Quote:Women who had relationships with police spies win partial legal victory

Judge rules half of the women's cases can be heard in open court but half must be first heard by secret tribunal


Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 January 2013 14.01 GMT

Mark Kennedy
The judge said that claims against two police officers - Mark Kennedy (pictured above) and a second spy who posed as Mark Jacobs - should first be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling

Ten women who say they were deceived into having sexual relationships with undercover police officers have won only a partial victory in their fight to have their case heard in the high court.

Mr Justice Tugendhat said the lawsuit alleged "the gravest interference" with the fundamental rights of women who had long-term relationships with police officers sent to spy on their political groups. The judge rejected an attempt by the Metropolitan police to have the whole case struck out of the court.

However, in a mixed ruling, the judge said that half the cases in the legal action should first be heard by a secretive tribunal that usually deals with complaints against MI5.

The case relates to a joint lawsuit brought by 10 women and one man who claim they suffered emotional trauma after forming "deeply personal" relationships with the police spies.

In his ruling, Tugendhat acknowledged that the allegations made by the women were "very serious". He added that the case appeared to be unprecedented. "No action against the police alleging sexual abuse of the kind in question in these actions has been brought before the courts in the past, so far as I have been made aware."

The judge drew a comparison with James Bond, the fictional member of the intelligence service who "used relationships with women to obtain information, or access to persons or property".

Although Ian Fleming, the writer of the Bond series, did not dwell on "psychological harm he might have done to the women concerned", the judge said fictional accounts such as these point to how "intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature".

Lawyers for the Met had attempted to have all 11 cases struck out of the court, arguing they constituted an abuse of process and should instead by heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a little-known complaints body.

However, they achieved only a partial victory.

In his ruling, the judge said that claims against two police officers - Mark Kennedy and a second spy who posed as Mark Jacobs - should first be heard by the IPT. Both of these officers were deployed after 2000, and some of the claims allege their activities constituted a breach of the Human Rights Act, which came into force in October that year.

However, the judge said that other claims for damages under common law, including torts of misfeasance in public office, deceit, assault and negligence, should be heard by the high court.

He temporarily stayed high court proceedings pending the conclusion of cases at the IPT. The special tribunal was introduced in 2000 to examine complaints from the public about unjustified state surveillance within what it calls "a necessary ring of secrecy". Complainants do not see the evidence put forward by the state and have no automatic right to an oral hearing. Neither can they appeal its decision.

Lawyers for the some of the women described the decision to send half of the cases to the tribunal as an "outrage".

Harriet Wistrich, of Birnberg Peirce, said: "We brought this case because we want to see an end to sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners for social justice and others by undercover police officers. We are outraged that the high court has allowed the police to use the IPT to preserve the secrecy of their abusive and manipulative operations in order to prevent public scrutiny and challenge."

Another lawyer representing claimants in the case, Jules Carey, pointed out the judge had accepted his clients may have been victims of the "gravest" interference with their rights, adding: "Our clients will have to carefully study the judgment and consider an appeal on this issue."

The case is the first civil action to be brought before a court since the Guardian revealed police officers were frequently sleeping with political campaigners as part of a spy operation that has been targeting protesters for four decades.

In total, six police officers stand accused in legal documents of having sexual relationships with the women they were sent to spy on.

Some cases stretch as far back as the mid-1980s. One woman, who is bringing a separate legal action, had a child with a police officer she presumed was a fellow animal rights activists in the 1980s. He later disappeared from her life and ceased all contact.

Quote:A judge ruled last week that some of their claims should be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an obscure body that usually deals with complaints against MI5 and MI6.

Mr Justice Tugendhat cited the fictional case of James Bond to argue that when parliament introduced legislation allowing covert police to have personal relationships with targets, they must have assumed they may have sexual encounters.

Quote:UN official calls on British government to investigate undercover police scandal

Maina Kiai says he is 'deeply concerned' about use of officers such as Mark Kennedy to infiltrate non-violent groups

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 January 2013 16.49 GMT

Mark Kennedy, an undercover police officer who infiltrated a group of environmental protesters. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling

A senior United Nations official has called on the British government to launch a judge-led public inquiry into the "shocking" case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover police officers who have been infiltrating protest groups.

