# Former lovers of undercover officers sue police over deceit (UK) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545 "2011-12-17T17:17:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![williambaskerville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f14d63/32.png) [@williambaskerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/williambaskerville)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/21 "2011-12-18T10:58:47Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > No they were not “raped”, a word that gets thrown around a lot too easily these days. They misread their partner’s creditworthiness, you can only have rape in a circumstance like this if they had been misled as to identity. You seem to have missed the point that they were mislead as to his identity. He specifically and deliberately set out to mislead them about his identity. (And did you mean to use the word creditworthiness ? It seems inappropriate,somehow). And yes, I agree the rape word gets thrown about too easily these days. I think it applies in this case. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/22 "2011-12-18T10:59:04Z")
> [@williambaskerville](#): > > Yes, there’s a lot of illusion and delusion in seduction. Am I the only one for whom this has never (to my knowledge) been the case? I’m a bit boggled by the assumption that lying and deceit is just something that ‘happens’ when people have sex. Has anyone reading this ever eg pretended to be £100k-a-year banker rather than a £20k-a-year website editor? It seems like the kind of thing that only happens in hypotheticals, and would fall apart in about 30 seconds in real life. > [@AK84](#): > > you can only have rape in a circumstance like this if they had been misled as to identity. This happened. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/23 "2011-12-18T11:21:16Z")
[QUOTE=WilliamBaskerville] You seem to have missed the point that they were mislead as to his identity. He specifically and deliberately set out to mislead them about his identity. (And did you mean to use the word creditworthiness ? It seems inappropriate,somehow). [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=SecondJudith] This happened. [/QUOTE] Being misled as to identity and being misled as to credit worthiness are two seperate things in English law. The first will generally negate any consent, the second will not. In the first instance, being misled as to identity means that you were misled about the s_pecific identity_ of the person you were dealing with, you intended to deal with a _specific person_ and the deceiver pretended to be/ made you believe that you were that specific person. So for example the if a man pretends to be a woman’s husband and has sex with her, then its certainly rape because she was deceived into believing that he was a specific person he was not. In the second instance of deception, you have been deceived about\* certain attributes\* of the persons you are dealing with and the specific identity is not really at issue. So, you know that a woman enjoys the company of literature majors, and you then parrot some hastily learnt poetry and get her into bed, that not rape because the deceit (and yes there is deceit here) is not of a nature that it would make her consent (or say promise to buy something) void from the beginning. In this case it is a clear example of the second example, being misled as to creditworthiness. The women entered into a relationship with a Mark Stone (to take one example from the storys) who claimed to be an environmental activist when he was not. The deciet was as to particular attributes, which does not negate consent. Now if there had been a Mark Stone, who was an environmental activist and who the women thought they were dealing with, then it would have been a deceit which went to identity. Finally its called creditworthiness as this kind of deceit arose up first in the 19th century when many persons claimed to be members of the aristocracy in order to obtain property on credit and then disappear without paying. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/24 "2011-12-18T16:50:03Z")
Its amazing what people will consider taking legal action over if they think that theres money in it for them if they’re successful. I once went with a girl who said that she was an incredible lay, she wasn’t, in fact it turned out that she was a virgin. So I’d better get the number of a good lawyer for the emotional disappointment she caused me… ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/25 "2011-12-18T16:56:24Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Emotionally using someone connected to a criminal organization is probably not going to rate. I never would have slept with him if I knew he was a cop is gonna hold up as well as “I would not have sold him drugs if knew he was a cop”. They were part of protest groups supposedly, not drug dealers. Not that it should matter. Also: > [@](#): > > Police chiefs claim it is “grossly unprofessional” and “never acceptable” for undercover officers to have sex with people they are targeting. The women were involved in the campaigns being infiltrated or loosely connected to them. I said “sexual assault” not “rape”, but I’m more voicing my opinion on the matter than throwing around any legal terms. But I’m a known prude in these parts, so :D. I think it’s one of the worst things you can do to a woman or man, really. Edit: Getting women to sleep with you as part of your job. Glamorous. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/26 "2011-12-18T17:00:23Z")
Cops do stuff like that all the time (try to trick people into thinking they are friendly and compassionate, lying, etc). I can understand how that would damage your ability to trust other people but cops, to a larger degree than most people realize, behave like con artists and bullies in the pursuit of their jobs. It may not sit well with apologists who want to believe cops are all heroic, trustworthy and honest, but it is true. Granted, they serve a useful purpose but a spade is a spade. If a con artist did this would it be illegal? Where is the line between what is legal and illegal in deception? I don’t know. Why would you need a 9 year undercover operation anyway? And why would police think doing something like this would help them infiltrate? Cops win the battle but then lose the war. You can get ahead in the short term by tricking and lying to the public, or by pepper spraying college kids. In the short term those are great tactics But in the long run all you do is alienate and enrage the public. