Daily Weird News Report
The Crown Prosecution Service is considering whether to bring criminal charges against 12 former police officers connected to controversial undercover operations targeting political groups, according to The Guardian.
The CPS is reviewing an evidence file sent by the National Police Chiefs’ Council after a police investigation known as Operation Montrose. The possible charge is misconduct in public office, although authorities have not disclosed what wrongdoing is alleged in relation to the 12 officers.
The case follows scrutiny of Mark Kennedy, a former undercover officer who infiltrated environmental and leftwing groups for six years. Working under a false identity, Kennedy posed as a protester while operating for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit between 2003 and 2009. He had intimate relationships with women who did not know he was a police spy.
One of those women, campaigner Kate Wilson, won a tribunal case in 2021. Judges found that police had grossly violated her human rights and concluded that senior officers responsible for Kennedy’s work either knew about the relationship, deliberately avoided knowing, or failed through incompetence or negligence to act on warning signs.
The wider scandal concerns 139 undercover officers who monitored tens of thousands of mainly leftwing activists over more than four decades. The operations ran from 1968 until at least 2010. Public inquiries and investigations have examined allegations including sexual relationships formed through deception, false identities used in court, and the adoption of identities belonging to dead children.
The Guardian reported that any prosecution arising from the CPS review would be the first criminal case against an officer involved in the undercover operations for wrongdoing that had not been authorised by managers. However, the CPS has not announced whether charges will be approved.
Kennedy’s lawyer declined to comment. The police investigation began after Kennedy’s identity was uncovered in 2010, helping trigger wider revelations about the conduct and oversight of undercover officers.
