UK police agent provocateur trained Irish anarchists

According to his own words it would seem that Mark Kennedy was involved in some borderline activities. It appears that he carried out recces on the power station and supplied transport on several occasions. If this is true then it certainly looks like its pretty close to enabling stuff that otherwise wouldn't happen, but its hard to judge without more information.

He also slept with at least a couple of women whilst he was undercover. The police are saying that if he did so then it was against policy and orders, he says that they knew it was happening and videotaped it(!) I find it pretty hard to believe that they would have been taping his bedroom antics but anythings possible.

The real issue I think is the worth of embedding undercover officers in largely peaceful and conscientous enviromental movements. Seven years of Mark Kennedy undercover resulted in 20 protestors being given suspended sentences with no costs against them whilst being praised by the judge for their honestly held principles. These convictions are now being appealed in the light of the undisclosed undercover operation...

I would question the value for money of operations against tree huggers. £250k/year per undercover, wouldn't we rather have these limited assets (total budget for the ACPO undercover section was ~£1.8m) in more dangerous organisations?

Also I would question the operation of these assets, 7 years undercover seems like a fishing expedition. The talking heads (ex undercover police operators and senior managers) they have had on newsnight and the like suggest that normal undercover operations are shorter and more focused with a specific target and goals. So what was going on here?

I'm vaugely hoping that we get an independent inquiry into undercover policing but we know that inquiries are often hamstringed from looking at the wider issues and/or are just simple whitewashes.
 
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bencg said:
He also slept with at least a couple of women whilst he was undercover. The police are saying that if he did so then it was against policy and orders, he says that they knew it was happening and videotaped it(!) I find it pretty hard to believe that they would have been taping his bedroom antics but anythings possible.
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Is he expected to go seven years without sex?

bencg said:
The real issue I think is the worth of embedding undercover officers in largely peaceful and conscientous enviromental movements. Seven years of Mark Kennedy undercover resulted in 20 protestors being given suspended sentences with no costs against them whilst being praised by the judge for their honestly held principles. These convictions are now being appealed in the light of the undisclosed undercover operation...
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Yeah, seems like it was a huge waste of time and money, but other than that what's the problem?
 
Mycroft said:
Is he expected to go seven years without sex?
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I don't know. He presumably wasn't undercover 24/7/365, I believe he spent time off back with his wife but I cannot source that right now. In any event I don't think there is any legal issue around this (sex by deception is not a criminal offence AFAIK) but there is an ethical issue which is why there are guidelines saying police undercovers shouldn't sleep with people on assignment.


Mycroft said:
Yeah, seems like it was a huge waste of time and money, but other than that what's the problem?
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As I said before; I would question the value for money of operations against tree huggers. £250k/year per undercover, wouldn't we rather have these limited assets (total budget for the ACPO undercover section was ~£1.8m*) in more dangerous organisations?

(*I have now seen another figure of £5m for this but the point remains that there are limited assests and funds for police undercover work.)

More generally I don't think environmental organisations are criminals or terrorists and shouldn't be targeted as such. The most criminal action planned by this group was to close down a power station for a day. Whilst this is certainly criminal and the police have every right and duty to prevent this there is still a question of proportionality.

There are serious violent crimes committed every day that go unchecked for lack of something. I live in an area of town where you can see very young foreign women obviously drug-dependent working the streets - I would rather the police were infiltrating the criminal gangs that smuggle and enslave these women. Or perhaps the gangs that import cocaine and heroin into the UK every day, there are lots of people that deserve more attention from the police rather than a bunch of tree huggers who prevaricate (you know they had to release >100 people from the arrest because they hadn't yet voted or reached a consensus to commit to the action) about committing a serious but non violent crime every 7 years.

Reading some background on the ACPO undercover unit it was formed to infiltrate the protest groups that were intimidating individuals around the Huntingdon vivisection group in the late 90's. Once these protest groups were split up and went quiet it seems like they needed a new target to justify their existence. As I understand it Scotland Yard has control of undercover operations in more traditional criminal gangs so ACPO had to find a protest group for a target... So the ACPO unit fixated on the environmentalist groups despite a lack of criminal behaivour on their part. I suspect this was driven by 'petty power politics' ie. the ACPO didn't want to give up their new undercover unit and all the funding and status this gave them rather than any public service need. It has now been announced that the ACPO undercover unit is going to move to being under Scotland Yards control (its debatable if this will increase transparency but hopefully they will at least be more professional!).
 
The Metropolitan police was forced to admit today that one of its senior commanders gave false information to MPs when he denied having plain-clothes officers in the crowd at the G20 demonstrations in London in 2009.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons home affairs committee a month after the protest – in which thousands of demonstrators clashed with police – Commander Bob Broadhurst insisted there were no plain-clothes officers among the crowd, saying it would have been too dangerous to do so.

...

However, the Met stood by [Met's commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson]'s assurance to the committee at the same hearing that the force did not use "agents provocateurs" – undercover officers actively fomenting unrest – at the protests around the world leaders' summit in April 2009.

