Women-abusing police spy should not be lecturer, British students say

This video from Britain says about itself:

The police who stole dead children’s identities

16 July 2013

Britain’s top police officer apologises for the “shock and offence” caused, after a report says undercover police stole the identities of at least 42 dead children as they attempted to infilitrate extremist groups.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

University under pressure to sack controversial former undercover spy Bob Lambert

Campaigners want a university to sack former undercover spy Bob Lambert but their demand is so far being resisted

A university has been coming under pressure to sack one of its lecturers who has become known as one of the most controversial undercover officers deployed by the police.

Campaigners have been seeking to persuade London Metropolitan University to remove Bob Lambert from his academic post.

So far the university has backed Lambert, saying they have “absolute faith in him as a lecturer” and is a “valued member” of staff”.

Lambert has been at the centre of many of the revelations about the police’s use of undercover officers.

To recap, he went undercover in the 1980s to infiltrate animal rights and environmental campaigners for four years.

He fathered a child with an activist, known as Jacqui, before abandoning them. The Metropolitan Police has paid more than £400,000 to Jacqui who has been profoundly traumatised after discovering by chance that the father of her son was an undercover police officer.

Lambert also deceived another woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an elaborate attempt to lend “credibility” to his alter ego.

He also stole the identity of a dead boy to shore up his fake identity, [has been] been accused of setting fire to Debenhams, appeared in court using his alter ego rather than his real name, and co-wrote the leaflet at the heart of the notorious McLibel trial. In the 1990s, he was promoted to run the operations of the Special Demonstration Squad and was a key figure in the secret operation to spy on the family of Stephen Lawrence.

Since he left Special Branch in 2007, he has taught at three universities.

But the question now is whether a man like Lambert with his undercover past should be employed teaching students?

The campaigners say no. Alex Neve, from the Islington Against Spies campaign group (see here), has said :”We’re saying he’s not a suitable person to be working here, supervising students, some of whom may be vulnerable, when he’s shown evidence of having a very dubious attitude towards women and consent in the past. Can he be trusted not to abuse the power that he’s abused in the past? I don’t think he can.”

Reports of a demonstration can be found here in the Islington Gazette, the Islington Tribune and Islington Now, and a public meeting organised by the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance and the university’s UNISON Branch here and here.

Observer columnist Nick Cohen argues in this article that Lambert is “uniquely unqualified” to hold his academic post, adding that the security establishment has not disowned him.

…

According to this biography, Lambert is a senior lecturer at the university’s John Grieve Policing Centre, teaching students about terrorism, counter-terrorism, far right political violence and anti-Muslim hate crimes.

He retains his academic post at St Andrews University where he has been a lecturer in terrorism studies. There have been protests there too (see here and here).

However there is a mystery – as yet, not fully explained – about the third academic post he held. In 2008, Lambert started work at Exeter University researching Islamophobia and counter-terrorism. He became the co-director of the university’s European Muslim Research Centre, embarking on a decade-long programme of research.

Exeter University has confirmed that Lambert resigned from the university in October 2011 – the same month his undercover past was exposed.

We asked Exeter University why he resigned but, after some delay, they refused to explain.

Some might wonder why Lambert departed from one university, but manages to keep his jobs at two other universities.

CONSTRUCTION union UCATT has exposed how the union was infiltrated by the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS): here.

Last week, Labour Party MP John McDonnell read out a statement in parliament from a former member of an undercover Scotland Yard police unit turned whistleblower, Peter Francis. Francis was part of the covert Metropolitan police unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), that monitored hundreds of political groups between 1968 and 2008. The SDS was replaced in 2008 by a new spying operation, the National Domestic Extremism Unit: here.

Related articles

• Protesters demand Holloway university sack former policy spy
• An undercover police officer has been accused of encouraging and helping an animal rights campaigner to commit illegal acts which led to his being jailed for four years, according to legal documents
• Jacqui thought she’d found the perfect man, in fact he was an undercover police officer
• Met exposes sex spies – but tries to justify their actions as ‘normal’
• Met pays £400k to victim mum
• Star Comment: Force them to change
• British police spied on De Menezes, Lawrence families
• Controversy swirls around the university post of a former undercover spy with a dark past
• Undercover police inquiry to be held
• Merseyside campaigners back calls for undercover police inquiry to cover blacklisting