert has had a high public profile. A lecturer at Exeter and St Andrews universities, he has produced academic papers and articles for the media, including the Guardian and the New Statesman as he continued to argue that the government and police should work with Muslim groups to prevent terrorism. However he has attracted virulent criticism from rightwing commentators who argue for a tougher approach. They believe it is counter-productive for the police to work in partnership with Muslim groups they claim are extremists. London Greenpeace said it confronted Lambert to show "that recent police spies outed (such as Mark Kennedy) were not 'rogue officers' but part of an unacceptable pattern of immoral infiltration of environmental groups, condoned at a high level". Lambert could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Former police spy urges public inquiry into undercover operations

Pete Black says series of IPCC investigations into individual officers will not get to the bottom of alleged abuses of power

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis The Guardian, Wednesday 26 October 2011 17.01 BST

Bernard Hogan-Howe is due to appear before the Metropolitan Police Authority to answer questions about the growing controversy surrounding undercover policing. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/AFP/Getty Images An undercover police officer who infiltrated anti-racist groups has called for a full public inquiry into controversial police operations that have spied on the protest movement for more than four decades. The call from Pete Black comes as Britain's most senior police chief, Bernard Hogan-Howe, faces questions on Thursday about whether two undercover officers Bob Lambert and Jim Boyling appeared in court using their fictional identities as political activists. Black worked alongside Lambert and Boyling in the 1990s in the covert Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), part of the Met's Special Branch. Its activities gathering intelligence and disrupting the activities of political campaigners were later transferred to the control of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which maintained a network of spies in protest groups until last year. The unit has since been returned to the Met. Nine separate inquiries have been launched this year into the controversy surrounding undercover infiltration of political groups. They include disciplinary inquiries, a review by a senior judge and investigations by official police watchdogs.

Black said the home secretary, Theresa May, should now open a full public inquiry and recognise that the alleged abuses of power were not isolated incidents but were widespread and approved by senior police officers. He said, for example, that senior police officers had claimed their agents were not permitted to have sexual relationships with activists. Black said, however, that superiors knew officers had developed sexual relationships with protesters to give credibility to their cover story and help gather evidence. Of the seven undercover police officers identified as having infiltrated protest groups, five had sexual relationships as part of their cover, often developing long-term relationships. They include Lambert, Boyling and Black, as well as Mark Kennedy, who was unmasked as a police spy last year. Black said junior officers should not be made scapegoats or prosecuted for doing what they were authorised to do by their superiors. Hogan-Howe, the Met police commissioner, conducted an inquiry into police infiltration of protest groups in his prior role at HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. The publication of his report was abandoned last week, hours after the Guardian and BBC Newsnight revealed evidence that undercover officers may have been prosecuted under their false identity. He will be questioned by his force watchdog, the Metropolitan Police Authority, about the growing controversy surrounding undercover policing. Jenny Jones, a Green member of the MPA, will demand that Hogan-Howe reveals "how many undercover officers have given evidence under a false name, how high up the ladder does the deception go and who authorised this appalling behaviour". Black said it would be relatively easy to give these answers as the police unit he worked for kept a secret file listing details of the authorised crimes committed by undercover officers during their deployments. He said undercover officers reported to their superiors any crimes they committed while working under their fake personas. Their senior officers would then give them retrospective authorisation to have committed that crime, he added. Undercover officers are permitted to participate in criminal acts provided they do not instigate them, as it can help the officer to win the trust of the people he is seeking to infiltrate. But this is a legal grey area as defendants under English law can mount a defence if they can show that an undercover officer acted as an agent provocateur. Last week the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, started investigating claims that Boyling, a police spy who was embedded in an environmental group, lied under oath about his real identity. The Metropolitan police said it was reviewing similar allegations about the second former undercover officer, Lambert, "with a view to referring it to the IPCC". Black said a series of IPCC investigations into individual officers would not get to the bottom of what has gone on. He said individuals should be granted the right to give evidence to a public inquiry without fear of being prosecuted.

Since he first went public in March last year, Black has argued that the public should know more about the undercover operations so they can make an informed decision about whether they were necessary. He supports a full inquiry reminiscent of one in the US in the 1970s, known as the Church committee, which uncovered the illegal activities of the American intelligence agencies. Hogan-Howe appears before the police authority on the 43rd anniversary of the setting-up of the SDS, originally to tackle anti-Vietnam protests.