The Met statement said: "Prior to the evidence session, there had been extensive discussion in the media and then at parliamentary committees about allegations that police officers were acting as agent provocateurs in the protests.

"Such behaviour goes completely against how the MPS deploys officers. The commissioner's comments at HASC refer to this point – not to covert deployments."

Sir Paul told the committee at the initial hearing that "the idea that we would put agent provocateurs in the crowd is wholly antithetic to everything I have known about policing for the best part of 34 years".


Plain-clothes Metropolitan police officers were at G20 demonstrations
Metropolitan police admits senior commander gave false information to MPs when quizzed about protests in 2009
 
bencg said:
I don't know. He presumably wasn't undercover 24/7/365, I believe he spent time off back with his wife but I cannot source that right now. In any event I don't think there is any legal issue around this (sex by deception is not a criminal offence AFAIK) but there is an ethical issue which is why there are guidelines saying police undercovers shouldn't sleep with people on assignment.
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If I were to choose an operative to go under-cover and spy on environmental groups, I'd pick someone who genuinely was an ardent environmentalist. That person would find it easier to fit in, easier to make friendships, and be less likely to start framing people if the operation didn't produce results. I think that just because a person is under-cover doesn't mean whatever friendships were formed were not genuine or that he didn't have real affection for women he may have slept with.

Cheating on his wife is another matter.




bencg said:
As I said before; I would question the value for money of operations against tree huggers. £250k/year per undercover, wouldn't we rather have these limited assets (total budget for the ACPO undercover section was ~£1.8m*) in more dangerous organisations?

(*I have now seen another figure of £5m for this but the point remains that there are limited assests and funds for police undercover work.)

More generally I don't think environmental organisations are criminals or terrorists and shouldn't be targeted as such. The most criminal action planned by this group was to close down a power station for a day. Whilst this is certainly criminal and the police have every right and duty to prevent this there is still a question of proportionality.

There are serious violent crimes committed every day that go unchecked for lack of something. I live in an area of town where you can see very young foreign women obviously drug-dependent working the streets - I would rather the police were infiltrating the criminal gangs that smuggle and enslave these women. Or perhaps the gangs that import cocaine and heroin into the UK every day, there are lots of people that deserve more attention from the police rather than a bunch of tree huggers who prevaricate (you know they had to release >100 people from the arrest because they hadn't yet voted or reached a consensus to commit to the action) about committing a serious but non violent crime every 7 years.

Reading some background on the ACPO undercover unit it was formed to infiltrate the protest groups that were intimidating individuals around the Huntingdon vivisection group in the late 90's. Once these protest groups were split up and went quiet it seems like they needed a new target to justify their existence. As I understand it Scotland Yard has control of undercover operations in more traditional criminal gangs so ACPO had to find a protest group for a target... So the ACPO unit fixated on the environmentalist groups despite a lack of criminal behaivour on their part. I suspect this was driven by 'petty power politics' ie. the ACPO didn't want to give up their new undercover unit and all the funding and status this gave them rather than any public service need. It has now been announced that the ACPO undercover unit is going to move to being under Scotland Yards control (its debatable if this will increase transparency but hopefully they will at least be more professional!).
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I basically agree with all this. I wouldn't bother investigating environmentalists groups unless I had strong reason to suspect them to begin with.
 
JihadJane said:
When a police spy has sex with someone he is spying on (a common occurrence, despite what the police are claiming concerning Kennedy), it is psychological and sexual abuse and, therefore, extremely damaging.

Ex-wife of police spy tells how she fell in love and had children with him
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You know, "Laura" really comes across as unbalanced in that article.

And how creepy is it to describe someone as being "under-developed ideologically" or to say he has "holes in his political development"? That's just weird, like she's suspecting him of not having swallowed all of the kool-aid.
 
Mycroft said:
You know, "Laura" really comes across as unbalanced in that article.

And how creepy is it to describe someone as being "under-developed ideologically" or to say he has "holes in his political development"? That's just weird, like she's suspecting him of not having swallowed all of the kool-aid.
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It's not weird at all.

How did you feel about the psychological and sexual abuse?




Mycroft said:
I basically agree with all this. I wouldn't bother investigating environmentalists groups unless I had strong reason to suspect them to begin with.
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Suspect them of what?
 
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JihadJane said:
It's not weird at all.
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So what do you think are marks of being "under-developed ideologically" or having "holes in ones political development"?

JihadJane said:
How did you feel about the psychological and sexual abuse?
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I don't think you've established that it was either.



JihadJane said:
Suspect them of what?
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A crime? I don't understand your questions. In general, police should investigate suspected criminal activity. If there is no reason to suspect, they should not investigate.

Was there any reason to suspect these groups of criminal activity?
 
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bencg said:
I would question the value for money of operations against tree huggers. £250k/year per undercover, wouldn't we rather have these limited assets (total budget for the ACPO undercover section was ~£1.8m) in more dangerous organisations?
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Well of the more dangerous organisations the northern irish groups and islamic radicals are covered by MI5/6. Until fairly recently our militiant right wing groups have been too small to infiltrate. I assume the animal rights mob already has undercover people in it. Most of the old football hooligan firms are dead.

