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An undercover officer who deceived three women into sexual relationships said his superiors did nothing to prevent him from doing so, the spycops public inquiry has heard.
Jim Boyling, who infiltrated environmental and animal rights activist groups for five years, said senior managers turned a blind eye to undercover officers having deceitful sexual relationships, often lasting years, with women. His managers adopted an attitude of “don’t ask, don’t tell”, he said.
The three women have described how his betrayal devastated them. Boyling said he did not consider whether they would have consented to having an intimate relationship with him if they had known that in reality he was a police spy. He believed that they would never discover his true identity “so it was not an issue”.
Boyling received formal letters praising his covert work from the then home secretary Jack Straw and senior police officers for gathering information about protesters.
This week, he is giving evidence to the inquiry which is examining how about 139 undercover officers spied on predominantly leftwing campaigners between 1968 and at least 2010.
A central issue is how undercover officers regularly formed longstanding sexual relationships with women using their fake personas. Last week, Sir John Mitting, the retired judge leading the inquiry, said the impact of the deceptive relationships on the women had “become very clear in the course of the hearings I have been conducting”.
Boyling said the managers in his Metropolitan police unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), knew that the relationships were “inevitable”, but did not want to discuss the issue openly and left it up to the undercover officers to deal with them.
He said: “At no time, before or during my deployment, was I ever specifically told not to have sexual relationships whilst in my undercover identity.”
He said about half of the SDS undercover officers while he was in the unit had sexual relationships with activists without disclosing their true identities.
Matt Rayner, one of them, told Boyling that a relationship with an activist could gain the confidence of “the inner circle” of campaigners, and “break through the glass ceiling of acceptance”.
During his deployment between 1995 and 2000, Boyling became the treasurer of the Reclaim the Streets (RTS) environmental group. He had a key role in organising its protests, but at the same time was passing information to his police supervisors.
In 1997, he had a six-month relationship with an RTS activist, known as Monica. She said his betrayal “really knocked my confidence and made me feel ashamed, exposed and humiliated … I feel strongly that what has happened to me and others was very wrong. I was sexually violated.”
In November 1997, Boyling started a relationship with a second RTS activist, known as Ruth, which lasted 18 months. It was her first significant relationship. She said his behaviour was repulsive, adding she felt “conned, betrayed, emotionally and sexually manipulated and very much used”.
Boyling had a relationship with a third RTS campaigner, known as Rosa, that started in late 1999 and lasted until August 2000 when he disappeared at the end of his deployment. He reappeared in 2001 at which point he told her he had been an undercover officer. They resumed their relationship and had two children. She has said he trapped her in “an increasingly abusive and controlling relationship”, adding: “He had me isolated from all my friends, comrades and associates.” He denies this.
