A few weeks ago, the day time Television series Missing set in a busy, under-resourced missing persons unit starring Pauline Quirke included ,a subplot involved a young female environmental activist reporting her lover going missing . It later transpired that he was a undercover Policeman who had began to feel guilty over his role and had asked to be reassigned.
In remarkable coincidence in the last week we have had the collapse of a trial of green activists after undercover Metropolitan Police officer Mark Kennedy/Stone indicated he would vouch for the defence. He has been working undercover with the group for seven years and had formed a relationship with a female member despite being married in hid "Real Life".
I'm surprised someone at the BBC hasn't pointed out the similarities as it was they investigations who helped expose the story .
But they and the rest of the Media seem to be very reluctant to ask how many other members of the police force are undercover at the time and to what extent these are acting as Agent Provocateurs.
For if a minor environmental action group has had a Policeman working undercover for seven years. What other groups have been infiltrated, and what is the criteria is being used t justify this ? Are the Police making a political judgement?
In the late 1970 when I was active for Plaid Cymru in the Ponypridd Constituency there was concern raised by some members that a highly prominent member was a spy for the security forces. Part of the reason for this was because he admitted to having some vague Military Intelligence background Nothing came of it but the person involved later moved to Mid-Wales where he changed his name (quite openly) to a more "Welsh" one.
It is highly probable that the fears where groundless, and in fact the person involved was probably a major asset to Plaid in the Constituency during his time he was with us.
However, I suspect based on the Kennedy /Stone example that many organisations have been infiltrated from time to time either by the Police or Security forced, irrespective of whether they are law abiding or not., but in most cases this was s often more like MFI than MI5 and like the former after a lot of work setting up soon fall apart.
Baring in mind that Kennedy/Stone was known as Van Man,because he often provided the Transport for the activist. I would recommend that If you have a strong suspicion that someone in your group is infiltrator then I would use them in such a manner and get Transport etc provided by them (or rather the Tax payer) whilst ensuring they never reach an important role in the day to day organisation
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