Maina Kiai, a UN special rapporteur, said the scandal involving undercover police cultivating intimate sexual relationships with political activists over long periods of time had been as damaging as the phone-hacking controversy that prompted the Leveson inquiry.

He said he was "deeply concerned" about the UK's use of undercover police officers in non-violent groups exercising their democratic rights to protest.

"The case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover officers is shocking as the groups in question were not engaged in criminal activities," Kiai told a central London news conference. "The duration of this infiltration, and the resultant trauma and suspicion it has caused, are unacceptable in a democracy.

"It is a clear violation of basic rights protected under the Human Rights Act, and more generally under international law, such as the right to privacy."

He added: "This is not a James-Bond-type movie issue. I think it is unacceptable that the state can pay somebody who will use women, and be part of their lives and then just devastate them and leave them. That's unbelievable."

Kiai is the latest senior figure to call for a full investigation into the controversy since the Guardian began revealing details of the spy operation two years ago. The undercover policing controversy will be raised in parliament next month during a special hearing hosted by the home affairs select committee.

Undercover police have been living double lives for several years among protest groups, sometimes even residing with female activists and spending weeks abroad with them on holiday. At the end of their deployment, the police spies vanish without a trace.

The surveillance operation, which has continued to plant long-term spies in protest groups despite recent controversies, comes under the remit of an initiative to combat what police call domestic extremism. Many of the targets of the operation have turned out to be law-abiding anti-capitalist campaigners or protesters against global warming.

In at least three cases, relationships between police and the women they were spying on have resulted in the birth of children.

The UN rapporteur's preliminary report follows a 10-day fact-finding mission to London, Belfast and Edinburgh. Kiai met campaigners, senior police, civil servants and the home secretary, Theresa May. He said she told him a full inquiry into undercover policing was "not something on the agenda".

However, Kiai, who has responsibility in the UN for the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, said he believed the case of Kennedy and others had left a "trail of victims and survivors in its wake" who deserved answers.

Eleven women and one man are bringing a high court legal action for the emotional trauma suffered as a result of "deeply personal" relationships they formed with men who turned out to be police officers.

A judge ruled last week that some of their claims should be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an obscure body that usually deals with complaints against MI5 and MI6.

Mr Justice Tugendhat cited the fictional case of James Bond to argue that when parliament introduced legislation allowing covert police to have personal relationships with targets, they must have assumed they may have sexual encounters.

Rejecting the idea that it could be a "James Bond movie issue", Kiai said: "I therefore call on the authorities to undertake a judge-led public inquiry into the Mark Kennedy matter, and other related cases, with a view to giving voice to victims, especially women, who were deliberately deceived by their own government, and paving the way for reparations."

The government has so far resisted calls for a judge-led inquiry, instead choosing to back a host of other separate reviews into the conduct of Kennedy and related issues.

Fifteen inquiries have so far been launched into the controversy since January 2011.

All have been held behind closed doors, a process Kiai said was inadequate because it did not allow victims the opportunity to speak about their concerns.

The largest of the inquiries is being run internally by the Metropolitan police, the force that has overseen the spy operation against protesters since 1968. It has declined to provide any detail about the scope or remit of the inquiry.

Jenny Jones, a Green party member on the London Assembly, welcomed Kiai's intervention. "The hacking of voicemail messages was an invasion of privacy and lead to a judge-led inquiry into the practice," she said. "In contrast, the gross invasion of privacy by the police into the lives and families of 11 women who were not criminals will be dealt with in a secretive tribunal which not even the women will be able to attend."

Quote:Police spies stole identities of dead children

Exclusive: Undercover officers created aliases based on details found in birth and death records, Guardian investigation reveals

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.13 GMT
Jump to comments (174)

John Dines
John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he apeared in the early 1980s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism

Britain's largest police force stole the identities of an estimated 80 dead children and issued fake passports in their names for use by undercover police officers.

The Metropolitan police secretly authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children's parents.

The details are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian, which has established how over three decades generations of police officers trawled through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches.

