Police spy ‘bragged’ about fathering child with activist, investigation finds | City Police

An undercover police officer “bragged” about fathering a child with an activist from whom he had kept his true identity secret, a public inquiry has found.

Officer Bob Lambert gave birth to the child with the woman, known only as Jacqui, while infiltrating animal rights and anarchist groups.

One of his colleagues claimed that this was “common knowledge” within the secret Scotland Yard unit they worked for.

The investigation heard Monday that Lambert told two unit leaders he believed he was the child’s father, and both decided to take no action.

Lambert abandoned Jacqui and his son when he was two years old, leaving her to raise him alone in difficult circumstances.

It wasn’t until more than two decades later that she learned – by chance – that he had been an undercover agent spying on activists, rather than the committed activist he portrayed himself to be. The discovery has devastated her and she considers suicide.

The investigation heard evidence for the first time that Lambert’s managers had been told at the time that he had fathered a child while infiltrating political activists.

Lambert later received an award for gathering intelligence on activists during a successful operation.

Sir John Mitting, the retired judge leading the inquiry, is examining the conduct of about 139 undercover officers who spied on more than 1,000 predominantly left-wing groups between 1968 and at least 2010.

One of the main problems is that officials often developed intimate relationships with women without revealing that they were covert spies.

The current phase of the investigation focuses on the operations of undercover investigators in the 1980s and 1990s.

During his four years as an undercover agent, Lambert enticed at least four women into sexual relationships.

Jacqui has described how she quickly fell in love with the “very charming and charismatic” Lambert in 1984. The following year their son was born.

When she went into labor over the weekend, she didn’t know he had been with his wife and two children.

Jacqui said he made no effort to persuade her to have an abortion. Initially a devoted, hands-on father, he disappeared around 1988, claiming he had to flee abroad to escape police who wanted to arrest him for his animal rights campaigns.

Jacqui only learned Lambert’s true identity in 2012, when she came across an article in a newspaper about his undercover work. He had made no attempt to locate her or her son.

On Monday, the investigation heard that Mike Chitty, another undercover officer with the unit, claimed that “while on assignment, Lambert bragged about fathering a child through a relationship and that it was common knowledge in the office at the time that Lambert had fathered a child”. .

Chitty brought this claim to attention in two previous internal police investigations. The current investigation was unable to obtain evidence from Chitty, who lives abroad. The investigation found Chitty had a “strong dislike” for Lambert, who denied the claim.

David Barr, the inquiry’s KC, said Lambert admitted that he had “unofficially” told one of his managers, Michael Barber, that Jacqui was pregnant “and that he believed he was the father”.

“According to Lambert, the conversation took place in a pub and ended with DI Barber deciding he did not need to report the matter, leaving Lambert to deal with the situation.” Barber has since died.

Metropolitan Police KC Peter Skelton said Tony Wait, then head of the secret unit, accepted that Lambert had told him “that a woman he had a connection with was pregnant”. Lambert later said he was not necessarily the father.

Wait discussed this with another manager and “decided not to take any action or investigate further,” Skelton added. That was “completely wrong,” Skelton said.

The Met has paid Jacqui £425,000 in compensation and an undisclosed sum to her son. He suffered psychiatric damage after discovering the truth about his father at the age of 26.

Four undercover agents are known or suspected to have fathered children with women they met during their undercover operations.