Even for those familiar with parts of the stories about women who were deceived into intimate relationships with undercover police officers, the evidence that has emerged in recent weeks has been shocking. The litany of destructive behaviour either carried out by, or caused by, officers deployed to spy on campaigners, who were mostly active in leftwing causes, is being laid bare as never before: self-harm, heroin use, unprotected sex leading to emergency contraception, coercive control and the sudden abandonment of female partners and children.
On Tuesday, Belinda Harvey told the public inquiry how she was manipulated by Bob Lambert, who tricked at least three other women into relationships as well. The son he had with one of them, and abandoned as a toddler, did not learn the truth for decades. The Metropolitan police has since paid the son an undisclosed amount, along with £425,000 to his mother, known as Jacqui.
Next week, Mr Lambert will face questions about who authorised the tactic of targeting and seducing young, female activists – and why he employed it so many times. Last month, another undercover officer testified that Mr Lambert had “bragged” about fathering a child. The Met has already admitted that the decision by the head of the covert unit, Tony Wait, not to take any action when he learned about the pregnancy was “wholly wrong”. The inquiry has also heard evidence that another manager was told, and did nothing.
What makes all of this even more shameful is that it is only due to the tenacity of the victims – including women whose personal lives were derailed by these exploitative relationships – that these deceptive practices were ever uncovered, and set before a judge, at all. In their jointly authored book, Deep Deception, five women described how they found out that they had been systematically lied to by former partners – in some cases after decades of confusion and self-doubt. Mr Lambert stands out not only for the number of secret relationships he initiated and his alleged involvement in an arson plot, but also because his five-year deployment as a police spy in the 1980s was treated as a triumph. He was given a commendation and went on to run covert operations, including the one that spied on supporters of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.
It is more than 10 years since this inquiry was ordered by the then home secretary, Theresa May. Dismaying delays in disclosure, and protracted battles over some officers’ requests for anonymity, have made the process painfully slow. It should not have taken so long to get to the point where Mr Lambert – who after leaving the police worked at several universities – must finally account for actions that hurt so many people. Two weeks ago, Paul Gravett became the fifth witness to claim that Mr Lambert played a role in a plot by animal rights activists to set fire to multiple branches of Debenhams in 1987, as a protest against the fur trade. An appeal by two men whose criminal convictions relied on evidence supplied by Mr Lambert is already in train.
It will be astonishing if the Met turns out to have championed and promoted an arsonist who caused an estimated £340,000 of damage. The women who were tricked into relationships, the thousands of other activists who were spied on up to 2010 and the families whose dead relatives’ identities were stolen by police all deserve huge credit for pushing for this process of discovery – and sticking with it.
• This article was amended on 29 November 2024. An earlier version said that the enquiry was ordered by Theresa May, the then prime minister. In fact May was home secretary at that time.
