Solidarity with Lush Campaign Against Spy Cops!

Tell Lush They Are Right and Have Support!

We are ex-wives of undercover police officers who had relationships with other women without our knowledge, while we were married with families, and write with regard to the Lush campaign and reaction to it (Report, 5 June). We trusted our husbands (and their managers) and now feel betrayed. Although we have been recognised as core participants in the undercover policing inquiry, our voices have yet to be heard in public or within the public inquiry.

When she was home secretary, Theresa May set up a public inquiry to investigate undercover policing and the related concerns of significant malpractice. It was due to report back within three years. Three years on, the inquiry has yet to hear any evidence, including our own. Although the events in question took place many years ago, they continue to have a profound effect, and we are still waiting for the officers concerned (as well as their chain of command) to give an account in public. These officers, together with the Metropolitan police, have spent a significant part of the last three years seeking both anonymity and continuing secrecy as to their conduct within the inquiry. While this process continues and the evidence stage is further delayed, our view is that the amount of public money spent to date for such little progress is of far greater concern than the Lush campaign.

In bringing this issue to the attention of the general public, Lush has achieved far more in a weekend than the inquiry has in three years. Its campaign has not only drawn attention to the plight of some of the victims, but has also brought into focus legitimate concerns about how the inquiry is proceeding, which we also share. We would like supporters of the police who are criticising Lush to be aware that we, as affected police ex-wives, endorse the points that Lush are now publicising.

Although we are not involved in the Lush campaign, we recognise that it draws attention to legitimate concerns about how the inquiry is proceeding. Lush’s campaign is not an attack on hard-working police officers and we ask critics of the campaign to hold an open mind, look into the facts of this issue (which relate to a specific unit of undercover officers only – see uk.lush.com/article/spycops-statement) and to note that the families of undercover officers are also victims of this scandal. Together with other core participants, we still await answers.
“S” and “HAB”
Core participants in the undercover policing inquiry

Guardian

Called into Lush shop to buy present and express my solidarity. Along with many of the victims of #spycops I am grateful to Lush for supporting the campaign for truth and justice. It’s appalling its staff have been intimidated because Lush stood up for us. Let’s stand up for them pic.twitter.com/Hwhxfq8ade

— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) June 7, 2018

This Blog covered the case of Bob Lambert from when it first broke.

Sack Bob Lambert! – Police spy, agent provocateur, exploiter of women.  2014.

Bob Lambert, Police Spy, Sex Infiltrator, State Adviser on Islamism: The Met Pays Out.

Bob Lambert, Police Spy, Resurfaces to Offer to Advise Government on Islamists.

Today his name figures in this excellent article in the ‘I’:

Lush ‘Spycops scandal’ has real PTSD truths for every day life too

Deborah Orr

The cosmetics group, Lush, has been condemned for using what has become known as the “Spycops scandal” in an advertising campaign. Critics say that it was a cynical and exploitative stunt, and all just to flog bath bombs. Victims are considerably more enthusiastic about the attention it has drawn to the horrific psychological crimes they were subjected to, or suspect that they may have been subjected to. No one knows how many people were targeted in a protracted undercover operation run by Scotland Yard, which involved police posing for years as the lovers of women involved in political, environmental and animal rights campaigns that the government didn’t like, even going as far as marriage and children in the service of their false identities. They were called the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS).

One name now in the public domain is Jim Boyling, who married and had two children with one of the women he spied on. Another is Bob Lambert, who had a son with a woman in her early 20s and left without trace when the child was two years old. He had a “real family” with someone else, and continued to have relationships with other women while secretly investigating their lives in their various protest groups.

The promiscuity of Lambert’s investigations allowed various women to put two and two together. The mother of his son didn’t realise what had happened until Lambert was outed by others. The woman had suffered psychological distress significant enough to call for psychiatric treatment. She took legal action and was awarded a compensation payout by the Metropolitan Police. Still, they refused to confirm or deny that Lambert had been a detective working for the SDS until a high court ruling forced them to. There has not been a great deal of progress since all this happened four years ago. The Lush campaign sought to highlight the need for a full public inquiry into the operation, particularly so that victims can ascertain whether they were deceived in this deeply intimate way. Many people involved in these groups, who met and had relationships with men they later lost touch with, have no idea at all whether they were duped.

Go to Lush and Back their Campaign for our Comrades!