The undercover officer claimed he had infiltrated animal rights groups and concocted a plot in which animal rights activists purportedly sought to obtain a gun to inflict a revenge attack on a political opponent, but his managers later came to doubt whether it was genuine. The animal rights activist who was accused of a central role in the alleged conspiracy said it was a fabrication that could have resulted in him being unjustly jailed for years…
Managers of an undercover police officer believed he had concocted a plot in which animal rights activists purportedly sought to obtain a gun to inflict a revenge attack on a political opponent, the spy-cops public inquiry has heard.
The officer, James Thomson, claimed he had uncovered the plot while he infiltrated animal rights groups. But his managers later came to doubt whether it was genuine, with one of them appearing to call it “bollocks”.
An activist who was accused of a central role in the alleged conspiracy said it was a fabrication that could have resulted in him being unjustly jailed for years.
The undercover policing inquiry has exposed repeated duplicity by Thomson, who not only lied to his managers but also deceived two women into intimate relationships. He initially denied the existence of these relationships to the inquiry before admitting them…
Thomson infiltrated activists who sought to disrupt fox hunts between 1997 and 2002. David Barr, the inquiry’s chief barrister, has said there were “very many troubling aspects” about his conduct, adding that he had told “many lies” to the inquiry, his police superiors and the activists he infiltrated…
He faces claims – which he denies – that in the later years of his deployment, he gathered little valuable information about the activists.
He is also facing questions about an incident that had previously been considered to be a triumph. In 2000, an anti-hunt activist was badly injured when he was hit by a car driven by a supporter of fox hunting. Thomson said anti-hunt campaigners immediately sought reprisals…
Assessing Thomson’s information to be credible at the time, his managers believed they had foiled the alleged plot by making it look as if his car had been stolen in Marseille. The car contained a gun when it was recovered. But later, some managers began to question whether the plot was real. ROB EVANS
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