POLICE WERE SEXUAL PREDATORS

The Undercover Policing Inquiry] is back this week, to hear much delayed evidence about some of the most controversial events in the history of the highly criticised spycops unit, the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS). Live hearings begin this Monday, 21 October, at 2pm, and will look at deployments from 1983-1992.

Witnesses, victims and campaigners will rally outside the International Dispute Resolution Centre at 1pm on Monday 21st October and will be available to comment on the upcoming evidence.

These much-awaited hearings were twice postponed by an Inquiry beset by the demands of the police and the Security Service to keep material out of the public gaze.

‘Jessica’ from Police Spies Out of Lives commented:

“The glimpses we saw during Opening Statements of the evidence to come gives us an idea why the State wants to keep this stuff secret: these officers were sexual predators and Met Police hid the truth from the children they fathered. Undercover officers acted as agent provocateurs. They rigged the justice system and lied to the courts, spying on defence campaigns. They didn’t just report on activists, they reported on lawyers including the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer and Circuit Judge, Timothy Greene. We already know the SDS was out of control, but that reached new heights in the 1980s, and that is the evidence we are about to hear.”

Officers in this tranche are accused of orchestrating and committing serious crimes. There is compelling evidence that the Metropolitan Police colluded with the highest levels of government to subvert democracy, and they were working with companies like McDonalds, effectively acting as corporate spies.

On October 14 the police issued yet more apologies to victims of their abuses. Both the Met and the Inquiry concede that the police behaviour was unjustifiable. Nevertheless the Met have incredibly asked the Inquiry to conclude that some of their spying could be justified in this tranche.

Police officers were sexual predators

Many undercover officers in this era, and all the officers targeting animal rights campaigns, deceived women into sexual relationships during their deployments. On Monday we heard Counsel to the Inquiry describe John Dines’ ‘cold, calculating emotional and sexual exploitation’ during his deployment. We also heard from numerous women about the unwanted attentions of spycop Andy Coles. Fellow officer ‘Matt Rayner’ confirmed a woman at the time described Coles to him as ‘creepy’: ‘it felt like she described him with a shudder’. The Inquiry will hear evidence in this tranche of how 32-year-old Coles (later a Conservative Councillor for Peterborough) groomed and deceived 19-year ‘Jessica’ into her first ever sexual relationship, while he was in his undercover role (an allegation which is accepted as fact by the Metropolitan Police). Charlotte Kilroy KC, on behalf of women deceived into sexual relationships described how officers “indulged themselves in a wide range of fantasies” during deployments that “unleashed a range of dark behaviour” for which they faced no real consequences.