Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner

newsJul 26, 202623566

The Spycops public inquiry found that senior Metropolitan Police officers secretly monitored activist Helen Steel and spent about £2.5 million relocating undercover officer John Dines to prevent Steel finding him. Dines, who had a two-year sexual relationship with Steel under a false identity in the early 1990s, vanished in 1992 claiming a mental breakdown; Steel later tried to trace him. In December 2002 Scotland Yard arranged for New Zealand police to place a warning on Steel that triggered a customs search at Auckland airport, then covertly tailed and photographed her and her family during visits. The inquiry heard that senior Met officers authorised the large expenditure, including helping Dines buy a house, as part of a calculated plan to protect the secret deployment. Steel told the inquiry she was "really angry" that police used state powers to stop her discovering how an officer had "deceived and sexually exploited" her and called the operation "illegitimate and undemocratic." Former Met commissioner Paul Condon admitted the force had failed to control officers and managers who carried out "horrendous abuses," and the inquiry is examining misconduct by undercover officers who spied on more than 1,000 political groups between 1968 and at least 2010.

George Monbiot

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social

The continuing claims by the police that all this is the work of a "rogue unit" or a "few bad apples" are yet more lies piled on top of 50 years of lying. The state surveillance, state rape and state cover-ups are institutional and systemic. It's not over. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

2951h ago

Tim Byrne11

Whenever someone talks about a 'few bad apples' I remind them of what happens to the whole barrel in the second half of that saying.

Arfur Towcrate5

£2.5m of our money, that could have been spent on fighting crime, not covering it up

silverranger.bsky.social4

Makes you wonder how the state is now currently spying on peace activists……

guitaronthemtv.bsky.social3

They never complete the phrase. "A few bad apples..."

kunzea.bsky.social2

in 1917 Alice Wheeldon and her family, antiwar activists, were framed by undercover agents and imprisoned. My great grandmother.

Simon 🪗2

Things like this are exactly why the Home Office want it stopped... www.counterfire.org/article/home...

Quoting this

Graham Wroe2

It's astonishing to read how the police went to such great lengths to protect spy cops employed to spy on peaceful campaigners.

BeijingPalmer

@beijingpalmer.bsky.social

don't think non-Brits have been following the Spycops scandal, but it's nuts; not only was the government spying on entirely peaceful and legal activism , cops were regularly forming relationships with activists including in some cases fathering children. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

2003h ago

BeijingPalmer72

they also spied on the family of a murdered black child.

Loukas Christodoulou12

Hey I was one of the people they spied with. I lived with an undercover cop for around a year.

Lucy Kwiatek6

How many times has that happened?

🌿3

this is like something out of hoover’s fbi jesus christ

kirschly1

It's a slow burner. I guess they'll eventually arrive at the inevitable 'mistakes were made, lessons learnt' conclusion, let's hope they actually apply them. How anyone with a moral compass could consider any of this remotely acceptable defies belief, though.

jacqmclean.bsky.social1

I’m not sure Brits have been following it. Very little on TV current affairs/news. Can’t even remember Channel 4 news coverage.

Quoting this

Nick Barlow18

Every British public inquiry takes a few weeks to investigate the actual events, then needs several years to unravel the massive cover up operation that tried to hide them.

Netpol

@netpol.org

The #spycops inquiry has heard how senior Scotland Yard officers arranged for covert surveillance by New Zealand police on a leftwing campaigner visiting family in Auckland, to protect the identity of her former partner, the undercover police officer John Dines www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

101h ago

paulusthewoodgnome

@paulusthewoodgnome.bsky.social

You may as well try and count the grains of sand on a beach than add up all the instances of abuse of power by the Metropolitan Police. It's technically possible but realistically, a waste of a lifetime. Even so, the facts of this ⤵️ are spectacularly outrageous. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

10Just now

Andy Fleming

@slackbastard.bsky.social

#Spycops 'Steel’s sister collected the family and drove them to her home 90 minutes away. Again, none of them knew surveillance officers employed by New Zealand police were tailing them.' www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

61h ago

Ian Moody

@ianmoody.bsky.social

How the Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner. Spycops inquiry has revealed how Helen Steel was secretly monitored in her search for undercover officer who deceived her into relationship. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

103h ago

Andrew Jull NZRN (he/him)

@andrewjull.bsky.social

Who paid for the undercover surveillance of Helen Steel while she was visiting her sister in NZ? Were the New Zealand Police reimbursed by the Metropolitan Police in the UK? Or did the NZ taxpayer end up funding this misuse of funds? #nzpol www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

92h ago

Idiot/Savant

@norightturnnz.bsky.social

NZ police cooperate with English police in anti-democratic surveillance www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

84h ago

Opal - Toitū Te Tiriti 🍉

@opaltiger.bsky.social

Bloody disgusting the lengths the authorities went to to stalk a single activist. Fake boyfriend, fake lawyer (Keir Starmer) and then roping in NZ police when she went looking for the truth. #nzpol

55h ago

MellowSteadyFlow

@mellowsteadyflow.bsky.social

Met Police must be named and shamed for this. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

31h ago

Alicia

@agbutteriss.bsky.social

Mark Kennedy/Stone was outed just over 15 years ago - the Guardian's page on it defaults to having some older stories on the top, which is probably the correct choice www.theguardian.com/uk-news/seri... (the "slow-moving" ongoing inquiry was commissioned by Theresa May. As Home Secretary.)

41h ago

Roger Rimbaud

@rogerday.bsky.social

This is bananas The British police state is out of control and seemingly no one wants to take control With a succession of Home Secretaries who are laser focussed on the wrong issue, I can't see it changing www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

3Just now

Simon 🪗

@mzdt.bsky.social

Things like this are exactly why the Home Office want it stopped... www.counterfire.org/article/home...

21h ago

Meish

@meish100.bsky.social

"Oh what a tangled Web we weave, when we first practice to deceive". What a despicable police force we have. 2.5 million quid spent on housing deceitful cops.. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

2h ago

HSA Chairperson

@hsachair.bsky.social

Typical Guardian not will to admit that Helen Steel was a Animal rights campaigner. They done their best with the coverage of the Spycops to exclude the animal rights movement as a big focus for the Spycops. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

11h ago

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theguardian.comHow the Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner

Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partnernews

Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner

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