How undercover cops had sex with innocent women they were spying on & even had KIDS with them in shocking police scandal
GLANCING at the passport of her boyfriend of six years, Lisa’s* heart pounded and a wave of nausea washed over her.
The couple were on holiday in Italy, and while looking for her sunglasses in the car’s glovebox, she’d stumbled across the document – which revealed, to her shock, that Mark “Flash” Stone was using a fake name.
The discovery sent her life into freefall, as it later emerged the love of her life was actually an undercover Met Police officer, sent to spy on her and her eco-activist friends.
Despite sounding like the plot of a far-fetched film, it would transpire this was far from a one-off case.
Over more than four decades at least 139 police officers were given false identities to spy on more than 1,000 campaign groups.
Each officer lived undercover for up to nine years, forming close relationships and friendships.
“I never said I wanted to spend the rest of my life with them or wanted to father children with them.”
Harvesting dead children’s identities
In another grim twist, yet more controversy surrounded the force’s other undercover practices.
To conceal their true identities, disturbingly many officers took on the names of children who’d died.
Officer Bob Lambert, for example, was deployed to infiltrate the Animal Liberation Front, and he became “Bob Robinson” in June 1984 – a cover name that had been picked from a list of dead children.
His new identity belonged to Mark Robert Robinson, who died aged seven of a congenital heart defect in October 1959.
Harrowingly, it’s thought over 100 dead children’s names may have been used.
‘They were deceived, pure and simple’
After all of this came to light, in 2015, the Metropolitan Police issued an “unreserved” apology to the activists who were seduced into “abusive and deceitful” long-term relationships, and have paid out substantial undisclosed sums in civil cases.
In an apology issued in November 2015, Met Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said the relationships “should never have happened” and admitted they “were a gross violation of personal dignity and integrity.”
He also admitted the women “were deceived, pure and simple” and also added: “These relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma.”
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While the errors have been acknowledged, given the lasting impact on the lives of some of the betrayed women, it appears there’s still a long way to go.
*Names have been changed.