When Alison first met Mark Jenner, she had no reason to suspect he wasn’t who he claimed to be.
A dedicated activist involved in anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigns in Hackney, London, she believed she had found a like-minded partner.
But what she didn’t know was that Jenner was an undercover police officer, part of a deeply entrenched system of deception that would leave her—and many other women—devastated.
For years, undercover officers infiltrated activist groups under false identities, not just to gather intelligence but to form deep personal relationships with unsuspecting individuals.
These so-called “spy cops” went as far as seducing women, integrating themselves into their families, and in some cases, even fathering children—only to vanish without a trace.
The Dark Parallels to the Stasi
Alison compared the tactics used by these officers to the Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police force.
Their operations were not about catching criminals but about surveillance and control.
The police didn’t just watch from the sidelines—they embedded themselves into people’s lives, manipulating emotions and destroying trust in the process.
The scale of this deception is finally being exposed in a new documentary that reveals at least 25 undercover officers engaged in relationships with their targets, some for as long as six years.
Four of them are believed to have fathered children, abandoning them while they were still infants.
Many of these officers were already married with families of their own, leading double lives funded by taxpayers.
The Personal Cost of Betrayal
Speaking on This Morning, Alison shared the painful details of her experience.
She and Jenner were together for five years, deeply intertwined in each other’s lives.
She described how he was fully accepted by her family and how they had even discussed having children together.
The revelation that he was an undercover officer shattered her world.
One morning, she stumbled upon a credit card in his jacket under a different name.
When confronted, Jenner claimed he had mistakenly bought a stolen card from a man in a pub.
She had no reason to doubt him at the time—after all, who would suspect their trusted partner of leading a completely fabricated life?
Then, one day, he simply left. A note on the table was all he left behind.
Alison’s search for answers led her down a rabbit hole, revealing not just Jenner’s lies but an entire system designed to infiltrate and manipulate.
Systemic Deception, Not Just ‘Rogue Officers’
Initially, the Metropolitan Police dismissed Jenner’s actions as those of a rogue officer.
But as more stories emerged, it became clear that this was a systemic operation.
These officers were given fake passports, false identities, and extensive support from their superiors.
They were professional liars, trained to manipulate and deceive.
More than 60 women are believed to have been victims of this operation, though the actual number may be much higher.
While some lost years of their lives to these fake relationships, others lost the opportunity to have children, robbed of their most fertile years by men who were never real.
The Fight for Justice
Another woman, known only as Jacqui, shared her story in the upcoming documentary.
She discovered, two decades later, that the father of her son was an undercover officer who had abandoned them both, claiming he needed to flee abroad to escape arrest.
The trauma of this revelation left her “absolutely ruined.”
More than 50 women have been confirmed as victims, with five of them working together to expose the truth in the new documentary.
Their investigation uncovered that the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPIOU) had operated in secret for decades, spying on over 1,000 campaign groups—including the family of Stephen Lawrence, a Black teenager murdered in 1993.
A Public Inquiry That May Never Bring Closure
In 2015, then-Prime Minister Theresa May launched a public inquiry into these operations.
Led by retired judge John Mitting, the inquiry is trying to uncover who authorized these relationships and how far the deception went.
However, many victims remain skeptical that justice will be served.
Chief barrister David Barr has already declared that sexual deception by undercover officers was “not justified.”
But out of the 139 officers confirmed to have spied on activist groups, only 25 have admitted to engaging in sexual relationships.
Three others deny any romantic involvement, but the evidence against them continues to mount.
The Impact of Long-Term Infiltration
These officers spent an average of four years embedded in activist communities, collecting detailed intelligence on protests, personal relationships, and even sexual orientations.
Some, like Mark Kennedy, took their deception to extreme lengths.
Kennedy, who infiltrated environmental groups in the 2000s, engaged in sexual relationships with at least 11 women while maintaining a secret marriage and family elsewhere.
One of his victims, Eleanor Fairbraida, shared how he moved into her home, befriended her for seven years, and eventually became her lover—only for her to later discover that he had been spying on activists the entire time.
Another woman, Kate Wilson, won a landmark human rights case against the Metropolitan Police after proving that Kennedy’s actions violated her rights.
A System That Still Operates in the Shadows
Perhaps most shocking of all is that these tactics are still not illegal.
Alison and other victims continue to fight for legislative change, arguing that without clear legal consequences, similar operations could still be happening today.
Adding another layer of horror, it was revealed that some undercover officers used the identities of dead children to create false personas.
Families of 20 deceased children have been informed that their relatives’ names were stolen, often without their knowledge or consent.
What’s Next?
The upcoming documentary aims to shed light on these abuses and push for greater accountability.
But for Alison and many others, the scars of this betrayal remain.
The fight isn’t just about exposing past crimes—it’s about ensuring that no one else is subjected to such a cruel and systematic violation of trust.
As the public inquiry continues, the victims demand more than just acknowledgment.
They seek justice, legal reform, and an end to the use of intimate relationships as tools of state surveillance.
Will their voices finally be heard, or will the system continue to bury the truth? That remains to be seen.