DOZENS OF women demonstrated outside Scotland Yard, London, yesterday over the conduct of police officers who had sexual relationships with women they met while working undercover among environmental and left-wing protest groups.
One protester, Belfast student Maeve McKeown, said: “In the United States, that would be considered as rape, because there was no informed consent.”
The conduct of these policemen is a major headache for the British force, following the disclosure in a recent trial that policeman Mark Kennedy had sexual relationships with a number of women during the seven years he lived undercover among environmental activists. Two other officers have been outed since.
Carrying placards that read “Keep Your Truncheon In Your Pockets” and “You Told Me The Handcuffs Were Kinky”, the women maintained a good-humoured attitude as commuters passed their protest on their way to work. Their anger, however, was also palpable.
Tracy Howard, from the village of Sipson, near Heathrow, who campaigned for years – successfully in the end – against plans by the Labour government to build a third runway at the airport, said: “What was done was completely out of order – completely out of order.”
One of the undercover policemen had infiltrated her group, she believed. “It was disgusting. I am a mother of a young daughter. I certainly would not have wanted my daughter, when she is old enough in a few years time, to be involved with someone like that, who lives a lie and has sex with people to get information.”
Demanding the identification of all the officers involved, Leila Deen, another of the demonstrators, asked a young uniformed Metropolitan Police officer standing guard outside New Scotland Yard: “Did you know your agents were using sex with women like us to get information? It is a clear abuse of public office.”
Acting Metropolitan Police commissioner Tim Godwin and Cmdr Bob Broadhurst are expected to face a difficult time today when they appear before the home affairs select committee in the House of Commons to explain why the Met gave false information about the use of undercover officers during the G20 protests in London in 2009.
So far, senior officers in London and elsewhere have insisted any undercover officers who had sex with protesters had broken all disciplinary rules and would now be punished.
However, this defence has been undermined by one former agent, who told the Guardian newspaper over the weekend his seniors actively encouraged him to develop such relationships.
“When you are using the tool of sex to maintain your cover or maybe to glean more intelligence – because they certainly talk a lot more, pillow talk – you would be ready to move on if you felt an attachment growing,” said the former member of the special demonstration squad, who was quoted only on condition of anonymity.
The police actions have also had the effect of undermining trust within the protest groups.
Ms McKeown, who is a recent recruit to the world of protest, said she had not met any of the officers who had so far been named, “but it makes you very suspicious of other people, because you don’t know if they are genuine or not,” she pointed out.