Undercover officers created aliases based on the details of the dead children and were issued with accompanying identity records such as driving licences and national insurance numbers. Some of the police officers spent up to 10 years pretending to be people who had died.

The Met said the practice was not "currently" authorised, but announced an investigation into "past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS [Special Demonstration Squad] officers".

Keith Vaz, the chairman of parliament's home affairs select committee, said he was shocked at the "gruesome" practice. "It will only cause enormous distress to families who will discover what has happened concerning the identities of their dead children," he said. "This is absolutely shocking."

The technique of using dead children as aliases has remained classified intelligence for several decades, although it was fictionalised in Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal. As a result, police have internally nicknamed the process of searching for suitable identities as the "jackal run". One former undercover agent compared an operation on which he was deployed to the methods used by the Stasi.

Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children. One, who adopted the fake persona of Pete Black while undercover in anti-racist groups, said he felt he was "stomping on the grave" of the four-year-old boy whose identity he used.

"A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this," he said. The Guardian has chosen not to identify Black by his real name.

The other officer, who adopted the identity of a child who died in a car crash, said he was conscious the parents would "still be grief-stricken". He spoke on the condition of anonymity and argued his actions could be justified because they were for the "greater good".

Both officers worked for a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008.

A third undercover police officer in the SDS who adopted the identity of a dead child can be named as John Dines, a sergeant. He adopted the identity of an eight-year-old boy named John Barker, who died in 1968 from leukaemia. The Met said in a statement: "We are not prepared to confirm nor deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations."

The force added: "A formal complaint has been received which is being investigated by the DPS [Directorate for Professional Standards] and we appreciate the concerns that have been raised. The DPS inquiry is taking place in conjunction with Operation Herne's investigation into the wider issue of past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS officers. We can confirm that the practice referred to in the complaint is not something that would currently be authorised in the [Met police]."

There is a suggestion that the practice of using dead infant identities may have been stopped in the mid-1990s, when death records were digitised. However, the case being investigated by the Met relates to a suspected undercover police officer who may have used a dead child's identity in 2003.

The practice was introduced 40 years ago by police to lend credibility to the backstory of covert operatives spying on protesters, and to guard against the possibility that campaigners would discover their true identities.

Since then dozens of SDS officers, including those who posed as anti-capitalists, animal rights activists and violent far-right campaigners, have used the identities of dead children.

One document seen by the Guardian indicates that around 80 police officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994. The total number could be higher.

Black said he always felt guilty when celebrating the birthday of the four-year-old whose identity he took. He was particularly aware that somewhere the parents of the boy would be "thinking about their son and missing him". "I used to get this really odd feeling," he said.

To fully immerse himself in the adopted identity and appear convincing when speaking about his upbringing, Black visited the child's home town to familiarise himself with the surroundings.

Black, who was undercover in the 1990s, said his operation was "almost Stasi-like". He said SDS officers visited the house they were supposed to have been born in so they would have a memory of the building.

"It's those little details that really matter the weird smell coming out of the drain that's been broken for years, the location of the corner Post Office, the number of the bus you get to go from one place to another," he said.

The second SDS officer said he believed the use of the harvested identities was for the "greater good". But he was also aware that the parents had not been consulted. "There were dilemmas that went through my head," he said.

The case of the third officer, John Dines, reveals the risks posed to families who were unaware that their children's identities were being used by undercover police.

During his covert deployment, Dines had a two-year relationship with a female activist before disappearing from her life. In an attempt to track down her disappeared boyfriend, the woman discovered the birth certificate of John Barker and tried to track down his family, unaware that she was actually searching for a dead child.

She said she was relieved that she never managed to find the parents of the dead boy. "It would have been horrendous," she said. "It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier."

The disclosure about the use of the identities of dead children is likely to reignite the controversy over undercover police infiltration of protest groups. Fifteen separate inquiries have already been launched since 2011, when Mark Kennedy was unmasked as a police spy who had slept with several women, including one who was his girlfriend for six years.

On Tuesday the select committee will hear evidence from lawyers representing the 11 women who are suing the Met after forming "deeply personal" relationships with the spies. Kennedy, who worked for a sister unit to the SDS, is not believed to have used the identity of a dead child.

