We had a 12-month romance. Then I found my boyfriend was really an undercover cop sent to spy on me
It had been a 12-month-long whirlwind romance that ended amicably, but little did Kate Wilson know a phone call six years on would change her life forever.
Ms Wilson was in her mid-twenties when she met who she believed was Mark Stone at an activist meeting in Nottingham in 2003.
The pair hit it off and began a romance which lasted over a year - but it was all a lie.
Mark Stone was actually Mark Kennedy. An undercover police officer sent by the now-disbanded National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) to spy on an activist group Ms Wilson was associated with back in the early 2000s.
Speaking at Wales' Hay Festival, which The Independent has partnered with once again, Ms Wilson described the impact of the immense invasion of privacy and her fight for justice.
'I met Mark at the end of 2003, after he shown up in the summer and befriended some of my friends who were living in Nottingham,' she said.
'We had an awful lot in common. He even liked country music which was pretty much unheard of in the circles I was in. He said he was from Battersea and from a broken home.
'He used to get emotional saying how his mother had brought up two sons on her own - but none of it was true.'
When the relationship ended, the pair kept in touch, with Kennedy visiting Ms Wilson abroad in Barcelona and Berlin.
They remained friends until years later, when she got a phone call from another woman Kennedy had been in a relationship with for six years, telling her that he had been an undercover police officer the entire time.
'We were really close friends right until I got the phone call. A friend of mind said 'Mark's a cop, we've got the proof and we're going public and I don't want you to find out from the internet,'' she said.
Kennedy, who resigned from the Met in 2010, had sexual relationships with as many as 10 other women while undercover.
Ms Wilson's revelation led to legal action against the Met and the National Police Chief's Council (NPCC), both of which have admitted to a number of breaches of Ms Wilson's human rights and apologised for the 'hurt and damage' the intelligence operation caused.
In 2021, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ordered the Met Police and NPCC to pay a total of £229,471 to Ms Wilson 'by way of just satisfaction for the breaches of her human rights'.
She is one of 60 victims of the spycops scandal. Taking place over more than 40 years, from 1968 to at least 2010, the operation is now the subject of a decade-long public inquiry that has already cost £88m and is due to conclude in 2026.
'There is a fundamental problem with secret policing,' Ms Wilson told an audience at the culture and arts festival. 'There's an institutional problem with the fact there's no accountability, but there's also a personal problem when you take these individuals - who are mostly men - and you take them out of all of the normal social controls that make people behave decently.
'They give them new names, they give them a mask, they tell them no one will ever find out who they were or what they did.
'You remove them from their families and give them a whole bunch of power over a group of people - and horrific things happen.'
She sat down to discuss her ordeal with investigative journalist Oliver Bullough in a wide ranging talk at Hay Festival about her new book Disclosure: Unravelling the Spycops File.
'I'm doing alright now but there was some very dark moments,' she said. 'When it first happened I believed that not trusting was a good thing. I thought I had been really naive and trusting was a bad thing. I kind of wore my distrust like a badge of honour.
'I think one of the most important things to me about rebuilding trust is realising that that you can't have a community without trust and actually working to rebuild that stuff because its such an important part of what we do.'
Addressing Ms Wilson's case previously, Helen Ball, the Met's Assistant Commissioner for Professionalism, said: 'It is important to note that since Mark Kennedy's deployment there has been enormous change in undercover policing, both in the Met and nationally, and I want to be clear that this case in no way reflects modern-day undercover policing.'
Chief Constable Alan Pughsley, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for undercover policing, also commented on the 'significant changes' to the way undercover policing is conducted.
'The selection and training of all undercover officers have been standardised and is licensed by the independent body, the College of Policing,' he said.
