In April 1992 Andy Coles was a married, thirty-two year old police officer whose day job was posing as twenty-four year old Andy Davey, an animal rights activist who deceived nineteen year old Jessica into an intimate, sexual relationship for over a year.
Three years later in 1995 Coles wrote the SDS Tradecraft manual which presumably was used to train other undercover officers who deceived women into intimate relationships. These officers would have included Mark Jenner, James Straven, Anthony ‘Bobby’ Lewis, Carlo Soracchi, Rob Harrison, and others. The manual advised that relationships with the opposite sex should be ‘fleeting and disastrous.’
Since the story of Andy Coles hit the news in May 2017 – when he became the latest face of the spycops undercover policing scandal – he has dismissed and denied Jessica’s claims as ‘lurid’. Nevertheless, he stood down as Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough but remains a Tory councillor in Peterborough City Council.
Jessica has now been informed that an internal police investigation found it ‘credible’ that Coles deceived her into a relationship. The investigation found that had he still been in post he would have had a ‘case to answer’ for Gross Misconduct – a sackable offence if found guilty.
Jessica says: “I’m pleased the complaint was upheld however I am disappointed at the lack of accountability. Andy Coles was allowed to retire in 2013 at a time when the revelations about undercover officers having sexual relationships and even children with unsuspecting women had started to come out. I would like to know what his superior officers knew or ought to have known about our relationship. Was he properly supervised? Kate Wilson is in court later this week fighting to find answers to what happened to her. Her relationship with an undercover police officer happened decades after mine. This is not historic abuse. It’s systematic and institutionalised sexism in the police.”
Today’s press coverage:
Interview with Jessica on BBC news – 25th February 2020
News story in Guardian – 25th February 2020
More information about Jessica’s story here.
