People subjected to decades of intrusive police surveillance have accused the government of attempting to silence the very inquiry designed to hold officers to account. The Spycops public inquiry, which has spent more than a decade examining the conduct of undercover detectives who infiltrated political activism across Britain, faces having its final stages drastically curtailed. Victims and campaigners say the move amounts to a deliberate cover-up, with over 2,000 objections already lodged against the Home Office’s proposed restrictions.
A Decade of Scrutiny Now Under Threat
The inquiry was established in 2015 with a stated three-year mandate. More than ten years on, and with an estimated price tag of £144 million, it shows little sign of concluding. Retired judge Sir John Mitting has presided over proceedings that have uncovered some of the most disturbing practices in the history of British policing.
At its core, the inquiry has examined the Special Demonstration Squad, a Metropolitan Police unit that spent four decades embedding itself within political groups between 1968 and 2008. Officers within the unit formed intimate relationships with women without ever revealing their true identities, fathered children under false pretences, and targeted grieving families — including the parents of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence. Some officers went further still, assuming the identities of deceased children and giving false evidence in court.
The inquiry has also been preparing to scrutinise a second covert unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which operated between 1999 and 2011. One of its most prominent officers, Mark Kennedy, spent six years infiltrating environmental and left-wing movements. Kennedy deceived a significant number of women into sexual relationships, and his actions ultimately led to the overturned convictions of several environmental campaigners after evidence he gathered was deliberately withheld from their trials.
Another case due to be examined involves an undercover officer who maintained a fake identity while embedded within serious crime networks, subsequently deceiving a woman into a relationship lasting 19 years during which they had a child together.
Government Defends Consultation as Victims See Through It
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has launched a public consultation, set to close on Sunday, claiming it will help shape the inquiry’s future. She has expressed concern about both the duration and the financial cost of the process.
However, those who have endured the surveillance say the consultation is nothing more than a staged exercise. They argue that the three options on offer are designed to guarantee the same outcome: a neutered inquiry. The choices are a significantly narrowed remit, a process stripped of the legal powers needed to compel reluctant witnesses to testify, or a arrangement in which police simply hand over documents to victims without any formal inquiry at all.
Kate Wilson, who was deceived into a two-year relationship with Kennedy, said the practical consequence of curtailing the inquiry would be to hide the full scale of misconduct. “Whatever the intentions of the Home Office in doing this, the practical effect of them curtailing the inquiry or reducing its powers to compel evidence will be a cover-up, and we may never understand the full extent of the misconduct that has occurred in undercover policing.”
A Home Office spokesperson insisted the government remained committed to justice. “The historic failings in undercover policing continue to shock the public. We are determined to get justice and hold those responsible to account. However, the undercover policing inquiry was established more than a decade ago, and is yet to deliver justice for those affected, at significant cost to the taxpayer. It’s only right that we ask those affected themselves about the future of the inquiry.”
The Wider Pattern of Surveillance
The Spycops inquiry stands as one of the longest-running public inquiries in modern British history. Only an investigation into a sectarian murder in Northern Ireland, which reported last week 22 years after being commissioned, has taken longer.
Its significance extends well beyond the individuals directly affected. The inquiry has laid bare a system in which police forces across the country deployed covert officers against lawful political activity, treating campaigners and community organisers as threats to be monitored rather than citizens exercising their democratic rights. The consequences for those targeted have been devastating and enduring: shattered relationships, lost trust, and criminal convictions secured on the basis of evidence gathered through deception and concealment.
Why it Matters
The Spycops inquiry represents one of the most significant tests of accountability in modern British policing. If the government succeeds in restricting its scope, it will set a dangerous precedent: that state institutions can conduct prolonged, invasive surveillance against their own citizens, cause profound and lasting harm, and then avoid full scrutiny by simply deciding the process has gone on too long or cost too much. The women deceived into relationships, the families spied upon during their darkest hours, and the activists whose convictions were overturned all deserve a public reckoning. Cutting short that reckoning does not save public money — it costs democracy itself.
