An environmental campaigner who was deceived by a police spy into a sexual relationship has lost an attempt to have him prosecuted.
She challenged a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute the undercover officer, Jim Boyling, for the offences of rape, indecent assault, procurement of sexual intercourse and misconduct in public office.
She had a six-month relationship with Boyling while he was using a fake identity to infiltrate environmental and animal rights groups. He did not disclose his real identity during the relationship. She said she would never have consented to having a sexual relationship if she had known his real identity.
On Friday, the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, and Mr Justice Jay dismissed her legal challenge, ruling that prosecutors had acted correctly when they had decided not to prosecute Boyling.
They said Monica’s lawyers had argued for a new understanding of the concept of consent in rape and sexual offences, but they ruled “it would be wrong for such a fundamental change in the understanding of consent to be brought about by judges rather than the legislature”.
Source: High court dismisses woman’s attempt to prosecute police spy | UK news | The Guardian