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It’s the testimony we’ve long been waiting for. On Monday, at the undercover policing inquiry, the man whose cruel and disgusting deceptions have come to epitomise the “spy cops” scandal will be questioned. Many of us are hoping for answers, not least because his story suggests a closing of ranks across the British establishment. Even if you think you’ve heard it all, some of the details in this column will take your breath away.
Bob Lambert worked for the Metropolitan police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) in the 1980s and 1990s, first as an undercover cop infiltrating environmental and animal rights protests, then as operational controller of the squad, supervising other spy cops doing similar work. In the course of his undercover assignments, while posing as a radical activist called Bob Robinson, he deceived four unsuspecting women, innocent of any crime, into starting relationships. He stole his identity from a dead child.
With one of the women, Jacqui, he fathered a child. Two years later, he vanished. She discovered his true identity by chance more than 20 years later, and has yet to recover from the devastating shock. She says she feels “raped by the state”. The person she loved and trusted was a ghost. “I feel like I’ve got no foundations in my life …. your first serious relationship, your first child, the first time you give birth – they’re all significant, but for me they’re gone, ruined … I was not consenting to sleeping with Bob Lambert, I didn’t know who Bob Lambert was.”
When he sat with her as she went through 14 hours of labour, she later wondered, was he being paid overtime? His abandoned son was also traumatised by the discovery of who his father really was. According to another former spy cop, Peter Francis, when Lambert was his manager, he advised Francis to wear a condom when sleeping with activists.
These fake relationships were standard practice in the team of spy cops Lambert ran. The officers used similar seduction techniques, built similar falsehoods about their lives and used similar methods for destroying or abandoning the relationships when they were redeployed. It looks like a refined, state-sanctioned grooming operation. As Helen Steel, another woman deceived by a spy cop, remarked, “there weren’t any genuine moments – they were purely manipulative and abusive. …. it was as if he set out to destroy my sanity.”
The great majority of the people being spied on were peaceful activists who presented no danger to democracy or human life. Many were involved in campaigning against corporate abuses. Some of the spying, like Lambert’s infiltration of a campaign against McDonald’s, looks like policing on behalf of corporate power. But even that was not the worst of it. Police spies were also used to infiltrate the campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered by racists in 1993, whose case the Met, as a result of institutional racism, failed properly to investigate. Police spies were allegedly deployed to find “dirt” that could be used to smear Stephen’s family. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC, now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) found that Lambert “played a part” in the intelligence gathering by spies inserted into the Lawrence campaign.
After retiring from the police, Lambert reinvented himself as a right-on lecturer on community engagement, Islamophobia and counter-terrorism. He obtained prestigious positions at Exeter, London Metropolitan and St Andrews universities. Astonishingly, he received the London Metropolitan position after being exposed as a police spy. As I have a connection with St Andrews, I joined the campaign calling for the university to take action. But it stonewalled us. Scandalously, in my view, the university’s then principal, Louise Richardson, remarked: “I think hiring people who have had real-world experience in an institution which is teaching counter-terrorism is entirely legitimate … I’m not going to get involved in what people do privately whoever they are.” When the real-world experience a university values consists of deceiving, abusing and destroying innocent lives, you have to wonder what the disqualifications would be. The issue was resolved only when Lambert, as the Stephen Lawrence revelations began to emerge, resigned.
[Post edited 28 Nov 2024 10:12]
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State-sanctioned grooming on 10:28 - Nov 28 with 1275 views
Hopefully im wrong, but I don't fancy their chances of getting much justice. I definitely can't see any kinda punishment for those at the top of the tree that ordered and allowed this operation.
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State-sanctioned grooming on 10:31 - Nov 28 with 1260 views
State-sanctioned grooming on 10:28 - Nov 28 by leitrimblue
Hopefully im wrong, but I don't fancy their chances of getting much justice. I definitely can't see any kinda punishment for those at the top of the tree that ordered and allowed this operation.
I think you are right. This from Wikipedia.
Criticisms levelled against the Inquiry have included concerns about long delays in its work (the Guardian said: "The inquiry has performed to perfection its dual function of creating the illusion of a political response, while firmly kicking the issue into the long grass"), the perceived suitability of Sir John Mitting as chair, and his decisions to allow many undercover officers giving evidence to the Inquiry to remain anonymous.
In March 2018 campaigners and their legal teams walked out of an Inquiry hearing, calling for Mitting to stand down or appoint a full panel.
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State-sanctioned grooming on 10:36 - Nov 28 with 1223 views
State-sanctioned grooming on 10:31 - Nov 28 by DJR
I think you are right. This from Wikipedia.