Met chief says officers' use of fake identities in court was not illegal
Scotland Yard launches two more inquires, but defence of tactic used to infiltrate activist groups 'worries' ex-DPP

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis The Guardian, Thursday 27 October 2011 20.31 BST

Met commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe has set up an inquiry to establish how many times undercover officers have been prosecuted under their fake identities. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/AFP Britain's most senior police officer has defended the practice of undercover officers using fake identities in court, claiming there is no specific law forbidding it. Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, made the comments as he announced that Scotland Yard has begun two new inquiries. It brings the number of inquiries into infiltration of political groups to 11, prompting a call from Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, for one overarching public inquiry. Macdonald said Hogan-Howe's defence was "stunning and worrying".

Hogan-Howe appeared before the Metropolitan Police Authority on Thursday facing increasing pressure over allegations that two police spies used their false identities as political activists when they were prosecuted in court. He told the authority: "There's no law that says it can't happen. The fact that someone has concealed their identity doesn't mean the crime didn't happen. In absolute terms, the criminal law does not make a crime of it. If you are dealing with more serious crimes, we have to seek all options." He added that the Met was seeking legal advice on the issue. He said that fake identities had not been used in court in current operations. "If it was happening in the past, it won't be happening now." Dee Doocey, a Lib Dem member of the authority, said that while the use of fake identities may not be technically perjury, 90% of the public would see it as dishonest. Bowing to pressure from Jenny Jones, a Green member of the authority and the party's London mayoral candidate, the commissioner has set up an inquiry into past deployments to establish how many times undercover police officers have been prosecuted under their fake identities. Senior police officers have been accused of authorising the practice so police spies could build credibility with other activists and fortify their cover as a committed campaigners. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating claims that Jim Boyling, an officer who infiltrated the environment movement, lied about his identity in court. Documents suggest he concealed his true role when prosecuted alongside activists. Scotland Yard is reviewing similar allegations involving a second undercover officer, Bob Lambert, to see if they should also be investigated by the IPCC. Macdonald said: "If the commissioner is saying that there is no law against undercover officers giving evidence under their false identities without revealing that to the court, I think that's a pretty stunning assertion. It's certainly a brave assertion. "It seems to me that there are potentially all sorts of offences which could be committed. The very fact of saying 'I am John Smith' when my name is really PC Simon Brown may not be perjury, but when you go on to recount your role in the offence, and your relationships with other people in the case, you could very easily stray into perjury. And at the very least, the senior officers who are sending these undercover PCs into court to give evidence in this way are putting them at serious risk of straying into perjury." It was time to set up one proper public inquiry, the peer said. "This is a single issue: how should we control undercover police operations? The fact that we have got 11 separate inquiries into that leads me to conclude that the situation has become absolutely chaotic." Hogan-Howe said he had asked deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons to examine undercover operations between 1968 and 2008. "That review is considering a range of issues," he said, and gave no further details.

It will scrutinise a covert unit known as the Special Demonstration Squad, which monitored and disrupted political groups deemed to be a threat to public order. More recently, another unit, known as the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, has carried out the same mission under the command of the Association of Chief Police Officers and, this year, Scotland Yard. Both units used the same tactics of giving a police officer a false identity as an activist and then sending them to penetrate campaigning groups. A series of disclosures about the secret operations have led this year to the setting up of 11 inquiries by police watchdogs, a judge, internal disciplinary units and others.

Police spy tricked lover with activist 'cover story'

Bob Lambert used false identity in 1980s to infiltrate protest movements while working for Metropolitan police special branch

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans The Guardian, Sunday 23 October 2011 22.00 BST

Bob Lambert issued an unreserved apology to the woman he had an 18-month relationship with while working undercover. Photograph: guardian.co.uk A former police spymaster who spent years living deep undercover in the protest movement has confessed he tricked an innocent woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an elaborate attempt to lend "credibility" to his alter ego. Bob Lambert, who adopted a false identity to infiltrate leftwing and animal rights groups, said he had the 18-month relationship with the woman, who was not herself involved in political activism, as part of his cover story.

