Courageous Jessica makes statement

Today, there have been shocking revelations about Andy Coles (deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire, and Tory councillor for Cambridge [2]) being an undercover officer known as ‘Andy “Van” Davey’. He, like so many other officers that have been uncovered [3], had an abusive relationship with a female activist while undercover. That activist, known as ‘Jessica’, has only recently discovered the truth, and is today courageously speaking out and releasing her own statement about their abusive relationship. For the full text of the statement, go here.

‘Jessica’ was a young (19 years old) animal rights campaigner when she was targeted in 1992 by Andy Coles and had a relationship with him. In this statement she talks about feeling groomed: “I look back now and realise I was naive, idealistic, unsophisticated and a very young 19. Appallingly I also now know my “boyfriend” was a 32 year old, married undercover policeman working for the Special Demonstration Squad. I had believed him to be about 24 at the time. I attended my first demonstration at 14 years old, I am just grateful I never met him then”.

She also explains how the experience of finding out she had been abused by a police officer has affected her: “This has been one of the most stressful times I have ever known: my life as I knew it was a lie. One of the people that I trusted most never existed. I can’t look back at those times in the same way now. I can’t trust my judgement, because I got things so wrong. I am now beginning to look at people I know differently. I can’t even feel that I’m being paranoid, because it’s justified.”

In her own words, “This is a story that has to be told, has to be prevented from happening again. I am not the first person to go through this, and unfortunately, I will not be the last. We don’t know the full scale of the abuse at the hands of the undercover police. “