Can’t say how many identities were stolen
POLICE admitted undercover officers routinely stole the identities of dead children to infiltrate political groups.
The admission was made to MPs by Chief Constable Mick Creedon, who is leading an investigation into a 40-year undercover operation to spy on political activists.
Mr Creedon also admitted that police have yet to inform any parents of children whose identities were stolen in a practice which MPs have criticised as “gruesome” and “heartless”.
Mr Creedon told MPs the technique was “common practice” within a clandestine unit, the Special Demonstration Squad.
However, he declined to specify how many identities were stolen by the Metropolitan police unit, which operated between 1968 and 2008, saying he could not answer the question “with any degree of certainty”.
More than 80 undercover officers are believed to have trawled through birth and death records from all over the country in their attempts to find suitable candidates.
The technique was dubbed “the jackal run” after it was depicted in Frederick Forysth’s novel The Day Of The Jackal.
The spies then developed aliases based on the children’s identities and were issued with documents such as passports, driving licences and national insurance numbers to make the personas more credible.
After assuming the identities of the dead children, they spent up to 10 years infiltrating activist groups.
Police had previously admitted the technique was also used by a second undercover squad, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which began operating in 1999.
As a result of the disclosures, the Met Police called in Mr Creedon, Derbyshire’s chief constable, to take over an internal inquiry into the SDS which has been examining a series of allegations since October 2011.