Palpable Solidarity

Spycops ought to be a scandal to rank with the Post Office and with contaminated blood. Alison writes:

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.

Lambert’s story reads like a modern-day morality play in which the protagonist is tested and opportunities for redemption are ignored. He and his wife tragically lost two children, and then, after revelations by activists about his undercover role, he had the chance to reconcile with the son he conceived and abandoned while undercover.

I had naively imagined this blessing might have touched his soul, and had hoped he would provide a clear, honest account in which he took full responsibility for his actions: for the deceitful relationships during which he denied the women informed consent; for abandoning his son and the mother of his child; and for the smears and false allegations about the activists he was spying on. Instead of a mea culpa, however, I have endured what felt like the contrived performance of a professional manipulator. If you didn’t know he had completed a 5km run only last month, you may be taken in by the frail, elderly man act. It seemed like his priority, above all else, was self-preservation.

I have attended in person as many hearings of the inquiry as possible, and those of the past fortnight have been among the most shocking. 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).

All of these women presented the inquiry with frank accounts supported by evidence. Watching from the public gallery, I felt proud of them for their integrity and for the courageous part they have played in exposing this misogynistic policing scandal.

Lambert’s testimony could not have been more of a contrast. 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. Where they provided written and photographic evidence to back up their accounts, he provided nothing. And where they answered direct questions with direct answers, he offered verbal meanderings, taking his listeners down, around and back up the garden path – anything to avoid a simple, incriminating “yes” or “no”.

Becoming increasingly exasperated by the man’s gall, I couldn’t help wonder whether Jenner will take a lead from this arch manipulator when it is his turn, sometime next year. What will he say about me? Will he imply he was doing me a favour having sex with me? That the relationship was neither for intelligence-gathering nor cover? That he was kind, considerate and respectful towards me at all times? That he definitely wasn’t a womaniser, having always – until his undercover deployment – been faithful to his wife? And that he fell in love with me (despite what the Met commissioner may have said in an apology about these relationships being “deceitful”, “abusive” and “wrong”), and his feelings towards me were genuine? That only a psychiatrist of a “certain stature” could explain the disconnect between his real self and his alter ego?

In evidence from various witnesses who knew Lambert’s alter ego well, apparently “Robinson” was an articulate, charismatic man who warmed up a room. If Robinson was a radiator, Lambert is a drain. With unnaturally slow pace, circuitous narratives going nowhere and constant pauses, his inarticulate testimony sapped the listener’s energy. The public gallery was filled with yawns and sighs of despair as we suffered his repeated assertion that “today, I cannot recall”.

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”.

He admitted it was wrong to have deceived the women, and offered a “genuine” apology. However, apart from Jacqui, with whom he shares a son, Lambert has failed to apologise to any of these women in person, prior to the inquiry. 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.

Despite all of this frustration and anger, there is an upside. As well as the palpable solidarity in the public gallery, it has been satisfying to watch David Barr, the inquiry’s chief barrister, perform an important public service as he reveals, step by step and with deadpan delivery, the holes in Lambert’s account. I am managing my expectations, of course, but this – along with some pointed interventions by the chair, Sir John Mitting – has finally restored a little of my faith in this inquiry.