Third undercover police spy unmasked as scale of network emerges

[Tony Gosling]

Third undercover police spy unmasked as scale of network emerges
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/14/third-undercover-police-spy-cardiff
• 44-year-old infiltrated Cardiff anarchist group
• Former girlfriend tells of 'colossal, colossal betrayal'
Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor and Rajeev Syal - The 
Guardian, Saturday 15 January 2011

Emacs!


Protesters near Kingsnorth power station in 2008. 
Following revelations about Mark Kennedy, the 
Guardian has identified a third undercover police 
spy. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

The unprecedented scale of undercover operations 
used by police to monitor Britain's political 
protest movements was laid bare last night after 
a third police spy was identified by the Guardian.

News of the existence of the 44-year-old male 
officer comes as regulators prepare two separate 
official inquiries into the activities of this 
hitherto secret police surveillance network.

The latest officer, whose identity has been 
withheld amid fears for his safety in other 
criminal operations, worked for four years 
undercover with an anarchist group in Cardiff.

Last night a former girlfriend and fellow 
activist said she felt "colossally betrayed" by 
"Officer B". The 29-year-old, who had a 
relationship with him for three months in the 
summer of 2008 while he was working undercover, 
said: "I was doing nothing wrong, I was not 
breaking the law at all. So for him to come along 
and lie to us and get that deep into our lives 
was a colossal, colossal betrayal."

The woman, who did not want to be named, said 
"Officer B" arrived in Cardiff in 2005, becoming 
a key member of the 20-strong Anarchist network 
in the city and "one of her best friends". They 
had known each for three years before their 
relationship and she said she did not suspect his 
true identity until after he left Cardiff in 
October 2009, claiming he had been offered a job as a gardener on Corfu.

According to the woman Officer B's flat was very 
empty, with no pictures of friends or family and 
he rarely talked about his past. "He always said 
he could not tell his family or friends about us 
because of the age difference ... if it had been 
anyone else I would have thought that was 
strange, but because [he] had been such a good 
friend for so long it really did not enter my 
mind that he was anything but a stand-up honest man."

Before he left for Corfu he held a goodbye 
dinner. His former girlfriend said she kept in 
touch with him for about a month via email, text 
message and the occasional postcard. Then the contact dried up.

"At first friends started messaging him asking if 
he was all right, then when there was no 
response, a few messaged him to say they were 
worried he was a spy, but we never heard anything."

The woman said that the experience had rocked her 
confidence and made her suspicious of other campaigners.

"I am incredibly, incredibly angry," she said. 
"Obviously to do that to anybody is pretty low, 
but to do that to someone who trusted you and 
cared about you and did their best to look after 
you is just unspeakable. I cannot imagine the 
kind of person who would lie to someone they were 
having a relationship with for that long and that 
seriously ... I strongly suspect that he felt 
very bad about what he was doing, but that is not an excuse."

The latest developments came as the Independent 
Police Complaints Commission announced it was 
widening its inquiry to include the controversy 
surrounding PC Mark Kennedy, who was the first 
officer unmasked by the Guardian and who also had 
sexual relations while undercover.

It is understood a second inquiry is to be 
launched by Her Majesty's Chief Inspectorate of 
Constabulary on Monday into whether the 
undercover surveillance was disproportionate.

Last night it was reported that the trial of six 
campaigners accused of trying to shutdown a power 
station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar collapsed because 
police had withheld secret recordings featuring Kennedy and the activists.

The Times said the Crown Prosecution Service 
abandoned the trial when it was informed that 
Nottinghamshire police had suppressed tapes that 
"fatally undermined the case against the protesters".

More details on the scale of Kennedy's key role 
in protest movements across Europe emerged 
yesterday, with allegations that he acted as an 
agent provocateur in Ireland, Germany and 
Iceland. It was also revealed that the second 
undercover agent – "Officer A" – was arrested for 
glueing herself to the Department for Transport 
during a protest against Heathrow's expansion in February 2008.

In a twist that will further unnerve senior 
police officers, it emerged that Kennedy has 
asked the public relations agent Max Clifford to sell his story. 
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