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/27 "2011-12-18T18:00:40Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > They were part of protest groups supposedly, not drug dealers. Not that it should matter. Also: > > I said “sexual assault” not “rape”, but I’m more voicing my opinion on the matter than throwing around any legal terms. But I’m a known prude in these parts, so :D. > > I think it’s one of the worst things you can do to a woman or man, really. > > Edit: Getting women to sleep with you as part of your job. Glamorous. Sigh. I understand your point, but under the guise of “Animal Rights”, here in the U.K. people have been perpetrating what can only be called recreational terrorism. Supposedly because of their deep love of animals people have been planting I.E.D.s and practicising sadistic stalking on people who have been "guilty " of working for a company that uses animal testing for medical research. I was myself a member of Save the Whales, (And am still a pasionate advocate of the total ban on whaling), but we always used to get these creepy people who always wanted an excuse to practice their sick fantasies on others. I honestly believe that they’d rationalised their behaviour so as to convince themselves that they were doing it “for the cause”, rather then the fact that they were getting a thrill out of setting things alight and enjoying the power trip of making ordinary people frightened of them. The Old Bill put undercover officers into these groups because of what some of these not very pleasant people might be planning, not because of their beliefs. I personally believe that the police were wrong, and the people that they used for the job were pathetic to say the least. The money would have been better spent on buying puncture repair kits for police bicycles. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/28 "2011-12-18T18:37:23Z")
Forgive me. The article linked _was_ the Guardian and I had no idea if it was a domestic terrorist org or a legit non-violent activist org. 🙂 But I’m wondering - did he really have to have sex with multiple women to ‘get the information’? Doubtful. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/29 "2011-12-18T19:59:34Z")
A thought experiment: would it be different if it were an undercover reporter? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/30 "2011-12-18T22:24:31Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > No they were not “raped”, a word that gets thrown around a lot too easily these days. They misread their partner’s creditworthiness, you can only have rape in a circumstance like this if they had been misled as to identity. IANAL, especially a sex-crimes one! I’ve heard something similar. It isn’t “rape” unless the deceit touches your identity, or the nature of what you intend to do. So if I convince someone to go to bed with me by pretending to be her husband, then that’s rape. If a doctor asks for permission to perform a vaginal inspection but actually intends to touch her for sexual purposes, that may be rape. If Joe lies and says he has a PhD and Jane goes to bed with her, it is scumbagish but not rape. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/31 "2011-12-18T22:46:05Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Emotionally using someone connected to a criminal organization is probably not going to rate. I never would have slept with him if I knew he was a cop is gonna hold up as well as “I would not have sold him drugs if knew he was a cop”. Protest groups are not criminal organisations. In at least one of these cases there has not been a succesful criminal prosecution coming out of these investigations. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/32 "2011-12-19T00:01:30Z")
Whether it’s a sexual assault or not- imagine thinking you’re in a relationship for _9 years_, only for your partner to disappear, then you find out the whole thing was not just a lie, and your boyfriend had a wife and kids, but the whole thing was coordinated by your government. We’re not talking a one-night stand here; that’s a hell of a chunk of life. Oh, and I don’t believe any of the women in these cases have been charged with any crimes as a result of this; if they have, it’s not been reported at all, and some are reported to not even have been active members in the organisations under investigation. A lot of these investigations seem to be without any actual aim, for a pointlessly long time and even the undercover operatives themselves seem to have had problems afterwards. Read [this](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/apr/19/mark-kennedy-saga-disbanding-acpo?intcmp=239), and tell me it sounds like a good use of public funds. The whole thing’s a freaking mess, for everyone involved. It’s bloody embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/33 "2011-12-19T00:41:41Z")
What if children came of this relationship? They are playing with a human heart, and trained to be able to deceive someone at the deepest level. It just sounds so evil, the people who commit this act of deception are the ones who are the danger to society. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/34 "2011-12-19T15:26:29Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > A thought experiment: would it be different if it were an undercover reporter? I think the issue being raised in the lawsuit is not to bust the individual cops but bust the organization they work for since it was that organization which pushed for these actions. So, in your hypothetical, I would not say the reporter is liable but rather the media company he/she worked for _if_ the media company somehow pushed for the sexual liaison (e.g. “Seduce that politician’s spouse so we can get some inside dirt on them”). ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/35 "2011-12-19T18:45:59Z")
