The managers of an undercover police officer who believed that he was against a plot where animal rights activists were wanted for a political insult, heard the political conversation.
The officer, James Thomson, claims he uncovered the plot while he was infiltrating animal rights groups. But his managers later had doubts about whether it was true, one of them appearing to call it “bollocks”.
An activist accused of a key role in the alleged conspiracy said it was a fabrication that could have resulted in him being unjustly imprisoned for years.
Undercover marketing inquiries revealed repeated duplicity by Thomson, who not only lied to his managers but also cheated on two women in an intimate relationship. He initially denied the existence of these relationships in question before accepting them.
Asked at the inquiry this week, Thomson admitted that he had not disobeyed his managers’ warning not to travel by boat, pointing out the pages from his passports To hide his travel from them, and obtained identity documents without permission.
Thomson is the latest undercover officer to be questioned in the inquiry, which examines covert operations that have investigated thousands of activists between 1968 and at least 2010.
Some 139 undercover officers adopted fake identities and posed as political activists in deployments that typically lasted four years.
Activists who breastfed Thomson who sought to disrupt the foxhunts between 1997 and 2002. The main aspects “of his behavior, adding that” many disturbing “too many frightening aspects”
He faced claims – which he denied – that in the later years of his deployment, he kept precious little information about activists.
He also faced questions about an incident that was once considered a victory.
In 2000, an anti-haunting activist was badly injured when he was hit by a car driven by a foxhunting supporter. Thomson said the anti-Hunt Campaigners were immediately looking for reprisals.
In 2001, he drove in his car with a French activist who claimed that they had taken a barrel from a campaign for revenge. Assessing Thomson’s information to be reliable at the time, his managers believed that they had foiled what was considered a plot by making it look like his car had been stolen in Marseille. The car contained a gun when it was recovered.
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But later, some managers began to question whether the plan was real. Another undercover officer told them Thomson was given a gun as a gift and kept it in a French deposit box.
One manager recorded his doubts in an internal report, saying: “There is no single person who is independent. denying what is said to have happened“. Some believe that Thomson there is “invention” of the plot to continue his deployment in hiding.
The activist who drove to France with Thomson confirmed there was no such plot, describing the claim as a “complete work of fiction”. He said that, his week-long trip to France with Thomson was a holiday of conviction, involving wine, visiting tourist attractions and picnics.
The activist, known as L3, said that the claims continued to be read by Thomson “Kind of like a self-contained boys adventure story. But then I realized that this could be the worst event of my life. This can lead to spending years in prison. “
Thomson assured that he did not carry out the plot, adding: “I received a gun from people we met in Marseille.”
Thomson said his mental balance was “far from normal” in his undercover work.