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AIBU?

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Original poster

undercover police fathering children with women they're spying on is treachery beyond belief.

181 replies

alicethehorse · 20/01/2012 22:16

Story here Undercover police had children with activists

"Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring ...

"In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers ? whom they have not seen in decades ? were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children's mothers for many years"

What a monumental abuse of trust Angry

OP posts:
MmeLindor. · 20/01/2012 23:20

Oh, sorry Animula. I was agreeing with you too. Was badly worded, sorry.

animula · 20/01/2012 23:22

Basically, it seems to be the old story of the police being used as a political tool.

The misogyny of it all is a horrible, but not entirely unexpected, twist.

The only upside in the whole thing that I can see is the fact that a number of the deep cover officers changed political allegiance after having come into contact with the people and principles they were reporting on.

MrsTerryPratchett · 20/01/2012 23:22

The job of surveillance needs to be done. I agree. But I cannot understand posters who seem to think that because a woman has firmly held political views she can be treated in this way. It is not the job of the Police to be Judge, Jury and punishment for these people. The ends do NOT always justify the means. If they believed these people were capable of bringing down society, they should have arrested and charged them. The Courts could have sentenced them.

I really hate this attitude of better lie, torture, rape, steal, kidnap, phone tap etc. etc. because the people concerned look like the people who might be involved in something that might hurt me.

VeryLittleGravitas · 20/01/2012 23:22

Our phone was tapped in the '80's...we organised a small demo (3 carloads, but we contacted everyone in the local CND group) for Hiroshima day at Molesworth CM airbase, all of it over the phone, and omitted to notify the authorities. We were met at the base by vanloads of Met.police.

I got chatting to a bored officer, who admitted that they'd heard that a large anarchist demo had been planned for today. He was quite deflated when we rocked up in our elderly 2CVs Grin

Magneto · 20/01/2012 23:22

We are a capitalist society. Why is it shocking that the government would like to know what organisations with anti-capitalist beliefs are up to?

Is anyone surprised that communist or fascist states are always quite interested to know what their opposers are doing and destroy them?

GypsyMoth · 20/01/2012 23:23

Good post magneto!!

I agree

And no smoke without fire...

GypsyMoth · 20/01/2012 23:24

X posts!

mercibucket · 20/01/2012 23:24

Well obviously not ironic! But still amazing that people can post here in all seriousness about stopping economic collapse (remind me again - how many scary serious 'green' ops to undermine the economy have there been recently - oh don't tell me, the police must be doing their job rofl) while we are experiencing the nearest thing to the great depression - caused by? A bunch of rich captialists
Missed a trick there
Wonder why they weren't infiltrating the city?

mercibucket · 20/01/2012 23:24

Well obviously not ironic! But still amazing that people can post here in all seriousness about stopping economic collapse (remind me again - how many scary serious 'green' ops to undermine the economy have there been recently - oh don't tell me, the police must be doing their job rofl) while we are experiencing the nearest thing to the great depression - caused by? A bunch of rich captialists
Missed a trick there
Wonder why they weren't infiltrating the city?

MildlyNarkyPuffin · 20/01/2012 23:26

I'm not actually surprised by what they did. It backs up everything my mother ever told me about being careful which petitions you sign or groups you join, because the government keeps lists.

HungryHelga · 20/01/2012 23:26

How do you know they AREN'T infiltrating the city, as we speak?

MildlyNarkyPuffin · 20/01/2012 23:27

I thought she was just a paranoid child of the 1960s.

PreviouslyonLost · 20/01/2012 23:27

MmeLindor Neither was I... we're agreeing really but I feel that to write off the 'hippy'ish' perception of so called anti-establishment goupsis not always quite as straightforward as Lentil Weaving vs Capitalist Scum rhetoric would have us believe.

I'm as left as they come! Just objected to sensationalist reportage in OP...and confusion that resulted.

Peace and love to you Smile

MrsTerryPratchett · 20/01/2012 23:27

That horse has bolted Hungry

Magneto · 20/01/2012 23:31

Making bad business decisions is a bit different to trying to undermine/destroy the stability of the state. And yes, I think it is likey that the city is also being watched, not least because they need to know where all the money they're making is being spent and which organisations the big players are supporting.

Every societal structure has it's flaws. If there was a perfect solution there really would be world peace and an end to poverty.

MrsTerryPratchett · 20/01/2012 23:40

Making bad business decisions is not all of what they do/have done. Money market people set out to destabilise the currency of Thailand, KNOWING that it would destabilise the country... to make money. They made money. According to them that was, presumably, a great business decision. Ditto Third World debt. Ditto oil wars. Ditto a lot of capitalism. The rich wankers know that the decisions they make kill people, they just don't care.

Magneto · 20/01/2012 23:44

Which is why they are lucky they are the ones in power and why they will always do their utmost to ensure it stays that way e.g; the McArthy witch hunts for a start.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending their actions, just stating what's what. As I said, if there was a perfect way to run the world... )

Original poster
alicethehorse · 20/01/2012 23:52

eh? What sensationalist reportage?

I quoted the article, and the words from the article were hardly sensationalist - it's the facts that are shocking!

I added only that it's treacherous behaviour and mentioned that they were activists.

How's that sensationalising it? Have you read the article?

OP posts:
Original poster
alicethehorse · 20/01/2012 23:56

MrsTerryPratchet "Money market people set out to destabilise the currency of Thailand, KNOWING that it would destabilise the country" I hadn't heard that.

I'm not surprised, I know it's how the system works, but still that's a shocking example.

OP posts:
PreviouslyonLost · 21/01/2012 00:00

motherofallhangovers I did skim read article, and it's not all that...all media is biased, imho, to the readership that is their fundamental reason pay slips for existing. I didn't say YOU were being sensationalist!

Daily Mail thread earlier for example...you read, you digest, you cogitate, you theorise, you make up your own mind...or you just read what's written and get on with your day.

Nobody died in the article you cited,

Isabelle Crowley DID.

FelicityWits · 21/01/2012 00:07

Previously, I am failing to see how one bad thing is rendered less bad because other bad things happen?

PreviouslyonLost · 21/01/2012 00:27

FelicityWits With respect, death is not recoverable from last time I looked...

The OP, and posts thereafter, focused on the belief that the women in these relationships, some lasting 9 years, conceived children as late into the relationships as 9 years, having being deceived for that length of time.

Not so according to text in cited article. ''18 months', 'short-lived', and 'just a year into his deployment"...

Many women, men, and any resultant children, are 'deceived' daily in their ordinary relationships, with worse consequences, that was the point of my last post.

PreviouslyonLost · 21/01/2012 00:39

...and if you accept the article as 'trustworthy' with regard to the emotional distress of the women involved, please also consider the last paragraph...

^The Guardian understands that as he (police officer) had access to the official monitoring reports, he regularly read details of her life with a close interest. He watched as she grew older and brought up their child as a single parent, according to an individual who is aware of the details of the case.

The policeman has been "haunted" by the experience of having no contact with the child, whom he thought about regularly, according to the individual^.

FelicityWits · 21/01/2012 00:46

But previously the two situations have nothing to do with each other and one doesn't in any way effect the other. There's not a finite amount of wrongness or outrage or tragedy in the world.

And the policeman could've worn a condom if he didn't want to father a child he knew he couldn't maintan a relationship with.

HungryHelga · 21/01/2012 00:49

Why would he have worn a condom with a woman he was supposed to be in a faithful relationship with? How could he have explained it without blowing his cover?

If you put restrictions on what undercover operatives can and cannot do it just makes it easy for the groups to expose them.