The Guardian has detailed the cases of seven undercover police officers known to have infiltrated protest movements, mostly in the past decade. Of those, five have had sexual relationships with women who were oblivious to their real identities. Lambert, who became an academic after a 26-year career in the special branch of the Metropolitan police, made the admission after the Guardian contacted him about their relationship. In a statement, he offered an "unreserved apology" to the woman, who does not want her identity to be revealed, and said he was also sorry for deceiving "law-abiding members of London Greenpeace," a peaceful protest group. His former partner, who recently discovered the long-haired political activist she had the relationship with in the 1980s was actually an undercover police officer, said she felt "violated" by the experience. "I was cruelly tricked and it has made me very angry," the woman said. "I am actually quite damaged by the whole thing. I am still not over it." Police chiefs have claimed that officers who spy on protesters are not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with activists. But police spies are known to have been having relationships with activists as recently as last year, as part of a secret police operation to monitor political activists that has been in place since the late 1960s. In most cases, the police officers developed long-term relationships and their subsequent disappearance left women feeling traumatised and angry. They include Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years living undercover in Nottingham as environmental campaigner "Mark Stone". Another undercover police officer, Peter Black, said sex was a widely used "tool" to gain the trust of activists when he was deployed in the 1990s. The woman duped by Lambert said their relationship came to an end more than 20 years ago after the man she knew as "Bob Robinson" vanished from her life, claiming to be in hiding from special branch. Lambert was, in fact, a special branch detective and would go on to rise through the ranks of the covert unit to a position in which he managed the deployments of several other spies. Lambert is currently subject to a Metropolitan police review into whether he was prosecuted in a court using his false identity. The force is considering whether to refer his case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). On Friday, the Met referred the case of another undercover officer, Jim Boyling, to the IPCC, after evidence emerged that he posed as a defendant using his false identity in another court case. After living undercover himself, Lambert went on to manage Boyling, who infiltrated environmental campaign groups and ended up marrying an activist he was sent to spy on and fathering two children with her.

Lambert and Boyling later worked for the Met's Muslim contact unit, which was created to improve relations with Muslims after the 11 September 2001 attacks. Now an outspoken critic of the government's counter-terrorism strategy, Lambert has strongly denied the suggestion that the unit he set up was involved in surveillance of the Muslim community. Lambert said his undercover role in the 1980s was part of a secret infiltration of the Animal Liberation Front, which was involved in a fire-bombing campaign at the time. "As part of my cover story, so as to gain the necessary credibility to become involved in serious crime, I first built a reputation as a committed member of London Greenpeace, a peaceful campaigning group," he said in a statement to fellow anti-Islamophobia campaigners at the Spinwatch transparency campaign. "I apologise unreservedly for the deception I therefore practiced on law abiding members of London Greenpeace. "I also apologise unreservedly for forming false friendships with law abiding citizens and in particular forming a long-term relationship with [the woman] who had every reason to think I was a committed animal rights activist and a genuine London Greenpeace campaigner." It is not clear why Lambert chose the woman as part of his cover story. He added: "I should point out here that the vast majority of Met special branch undercover officers never made the mistakes I made, have no need to apologise for anything, and I deeply regret having tarnished their illustrious, professional reputation." Lambert could be questioned by officials from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, which is conducting a review into undercover policing of protest. The review one of nine disciplinary and judicial inquiries into the controversy in undercover policing was initially conducted by Bernard Hogan-Howe before he took his post as Met commissioner. The planned publication of his report, which had been expected to reject calls for more robust oversight of the use of undercover police officers, was abandoned on Wednesday, hours after the Guardian and BBC Newsnight revealed evidence undercover officers may have been lying in court.