Interesting to note that one of the undercover cops admitted that he was proactive in trying to get these activists to commit crimes. > **[Mark Kennedy (police officer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_(police_officer))** > > Mark Kennedy (born 7 July 1969), undercover name Mark Stone, is a former London Metropolitan Police officer who, whilst attached to the police service's National Public Order Intelligence Unit, (NPOIU) infiltrated many protest groups between 2003 and 2010 before he was unmasked by political activists as an undercover policeman on 21 October 2010 and his identity was confirmed by the media three days later. During his time under cover he manipulated and deceived several women into h Kennedy was... A whole bunch of prosecutions fell apart when this happened [http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/interview-mike-schwarz](http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/interview-mike-schwarz) We have also had murder trials completely fall apart and convictions overturned > **[Killing of Rachel Nickell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Rachel_Nickell)** > > Rachel Jane Nickell (23 November 1968 – 15 July 1992) was a British woman who was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in south-west London on 15 July 1992. The initial police investigation of the crime resulted in the arrest in controversial circumstances of an innocent man, who was acquitted. Her killer, Robert Napper, was identified by a later police investigation and convicted in 2008. > Nickell was walking with her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common when she was stabbed 49 times in the ne... In this case, the person originally prosectued in court was show to be wholly innocent, and another person was later convicted. > **[Archive news from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus](https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/archive/1999/09/04/Bradford+District+Archive/8063920.Murder_case_ruined_my_life/)** > > Archive news from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus Take a look at the dangers to mental health that this can impose on the UC officer > **[Covert police officer: 'After 12 years undercover, I was a broken](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/covert-police-officer-after-12-years-undercover-i-was-a-broken-biscuit-2185729.html)** > > You're on your own, leading a double life, risking all for years on end. No wonder Mark Kennedy turned, says another secret policeman who threw in the towel Seems odd to me that the Undercover police operative can claim and win compensation - as per the Stagg case - and yet the the real victims of this duplicity have to struggle, both to clear their names due to the selective way in which evidence that might have supported their defence was concealed and also the way in which their emotional wellbeing was jeopardised. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/36 "2011-12-19T19:53:24Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > In general I agree but somehow it seems different when it is not just two people but rather something being pushed by the government. I don’t think it fills be with happy thoughts, either, but there’s a damn big berm of difference between being a jerk and being liable for damages. If you grant someone the right to sue for a romantic relationship being “deceitful” then within a few months our courts will be full of nothing but. Why stop at romances that are deceitful over the person being an undercover cop? Can I sue a girlfriend for saying she loves me when she just wanted money? If I tell a woman I want to be with her forever to get into her pants, I’m a jerk but do you really want to pay for the court costs of a lawsuit? What if I marry someone and tell them my parents are great when my parents are, in fact, interfering ass-hats? (They’re not, really, it’s just an example.) Furthermore, how do we even know all romances undercover officers engage in are wholly deceitful? Maybe Detective Smith actually does love Jennifer the Suspect; he’s lying about not being a cop but he could genuinely have feeling for Jennifer. How do you parse that out? This is why so many jurisdictions are going to no-fault divorce laws; because H"e said she said" is really not something the government needs to waste its time with. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/37 "2011-12-19T20:47:41Z")
[quote=“RickJay, post:36, topic:606545”] If you grant someone the right to sue for a romantic relationship being “deceitful” then within a few months our courts will be full of nothing but. QUOTE] That slippery slope thing usually doesn’t work very well in the courtroom. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/38 "2011-12-19T21:34:04Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > Emotionally using someone connected to a criminal organization is probably not going to rate. I never would have slept with him if I knew he was a cop is gonna hold up as well as “I would not have sold him drugs if knew he was a cop”. From the OP: “They say the men, who had been sent to _infiltrate protest groups_, were using them “physically and emotionally” to obtain intelligence about those campaigns.” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/39 "2011-12-19T22:40:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I don’t think it fills be with happy thoughts, either, but there’s a damn big berm of difference between being a jerk and being liable for damages. > > If you grant someone the right to sue for a romantic relationship being “deceitful” then within a few months our courts will be full of nothing but. Why stop at romances that are deceitful over the person being an undercover cop? Can I sue a girlfriend for saying she loves me when she just wanted money? If I tell a woman I want to be with her forever to get into her pants, I’m a jerk but do you really want to pay for the court costs of a lawsuit? What if I marry someone and tell them my parents are great when my parents are, in fact, interfering ass-hats? (They’re not, really, it’s just an example.) > > Furthermore, how do we even know all romances undercover officers engage in are wholly deceitful? Maybe Detective Smith actually does love Jennifer the Suspect; he’s lying about not being a cop but he could genuinely have feeling for Jennifer. How do you parse that out? > > This is why so many jurisdictions are going to no-fault divorce laws; because H"e said she said" is really not something the government needs to waste its time with. They are not suing the individuals (near as I can tell). They are suing the government for having policies that make this happen. I think that is a difference worth noting in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Comicenbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Comicenbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comicenbe)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545/40 "2011-12-19T23:59:05Z")
“duped into forming long-term loving relationships with undercover policemen have started legal action” Lol…what? You can sue someone for falling in love? -.- [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/former-lovers-of-undercover-officers-sue-police-over-deceit-uk/606545.md?page=3)