Vaz said MPs were now likely to demand answers from the Met police about the use of children's identities. "My disbelief at some of the tactics used [by undercover police] has become shock as a result of these latest revelations. It is clear that inappropriate action has been taken by undercover police in the past. But this has now taken it to a new level," he said.

"The committee will need to seek answers from the Metropolitan police, to find out why they allowed these gruesome practices to happen."

Peter Lemkin Wrote:It does seem to be a bottomless cesspit of scandal and malfeasance......My guess, more to come....

Quote:Woman's 18-year search for truth about police spy who used dead child's name

When the man known to his activist girlfriend as John Barker disappeared, she embarked on a journey that led her to the former home of a child whose name he used as an alias

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.21 GMT

John Dines
John Dines taking part in a race in the early 1990s when he was serving as an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police's special branch

John Barker was an eight-year-old boy who died of leukaemia in 1968. Nineteen years later his identity was quietly resurrected by the police. The man who adopted the boy's identity, claiming it as his own, was John Dines, an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police's special branch.

In 1987 Dines was tasked with posing as an anti-capitalist protester, feeding intelligence to his handlers in a secret unit called the special demonstration squad (SDS). It was a controversial and morally dubious deployment that lasted five years and will now return to haunt him.

Like many SDS officers, Dines had a long-term girlfriend who was a political activist. She does not want to be identified and has asked to be referred to as Clare.

Her story lays bare the emotional trauma experienced by women whom police have described as "collateral" victims of their spy operations, as well as the risks police were taking by adopting the identities of dead children.

In 1990 the man Clare knew as John Barker asked to borrow money so he could fly to New Zealand for his mother's funeral. "The night before he got the flight to go there, he stayed at my place and kind of poured his heart out. We became emotionally close. When he got back, we got together."

There was no funeral in New Zealand and Dines had no need to borrow money. But Clare had known Dines as a fellow protester for three years and had no reason to suspect him. The couple would end up in an intimate relationship for two years.

"He said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and I was madly in love with him," she said. "He said he wanted us to have kids. He used to say he had once seen an elderly Greek couple sitting on a veranda gazing into the sunset, and that he pictured us growing old like that."

By the summer of 1991, as part of an exit strategy, Dines began exhibiting symptoms of a mental breakdown.

"He kept talking about how he had nobody left apart from me," Clare said. "His parents had both died. He had no brothers and sisters. The only woman that he had ever loved before me, a woman called Debbie, had left him. He said he was convinced I was going to do the same to him."

Dines gave the impression he wanted to run away to escape inner demons. "I saw him crying loads," Clare said. "He told me that he had thrown all of his mother's jewellery into a river because he thought she never loved him. He told me his parents had abused him."

In March 1992 an emotional-sounding Dines called from Heathrow airport saying he was about to fly to South Africa. After that, Clare received two letters with South African postmarks. Then her boyfriend vanished altogether.

Clare was left distraught and confused. "I was very worried about his mental state," she said. "I was also sick with worry that he might kill himself."

Clare contacted the British consulate in South Africa and frantically phoned hostels she thought he may have stayed in Johannesburg. She later hired a private investigator who could find no trace of Dines.

It was the start of a journey for the truth that would last almost two decades and eventually take her to New Zealand. It was not until 2010 that she found out for sure that the man she had loved was a police spy.

For some of the time that Clare thought her boyfriend was missing abroad, he was actually working just a few miles away. When his undercover work finished, Dines changed his mullet-style haircut and returned to a desk job at the Met headquarters in Scotland Yard where, according to a colleague, he appeared "very miserable".

In her search for clues, one of the first things Clare did was locate a copy of what she assumed was her boyfriend's birth certificate. The document confirmed the details he had always given her: it named a city in the Midlands where he was born in January 1960. She had no idea that the identity was a forgery, or that the real John Barker had died as a boy.

In April 1993, desperate after a year of searching, Clare decided to visit Barker's family home in the hope of finding any surviving relatives, but when she knocked on the door of the terrace house there was no answer. She went back later but the occupants said the family no longer lived there.

Looking back, she wonders what would have occurred if the dead child's parents had opened the door. "It would have been horrendous," she said. "It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier."

