For over a decade, I had no clue the man I shared a bed with was a Met police spy

It took the courage of deceived women like me to get justice in the undercover police scandal, writes Donna McLean – and expose those who betrayed the very people they were supposed to protect

For around 40 years, dozens of women in England and Wales were deceived into forming long-term intimate relationships with undercover Met Police officers – I am one of those women.

Over 50 of us have been identified as survivors of this appalling deception. The real number is likely to be much higher. Some relationships lasted up to six years, and four of the officers even fathered children with the women they targeted on deployment. The ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry was announced in 2015, but delays from anonymity battles and legal arguments meant it only started in 2020.

There is much to cover. From 1968 until at least 2011, 140 officers from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) targeted over 1,000 political groups. We now know that many of the police spies on active duty in these units formed deceptive sexual relationships with activists as an operational strategy. Andy Coles, the former SDS member turned Tory councillor, even produced a tradecraft manual: a “how-to” for infiltrating people’s lives. In an ironic twist, it was Coles’s high-profile brother, Rev Richard Coles, who let slip that he was a spy in his autobiography.

The relationships were used as part of the police’s strategy to glean information from target groups, bolster the undercover officers’ fake identities and allow police spies to infiltrate left-wing and progressive groups, often climbing to positions at the highest level. Other tactics included spreading misinformation to disrupt relationships and inciting activists to commit offences. Several miscarriages of justice have occurred as a result.

Of the 25 police spies we know of who formed these abusive relationships over the years, only two were women. The majority of the male undercovers were married. Their wives were equally unaware of their husbands’ secret identities and of us women being deceived into intimate relationships.

‘Like many women before me, I discovered a decade later that Carlo had led two lives – one with me, and the other with his wife, as a highly-trained undercover officer’ (Andy Aitchison)

For more than two years, I was deceived into a relationship with the Metropolitan Police officer Carlo Soracchi, codenamed “Neri”. We met in September 2002 at an anti-war demonstration in London. Carlo was a steward on the march, alongside friends of mine who were trade union and anti-racist activists.

We were immediately inseparable, and within six weeks, he moved into my flat, asking me to marry him soon after. We lived together for two years and were planning to have children until he left suddenly in 2004 in the guise of a mental health crisis.

Like many women before me, I discovered a decade later that Carlo had led two lives – one with me, as a locksmith and left-wing activist, and the other with his wife, as a highly-trained undercover officer, operating in a secretive unit within the Metropolitan Police. For over a decade, I had no clue that the man I had lived with was a spy, paid to lie by the state.

The discovery of the officers’ true identities has left most of us suffering from trauma. Unsurprisingly, we struggle to trust people and form new relationships. For some, the relationships happened during the years when they might have had children, creating a whole other layer of loss to process.

Now, a new ITV series shines a very strong light on one of the darkest aspects of the spy cops scandal and reveals the scale of our betrayal by the state. The three-part documentary follows the stories of five women who uncovered the truth about the men they had believed to be devoted partners but who abruptly exited their lives, as Carlo did mine, using harrowing – and fabricated – stories. He left after appearing to have a breakdown. Leading up to his final disappearance, he went missing several times and threatened suicide.

Through detective work, detailed research, and even travelling abroad, the women worked together to unmask these men and expose their true identities as undercover police spies. The five women who feature in the documentary series, Belinda Harvey, Helen Steel, “Alison”, “Lisa” and “Naomi” (the latter three are pseudonyms), were part of the first group of eight to uncover the scandal and initiate the legal action which ultimately forced the Metropolitan Police to make an unprecedented public apology. The Met said that the relationships were “abusive, deceitful, manipulative, and wrong” and admitted that the officers’ managers had failed in their duty to prevent the relationships from happening as a result of a systemic culture of sexism within the force.

The five women wrote a book about this state-sponsored betrayal and their incredible journey towards exposing the truth. A new edition has been released to mark the TV adaptation and renamed the only thing it could be: The Undercover Police Scandal. Let their bravery – and our stories – be what people remember from this. That, and how the police and government betrayed the very people they are supposed to protect.

The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed airs on Thursday 6 March at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX

For further information on the women’s stories and to explore ways of supporting their campaign please see policespiesoutoflives.org.uk