Kate Wilson shares the story of her battle against SpyCops from her new book "Disclosure: Unravelling the SpyCops Files" and Chris Brian from the Undercover Research Group introduces a new web resource about this ongoing but under-reported scandal.

The term "spycops" refers to the long-running scandal involving undercover police officers in the UK who infiltrated and monitored more than 1,000 political and justice groups, including those campaigning for environmental, anti-racism, feminist, and a range of other social causes (including mainstream political parties, trade unions, and many others). A public inquiry into the abuses began in 2015 and is ongoing.

Core aspects of this under-reported scandal include:

• Deceitful intimate relationships: Undercover officers manipulated female activists into long-term sexual relationships and emotional exploitation while in their fake identities. At least 25 officers are known to have had sexual relations with deceived women, and several are known or alleged to have fathered children;
• Stolen identities: To create plausible false identities, officers stole the names of dead children.
• Spying on grieving families: officers have admitted to spying on at least 18 grieving families who were campaigning for justice for loved ones who died in police custody or were victims of racist murders, including the family of Stephen Lawrence;
• Wrongful convictions: Evidence indicates that undercover officers and their supervisors concealed crucial information that could have led to the acquittal of at least 50 activists; and
• Disruption and blacklisting: Police gathered intelligence for the purpose of sharing information with private companies, which led to trade unionists being blacklisted from employment.

The event will include updates from the perspectives of those affected by it, and those who are campaigning for justice in relation to it, as well as ways in which journalists and members of the public can find out more about the affair.

Kate Wilson (Police Spies Out of Lives) has recently published a book about about her experiences and will talk about its contents, her assessments of the ongoing Inquiry, as well as her experiences as one of the activists deceived by undercover police into an intimate relationship.

Chris Brian (Undercover Research Group) will address his experiences of infiltration as well as his role as a lead researcher in the Undercover Research Group, specifically focusing on the launch of a new web portal to enable journalists, activists, and other members of the public who want to navigate the vast amount of information and public records which have been released and disclosed as a part of the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

This event is brought to you by:

Police Spies Out of Lives, The Undercover Research Group, Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Culture, and Cardiff Students' Union.

Location

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0.06
Two Central Square
Central Square
Cardiff
CF10 1FS

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