It was another 18 months before Clare decided to inspect the national death records. "I just suddenly got this instinct. It was a whim: I thought, I'm going to go in there and look through the death records."

She recalls her horror when she discovered the real John Barker was dead. "It sent a chill down my spine," she said. "When I got the certificate itself, it was so clear. The same person. The same parents. The same address. But he had died as an eight-year-old boy."

The Guardian has been unable to find surviving relatives of the child.

The discovery turned Clare's world upside down. "It was like a bereavement but it was not something I could talk to people about. Now suddenly he didn't exist. This was a man I had known for five years, who I had lived with for two years. How could I trust anybody again?"

Clare now knew her boyfriend had lied about his identity, but still had no idea who he was. The idea that he might have been a police spy crossed her mind, but he might also have worked in corporate espionage or had a hidden criminal past. It was another 10 years of searching before she got closer to the truth.

Clare had two clues to go on. One was the name of a woman in New Zealand who Dines had told her was an aunt. The other was a letter in which he had made a curious reference to his biological father being a man he had never met, called Jim Dines.

The woman in New Zealand was not his aunt but, bizarrely, the mother of Dines's real wife. Stranger still, Jim Dines was, in fact, the police officer's real father and had brought him up in London.

Clare has no idea why the undercover police officer chose to compromise his deployment by giving Clare cryptic references to people in his real life. Perhaps he was psychologically traumatised by his dual identities and wanted to leave a trail that would allow Clare to find him.

Whatever his reason, the clues led Clare to a public archive in New Zealand. It was there, in 2003, that she made a crucial connection: a document that linked Dines with the woman he married, Debbie.

Clare instantly realised they must have been a married couple. Back in London, she ordered the couple's wedding certificate. "What hit me like a ton of bricks is that he listed his occupation as a police officer," she said. "When I read that, I felt utterly sick and really violated. It ripped me apart basically, just reading that."

Clare was now agonisingly close to the truth. She knew that Dines was a police officer when he married his wife in 1977. But there was still a possibility that he gave up his job before becoming a political activist.

She shared the evidence with friends and family. Some cautioned her against concluding Dines had been a police spy. "I remember my dad and others said: 'You're being paranoid that would never happen in this country.'"

In 2010 she was contacted by a woman who had recently divorced a police officer who had worked undercover for the SDS shortly after Dines. The woman said her ex-husband had revealed that Dines was a fellow spy.

The Met refused to comment on the Dines case, adding: "We neither confirm nor deny the identity of any individual alleged to have been in a covert role."

Dealing with the confirmation has been an emotional ordeal for Clare. "Although it was massively painful, there was a sense of relief that I finally knew the truth. I didn't have to keep wondering." For nearly 20 years she hoped that, despite his betrayal, Dines may have genuinely loved her. It was only recently that she decided his love was also fake.

"I got out all the old letters that he sent me and read them again, with the knowledge he was an undercover police officer," she said. "What had once seemed like heart-wrenching stories in these letters, disclosures that made me really worried about his wellbeing, were completely false. That is manipulation. It is abuse."

Quote:Met chief summoned to explain why police stole identities of dead children

Deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan summoned before MPs to respond to revelations officers used IDs of children

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 February 2013 12.36 GMT
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John Dines
John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1980s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism. Dines's alternative identity used that of a child who had died. Photograph: Guardian

A senior police chief has been summoned to parliament to explain why police secretly authorised undercover officers to steal the identities of around 80 dead children.

Pat Gallan, the Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner in charge of the complaints department, will respond to the revelations at a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday.

An investigation by the Guardian has revealed that police infiltrating protest groups have for three decades adopted the identities of dead children, without informing or consulting their parents.

Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children.

Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs select committee has said he is "shocked" at the "gruesome" practice.

"The committee will hear from those who have been involved in undercover operations as well as their victims," he said. "I have asked the deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan to deal with the issues that have arisen."

Gallan is head of the Met's department for professional standards.

The Guardian has established how police officers were equipped with fabricated identity records, such as driving licences and national insurance numbers, in the name of their chosen dead child. They also visited the family home of the dead child to familiarise themselves with the surroundings and conducted research into other family members.