Criticisms levelled against the Inquiry have included concerns about long delays in its work (the Guardian said: "The inquiry has performed to perfection its dual function of creating the illusion of a political response, while firmly kicking the issue into the long grass"), the perceived suitability of Sir John Mitting as chair, and his decisions to allow many undercover officers giving evidence to the Inquiry to remain anonymous.
In March 2018 campaigners and their legal teams walked out of an Inquiry hearing, calling for Mitting to stand down or appoint a full panel.
When the state sanctions murder or rape etc I'm not sure it's ever gonna put its hands up and admit any involvement. You just get loads of these crap enquiries while the main perpetrators and the families of the victims etc slowly die off.
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State-sanctioned grooming on 10:49 - Nov 28 with 1174 views
State-sanctioned grooming on 10:41 - Nov 28 by leitrimblue
When the state sanctions murder or rape etc I'm not sure it's ever gonna put its hands up and admit any involvement. You just get loads of these crap enquiries while the main perpetrators and the families of the victims etc slowly die off.
Here's more from Wikipedia which indicates the ruling out any rape charges.
The CPS statement clarified that misrepresenting identity, and obtaining sexual consent due to a false identity, was not generally a crime in UK law, other than in specific situations such as impersonating a person's partner, or deceit as to gender. Other than in specific limited situations set out in statute, the general rule in UK law is that deceit only creates a case of rape (known as "rape by deception" or "rape by fraud") if "the act consented to was not the act undertaken". Crown Prosecutors declined to bring charges against any police officers or their supervisors, including charges for rape and other sexual crimes (covering sex under false pretences, unconsented sexual acts, and other potential offences), on the basis that rape charges would be unlikely to succeed. For similar reasons, indecent assault, procurement for sexual intercourse by false pretences, and misconduct in office were also felt to lack sufficient basis for a conviction. A leading case on "rape by fraud" is R v Linekar, in which the Court of Appeal had previously held that very narrow restrictions should apply to such cases of deceit in the context of rape prosecutions. (The reasoning being that otherwise rape could be alleged following any minor broken promise or any misrepresentation with sexual activity, and would risk no longer being a uniformly serious offence.)
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State-sanctioned grooming on 10:58 - Nov 28 with 1140 views
State-sanctioned grooming on 10:49 - Nov 28 by DJR
Here's more from Wikipedia which indicates the ruling out any rape charges.
The CPS statement clarified that misrepresenting identity, and obtaining sexual consent due to a false identity, was not generally a crime in UK law, other than in specific situations such as impersonating a person's partner, or deceit as to gender. Other than in specific limited situations set out in statute, the general rule in UK law is that deceit only creates a case of rape (known as "rape by deception" or "rape by fraud") if "the act consented to was not the act undertaken". Crown Prosecutors declined to bring charges against any police officers or their supervisors, including charges for rape and other sexual crimes (covering sex under false pretences, unconsented sexual acts, and other potential offences), on the basis that rape charges would be unlikely to succeed. For similar reasons, indecent assault, procurement for sexual intercourse by false pretences, and misconduct in office were also felt to lack sufficient basis for a conviction. A leading case on "rape by fraud" is R v Linekar, in which the Court of Appeal had previously held that very narrow restrictions should apply to such cases of deceit in the context of rape prosecutions. (The reasoning being that otherwise rape could be alleged following any minor broken promise or any misrepresentation with sexual activity, and would risk no longer being a uniformly serious offence.)
As nasty as this case is, when you see some of the things the British state was up to in the North back in the day you can see why they may struggle to get any justice here.
There you literally have the state sanctioned murder of women an children. Others being killed in cold blood in front if witnesses etc and all with zero chance of getting any justice.
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State-sanctioned grooming on 11:04 - Nov 28 with 1118 views
State-sanctioned grooming on 10:58 - Nov 28 by leitrimblue
As nasty as this case is, when you see some of the things the British state was up to in the North back in the day you can see why they may struggle to get any justice here.
There you literally have the state sanctioned murder of women an children. Others being killed in cold blood in front if witnesses etc and all with zero chance of getting any justice.
State-sanctioned grooming on 16:48 - Nov 28 by leitrimblue
Argh, of course the IRA were the only ones killing innocents. I'd say you know yer Ulster history way better then that Jacko
After picking up bodies and bits of after pub bombings and seeing one of our troop Sargent disappear in a puff of smoke I’m backing off on this mate! I’ll only say something we will both regret!
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State-sanctioned grooming on 17:20 - Nov 28 with 780 views
State-sanctioned grooming on 16:59 - Nov 28 by bluejacko
After picking up bodies and bits of after pub bombings and seeing one of our troop Sargent disappear in a puff of smoke I’m backing off on this mate! I’ll only say something we will both regret!
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