Undercover police: how 'romantic, attentive' impostor betrayed activist

I feel angry and violated, says woman apparently used as cover by officer who was trying to infiltrate Animal Liberation Front

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis The Guardian, Sunday 23 October 2011 21.48 BST

Bob Lambert posed as a radical activist named Bob Robinson. They met by chance one night at a party in Tottenham, north London. The man she would come to know as Bob Robinson was standing on his own. Jenny (not her real name), a 24year-old who had come to the capital to find work, was intrigued by the slim man with the endearing smile, who was slightly older than her. They fell easily into conversation and before long, Jenny was smitten. The love she felt for him rolls easily off her tongue. He was, she says, "polite, considerate, very romantic, attentive, charismatic". He smiled a lot and was non-judgmental. And he was cute. "I thought I had found my Mr Right. He was very charming and I thought I could take him to meet my parents," she says. They had an 18-month relationship and one of his characteristics struck her in particular: "I thought he had a high moral code." But now she feels very different about him. It turns out that there was a lot more to Bob Robinson than his impassioned campaigning and shoulder-length hair, which gave every impression of a rebel with many causes. He was, in fact, the opposite. Bob Lambert today admits he was an undercover police officer who had created the fictional persona of Bob Robinson to spy on political activists. The special branch officer was one of a group of police spies in a covert unit who have been infiltrating and disrupting the activities of political campaign groups across Britain for decades. Jenny and others only discovered his true identity more than 20 years after they first met him. The discovery has left Jenny feeling that he deceived her about the bedrock of any relationship his identity. She is very hurt that he duped her about who he was. "I was cruelly tricked and it has made me very angry. I feel violated," she said.

As she was trying to persuade him to set up home and have a family together, he was resisting, claiming he had to flee abroad as he was being pursued by special branch because he was a dangerous radical activist. The sorry episode has left her wondering if he loved her at all. Today, Lambert admits that "as part of my alter ego's cover story, I had a relationship with 'Jenny', to whom I owe an unreserved apology". So far, seven undercover police officers who infiltrated political groups have been exposed and most have admitted or have been accused of sleeping with activists they were spying on. They have faced claims that they did so to glean intelligence about the activists and the protests they were organising. A growing number of women say they have suffered terrible trauma and damage from the betrayal of having a relationship with a person they later found out was a fake. Police chiefs claim that undercover officers are forbidden from having sex with their targets "under any circumstances" as it is "unacceptable and unprofessional". But Pete Black, an undercover officer from the same unit who infiltrated anti-racist groups in the 1990s, said sex was widely used as a technique to blend in and gather intelligence. He said there was an informal code in the unit that the spies should not fall in love with the women or allow the women to fall in love with them. An investigation by the Guardian has shown that Lambert was no ordinary police spy. His skills of deception would earn him legendary status in the elite ranks of the covert unit known as the special demonstration squad (SDS). "He did what is hands down regarded as the best tour of duty ever," said Black. Lambert admits that in the 1980s, he "first built a reputation as a committed member of London Greenpeace, a peaceful campaigning group [on environmental issues]". He did so "as part of my cover story" to "gain the necessary credibility to become involved in serious crime". His aim was to penetrate the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which he says was "then engaged in incendiary device and explosive device campaigns against targets in the vivisection, meat and fur trades". In the 1990s, he drew on the techniques he had learned undercover to become the head of operations in the covert unit, running a network of spies. It was May 1987 when Jenny met Bob. Very quickly they were spending most of their free time together. Bob said he was a gardener, doing cash-in-hand jobs in well-heeled places such as Hampstead. He told her that he was also earning a living by driving a minicab, although he was touting illegally for customers. But politics was really his thing, he said. He told her how he was deeply involved in campaigning for animal rights and the environment. Bob confided that he was heavily active in the ALF. But she was not interested. "He was always asking me to go to meetings. He introduced me to lots of activists. I did not realise what the ALF was."

