How undercover officers squandered millions of pounds, with flash cars, luxury flats and up to 14 hours' overtime a day
By Caroline Graham Last updated at 2:18 AM on 23rd January 2011 His revelations in last week’s MoS dominated news bulletins. Now the police spy who posed as an eco-warrior reveals how colleagues enjoyed flash cars, luxury flats - and up to 14 hours’ overtime a day... Police spy Mark Kennedy told last night how his bosses squandered millions on ‘unnecessary luxuries’ while infiltrating green campaigners. The 41-year-old undercover officer, who posed as an eco-warrior for eight years, said his handlers drove top-of-the-range BMWs and Audis, rented luxury apartments and claimed huge sums in overtime. In a series of extraordinary interviews from a safe house in America where he has been in hiding, Kennedy – who became long-haired hippy Mark Stone to infiltrate activist groups in Britain and Europe – lifted the lid on what he calls the ‘shocking mismanagement’ of undercover officers and the squandering of millions of pounds worth of taxpayers’ money. Still in hiding: Mark Kennedy in America. He has revealed how millions of pounds was squandered by police infiltrating eco-activists He revealed how: - Superior offices blew their budget on expensive Volvo XC90 4x4 vehicles that were ‘highly impractical’ but ‘looked flash’. - The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) that he worked for rented luxury London apartments for staff, complete with concierges, gyms in the base-ment and spectacular views. - He earned massive overtime payments every day for the whole eight years he was undercover. Kennedy says: ‘I was taking home more money than an inspector who was two ranks higher than me.’ Kennedy took part in protests throughout Britain and Europe, including invading power stations and infiltrating animal rights protests. He even took part in G8 riots in Germany. He was ‘outed’ among campaigners as a spy after falling in love with a red-haired activist who discovered his real name in his passport. In last week’s Mail on Sunday, he told the remarkable story of his time undercover – and revealed that he was now in fear of his life after receiving death threats from activists. His undercover role was thrust into the limelight after the trial of six activists allegedly involved in a planned attack on Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station collapsed amid reports that Kennedy had offered to aid the defence. Mark Kennedy as a fresh-faced Pc for the City of London Police in 1990 Since his activities were exposed, serious questions have been raised about police covert operations against environmental groups – and the cost of them. Kennedy, who left the police after being taken off his undercover role, revealed: ‘Each undercover officer cost £250,000 a year in wages, overtime, cost of transport and housing. Every day I was on the job, even if I was at 'home' in bed watching telly and doing the laundry, I got five hours’ overtime. My handler got the same overtime. ‘When I was actively involved in operations I would get the maximum, which was 14 hours of overtime on top of my eight-hour working day. ‘They paid me for 22 hours of work which was the maximum I could claim in a 24-hour period. This could go on for weeks. My handler, or cover officer, would get the same. 'He would be at home or at a hotel near me if I was abroad. But, to be honest, I really earned it. I was living undercover for eight years. I slept in doss houses. I put myself in danger. I lived a lie.’ However, Kennedy added that he was ‘appalled’ by how much taxpayers’ money was ‘squandered’ on unnecessary luxuries for operatives. ‘Handlers were given Volvo XC90s from about 2006 onwards. It was a stupid car to have. When I had to meet my cover officer I felt the car was a liability because if I’d been seen getting into it my activist “friends” would have asked questions about who I was seeing. ‘They had seven of these cars. If we all had a meeting it looked like the CIA had turned up or something – seven identical flash cars in the car park of a pub. ‘Towards the end of 2009 the handlers were told they could choose their own new cars and were buying Five Series BMWs and top-of-the-range Audis.’ He told how police spies would be appointed from all over Britain and the NPOIU would provide accommodation for them. ‘They would rent expensive apartments for them in Central London. Around 2002, I went to an apartment near Tobacco Dock [an expensive area of London’s Docklands] which cost a fortune. ‘It was for two officers attached to the unit. They were laughing about the luxury flat and how they had a view of Tower Bridge. They had a couple of apartments near Vauxhall Bridge Road near Pimlico. ‘I have no idea how much they cost. It was a building with a concierge and gym in the basement.’ Kennedy remains furious about the way he was ‘appallingly managed’ while undercover. ‘I would embark on a course of action and a cover story but what happened time and again is that I would get right up to the brink of either joining an illegal action or meeting some dangerous people and then would be told, “Hold on, we’re not sure you have the authority for this.” It was about saving their own skin so that if something went wrong they wouldn’t get blamed.’ He said the delays put him at constant risk of being exposed. With tattoos, a pony tail and trendy shades, Mark Kennedy was just one police officer to infiltrate activist groups, but says the officers were 'shockingly mismanaged' On another occasion, a vital campaigners’ instruction manual that Kennedy had obtained from someone at ‘the radical end of activism’ was shredded by mistake. He said: ‘I went to Berlin in 2007 to meet some fairly serious people. They had been involved in some very dodgy stuff including trying to prevent a train carrying nuclear waste from reaching its destination. I had a meeting with one person who gave me a booklet. It was a highly prized asset. This booklet was a “how to” manual on building incendiary devices and derailing trains. It was definitely at the radical end of activism. ‘I was told this was one of only a handful of copies in existence. The person I met was connected with ex-members of the Red Army faction [more commonly known as the Baader Meinhoff Group]. ‘I took it home to the UK and immediately gave it to my cover officer so it could be studied and copied. I told him I had to have it back within a few days. When I asked for it back a couple of days later there was a silence. He coughed and said, “I’m sorry it has been mistakenly shredded. It was left on a desk and a girl from the admin staff shredded it.” ‘I had to tell the activist that I had been stopped at customs and that they had found it and confiscated it, which seriously crashed my credibility and damaged all the hard work I’d done to infiltrate that particular group.’ Kennedy recalled how, while he lived in squats and ate food reclaimed from bins, his superiors enjoyed living it up. ‘There was one time when several of us from the NPOIU went for dinner. It was to this fancy Conran seafood restaurant near Tower Bridge. It was massively expensive. ‘I sat there thinking this is the life. The bill came to hundreds of pounds but then I had to go back to Nottingham to my activist “friends” and my vegan lifestyle.’ Kennedy, who has cut his hair and covers tattoos with long-sleeved shirts, is clearly struggling to return to ‘normal’ life. He still lives in only the clothes he can carry in a small rucksack and when I offer to buy him a new T-shirt he chooses the most inexpensive, saying: ‘I can’t just turn capitalist overnight.’ As he prepares to return to Britain he admits he is frightened about what will happen to him next but says: ‘I am glad this has blown apart the world of undercover policing because it must change. I am coming home to face the music.’ Last night, in a statement, the NPOIU said: ‘There are several inquiries into all aspects of covert policing and as a result we feel it would be inappropriate to comment on these allegations.’ I made secret recordings with a £7,000 Casio watch Mark Kennedy was given a £7,000 specially-modified Casio G-Shock watch, like this one, to make secret recordings Kennedy used a specially modified Casio G Shock watch worth £7,000 and equipped with a microchip to record a meeting of activists prior to the planned raid on the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in 2009. Kennedy said the meeting was recorded on a chip in the watch then the information was downloaded to a police computer. The tape was transcribed and Kennedy went through each line to note which activist was talking. The court case concerning the raid was thrown out because taped evidence that would have cleared six activists due to stand trial was allegedly withheld by police. Kennedy said: ‘I don’t know where those transcripts ended up. I did my bit. I sat in on the meeting and recorded it.’ Scared by a sinister email from old boss Mark Kennedy last night told how he feels ‘frightened and scared’ after receiving an ‘intimidating’ email from his former boss. The email came from a detective chief inspector – whose name is known to The Mail on Sunday but who has not been identified after a request from police – at the shadowy National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). In it, the DCI says he is prepared to approach Kennedy’s elderly parents in order to reach him. Speaking from the safe house in America where he has been in hiding, Kennedy told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I found the email sinister and intimidating and the part of it where he said he would contact my parents left me frightened and scared. ‘This is the most recent email from him but I had several earlier ones saying he wanted to meet with me. Those emails started at the beginning of this year. The DCI kept saying he wanted to meet with me for “risk assessment” purposes but when I asked him for an agenda of the points he wished to discuss he avoided answering.’ In the email sent last Wednesday, the DCI wrote: ‘If we have no response from you we are considering contacting your parents to request that they forward a letter on to you but we do not wish to cause them any worry or distress.’ Kennedy said: ‘Why would he even say anything about contacting my elderly parents when I did an interview with The Mail on Sunday last week when he could easily have called the newspaper and got a message through to me? ‘I also have Max Clifford fielding all sorts of book, film and media offers so the police could contact me through him. It is very worrying to me – particularly when there have been so many threatening messages posted about me on the internet – that the police would threaten to turn up on my parents’ doorstep when my mum and dad are already worried about me. ‘I have nothing to hide. But what is it that the police want to say to me that they cannot put in an email or tell The Mail on Sunday? It makes me very suspicious.’ Kennedy showed The Mail on Sunday another email sent last Saturday in which the DCI said he and another officer, Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway, had arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, to meet him in person. Kennedy said: ‘I had told them I was planning to go to Cleveland to visit my brother but they never went to my brother’s house. ‘I didn’t get the email in time because it went to an account I am no longer checking regularly. But I would not wish to meet with anyone from the police unless they can give me a specific list of questions they want me to answer. I don’t trust the people I used to work for any more.’ In his email, the DCI says: ‘Let me get on the record and say what the purpose of the meeting is: - ‘To gather information from you in order to enable; - ‘An assessment of risk for your personal safety; - ‘An assessment of risk for your immediate and extended family; - ‘To assist in the assessment of risk to other Law Enforcement assets.’ Kennedy said: ‘I asked him to be more specific on several occasions but he would not be specific. He just kept sending me those same three points back. That makes me suspicious. I am shocked that two police officers flew to America because of me. I would like to know why. I find it foreboding and sinister that they won’t say why they need to see me in person. ‘If they want to have an honest and open conversation about what is going on then why can’t we speak on the phone? ‘If he’s worried about my safety and that of my family why can’t he talk about that on the phone? ‘If he wants to discuss other assets then I’d be prepared to discuss them too. I am now highly suspicious of anything the NPOIU does. I don’t trust them at all.” An NPOIU source confirmed that two members of staff travelled to the US to discuss ‘risk assessment’ matters with Kennedy but were unable to make contact with him. Squats gave me lice but I couldn’t see GP Kennedy told how he was unable to get treatment for the lice he picked up in squats in Nottingham because as undercover operative Mark Stone he did not have an NHS number. ‘I never had a doctor,’ he said. ‘I got head lice twice from sleeping in squats. I felt totally and utterly disgusted. I was mortified. I couldn’t go to a doctor and I couldn’t use chemicals to get rid of them because of the life I was leading. ‘I was in a house with loads of people and any kind of chemicals were banned. I had to put coconut wax in my hair and keep combing the lice out. It took days to get rid of them. ‘Most of the camps I went to had poor toilet conditions, basically a hole in the ground. There were instances of extreme stomach upsets and dysentery.’ Kennedy would often drive other activists around in his police-funded van as he was not insured to drive other vehicles. He said: ‘I was always an extremely careful driver but I was constantly frightened of crashing on the way back from an action. I would ask my cover officer, “What happens in the event of an accident?” He would tell me, “Don’t worry. We’ll deal with it if it happens.” ‘There was never any plan. If I questioned anything or tried to anticipate something going wrong I would just be told, “Don’t worry. We’ll deal with it.” I never felt secure.’ Kennedy revealed how he blew £5,000 of taxpayers’ money repairing his Nissan Navara pick-up truck. He said: ‘The NPOIU bought this truck for about 7,500 quid. Two activists wanted to borrow my truck to go from Nottingham to Leeds. They didn’t check the oil and on the way up the engine seized up. ‘I couldn’t just go out and buy another van because I was supposed to be a money-challenged activist. So I had to take it and get a refurbished engine put in. ‘I told the activists my mum had lent me money. It cost five thousand quid to fix. Of course, my handlers wrote a cheque.’ -- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349647/How-undercover-officers-squandered-millions-pounds-flash-cars-luxury-flats-14-hours-overtime-day.html?ito=feeds-newsxml%3E Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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