An application for a Judicial Review of the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute former undercover police officer Jim Boyling has today been lodged by one of three women deceived into a sexual relationship by him whilst he was deployed to infiltrate environmental and social justice protest groups.
The claimant, granted anonymity by the Undercover Policing Inquiry, goes under the pseudonym of ‘Monica’ and was deceived into a relationship by Boyling in 1997.
Monica’s legal representatives argue that, contrary to arguments put forward by the CPS, the disgraced former undercover officer should have been prosecuted under the Sexual Offences Act 1956, and been charged with Misconduct in Public Office.
Monica was the first of three women involved in ‘Reclaim the Streets’ with whom Boyling formed long term intimate sexual relationships. Boyling, who claimed to be a van driver and used the cover name Jim Sutton, played a key role in a number of ‘actions’.
The CPS previously decided not to prosecute following a lengthy investigation into Boyling’s conduct arising from a formal complaint made by the third woman ‘Rosa‘, whose relationship commenced in 1999. In both cases the women instigated a Victim’s Right of Review and were shocked to receive detailed replies which implied that the abuse of women was condoned since it suggested that an officer operating for five years “in the upper eschelon of an activist organisation may well have sexual contact or intimate relationships whilst maintaining his cover.”
This contradicts historic public apology in November 2015, when the Metropolitan Police acknowledged that relationships between undercover police and their targets were “abusive, deceitful, manipulative and wrong…a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma.” The apology clearly stated that such relationships were not authorised, and never would be. These statements were echoed by the police’s own investigation into undercover police activities and behaviours, Operation Herne. The CPS refusal to prosecute flies in the face of these.
‘Monica’ said: “I am appalled by the hypocrisy of police and government, who on one hand wring their hands, apologise, say this was terrible and must never happen again, yet on the other provide no disclosure, protect the perpetrators, and hold no one to account. The whitewashing of these serious human rights abuses must stop.”
Representing lawyer Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce, said: It is appalling that the CPS have interpreted this officer’s cynical manipulation and deception as a relationship of “genuine feelings” and have made reference to “modern attitudes about sexual behaviour”. The CPS have prosecuted and sent to prison young women who deceived others as to their gender, but when it comes to wholesale deception as to identity by police officers, they entirely excuse behavior which has been demonstrated to have caused significant psychological damage to all the women concerned.
– In relation to his final intimate relationship while undercover, Boyling is facing a 3-week misconduct hearing commencing on 30th April for pursuing an unauthorised sexual relationship under his false identity, failing to inform his line management of the extent of his relationship, and disclosing confidential information to his target.