But why did Lambert have a relationship with Jenny when she had never been an activist ? "I have no idea. It's a great mystery," she says. It seems from his admission today that he was using her as his girlfriend so that he could portray himself as a fully rounded person with a private life to the rest of his political and social circle. Activists, eternally on their guard against police spies, are suspicious of people who, for example, turn up at their meetings out of the blue without any discernible evidence of friends or a family. Taking her along to the pub or parties with other activists was a neat way of deflecting those suspicions. Jenny was working at the time as an administrative assistant at the state-owned Central Electricity Generating Board. But she kept quiet about her job as she feared the activists would take against her because the CEGB was running nuclear power stations. She was keen to develop her career and have a family. She lived in an east London house with eight other friends, but none of them were politically active, other than having a general antipathy to Margaret Thatcher's government. They spent most nights together at her house, although he lived in what she called a "grotty flat above a barber's" in Hackney. He had a "single man's room with a shared kitchen" but with very little in it. "He claimed to be not interested in possessions," she said. A few months into their relationship came the episode that was to seal Lambert's reputation as one of the best undercover operatives the SDS had ever had. In the summer of 1987, Lambert had been undercover for three years and had worked his way into the inner recesses of the animal rights movement. The Animal Liberation Front operated through a tightly organised underground network of small cells of activists, making it difficult for spies to get among them. Police chiefs were on the hunt for sorely needed intelligence after three incendiary bomb attacks on Debenhams shops in Harrow, Luton and Romford. Activists had planted the bombs because the shops were selling fur products. The attacks had reputedly caused millions of pounds' worth of damage. Lambert identified the perpetrators to his handlers. The intelligence was so precise that the police caught them red-handed. The Old Bailey heard how police raided a flat in Tottenham and found two activists sitting at a table covered with dismantled alarm clocks, bulbs and electrical equipment for making four more firebombs. The prosecution told the court that Andrew Clarke, then 25, and Geoff Shepherd, then 31, were wearing gloves to conceal their fingerprints. The bombs were made in large matchboxes, with a warning: "Do not touch. Ring police. Animal Liberation Front." Shepherd was jailed for four years and four months, and Clarke for more than three years. But his feat also went down in SDS legend because Lambert had skilfully disguised that he was the source of the tip-off, managing to throw the suspicions on to others within the small ring of activists who knew about the attacks. So well had he retained the trust of the activists that Jenny remembers that he went, with her, to visit one of the accused in jail while they were awaiting the trial.

Jenny remembers that after the arrests, Bob would often say that special branch was hot on his and other activists' trails. There was, he says, a "big crisis" because the animal rights campaigners suspected that there was an informer in their midst. A bizarre incident happened at about that time. By 1988, Jenny had moved into a Hackney flat with two others, who were not politically active. One day, special branch detectives raided Jenny's home, letting slip that they were "looking for Bob". He was not there. She remembers that one of the detectives picked up a pair of shoes and asked who owned them. They belonged to Jenny. The raid, the Guardian understands, was orchestrated by police to bolster Lambert's cover story. After more than a year together, Jenny felt that Bob had given her the right signals that he was interested in having children with her. He had been to see her parents three times. But when she broached the question, he said no, upsetting her hugely. She wrote in her diary that it was a black day. "I remember crying a lot that day. I was just so shocked." Soon afterwards, she says, Bob began to tell her that he would have to go on the run abroad to escape the special branch. Over the last few months of 1988, they discussed what to do. She said she wanted to go with him, but he said she should not. According to Jenny, he argued that she should not waste her life on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder, and that she deserved better a rewarding career and a family. "He said he was not good enough for me." He left his flat and stayed for a couple of weeks in what she called a "safe house" with one of her friends in London. She remembers meeting him once there: there was "still a lot of electricity between us". In December 1988, Bob and Jenny spent a week alone together in a friend's house in Dorset to say goodbye. "I was heartbroken. Even when he left, I could not imagine that it had finished because we loved each other so much. I wanted to go on the run with him. I was prepared to do that for him." But his sacrifice in not taking her with him made her admire him even more. He said he was going to Spain. In early 1989, she received a long letter from him in Valencia, saying he was not coming back but raising the possibility that she could join him there. "Even then I could not believe it," she says. It was the last she heard from him. The drawn-out goodbye was a ruse. His trip to Spain and the postmark on that letter was genuine, but the reasons were not. Bob's undercover tour was ending and he needed to leave the activists without arousing suspicions. Using standard tradecraft, he had created the perception of a convincing reason for his departure that special branch were after him. The Spanish bolthole was far enough away to deter activists from going to see him, and avoid the risk of their bumping into him.

