Scotland Yard spied on critics of police corruption

Undercover officers in Special Demonstration Squad targeted political campaigns against Metropolitan police
The Guardian
Jun. 26, 2013

Scotland Yard deployed undercover officers in political groups that sought to uncover corruption in the Metropolitan police and campaigned for justice for people who had died in custody, the Guardian can reveal.

At least three officers from the controversial Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) spied on London-based activist groups.

Mark Jenner, an undercover officer, used the identity "Mark Cassidy" in the 1990s to penetrate the Colin Roach Centre, which was named after a 21-year-old black British man who died in the foyer of Stoke Newington police station in north-east London. The campaigners worked with people who said they had been mistreated, wrongfully arrested or assaulted by police in the local borough – Hackney – which was at the time mired in a serious corruption scandal.

Jenner, who was married with children, had a five-year relationship with a woman he was spying on before his deployment ended in 2000.

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