Undercover officer admits lying to spycops inquiry about sexual relationship

An undercover police officer who spent years infiltrating leftwing and animal rights groups has admitted lying to the official inquiry investigating police spying operations. The officer, who used the fake name Dave Evans, initially told the spycops inquiry under oath that he had not engaged in any sexual relationships during his deployment. This week, he was forced to reverse that account and acknowledge a sexual relationship with a woman that lasted at least six months—possibly as long as two years, though he said he could not recall precisely.

The admission came only after campaigners presented evidence of the relationship to the inquiry. Evans had worked undercover between 1998 and 2005, infiltrating the Socialist Workers Party and animal rights organizations including London Animal Action. During this time, he posed as a landscape gardener. He met the woman, identified in the inquiry as Olivia, in 1998 while attending a college course under his false identity. He never told her he was a police officer. The inquiry heard that Evans and Olivia attended social events together with animal rights campaigners and participated in at least one demonstration.

When questioned by Don Ramble, a barrister at the inquiry, about whether he had lied in his original statement four years ago, Evans said he accepted that it "was not completely truthful with hindsight." In a second statement signed this year, he acknowledged that he should have disclosed the relationship with Olivia. His explanation for the initial omission was that because Olivia was not an activist and not part of any target group, he did not consider it relevant to report.

Evans is one of approximately 139 undercover officers deployed by police over more than four decades to monitor tens of thousands of primarily leftwing activists. The spycops inquiry, which has been running for more than a decade, has documented a pattern of sexual relationships between undercover officers and women they encountered during their deployments. A central focus of the investigation is that these officers frequently had sexual relations without disclosing their true identities. Four of the undercover officers fathered, or are alleged to have fathered, children with women they met while working undercover.

The case of Evans echoes a more widely known instance involving another undercover officer, John Dines, who deceived Helen Steel, a social justice campaigner, into a two-year relationship. Steel was a defendant in the celebrated McLibel case and has since become a prominent voice in exposing police misconduct. She spent 18 years searching for Dines after discovering the truth about his identity. At one point, senior police officers spent £2.5 million in public funds to relocate Dines to prevent Steel from finding him. It was Steel who, along with other campaigners, brought evidence of Evans's relationship with Olivia to the attention of the inquiry.

The Evans admission arrives as the government considers whether to continue the remaining stages of the spycops inquiry or alter its format. The inquiry has been examining widespread wrongdoing by undercover officers, including not only sexual deception but other forms of misconduct during surveillance operations. Victims and their advocates have warned that any decision to curtail or restructure the inquiry would amount to a cover-up of systemic failures within the police service. The question of how the inquiry will proceed remains unresolved.