Mark Kennedy: Met Police 'admit knowing about undercover officer's sexual relationship but let it continue'

Police have admitted that they were aware about an undercover officer’s sexual relationship with a member of the public but let it continue, campaigners have said.

In 2003 Kate Wilson, an environmental and social justice activist, started a relationship with Mark Kennedy, an undercover officer, which lasted two years.

She only discovered his true identity when he was exposed in 2010 after campaigners found out he had spent seven years infiltrating environmental groups.

During the seven-year period that he was undercover he had relationships with multiple women.

Eight women took the police to court after being duped into relationships by undercover officers and after reaching a settlement with seven of them in 2015, the Met said the relationships would not have been authorised in advance or used as a tactic.

Ms Wilson won a High Court battle against the Met in the following year after it withdrew from the case.

She stated at the time that supervising officers were negligent and had acted improperly in causing or allowing the relationship to happen, accusing the force of dropping its defence to avoid handing over key documents “at any cost”.

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal is due to hear her case against the Met, alleging breaches of the Human Rights Act, on 3 October.

A document released on Friday by Police Spies Out Of Lives, the organisation which provides legal support to the women, said police have “admitted to the tribunal that an as yet unknown number of cover officers and a line manager knew about and acquiesced to the relationship”.

“This means at least eight police officers were complicit in deceiving Ms Wilson in a long-term, intimate relationship, and suggests a deliberate strategy, and not a ‘failure of supervision’ as claimed,” the document states.

The document also says the police are yet to disclose “relevant secret documents” to the tribunal.

Ms Wilson said in a statement: “It has taken me eight painful years to discover that managing officers really did conspire to deceive and abuse me, something the police had consistently denied.

“The wider questions for society here are massive, this is about institutional sexism, senior police officers sanctioning sexual abuse, and the systematic violation of human rights because of political beliefs, and we still don’t have the whole truth.”

In November 2015 Scotland Yard apologised to the eight women who had been deceived by the undercover officers and admitted they had been “abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong”.

The Met said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on Ms Wilson’s ongoing civil action at the tribunal.

A spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police has made clear its position on long-term, sexual relationships known to have been entered into by some undercover officers in the past. Those relationships were wrong and should not have happened.”

The force said it was providing “every assistance” to a broader inquiry into undercover policing by the now-defunct Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Agencies contributed to this report