In 2011, I brought a legal case against the Metropolitan police after being deceived into an intimate, sexual relationship by one of their undercover officers. I have been waiting for the day when I could eye-ball one of those responsible. Thirteen years later, I have still not received any disclosure about why Mark Jenner was deployed into my most private life for five years, under the name Mark Cassidy.
But at the public inquiry into undercover policing, I have finally heard some of the feeble excuses made by his manager, Bob Lambert MBE, who himself deceived four women into having sexual relationships, using his alter ego Bob Robinson.
We have heard from Jacqui and Belinda, two of the women Lambert deceived into relationships. We have also heard from Helen Steel, about whom Lambert reported extensively, preparing the ground for her to become the target for another abusive sexual relationship, this time with John Dines (known to Helen as John Barker).
Where the women spoke with conversational fluency, he paused, deliberated and hesitated over every word. Where they remembered places, people, meetings, parties and actions, he could “not recall” almost anything about a career for which he has been highly commended.
For four days of evidence he tried to give an impression of himself as the respectable, retired police officer who had simply been misjudged. By day five, however, he seemed to get the memo that he needed to appear more remorseful. Only then did he admit to letting down his family, both wives, his deceased children and his “living son”.
Nor has he made any effort publicly or otherwise to apologise to me and the other women deceived by officers he was managing when he was detective inspector. This display of conscience was not only unconvincing, it was too little too late.
Alison is one of eight women who first took legal action against the Metropolitan police over the conduct of undercover officers and a founder member of Police Spies Out of Lives. A core participant in the Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing, she is one of the authors of Deep Deception – The Story of the Spycop Network by the Women who Uncovered the Shocking Truth.