News from Jenny Jones (past staff): Behaviour of undercover officers shows failure of supervision

Today the Metropolitan Police has agreed to publish the full apology to the seven women who were deceived into forming long term intimate sexual relationships with undercover officers.

Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt confirmed that ‘…some officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong.

"I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma. I unreservedly apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service. I am aware that money alone cannot compensate the loss of time, their hurt or the feelings of abuse caused by these relationships.

Green Assembly Member Jenny Jones said,

“This is great news for the innocent people who had their lives torn apart by the deceptions of these undercover police officers, but why has it taken so many years and a series of court battles to get an apology? The Met Police failed to supervise their officers in the field and to deal swiftly with wrongdoing. We still don’t know if there are more innocent people out there who were subject to this kind of deception, nor the full scale of this spying on generally law abiding campaigners. The Met Police need to focus on serious, organised crime and terrorism, instead of wasting their time and public money chasing environmentalists and others who are a healthy part of our democratic system.”