British police sanctioned undercover officers’ sexual relationships with activists

The British police have admitted for the first time that an undercover police officer using a false identity had a sexual relationship with an environmental activist with the knowledge of his superiors, legal papers have revealed.

It is the first such admission by police chiefs, who had previously asserted that their undercover officers were not allowed to have sexual relationships with activists they were spying on under any conditions.

This stunning admission was made by the Metropolitan Police in a legal case launched by Kate Wilson, an environmental and social justice campaigner who was deceived into a two-year intimate relationship by the undercover officer, whose real name is Mark Kennedy.

Kennedy’s real identity was not revealed until he was exposed in 2010 by campaigners who found out that he had spent seven years infiltrating environmental groups.

Wilson is taking legal action against the Met and the National Police Chiefs’ Council in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a British court that examines allegations that the state abused its surveillance powers and infringed on British citizens’ human rights.

It is the first case to be heard by the IPT from a woman who had a sexual relationship with a police spy who concealed his true identity.

Wilson is one of at least 12 women who have successfully sued police in High Court cases but has continued her fight because she claims the full truth will only emerge by taking the case to the IPT.

After an extensive legal battle in the High Court, the Met police was required to pay compensation to the women, although it successfully evaded handing over any internal documents about the relationships.

In an apology to the majority of the women, the Met admitted the relationships had been “abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong” and asserted the “forming of a sexual relationship by an undercover officer would never be authorized in advance.”

But now Wilson wants answers and said that she wants “to know how high up the police hierarchy knowledge of the abuses went.”

Revealed via the legal papers lodged, the police acknowledged that Kennedy’s cover officers and line manager “were aware that he was conducting a close personal relationship” with Wilson. They added that Kennedy’s “sexual relationship with [Wilson] was carried out with the acquiescence of his cover officers and line manager.”

The police conceded Kennedy’s deceitful relationship with Wilson violated her human rights and that the violation was aggravated by the fact supervisors sanctioned him to continue the relationship.

In a statement, Wilson said: “It has taken me eight painful years to discover that managing officers really did conspire to deceive and abuse me, something the police had consistently denied.

“The wide questions for society here are massive, this is about institutional sexism, senior police officers sanctioning sexual abuse, and the systematic violation of political beliefs, and we still don’t have the whole truth.”

Wilson started her relationship with Kennedy in 2003, early in his deployment, when she was involved in organizing protests against a summit of G8 leaders in Scotland.

She has described how he “was charming and disarming…He became very close to my parents. He spent many nights in their home. He attended my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party. He met my entire extended family.”

Investigations have revealed that these types of relationships were not abnormal and numerous undercover officers were sent to spy on campaigners and they regularly formed intimate relationships with women without disclosing their real identity.

Kennedy, who used the name of “Mark Stone” during his undercover assignment, is one of more than 140 undercover officers known to have been employed by police to subvert political groups since 1968. Kennedy is alleged to have had a number of sexual relations using his false identity.

In her claim, Wilson said she believed that at least six undercover officers spied on her over a decade, playing “different false parts in [her] life, ranging from lover, to close friend and sometime housemate, and co-activist.”

The Met said it “has made clear its position on long-term, sexual relationships known to have been entered into by some undercover officers in the past. Those relationships were wrong and should not have happened.”

At the next hearing on October 3, Wilson’s lawyers will press the police to disclose formal documents about the duplicity, including the participation of high-ranking officers – a move being resisted by the police.

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