Police spies court case suggests sexual relations with activists were routine

Lawsuit for undercover police deception indicates several officers struck up intimate relations with those they spied on

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans The Guardian, Thursday 17 January 2013 20.23 GMT

Climate change activists in a 2008 protest near the Drax coal-fired power station. Photograph: John Giles/PA Hundreds of political activists were bedding down in a field near the Drax power station in North Yorkshire. It was August 2006 and eco-activists had erected tents beside the UK's single biggest carbon emitter. As night fell on the inaugural Climate Camp protest the campaigners near the coal-fired station had no idea that their camp had been infiltrated by three undercover police officers. Mark Kennedy, now the most famous of police spies, and, it now seems, a woman constable known as Lynn Watson, were that night inside tents sleeping with activists. The third, an officer using the alias Mark Jacobs, would soon be doing the same with two women in Cardiff, where he posed as a truck driver to monitor small group of anarchists. The controversy over the use of sex in covert policing is too easily caricatured as wayward constables "sleeping with the enemy". But the evidence that has surfaced so far suggests police have been routinely developing close relationships with activists, and not just fleeting sexual encounters but long-term and intimate relationships that have endured several years. Of the nine undercover police identified by the Guardian over the past two years, eight are believed to have slept with the people they were spying on. In other words, it was the norm. On Thursday, in the latest chapter of a long-running legal dispute, some of those cases were raised at the high court in London. In a joint lawsuit, 10 women and one man say they suffered emotional trauma after forming "deeply personal" relationships with people who were later revealed to be spies.

Their claim for damages threatens a deeply embarrassing court battle for the Metropolitan police, which has been trying to keep controversial details of the covert operations secret. The male activist who said he slept with Watson in a tent at the Climate Camp is not part of the legal action. He told the Guardian he did not want to sue the police because the one-night stand, instigated, he said, by the female officer, was "nothing meaningful". However, those who are seeking compensation from the police say they are the victims of a highly manipulative and abusive policing operation. "It is unacceptable that state agents can cultivate intimate and long-lasting relationships with political activists in order to gain so-called intelligence on political movements," said Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer for some of the women involved. The cases reveal just how intimately police have become involved in the lives of people they have been sent to spy on as part of a surveillance programme that has been in place since 1968. In two cases, women who were sleeping unknowingly with undercover police officers invited the men to the funerals of relatives. Police spies shared homes with the women they spied upon, met their families, told the activists they loved them and spent weeks and even months travelling with them on holidays abroad. The male claimant in the lawsuit says that an undercover police officer became his best friend before sleeping with his girlfriend. The cases go back to the 1980s, and one, which is being treated as a separate legal action, involves a woman who had a child with an undercover police officer. In all cases, the spies were instructed to vanish from the lives of the activists once their deployments had ended. The women were left perplexed, wondering where their loved ones had gone. All of the deployments, which cost tens of millions of pounds in taxpayers' money in total, were aimed at garnering intelligence on radical activist groups. The events have made for an unprecedented civil case. "No action against the police alleging sexual abuse of the kind in question in these actions has been brought before the courts in the past, so far as I have been made aware," said Mr Justice Tugendhat, the sitting judge. Lawyers for the Metropolitan police wanted all of the cases in the lawsuit struck out of the high court, arguing that instead they should be heard by a secretive tribunal that usually deals with complaints about MI5. In his ruling, Tugendhat rejected that request, saying claims for damages under common law, including torts of misfeasance in public office, deceit, assault and negligence, constituted allegations of "the gravest interference" with the fundamental rights and should be heard by the high court.

However, the ruling was a mixed bag. In a blow to the women's legal action, the judge said that additional claims made under the Human Rights Act should first be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The tribunal was set up in 2000 to deal with complaints from the public about unjustified state surveillance within "a necessary ring of secrecy". Complainants do not see the evidence from the state and have no automatic right to an oral hearing. Neither can they appeal against its decision. Wistrich described the decision to move parts of the case to the tribunal as an outrage. It will mean proceedings are delayed, but lawyers said they still expected large parts of the lawsuit to continue in the high court. "Even though the judge ruled that claims under the Human Rights Act should be heard by the tribunal, the common-law claims, which exist in all of the cases, can and will still be heard in the high court," said Jules Carey, another solicitor representing claimants. Future proceedings could rest on one main question: are undercover police lawfully authorised to have intimate sexual relationships with the people they are spying on? If so, under what circumstances? Part of the problem is that sexual activity is not specifically addressed in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, the law introduced in 2000 to govern covert activities. The act states police are permitted to have "personal or other" relationships when undercover. In court documents the Met says it interpreted this statement to mean that, in certain circumstances, its officers were authorised to have "intimate and sexual" relationships. Lawyers for the women have vigorously disputed this point, saying MPs would never have thought they were condoning sexual activities when they legislated to allow covert police to form "personal or other" relationships undercover. On this, Tugendhat appears to have sided against the women. He admitted there was little clarity on the matter, but said he believed that, on balance, parliament would have envisaged "some possible sexual relationships" when introducing the legislation. Bizarrely, that conclusion appears to have rested, partly, on a reference to James Bond, dubbed by the judge "the most famous fictional example of a member of the intelligence services who used relationships with women to obtain information, or access to persons or property". The judge conceded that Ian Fleming, author of the Bond series, did not dwell on "psychological harm he might have done to the women concerned". But he said Bond and similar fictional examples gave credence to the view that the intelligence and police services had for many years let spies form "personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature" for intelligence purposes. In other words, he believes that when MPs authorised undercover police to get close to targets they had James Bond in mind.

