Following a string of scandals involving undercover police methods over the last 40 years, Home Secretary Theresa May is coming under pressure to overhaul the laws surrounding their work.
A Commons Home Affairs Select Committee chaired by Keith Vaz MP described some of the practices adopted by officers who have infiltrated protest groups as “ghoulish and disrespectful”.
The practices included adopting the identities of dead children and cultivating long-term relationships with political activists, many of them members of peaceful groups. one of whom described the “betrayal and humiliation’ she felt when it came out that she had been living with such a man for six years.
One of four women to testify to the Committee, ‘Alison’ as she is known, described finding out that the partner she knew as Mark Cassidy was in fact Mark Jenner, an undercover police officer, who disappeared from her life in 2000, never to be seen again.
She said that the experience had “impacted seriously” on her ability to trust and on subsequent relationships, while another woman actually bore a child to Jenner’s boss, Bob Lambert, who also disappeared from the woman’s life.
The MPs hearing the evidence said there was an “alarming degree of inconsistency” between senior police officers and ministers over what forms of behaviour were authorised under the rules and are now calling for fresh legislation regarding state-sanctioned surveillance to be drawn up.
However, while the Association of Chief Police Officers support the new legislation, it would appear that some ministers are reluctant to redraft the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, despite the Home Office admitting that the system could be improved.