Scotland Yard has already announced an investigation into the controversy. It said it had received one complaint - believed to be a reference to a suspected police officer who was undercover in 2003 - and said it could "appreciate the concerns that have been raised". The force said that the practice of using the identities of dead children is not currently authorised.

The operation is known to have been orchestrated by the Special Demonstration Squad, a secretive Met unit disbanded in 2008. Dozens of SDS officers are believed to have searched through birth and death certificates to find a child who had died young and would be a suitable match for their alias.

The officers then adopted the entire identity of the child as if the child had never died. One police officer has said the process was like "resurrecting" a dead person's identity.

The disclosure comes after two years of revelations concerning undercover police officers having sexual relationships with women they are spying on. Eleven women are currently bringing legal action against the Met for damages.

Vaz said: "The activities of undercover police officers caused disbelief when they were revealed in 2011. These revelations [about the use of dead children's identities] are shocking. I congratulate the Guardian on their investigation. To have used the identities of dead children without the knowledge or consent of their parents astonishes me. It sounds gruesome. "

The committee will also hear from Harriet Wistrich and Jules Carey, two lawyers who are representing women who say they were duped into forming intimate relationships of up to nine years with the spies.

Mark Kennedy, a police officer who lived among environmental activists for seven years and was exposed in 2011, will also give evidence. It is understood the committee has granted him permission to give testimony in private.

Meanwhile Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, has called for a public inquiry into undercover policing following the revelations.

Macdonald said the police appeared to have "completely lost their moral compass", suggested some units had "gone rogue" and said the "drip, drip, drip" of "seedy and corrosive" stories threatened to undermine public confidence. An inquiry was needed to ensure such tactics were still not being used, he said.

This article was amended on 4 February after new information from the office of Keith Vaz. His office previously said another senior Met officer, Cressida Dick, assistant commissioner in charge of counter-terrorism, would appear.

Quote:the "drip, drip, drip" of "seedy and corrosive" stories threatened to undermine public confidence. An inquiry was needed to ensure such tactics were still not being used

Quote:Mark Kennedy, a police officer who lived among environmental activists for seven years and was exposed in 2011, will also give evidence. It is understood the committee has granted him permission to give testimony in private.

Quote:E.ON lobbied for stiff sentences against Kingsnorth activists, papers show

Power giant warned then energy secretary Ed Miliband that failure to impose tough sentences would 'impact' investment


James Ball
The Guardian, Tuesday 19 February 2013 18.35 GMT

Kingsnorth protest: police arrest an environmental campaigner. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

The UK chief executive of energy giant E.ON repeatedly lobbied the then-energy secretary Ed Miliband and others over the sentencing of activists disrupting the company's power plants, warning that any failure to issue "dissuasive" sentences could "impact" upon investment decisions in the UK.

The warnings, which came while the government was still trying to persuade E.ON and others to invest in next-generation nuclear plants, have been described by activists as "wholly improper".

Dr Paul Golby, who was chairman and CEO of E.ON UK until December 2011, met with Miliband in February 2010 to discuss concerns around lax sentencing of eco-activists, following, in particular, the release of six campaigners engaged in direct action at Kingsnorth, a coal-powered station owned by E.ON.

A briefing document prepared for the Department of Energy and Climate Change's (DECC) permanent secretary in January 2011 by civil servants, ahead of a further meeting with Golby, cautioned that the issue of activists' sentences had been raised on several previous occasions.

Referring to a group of activists due to be sentenced for aggravated trespass at Ratcliffe, another power station owned by E.ON, on the same day as Golby's scheduled meeting, the memo cautioned: "Today [5th Jan] these 20 activists are due to be sentenced. EoN, and indeed other market participants in the generating sector, are hoping for a dissuasive sentencing to discourage similar such incidents in the future."

The Ratcliffe protest was later revealed as one of the protests infiltrated by undercover policeman Mark Kennedy, one of those at the centre of a row on the limits of undercover policing, following revelations thast police officers had relationships, and even fathered children, with activsts.

The memo went on to note that following the release of the Kingsnorth protestors, Golby had written to the department to "express his concern and highlight the impact upon the attractiveness of the UK's energy market for global investors".

