Alleged victims' fury at failure to ban undercover police seduction tactics

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/16/undercover-police-seduction-failure-to-ban

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Eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term sexual relationships with undercover policemen have attacked the government's failure to ban such behaviour in a newly published code of conduct.

The Home Office policy suggests there will be a tightening of guidelines on undercover surveillance, but does not explicitly rule out officers engaging in sexual relationships with those being spied on or those who associate with the target. The new code – which is now open to consultation – merely says that intrusion into someone's "private or family life", even when they are not the direct targets of the surveillance, should be justified by the information that might be discovered.

Today the eight women – who are seeking redress for their alleged suffering through the high court – have made public their outrage at the government's failure to address the issue.

One of the alleged victims, known as Lisa, who had a six-year relationship with the former undercover officer Mark Kennedy when he was attached to the National Public Order Intelligence Unit spying on environmental activists, told the Observer: "We've heard so many different senior police officers say that it should never happen again, so when they had a chance to put it in the guidelines I expected that they would.

"In a way, I am not surprised because I've never got the impression that they really understand. The new code talks of levels of intrusiveness and the need for different levels of authorisation, but they have previously relied on the test that intrusion has to be necessary. Well that has allowed them to get away with all this stuff that is now coming out. So that isn't enough of a safeguard. It hasn't been in the past and it won't be in the future.

"Unless it is made clear that officers who engage in intrusive activity will face a charge of gross misconduct or be dismissed, or there will be some consequences, then this behaviour will not stop."

The Home Office consultation on the new code of conduct closes at the end of this month. Lisa said that the group of eight women would soon be formally responding to the Home Office's proposals. She said: "We have been trying to think of an extreme circumstance where this should be allowable and we can't think of a single one." "Senior cops keep saying it is unacceptable and keep failing to do anything about it in any way."

The women's lawyer, Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce & Partners, said: "What is clear is that officers have been doing this on a nod and a wink. I am really shocked that it is not in the consultation paper, given all that has been said."

It is claimed that five undercover officers engaged in infiltrating environmental campaign groups between the mid-1980s and 2010 had relationships with the women lasting from seven months to nine years. Bob Lambert, John Dines, Jim Boyling, Mark Cassidy and Mark Kennedy (who went under the name of Mark Stone) have been named as the alleged officers.

Last week Scotland Yard was forced to drop an attempt to block legal action by five of the women allegedly duped.

The move followed this newspaper's revelation that the Metropolitan police was continuing to seek to strike out the women's lawsuit despite widespread outrage over the role of undercover officers, and in particular revelations of spying on the family of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

The Met conceded that its application was neither "appropriate or proportionate" in the wake of the decision by the home secretary, Theresa May, to order a public inquiry into the undercover infiltration of a political group.

Scotland Yard had been planning to claim that the police had a strict policy of "neither confirming nor denying" the identity of undercover police officers and that they were therefore unable to get a fair hearing as they could not offer any evidence in court.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Proposed changes will promote the highest standards of professionalism and are part of the government's drive to improve the police's accountability to the public."