Panel finds that 87% of undercover cops in Britain had sex with the people they were spying on
Commissioner claim over undercover sexual relationships | Rob Evans | UK news | guardian.co.uk
Here's the reply in full from Hogan-Howe :
"It certainly should not be part of the strategy to do that. The fact that it may sometimes happen, I think, could almost be inevitable, not that I would encourage it obviously.
"When you are deploying an officer to live a lifestyle and they are going to get close to a target or group of targets, it is not impossible to imagine that human relationships develop in that way, so we put various things in place to make sure that if it is going to happen or there's a likelihood of it happening, we spot it early and get the UC [undercover officer] out before it happens. But it is not impossible given human relationships."
A few points about that reply.
Firstly, Hogan-Howe makes it sound as if the relationships are or have been a relatively rare event. This is plainly not true. What has come out so far makes it clear that the relationships were frequent and routine. As we reported here, "eight of the nine undercover officers identified over the past 21 months are believed to have had intimate sexual relationships with protesters they were spying on." The relationships spanned a period from the 1980s until 2010.
