London (CNN)UK
police have admitted that supervisors knew about a long-term sexual
relationship between an undercover officer and an environmental
activist, campaigners said Friday.
The
activist, Kate Wilson, had a two-year intimate relationship with Mark
Kennedy, who was known to her as Mark Stone. She only found out in 2010
that he had been an undercover officer tasked with infiltrating
environmental protest groups.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal
is due to hear Wilson's case against the Metropolitan Police and the
National Police Chiefs' Council, alleging breaches of the Human Rights
Act, on October 3. The tribunal investigates claims that the police have
abused covert surveillance powers and infringed people's human rights.
The
admission that Kennedy's supervisors knew about their sexual
relationship and allowed it to continue was made in legal papers
submitted by the police ahead of the October 3 hearing, according to a document released by campaign group Police Spies Out of Lives on Friday.
It
appears to contradict a public apology made by police in 2015 which
said such relationships by undercover officers were "abusive, deceitful,
manipulative and wrong," would "never be authorized in advance" and
were the result of "failures of supervision and management."
According
to the Police Spies Out of Lives document, police have "admitted to the
Tribunal that an as yet unknown number of cover officers and a line
manager knew about and acquiesced to the relationship."
It
added: "This means at least eight police officers were complicit in
deceiving Ms Wilson in a long-term, intimate relationship, and suggests a
deliberate strategy, and not a 'failure of supervision' as claimed."
Police
have also conceded in the legal papers that Kennedy's relationship with
Wilson violated her right to live without torture or inhuman or
degrading treatment, and that this breach was made worse by the
complicity of his managers, the document said.
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