Tugendhat said "everyone in public life would have assumed, whether rightly or wrongly, that the intelligence services and the police did from time to time deploy officers in this way". If the law is seems confused or contradictory, so too are the responses from the authorities whose job it is to implement it. When details of Kennedy's undercover exploits were first made public in 2011, Jon Murphy, who speaks on undercover policing for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said sexual relationships were not allowed under any circumstances. He said: "It is never acceptable for an undercover officer to behave in that way." By 2012 the position appeared to have shifted when Nick Herbert, then the policing minister, said there was no rule prohibiting police from sleeping with activists. He told parliament that any ban on sexual activities would provide a ready-made test for suspicious newcomers. More recently the Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, struck yet another note, saying that sexual relationships were "almost inevitable". But he added: "It certainly should not be part of the strategy to do that."

Women who had relationships with police spies win partial legal victory
Judge rules half of the women's cases can be heard in open court but half must be first heard by secret tribunal

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 January 2013 14.01 GMT

The judge said that claims against two police officers - Mark Kennedy (pictured above) and a second spy who posed as Mark Jacobs - should first be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling

Ten women who say they were deceived into having sexual relationships with undercover police officers have won only a partial victory in their fight to have their case heard in the high court. Mr Justice Tugendhat said the lawsuit alleged "the gravest interference" with the fundamental rights of women who had long-term relationships with police officers sent to spy on their political groups. The judge rejected an attempt by the Metropolitan police to have the whole case struck out of the court. However, in a mixed ruling, the judge said that half the cases in the legal action should first be heard by a secretive tribunal that usually deals with complaints against MI5. The case relates to a joint lawsuit brought by 10 women and one man who claim they suffered emotional trauma after forming "deeply personal" relationships with the police spies. In his ruling, Tugendhat acknowledged that the allegations made by the women were "very serious". He added that the case appeared to be unprecedented. "No action against the police alleging sexual abuse of the kind in question in these actions has been brought before the courts in the past, so far as I have been made aware." The judge drew a comparison with James Bond, the fictional member of the intelligence service who "used relationships with women to obtain information, or access to persons or property". Although Ian Fleming, the writer of the Bond series, did not dwell on "psychological harm he might have done to the women concerned", the judge said fictional accounts such as these point to how "intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature". Lawyers for the Met had attempted to have all 11 cases struck out of the court, arguing they constituted an abuse of process and should instead by heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a little-known complaints body. However, they achieved only a partial victory. In his ruling, the judge said that claims against two police officers - Mark Kennedy and a second spy who posed as Mark Jacobs - should first be heard by the IPT. Both of these officers were deployed after 2000, and some of the claims allege their activities constituted a breach of the Human Rights Act, which came into force in October that year. However, the judge said that other claims for damages under common law, including torts of misfeasance in public office, deceit, assault and negligence, should be heard by the high court. He temporarily stayed high court proceedings pending the conclusion of cases at the IPT. The special tribunal was introduced in 2000 to examine complaints from the public about unjustified state surveillance within what it calls "a necessary ring of secrecy". Complainants do not see the evidence put forward by the state and have no automatic right to an oral hearing. Neither can they appeal its decision.