The details were released, apparently by accident, within a response to a Freedom of Information request made by Greenpeace. Officials from DECC had released the briefing memo, but with all references to environmental activists, sentencing, and E.ON's previous missives blacked out throughout the document. However, due to errors in the redaction process, it remained possible to see the text contained below the blacked-out lines.

E.ON further confirmed the company had written to formally raise concerns on the sentencing of activists in September 2008, to the business secretary, who was then responsible for energy policy, copying the letter to the home secretary and the justice secretary, and wrote a further letter to the energy secretary in December 2009.

Ben Stewart, one of the activists at the Kingsnorth power plants, condemned the revelations. "E.ON lobbied no fewer than three cabinet ministers after the Kingsnorth acquittal, telling them the jury's verdict could affect investment decisions, then they told the government they were hoping for stiff sentences on another group of protesters.

"It reads like a threat either clamp down on climate activism or we withdraw investment. The attitude of the energy giants to those who oppose them is over-bearing, arrogant and illiberal."

The ruling on the Kingsnorth case, which was handed down in September 2008, was seen as a pivotal one by environmental campaigners. Activists had invaded the E.ON site and occupied one of the plant's smokestacks.

In court, they admitted these actions, but said they were legally justified as part of a campaign to prevent greater damage and harm around the world as a result of man-made climate change. The jury acquitted the defendents on a majority verdict.

E.ON said it was "only right" for the company to make representations about those causing criminal damage to its property.

"When people break in to your workplace, often by cutting through or climbing over fences, and try to disrupt your legal, legitimate business it is only right that you seek to protect your people and your property," he said.

"Following major incidents at two of our sites, including shocking scenes of violence at Ratcliffe, we were concerned for the safety of our people and that of the protesters. We felt it was appropriate properly and formally to raise our concerns with the appropriate areas of government and did this in the correct fashion."

The DECC declined to answer specific questions on whether action had been taken in the wake of contacts with Dr Golby, or whether the department or Ed Miliband has been in contact with police forces or CPS on prosecutions, but did insist all appropriate rules were followed.

"It is important to balance the right of commercial interests to function safely without illegal disruption, with the right to freedom of expression," said a spokesman.

"The department is clear that it has operated in line with the ministerial and civil service codes and with proper respect for the legal process in relation to any discussions about protests at power stations."

Requests for comment from Ed Miliband's office were not returned.

Quote:Police spy Mark Kennedy may have misled parliament over relationships

Inquiry hears claims of 10 or more women having sexual relations with undercover officer who infiltrated eco-activists

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Friday 1 March 2013
Jump to comments (11)

Mark Kennedy, the police spy who infiltrated the environmental movement, appears to have misled parliament over the number of sexual relationships he had with women while he was working undercover.

Kennedy told a parliamentary inquiry that he had only two relationships during the seven years he spied on environmental groups.

However, at least four women had come forward to say that he slept with them when he was a police spy.

Friends who knew Kennedy when he was living as an eco-activist in Nottingham have identified more than 10 women with whom he slept.

Kennedy was the only undercover police officer to give evidence to the inquiry conducted by the home affairs select committee.

He testified in private, but transcripts of his evidence released on Thursday reveal that he claimed he had sexual relationships with "two individuals".

But three women who say they are Kennedy's former lovers are part of an 11-strong group taking legal action against police chiefs for damages.

A fourth, named Anna, previously told the Guardian she felt "violated" by her sexual relationship with Kennedy, which lasted several months.

Kennedy's longest relationship was with a woman who used the pseudonym Lisa when giving evidence to the committee. She was with him for six years and said she was left questioning how many other officers were prying into her personal affairs. She said: "Who else was participating in the relationship that I believed was just me and one other person?Who else was seeing every text message that I ever sent him? Who was listening in to our most intimate phone calls? Who made the decisions about my life, where I was allowed to go, who I was allowed to see which I thought was my free will but actually was being manipulated by this person who was being controlled by other people?"

Lisa spent time living with Kennedy in Nottingham, and also went with him to political events in Iceland, Spain, Germany and Italy. She said she felt cheated out of time she had spent with him.

"When do we get our lost years back?" she asked, "Who is going to give those six years back to me?"