Man who learned his father was undercover officer can sue force

♦ A judge has rejected a request by the Metropolitan Police to dismiss a claim for compensation by a man who said he became mentally scarred when he found out his father – who left him and his mother when he was just two – was an undercover police officer.

Mr Justice Nicol, who analysed the issue at a High Court hearing in London in October, yesterday said the unnamed man, 32, can now continue his legal fight and might win compensation if he demonstrated that the force had failed to provide a “duty of care” they owed him.

The judge outlined the claim: the man’s father was Bob Lambert, an undercover officer who as “Bob Robinson” pretended to share the Left-leaning political views of a woman named Jacqui during the mid-eighties and “formed a liaison”, which resulted in the man’s birth.

He “purported to fulfil” a “father’s role” until 1988, when he “pretended that he had to leave to avoid prosecution”, he said. “Jacqui” received £425,000 in a separate damages claim three years ago.

The claimant says he suffered, “among other things, ‘adjustment disorder with depressed mood’, as a result of finding out his father was not a political activist but a police officer”.