MPS told to confirm or deny sexual relationships

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has been told to either confirm or deny allegations made against two officers who have been alleged to have had sexual relationships with women while undercover.

A High Court judge said the force can no longer use a “neither confirm nor deny” policy in its legal battle with five women who say they were duped into sexual relationships with the officers between 1987 and 2007.

Mr Justice Bean said the MPS would not be entitled to rely on the policy in relation to whether an individual “is or was an undercover officer” to avoid pleading to the allegations made by the women.

The women are seeking compensation for emotional trauma allegedly caused by officers infiltrating environmental activist groups.

Mr Justice Bean said: “The claims relate to alleged activities of officers of the SDS (special demonstration squad) prior to its disbandment in 2008. It is not suggested that the use of long-term sexual relationships of this kind as a police tactic is continuing. It is also not argued that it would be appropriate now, nor that – if it did occur – it was appropriate then.”

Last month, the women`s lawyers told the High Court that although the MPS had issued a general denial, it had not provided “any defence” to any of the allegations. In March, the MPS said its policy meant it could not properly defend itself.

The force now has 28 days to change its defence to either admit or deny that officers engaged in long-term intimate sexual relationships with those whose activities they were asked to observe, whether they were authorised in or acquiesced to by senior management, and whether the aliases the men were known by, Jim Sutton and Bob Robinson, were undercover officers.

Solicitor Harriet Wistrich, of Birnberg Peirce and Partners, is representing the women. Following the decision, she said: “The police have been on notice of this case for three and a half years and until this judgment they have wilfully refused to engage in any meaningful way with the most serious allegations put to them.”

The allegations surfaced after it was revealed in 2011 that PC Mark Kennedy, a MPS officer, spent seven years infiltrating environmental activists. During that time, he allegedly formed intimate, sexual relationships with a number of activists he was spying on.