Spy Cops: The Secret Police Scandal

Published by Stephen Milward in Politics · Sunday 27 Sep 2026 · 9 minutes
Tags: Police, Bristish, State, Spy

The Undercover Policing Inquiry (i) is taking place at the moment (December 2025). That such an inquiry is necessary tells you something about bourgeois State power in the U.K. No peaceful protest group is immune from the most disgusting practices of the secret police.

The evidence of 'Alison' regarding Mark Jenner, agent HN15 (also known as Mark Cassidy) points to a state where normal moral values are ignored and any abhorrent practise by state actors is allowed. In this case, deception of 'Alison' and his wife and children (ii). The Met's SDS (Special Demonstration Squad) (iii) tactics included lying, having intimate relationships and collusion.

These women are victims of the British State. They have had to fight for themselves, setting up their own organisation 'Police Spies Out Of Lives' (iv).

The British State is frightened by peaceful protest groups, trade unions, anti-fascist groups and so many more. Who knows what information is being gathered about ordinary people who haven't broken any laws but just have different views and come together to try to improve the lives of people? How is this information gathered? Who sees it? Who take action based on it? Who watches the spies? We now know that surveillance reports were sent to MI5 (v).

Spying and infiltration is not a new thing. An example is Roman Malinovsky (vi), the Bolshevik Duma member, close to Lenin (who defended him at times), but was a spy for the Okhrana secret police. He was denounced as as spy by Martov as early as 1913. He betrayed prominent politicians and was executed in 1918.

So, where do we go from here? Will the state stop spying on it's own population? I doubt it, no matter how many inquiries are held, how many apologies are made. The bourgeois state is so frightened by it's own shadow they would allow the police spies to carry on regardless. To defend against this is hard, but must be done if freedom, real democracy and the right to protest is to be maintained.

My last thought is for 'Alison'. No-one deserves the kind of treatment she received from the state. I wish her and her fellow victims well.

15 February 2026: The Guardian has an article featuring Jim Boyling, an undercover officer (spy) and comments by the 'internal police review in 2009 (vii). Especially disgusting are the comments by DCI Keith Edmondson, the head of the SDS (Special Demonstration Squad). It's clear that the SDS did not care about the rule of law.

To keep up with this scandal please visit the Guardian's coverage of the Spy Cops scandal

25 February 2026: In a not unrelated topic, the Guardian today reports that the British police and MI5 targeted a then BBC journalist, Vincent Kearney, in an attempt to identify sources. If this is true, it is illegal and shows to what lengths the British state will attempt to defend itself (viii).

01 March 2026: The Guardian reports that Carlo Soracchi), a spy cop between 2000 and 2006, is facing allegations that he went to Venice with a socialist woman he was spying on, paid for by the taxpayer (ix). His supervisor, DS Stephen Beels, stayed in Verona to support him. You have to remember that there was a Labour government in power during those years. Another alleged example of the cowardly British state machine showing secret anti-democratic behaviours.

22 March 2026: A spycop exposed his own pathetic infiltration of an anti-capitalist group. (x)

29 March 2026: Rob Hastings, who infiltrated pro-Palestinian and left wing protest groups for three years during his covert deployment, was convicted of assaulting his now ex-partner and mother of his three children in 2014. He was sacked by the Metropolitan police for gross misconduct as a result. (xi)

21 July 2026: The Guardian reports (xii) that Paul Condon (xiii), a former Metropolitan police commissioner (xiv) admitted that the force, including therefore himself, failed to control the SDS (Special Demonstration Squad). This included the SDS spying on the family of Stephen Lawrence (xv). The state allowed this. They thought that their actions were acceptable in a civilised society. Instead, they showed their true colours - the secret police, liars, cheaters, deceivers, without any ethical compass, a group who thought that any action by them was OK. We should not accept this as some of 'price we pay for freedom'. With this scandal, we cannot say that we, the people, are free of state surveillance. While ever the SDS and state organs like them exists, we cannot believe that we can live our lives truly free. We are all seen as a threat to the state, and the state will stop at nothing to destroy that so-called threat. Just to rub salt in the wound, Paul Condon was rewarded with a peerage in 2001, therefore embedding his behaviour into the British legal system and state.

26 July 2026: The Guardian reports (xvi) that the Metropolitan police spent £2.5m protecting a spycop, John Dines, from his victim and former partner, Helen Steel (xvii). The state protects the spy and not the victim! Another example of how the state is scared of an activist, even to the extent of one of their spies having a sexual relationship with the activist. Is that the state you want? Should we be content to live in a state that does such things to innocent victims that disagree with their sub-human, perverted view and then sanctions this vile behaviour towards what they see as a threat? Dines even spied on Keir Starmer (xviii), accessing details of his legal advice (xix). This is the behaviour that we are told goes on in China, Russia... in fact any state that we seemingly have a problem with. But it's happening here, in the U.K. We should condemn and call out this secret state at every opportunity. To be silent is to be complicit.

02 August 2026: The Guardian reports (xx) that John Boutcher (xxi), the man who closed the SDS and now Chief Constable of the PSNI (xxii), said that it was badly run and most of the political groups being infiltrated 'posed no threat to public order, let alone democracy', It looks to me that the SDS saw themselves as beyond reproach and duly went rogue, out of control and toxic. My question is this - can we be sure that there are no more SDS types, spying on society as before? I can't be and nor should you.

20 September 2026: The Guardian reports (xxiii) that the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood (xxiv), wants to curtail the spycops inquiry because of cost and the length of it. Why would a Labour government want that? What are they afraid of? Is it a crude attempt at a cover-up? Is it what the victims want? In short, what does the government want to hide that has yet to come out?

27 September 2026: The Guardian reports (xxv) that a spycop, known as 'Dave Evans', a fake name, lied to the inquiry about a sexual relationship. In other words, state actors will even go to the level of lying to an inquiry to hide their actions. What are the consequences of these actions? Will 'Dave Evans' be prosecuted? Was he rewarded for his lying? It's clear that the inquiry must not be stopped, since the truth is yet to fully come out and victims of the state's passion for spying on it's own peaceful people is still rampant.

(i) Undercover Policing Inquiry: 2015 to present. https://www.ucpi.org.uk/

(ii) The Guardian 17 December 2025: Undercover officer admits deceiving woman into five-year relationship

(iii) Wikipedia: Special Demonstration Squad

(iv) Police Spies Out Of Lives: https://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/

(v) The Guardian 04 January 2026: Spycops sent thousands of surveillance reports to MI5, inquiry documents reveal

(vi) The Bolsheviks In The Tsarist Duma Chapter 17: https://www.marxists.org/archive/badayev/1929/duma/ch17.html

(vii) The Guardian 15 February 2026: Senior police praised undercover officer who lied to court about identity, papers at spycops inquiry show

(viii) The Guardian 25 February 2026: Police and MI5 waged campaign of illegal interference against ex-BBC journalist, tribunal told

(ix) The Guardian 01 March 2026: Undercover officer allegedly used public money for romantic break in Venice

(x) The Guardian 22 March 2026: Undercover police officer exposed by his own blunder, spycops inquiry hears

(xi) The Guardian 29 March 2026: Undercover police officer was sacked for assaulting partner, spycops inquiry hears

(xii) The Guardian 21 July 2026: Former Met police chief admits force failed to properly control spycops unit