Former lovers of undercover officers sue police over deceit

Eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term loving relationships with undercover policemen have started legal action against police chiefs, alleging that they have suffered intense emotional trauma and pain. The women say the men "deliberately and knowingly deceived" them into forming intimate relationships of up to nine years by concealing their real identities.

They say the men, who had been sent to infiltrate protest groups, were using them "physically and emotionally" to obtain intelligence about those campaigns. In an unprecedented move, they are now threatening to sue police chiefs as they say that the "deeply degrading" deceit caused them psychiatric and psychological injuries including depression, trauma, anxiety, anger and a difficulty to trust people again.



In legal papers sent to police chiefs, the women outline the scale of the alleged deception, saying that the relationships with five named men spanned from 1987 to last year. It is the first time that two of the men have been accused of being police spies. The allegations contradict claims by police chiefs that their undercover officers are not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with people they are spying on.

Police chiefs claim it is "grossly unprofessional" and "never acceptable" for undercover officers to have sex with people they are targeting. The women were involved in the campaigns being infiltrated or loosely connected to them. Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman who infiltrated the environment movement for seven years, is said in the legal papers to have had relationships with three of the women. Kennedy says he only slept with two women during his years pretending to be an environmental activist.