The Independent
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
23 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Mahmoud Khalil released from US detention after more than three months
Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was released from US immigration detention, where he had been held for more than three months over his activism against Israel's war on Gaza. Khalil, the most high profile of the students to be arrested by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism, and the last of them still in detention, was ordered to be released by a federal judge on Friday afternoon from an Ice facility in Jena, Louisiana
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
'Don't kill the ill' vs 'What a relief': Two terminally ill people on the assisted dying vote
Over the past year, Sky News has been following the journeys of two people who are terminally ill and on opposite sides of the assisted dying debate. Philip, a Christian pastor, views it as suicide and says supporters of the bill need more faith. Clare, a former counsellor, thinks it should be a personal choice, which for her could offer a good death. Philip died two days before Friday's historic vote, which saw MPs vote in favour of assisted dying. "Kill the bill, don't kill the ill," he told Sky News days before he died. Philip said better palliative care can make all the difference. "I still believe it's because of money. It would save millions and millions if they bump off people like me and Clare and others." Philip was resting in a bed in his living room when we spoke to him. Doctors had told him he had just days left. He was struggling to eat and experiencing hallucinations. "Just now, I went to kiss [my wife] Pauline and she's not there." He pointed to a corner of a biscuit he'd been eating over the last three days that's "not even as big as my thumb". "That's the maximum amount of food I can eat because I'm blocked with cancer." "Logically, I should be screaming and ranting and shouting. But I've been organising things like the funeral," he said, explaining that his belief in Jesus means he's at peace with death, however it comes. At times he cries and very often, he winces in pain. Asked what it would mean if the vote was passed, Philip said it would be "a terrible step downwards". Assisted dying would desensitise the British public to death, he explained. "I personally am totally against it, because you're missing out on what God's planned for you. "Because even now, he knows what's going to happen in me, he knows what's going to happen in the other people." He added: "You'll miss the support of people who love you. Because there are people who love you. If you just reach out to them." Philip died on Wednesday morning, two days before the bill's third reading and ascension to the House of Lords. Clare is sitting in her friend's garden in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, surrounded by nature and absorbing the news that the vote has passed. She tells Sky News: "Oh what a relief! Thank goodness. Thank you to all those people who were brave." Clare has breast cancer which has spread to her bones. Her doctors say her lungs have hardened, making it more difficult for her to breathe. "I'm breathless all the time especially if I'm talking. I can't walk very far without being breathless. Now my heart has to work very, very hard to keep my oxygen levels up." Clare has supported the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill from its inception and calls it a "difficult subject". "People are very fearful," she says, before acknowledging that concerns remain for vulnerable people at risk of coercion. "Lots of people have been in controlling relationships, and I really understand how that works. "I've got daughters and I can understand situations where people are thinking, 'oh, I don't want to be a burden on somebody else' and all of that. But I think it's [worth] remembering that this is one choice out of many." Clare is aware it is unlikely the law will change before she dies. "It won't for [be there] me and it hasn't come in time for lots of people, has it?" she says. "All the people that have gone before that would've liked this choice to avoid suffering and indignity." Clare turns 60 this year and is marking her birthday with 60 memorable days. "I'm enjoying life," she says with a big smile. "I don't want to die, but we all have to go."
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
The whole free world has an interest in derailing Iran's nuclear schemes
SIR – Allister Heath is correct in his condemnation of Sir Keir Starmer and Labour for their failings over Israel and Iran ('Trump and Netanyahu are saving the decadent West from its demons', Comment, June 19). I have been impressed by the Israelis' operations against Iran so far, and hope they will be supported to finish the job. Those who value Western freedom should be backing them, and Britain should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with its allies. Yet Sir Keir, David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, and Lord Hermer, the Attorney General ('Hermer: War on Iran may be illegal', report, June 19), have proved an embarrassment. It is also worth remembering that the weakness of multiple European and American leaders allowed Iran to reach the point it is at now. Huw Bell Wetherby, West Yorkshire SIR – Has there ever been an occasion when Lord Hermer's interventions and advice have reflected what most of us consider to be the national interest? Bob Hart Newark, Nottinghamshire SIR – With our Government in the hands of international lawyers, our enemies may rest assured that we are more likely to prosecute our own soldiers than a war against them. Michael Staples Seaford, East Sussex SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, June 17) is absolutely right that we owe real debts to Ukraine and Israel. Ukraine deserves full-hearted support against the tyranny of Vladimir Putin, which menaces all of Europe. Israel has been on the front line fighting Islamist tyranny for almost 50 years. Western calls for 'de-escalation' in Israel's astonishing and understandable offensive against that tyranny are misplaced. Never forget that the Ayatollahs of Iran have spent almost five decades trying to murder the Jewish people of Israel. By contrast, the Israelis seek only to destroy Iran's genocidal regime, and hope then to live in peace with the Iranian people, as they did until the Islamists overthrew the Shah in 1979. William Shawcross London W2 SIR – After the G7, which Donald Trump left early, Britain and its European allies must realise they can no longer be sure of American support in the defence of Ukraine or their own borders. We've seen the vulnerability of Ukraine, Israel and Iran to attacks from the air, and have nothing like their air-defence capabilities. Arbitrary percentages of GDP, which include all manner of non-defence-related expenditure, are blatantly insufficient. Now is the time to cut the rhetoric and prepare adequately for the threats we know are out there. Gp Capt Ron Powell (retd) Barry, Glamorgan
