We are two of the group of eight women taking legal action against the commissioner of the Metropolitan police. We were both deceived into having long-term intimate relationships with the undercover police officer Mark Kennedy after he appeared on the environmental activist social scene in Nottingham in 2003. Yet over a decade later and following four years of legal battles with his employers, we are no closer to receiving any answers about why we were targeted in this way. And so, as Lord Justice Pitchford’s public inquiry – ordered in 2014 by Theresa May, who was “profoundly shocked” at revelations of undercover policing practices – opens, our optimism that we may be about to get answers is tempered with caution.
This wasn’t simply a case of having been deceived in a relationship. People are always quick to point out to us that people lie in relationships all the time, and that is devastating enough. However, Mark Kennedy’s alter ego, Mark Stone, was a lie perpetrated, overseen and supervised by the secret state. His deception was supported by fake ID and training and he was paid overtime for his troubles. A backroom of handlers and other officers tracked his movements and communications with us. We are still being denied any information about the extent to which our most intimate moments during that time were observed and monitored. This denial makes it very difficult to move on with our lives.
Pitchford’s inquiry has the potential to give us the answers that the police have steadfastly refused. Despite revelations unearthed by activists, journalists and whistleblowers over the last five years that have shone unprecedented light on a previously hidden part of British policing, the Met have said that they can “neither confirm nor deny” the accusations, requested the case be heard in secret, and have directly applied to have our cases struck out. Needless to say it has not been an easy fight. We fervently hope that this inquiry will be comprehensive, honest and transparent, and that it can cut through the smokescreen and get to the truth. This means that the police must be made to cooperate fully.
One of the major concerns we have about the scope of the inquiry is that the terms of reference could possibly limit it to operations conducted by the police forces of England and Wales. It would be very concerning if this meant that the activities of the Metropolitan police’s spies whilst in other countries were to be excluded. We know that Mark Kennedy’s major operations involved G8 summits in Scotland and Germany, and it would make a mockery of the inquiry if these events were to be left out of its scope.
Both of us spent time abroad with this man, whom we believed to be a friend and close partner. Attending protests and meetings in Ireland, Spain, France, Iceland and Italy, he and other undercover officers travelled with us. These officers were still at that time being employed by the Met, using the characters created within the undercover units, working with activists from the UK in these countries, and they also continued their deceitful relationships with us wherever they went. Therefore it would allow police to cover up whole chapters of outrageous behaviour if the inquiry is restricted to looking only at activities that took place in England and Wales.
Another concern is the way in which officers are pulled out of their undercover roles and yet still able to use the characters created for them after they leave the police. The character of Mark Stone was set up using all the resources, training and back up of the Metropolitan police and then, it is alleged, went on to be used for corporate profit*. Mark Kennedy claimed to the Home Affairs Select Committee in February 2013 that he had been working for the company Global Open at the time that he was still part of our lives. What looks to us like a revolving door between the police and private companies needs to stop, and the inquiry must not ignore it.
It is precisely because corporations are not part of the police that their role in undercover operations is so concerning.
These undercover operations have grievously interfered with people’s right to participate in the struggle for social and environmental justice, and to protest without fear of persecution, objectification or interference in their private and family lives. People who stood up for their rights were blacklisted, and the grief of families fighting for justice for their loved ones became the subject of undercover investigations. This inquiry must not be a whitewash, and everyone whose lives have been blighted by these intrusions must be able to air their grievances and receive a full and frank disclosure as to what took place, and how it was allowed to happen.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, we want to know that emotional manipulation and personal intrusion into people’s lives by the state isn’t still happening to others, and that no one else has to have their lives turned utterly upside down, as we have.
* Another woman who had a relationship with Mark Kennedy is now suing Global Open, a commercial firm hired by companies to monitor protesters. The woman alleges that Mark Kennedy was working undercover for Global Open, which the company denies. She alleges he used the same fake identity in his relationship with her.