The activist environmentalists have been something of a pain of late since they've been putting significant effort into avoiding normal policing of their protests. Their dirrect action stuff does cause some economic damage. The other reason they may be of interest is that there is likely some crossover between their dirrect action groups, the more ah agressive anti globalisation protestors and perhaps some of the animal rights groups.
 
Mycroft said:
So what do you think are marks of being "under-developed ideologically" or having "holes in ones political development"?
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In this context it would mean not having the depth of political understanding that informs the protestors' actions and commitment.



I don't think you've established that it was either.
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None of the women (Kennedy was not the only police spy indulging in sexual activity with their targets) have spoken positively about being deceived in such an intimate way but have described it as psychological damaging, abusive, and a gross betrayal of trust.





A crime? I don't understand your questions. In general, police should investigate suspected criminal activity.

If there is no reason to suspect, they should not investigate.
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Simple investigation of crimes is not the subject matter of this thread. My question to you was asking which specific crimes you think justify the vast expense of these spy operations and the psychological damage they leave in their wake both to the police spies and to their targets and to the reputation of the police as an ethical and non-political service to society.

Was there any reason to suspect these groups of criminal activity?
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Yes. Many acts of civil disobedience by non-violent groups trying to save humanity self-destruction involve breaking laws.
 
Mycroft said:
You know, "Laura" really comes across as unbalanced in that article.

And how creepy is it to describe someone as being "under-developed ideologically" or to say he has "holes in his political development"? That's just weird, like she's suspecting him of not having swallowed all of the kool-aid.
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Yeah I agree that its strange language, but its the language of a political radical. What made me laugh is the context she gives it; he refused to help pick up litter when they were camping. Whats funny is that she's kind of right, anyone who leaves litter lying around the countryside is being an antisocial dick. Hardly the type to be an environmentalist! This goes towards the lack of professionalism by the undercovers, you'd think they would have been better than that.
 
geni said:
Well of the more dangerous organisations the northern irish groups and islamic radicals are covered by MI5/6. Until fairly recently our militiant right wing groups have been too small to infiltrate. I assume the animal rights mob already has undercover people in it. Most of the old football hooligan firms are dead.

The activist environmentalists have been something of a pain of late since they've been putting significant effort into avoiding normal policing of their protests. Their dirrect action stuff does cause some economic damage. The other reason they may be of interest is that there is likely some crossover between their dirrect action groups, the more ah agressive anti globalisation protestors and perhaps some of the animal rights groups.
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There isn't as much crossover as you think. I kind of know some militant anarchist anti-globalisation types and they wouldn't be seen dead with enviromentalist protestors because they are too soft. The anarchists would be harder to infiltrate though, just on the basis of how paranoid they are.

Anyway I'm not saying there is never a good reason to investigate enviromentalists, I'm querying a 7 year operation that yields no results in an age of budget cuts and recession. Besides, as far as I can tell no demonstration or action (causing economic damage or not) was ever stopped by this operation apart from possibly the power station action. And its far from clear that that action was actually going to go ahead, from what I read they were still debating amongst themselves if it was even a good idea when the police swooped in.
 
'Mark Kennedy infiltrated German anti-fascists, Bundestag told'


"Kennedy first broke the law during protests at Heiligendamm, the town near Rostock where the G8 meetings took place in 2007. He later committed arson, Der Spiegel said, during a demonstration in Berlin at which he set fire to containers.

The revelations are published today in Der Spiegel, which says Kennedy's involvement in criminal activity during his time in Germany highlights concerns that he was working as an agent provocateur and not just an observer of the activists.

...

Kennedy, who has already been revealed as having conducted numerous sexual relationships with female activists across Europe, is also revealed to have conducted a long-term, long-distance relationship with a woman living in Berlin.

Such behaviour, said [Germany's federal police chief, Jörg] Ziercke, directly contravenes German laws, which forbid undercover agents conducting "tactical love relationships" with those under surveillance. Ziercke went on to acknowledge that Kennedy's behaviour revealed there were obviously "control-deficits" when it comes to foreign undercover officers."
 
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JihadJane said:
Such behaviour, said [Germany's federal police chief, Jörg] Ziercke, directly contravenes German laws, which forbid undercover agents conducting "tactical love relationships" with those under surveillance. Ziercke went on to acknowledge that Kennedy's behaviour revealed there were obviously "control-deficits" when it comes to foreign undercover officers.[/I]"
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I think I heard them on John Peel in the 80s...
 
And finally...

Police apologise to women who had relationships with undercover officers

Met pays substantial compensation and acknowledges relationships were ‘an abuse of police power’



As part of an out-of-court settlement, Martin Hewitt, an assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, issued a statement saying : “Thanks in large part to the courage and tenacity of these women in bringing these matters to light it has become apparent that some officers, acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups, entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships with women which were abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong.

“I acknowledge that these relationships were a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma. I unreservedly apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan police service. I am aware that money alone cannot compensate the loss of time, their hurt or the feelings of abuse caused by these relationships.”
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