The use of dead children’s identities by undercover officers was common practice within a specialist Scotland Yard squad, a chief constable said today.
Mick Creedon, the chief constable leading an investigation into undercover policing, told MPs that, so far, no families of children whose identities were used had been contacted and informed.
Mr Creedon, the Derbyshire Police chief who was brought in to take over the investigation from the Met, said: “This issue is very complicated and mistakes could put lives in jeopardy.”
In a letter to MPs he said the inquiry was expected to cost £1.66 million over the next 12 months and involve 23 officers and 10 police staff. Mr Creedon said the SDS group was operational for four decades.
The operation was set up in October 2011 to look into allegations made against the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad, including using dead children’s identities and engaging in inappropriate sexual relationships.
The tactic, made famous by Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day Of The Jackal, was used to give undercover officers secure identities to infiltrate protest groups from the Sixties onwards.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said today: “The families of dead children whose identities were used, the offspring conceived by police officers using their undercover identities and those who had sexual relations with them using their alias must be contacted.”
