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| Police apologise to women who had relationships with undercover officers | Police apologise to women who had relationships with undercover officers |
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| Police chiefs have apologised unreservedly to seven women who were deceived into forming long-term relationships with undercover police officers, it was announced on Friday. The Metropolitan police have also paid a substantial amount of compensation to the women who had intimate relationships, lasting up to nine years, with the undercover spies. | Police chiefs have apologised unreservedly to seven women who were deceived into forming long-term relationships with undercover police officers, it was announced on Friday. The Metropolitan police have also paid a substantial amount of compensation to the women who had intimate relationships, lasting up to nine years, with the undercover spies. |
| The apology comes four years after the women launched legal action against the police, alleging that the deception caused each of them intense emotional trauma and pain. As part of an out-of-court settlement, Martin Hewitt, an assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, issued a statement saying : “Thanks in large part to the courage and tenacity of these women in bringing these matters to light it has become apparent that some officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong. | The apology comes four years after the women launched legal action against the police, alleging that the deception caused each of them intense emotional trauma and pain. As part of an out-of-court settlement, Martin Hewitt, an assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, issued a statement saying : “Thanks in large part to the courage and tenacity of these women in bringing these matters to light it has become apparent that some officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong. |
| “I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma. I unreservedly apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan police service. I am aware that money alone cannot compensate the loss of time, their hurt or the feelings of abuse caused by these relationships.” | “I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma. I unreservedly apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan police service. I am aware that money alone cannot compensate the loss of time, their hurt or the feelings of abuse caused by these relationships.” |
| On Friday, the women said: “Although no amount of ‘sorry’, or financial compensation, can make up for what we and others have endured, we are pleased the police have been forced to acknowledge the abusive nature of these relationships and that they should never happen. | |
| “By linking our cases together we have been able to evidence a clear pattern of abusive, discriminatory behaviour towards women which amounts to institutional sexism by the Metropolitan police.” | |
| The settlement is a landmark moment in a controversy that has enveloped police since late 2010 when Mark Kennedy, the undercover spy who infiltrated environmental groups for seven years, was unmasked by activists. | |
| The home secretary, Theresa May, has ordered a judge-led public inquiry to examine the undercover infiltration of political groups since 1968, following a series of revelations. | |
| Investigations by campaigners and the Guardian revealed that undercover officers have frequently formed sexual relationships with women they had been sent to spy on. | |
| The women have criticised police for obstructing the legal action through a variety of tactics since they launched it in 2011. | |
| Kennedy was identified in the legal action as one of five undercover officers who concealed their real identities from their girlfriends during the relationships.One of the women, known only as Lisa Jones, had a six-year relationship with Kennedy before she and her friends exposed him. | |
| In her first media interview, she has told the Guardian that gradually uncovering the truth about him felt like “long, slow painful torture – real psychological torture”. | |
| Two other women in the legal action had relationships with Kennedy. | |
| Another undercover officer, Bob Lambert, had four relationships with women while pretending to be an animal rights and environmental and activist for four years in the 1980s. | |
| Belinda Harvey had an 18-month relationship with Lambert but only found out his true identity two decades later. She was part of the group taking legal action | |
| Helen Steel, an environmental campaigner who was one of the two defendants in the McLibel legal action against burger giant McDonalds, had a two-year relationship between 1990 and 1992 with John Dines, who spied on leftwing groups. The fourth undercover officer named in the legal action was Jim Boyling who infiltrated environmental and animal rights groups between 1995 and 2000. During that time, he started a relationship with a campaigner and went on to have two children with her. | |
| The fifth undercover officer, Mark Jenner, lived with a woman for four years in the 1990s while he gathered information about left-wing groups. | |
| The announcement on Friday follows an out-of-court settlement reached last year with a woman who was profoundly traumatised after finding out by chance that Lambert was the father of her son. The woman, known as Jacqui, was paid more than £400,000 by the Metropolitan police. She had made the discovery 24 years after Lambert abandoned her and her son. Other women who were deceived into having relationships with undercover officers have yet to settle their legal actions against the police. | |
| Police chiefs have insisted that their undercover officers were not permitted under any circumstances to sleep with the targets of their covert missions. |