Lawyers for the some of the women described the decision to send half of the cases to the tribunal as an "outrage". Harriet Wistrich, of Birnberg Peirce, said: "We brought this case because we want to see an end to sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners for social justice and others by undercover police officers. We are outraged that the high court has allowed the police to use the IPT to preserve the secrecy of their abusive and manipulative operations in order to prevent public scrutiny and challenge." Another lawyer representing claimants in the case, Jules Carey, pointed out the judge had accepted his clients may have been victims of the "gravest" interference with their rights, adding: "Our clients will have to carefully study the judgment and consider an appeal on this issue." The case is the first civil action to be brought before a court since the Guardian revealed police officers were frequently sleeping with political campaigners as part of a spy operation that has been targeting protesters for four decades. In total, six police officers stand accused in legal documents of having sexual relationships with the women they were sent to spy on. Some cases stretch as far back as the mid-1980s. One woman, who is bringing a separate legal action, had a child with a police officer she presumed was a fellow animal rights activists in the 1980s. He later disappeared from her life and ceased all contact.

A life under surveillance

The state's constant intimidation of peaceful activists like me takes a huge psychological toll on our lives

o o

Ellie Mae O'Hagan The Guardian, Thursday 1 November 2012 19.15 GMT

Police try to stop protesters occupying Fortnum & Mason in London during an anti-cuts demo last March. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images Last weekend I invited one of my closest friends over for dinner. We chewed over the usual unremarkable topics: The X Factor, future plans, idle gossip, the new Bond film. And then the conversation turned to something less unremarkable; something most people will never talk about with their friends. What if none of the memories we share, the secrets we've told each other, or the histories we've disclosed to one another were real? What if everything we knew about each other was based on a lie, so that one of us could extract information from the other that would eventually be used against them? It was such a distressing thought that we changed the subject almost immediately. My friend is an activist. I know quite a lot of activists. I have been one for some time. I don't know any who have hurt another human being. I don't know any who are a danger to society. Most of the activists I know engage in the odd nonviolent demonstration, like the protesters at Fortnum & Mason, some of whose guilty verdicts were overturned yesterday, or the people halfway up West Burton power station. Despite the peaceful nature of their actions, the simple act of protesting means that activists' lives sometimes resemble that of Tony Soprano. Surveillance, police intimidation and undercover officers are routine hazards they must negotiate. As one environmental campaigner who has come into contact with undercover officers puts it: "You don't have to be self-important to suspect you're the victim of state surveillance. If you're politically active, it's simply a fact of life." Occasionally we read stories of undercover officers, or police intimidating campaigners in their homes or sending threatening letters; but rarely do we talk about the psychological toll this takes that a feeling of constantly being watched is an invariable factor in the lives of people who take part in protest. Often activists are depicted as being like the mafia part of an underground coterie that is somehow separated from ordinary life. It's a depiction that makes constant surveillance seem acceptable, perhaps even justified. But activists are just ordinary people who work, watch TV, and drink too much at the weekend, just like anybody else.

After police unlawfully visited me at my home following a protest to tell me they were "watching me", I still jump every time my doorbell rings. More seriously, I have female friends who are reticent about relationships in case the men they are sleeping with are not who they say they are. One person whose campaign group was infiltrated told me the reason it often takes activists a while to spot undercover officers is denial. "It's just too horrible to contemplate that every memory you've shared with that friend has been a lie," she said. Consistently being treated like a criminal, even when you're not doing anything illegal, excludes you from normal society as though that's something you have to give up if you want to act on your political beliefs. The officers who allegedly fabricated evidence at the battle of Orgreave or those who slept with campaigners, to gain their trust, have never been disciplined. The message is clear: if you participate in activism nothing is off limits and you're on your own. Last April the foreign secretary, William Hague, called for Syria to "respect basic and universal human rights to freedoms of expression and assembly". What does the intrusive surveillance of activists mean for a society that champions freedom of expression to the world? How can we justify extending the net of surveillance so widely, unsettling the lives of so many, and apparently for so little? The truth is that enduring this type of psychological harassment for that's what it amounts to is not the domain of paranoid fantasists or mobsters. It is a routine problem for anyone taking part in even the most innocuous forms of dissent. That conversation I had with my friend over dinner was not outlandish; it was almost a rite of passage. It is the sort of conversation that activists must expect to have in a society such as ours, which spies so relentlessly on its own citizens.