Why has it fallen to TV execs to fight for the victims of the Spycops scandal?

Independent

07-03-2025

Watching ITV 's excellent new documentary series on undercover policing and the scandalous abuse meted out by officers to a group of well-meaning, left-of-centre women, I was struck by the similarities to the Post Office scandal.
I know this seems unlikely on the face of it. The former involved coppers spying on groups running the gamut from animal rights to the environment to anti-fascism. The police involved used women as little more than props to maintain their functional identities. They established relationships with them – sometimes even fathering children together – before vanishing into thin air. As if that wasn't bad enough, the names and details of dead babies were used to facilitate the creation of their undercover identities.
Meanwhile, the Post Office scandal involved a misfiring IT system which led to honest, hard-working sub-postmasters and mistresses getting landed with huge bills. Some were accused of fraud. Lives and livelihoods were destroyed and innocent people went to prison. But there is a common theme nonetheless – and it goes beyond ITV's commendable role in drawing attention to these sickening scandals.
In both instances, institutions of the state, their employees and their leaders behaved disgracefully. The victims who investigated and brought their misdeeds to light were ordinary people who showed the sort of skills that many detectives – by which I mean the ones who investigate actual crimes – would envy.
They also displayed remarkable resilience after being hurt, taking on the dead hand of the state and the grey men and women wielding it – people who seem to spend far more time trying to cover up institutional failure than actually doing their jobs.
The fact that one of those institutions was the Metropolitan Police should disturb us all. Here you had people who were supposed to be police officers conducting surveillance on individuals and groups that did no more than hand out leaflets on high streets and organise small demos.
Some of the protests only went ahead because the spy cops all seemed to have vans. Vehicles were typically lacking in the lefty or green circles of the time because those who ran in them didn't tend to have much in the way of cash. Offering to ferry people around was thus a great way to ingratiate yourself with them.
When ITV screened Mr Bates vs the Post Office, a slow-burn scandal in which clearing those wrongly accused of crimes and paying redress was stuck in establishment goo, suddenly exploded into life.
That drama, led by Toby Jones as Alan Bates, was so powerful that it reduced viewers to tears. The furore that followed meant that things started to move. However, as I wrote at the time, we really shouldn't have had to wait for TV execs to take an interest for that to happen. Will the same be true of The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed? The difference between it and Mr Bates is that it is a documentary, not a drama.
Spy cops conning women into sex and then vanishing, leaving behind only a letter – if that – is a compelling story, and it is well-told. I watched all three episodes back-to-back without even breaking for a coffee (those who know me well know how rare that is). The women victimised by the Met's Special Demonstration Squad are remarkable. You will want to hear their stories.
Yet, documentaries don't tend to generate the sort of ratings that dramas and famous actors do and so it isn't so easy for them to establish themselves in the zeitgeist. I hope this one is an exception. It deserves to be – Theresa May actually established a public inquiry into this affair ten years ago. The trouble is, as one of the women noted, that this was the state investigating the state. Very slowly. The inquiry has dragged on for an inordinate length of time and cost £64m in public funds and counting. That in itself is scandalous.
The principal aim appears to have been to kick a problematic ball deep into the long grass in the hopes of getting it buried with time – and that would have happened long ago were it not for Davina and her friends.
ITV has done a far better job telling their stories than those with an official remit to do so. And I sincerely hope, documentary or not, that these women get a similar response from the public – as did the sub-postmasters.