Police told 19 families their spies took on dead babies’ identities, inquiry hears

POLICE have informed 19 families that undercover officers assumed the identities of their dead children, an inquiry has heard.

Officers who were spying on political activists used the details to create false identities and ingratiate themselves with their targets during four decades of undercover activities.

In one case an officer used the identity of a living child as part of their shadowy tactics.

In 2013, a report into police spying methods suggested that undercover officers may have stolen the identities of as many as 42 dead infants.

At the time Scotland Yard refused to inform those involved for fear of putting the officers in danger.

But on the opening day of the longawaited public inquiry into undercover policing, David Barr QC, counsel to the inquiry, confirmed that 19 families had now been told that their dead children had been used to create ghost identities.

It is not clear whether efforts are continuing to trace and inform the families of others affected by the practice.

The inquiry, which has already cost £30 million, was announced in 2015 by Theresa May, then home secretary, amid “profound and widespread concern” over the activities of two undercover police units.

But the huge amount of evidence that is due to be heard, combined with various delays, mean it could be 2025 before the findings are published.

Among the revelations to be explored are details of how undercover officers had sexual relationships and fathered children with activists they were targeting. Officers from the Metropolitan

Police also spied on the families of the bereaved, including the parents of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a racist attack in south London in 1993.

The inquiry has been divided into three chronological tranches, with details of the period covering 1993 to 2010 not due to begin until 2023.

There is also anger that some of the officers who took part have been granted anonymity.

In his opening statement, Mr Barr said that the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which existed between 1968 and 2008; and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which existed between 1999 and 2010, had deployed thousands of undercover officers.

The hearing was told that the SDS – which became known within police circles as The Haries, was founded in 1968 in order to gather intelligence on the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.

But Mr Barr said the SDS had gone on to exist for four decades, providing a wide range of intelligence on various targets.