UK 'Spy Cops' Scandal: How 25 Undercover Police Officers Deceived Women Into Sexual Relationships

Last Updated:March 03, 2025, 09:02 IST

At least 25 undercover police officers were found to have deceived women into long-term intimate sexual relationships by faking their identities to spy on their social groups.

The 'spy cops' scandal prompted a public inquiry. (Reuters/ Representative Image)

In a stunning case from the United Kingdom, at least 25 undercover police officers were found to have infiltrated political groups and deceived women into having sexual relationships on a systemic basis for more than three decades, according to a report.

These undercover police officers entered long-term intimate relationships with multiple women, who were unaware that these cops were secretly spying on them and their social groups. Some of the police spies even fathered children with women they met while using fake identities.

Over 50 women were found to have been deceived by these undercover officers, although the total is likely to be higher, according to a bombshell report by The Guardian. The case has been dubbed the ‘Spy Cops’ scandal.

How Did These ‘Spy Cops’ Deceive Women?

Several women had intimate relationships with these officers lasting up to as much as six years, without knowing that these men were undercover cops sent to spy on them and their friends. These cops used fake identities and lied about their lives as part of their deception.

A woman named Jacqui said her life was “absolutely ruined" when she discovered that the father of her son was an undercover officer more than 20 years after his birth. The officer, Bob Lambert, abandoned them when the son was an infant after he falsely claimed that he had to go on the run to avoid arrest.

Other women shared their most intimate lives with the spies and attended weddings and funerals with them. They were devastated when they found that the men had deceived them, leaving them traumatised and unable to form trusting relationships again.

Many spies created aliases based on the identities of dead children after searching through archives containing birth and death records to locate suitable matches, as per the report. The officers spent years pretending to be campaigners while infiltrating political groups and befriending activists.

These spies gathered huge amounts of information about the personal lives of political activists, like their holiday plans and bank accounts.

How Some Women Pieced The Plan Together

The report brought the spotlight on how five women pieced together disparate clues to expose the real identities of their former boyfriends, arguably one of Britain’s deepest secrets. The women scoured obscure archives and even travelled abroad to unmask the men after they abruptly vanished from their lives using false claims.

This investigation uncovered a series of revelations that exposed the highly secret undercover operations to infiltrate political campaigns and misconduct by spies, forcing the government to set up a public inquiry.

These deceptive relationships were a frequent part of intensely secret operations that began in 1968 and lasted more than 40 years. Many of the identities of the spies remained unknown, meaning that several women may still be unaware that they had been deceived into sexual relationships.

In total, about 139 undercover officers – employed in two covert squads – spied on more than 1,000 political groups. Tens of thousands of mainly left-wing and progressive campaigners were put under surveillance.

London, United Kingdom (UK)

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