To think that these undercover policeman must be psychopaths...

[MajaBiene]

...in order to have spent years in long term relationships with women, fathered children, gone to family weddings, even going to relationship counselling just to make their cover stories more plausible?

Seriously, normal people with normal emotions just wouldn't be able to do this

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/01/police-spy-fictional-character?INTCMP=SRCH

"At one stage, he is known to have attended counselling to repair his relationship with his wife. Bizarrely, at about the same time, he was also consulting a second relationship counsellor with Alison.

"I met him when I was 29," she said. "It was the time when I wanted to have children, and for the last 18 months of our relationship he went to relationship counselling with me about the fact that I wanted children and he did not."

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/17/spies-sexual-relations-activists-routine

"In two cases, women who were sleeping unknowingly with undercover police officers invited the men to the funerals of relatives. Police spies shared homes with the women they spied upon, met their families, told the activists they loved them and spent weeks and even months travelling with them on holidays abroad."

Deliberately fathering children is a step too far (did they really?) but the rest sounds like part of the job, to me.

Living with a woman for 6 years, becoming part of her family, going to Relate... you must be pretty emotionless to do all that and then disappear.

I agree, how could you not form an attachment? Or at the very least feel bad that they were forming a real attachment (to say the least!). I feel so sorry for the women involved.

It has impacted seriously on my ability to trust, and that has impacted on my current relationship and other subsequent relationships," she said, adopting the pseudonym Alison. "It has also distorted my perceptions of love and my perceptions of sex.

Not necessarily the same case they were working on, but frankly, and means to an end to stop radicals.

I'm not sure who I'd consider more unhinged, someone with a fake life or someone digging up a corpse and nail bombing people. The latter I think.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/may/12/animalwelfare.topstories3

Three animal rights extremists involved in the theft of the body of an elderly woman from her grave were yesterday jailed for 12 years each in what is seen by police and prosecutors as a groundbreaking case.
The militants, including a vicar's son and a psychiatric nurse, led what they called a "holocaust" against a farm which bred guinea pigs for medical research. Jon Ablewhite, John Smith and Kerry Whitburn pursued a six-year hate campaign against Darley Oaks farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire. Whitburn's girlfriend, Josephine Mayo, was sentenced to four years for a lesser part in the campaign.

Almost 100 people connected to the farm were targeted. Explosive devices were sent to some, mail threatening to kill and maim to others. There were attacks on homes, cars and businesses. The relentless campaign culminated in the theft of the body of Gladys Hammond, a close relative of the Hall family who ran the farm, from her grave in October 2004.

For months, activists taunted the Halls, telling them the body would be returned if they closed the farm. The body was found only last week in woodland after Smith told the authorities where it was.

You can't tar all 'activists' with the same brush, Holly.

I know some of the people involved in the Mark Kennedy case. They are normal, educated, lovely people, who are concerned about environmental issues so stage peaceful protests. The fact that he was there spying leads me to believe the police are totally freaked out and barking up all kinds of wrong trees.

And in his case, evidence suggests he wasn't capable of witholding attachment. www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/25/spy-mark-kennedy-sues-police

I know loops, there are extremes to both cases.

However, but if they were so peacable (and to me that implies letter writing and the odd chaing to railings) how did they attract such attention from the police? Peaceable, to me implies acting within the law to highlight the issue.

Although, admittedly, I havent followed this case at all apart from headline news.

Strange we haven't heard of any undercover police infiltrating animal rights extremists Holly.

These long term police spies have been doing nice, safe activities - London Greenpeace, Reclaim the Streets, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, protesting against the G8 and EDF. No bombings, no digging up bodies. And it's not even like the police were just bystanders - they provided money and vehicles to these groups, helped plan protests, took part in activities. This whole thing seems like a huge mess to me, with a lot of policemen living out weird spy fantasies and travelling the world, having long term relationships and generally having a great time doing it.

Was this anti-protest department just allowed to get away with too much with not enough oversight? How did they justify their budget - it must have cost millions!

These seem to basically be groups that are involved in non-violent direct action, but not acting within the law. For example, shutting down roads with a protest, disrupting arms fairs, digging tunnels/chaining themselves to trees. That to me falls into a completely different category to people who plant bombs, kill people, hijack planes - we're not talking the Red Army Faction here! I am surprised the police feel this level of infiltration, abuse of women and expenditure of public money is justified, especially given that the police themselves supplied money and equipment to protest groups and police officers were active participants in property damage, trespassing, squatting etc.

Quite. Very disproportionate, as far as I can tell.