The spy who turned green

“Calls for inquiry into conduct of undercover police officer,” headlines the Guardian, following the 10 January revelations that PC Mark Kennedy, a Metropolitan police officer, lived deep undercover at the heart of the environmental protest movement. From 2003 to 2010, Kennedy “used a fake passport to travel to 22 different countries while posing as a campaigner, earning the trust of activists and feeding back intelligence to his commanders.” The officer, however, “keen for redemption”, has quit the Met and helped free six campaigners facing trial for conspiring to invade a power station near Nottingham by revealing his true identity. In a further development, Scotland Yard is now under pressure to explain “whether it had authorised an undercover officer to have sexual relationships with environmental activists after a woman came forward to say she felt violated,” the Guardian reports.