# Police Spy Bob Lambert Confronted at St. Andrews



## intersol32 (Feb 12, 2012)

(re-posted from Indymedia UK):

"On Thursday 9th February two animal rights activists disrupt a talk in St. Andrews by recently 'outed' police spy Bob Lambert. 

Bob Lambert, who worked deep undercover in the London animal rights and environmental political scene, is one of many recently exposed undercover police in the UK radical political scene. Whilst serving in the Metropolitan police, Bob Lambert infiltrated London Greenpeace and animal rights groups with the intent of disrupting their activities. During his time undercover Bob Lambert also fathered a child with a fellow activist whilst withholding information about his true identity and intent. Two years after the child's birth Bob Lambert left the activist scene and returned to a conventional policing role. 

Almost twenty years later Bob Lambert poses as a 'progressive academic' and sat on a panel at his home university, the University of St. Andrews, for a talk titled 'Overcoming Obstacles: Counter-Terrorism Police and Community Engagement.' Several activists leafleted the talk outside handing out leaflets that read: 

''Do you think it's alright to…trick someone into a romantic relationship so that you can spy on them and their friends?…lie to them and everyone else about your identity in order to do so?…maintain this pretence of love and trust for more than a year? …have a child with your deceived 'partner' and then abandon the child for decades while concealing your identity from them? 

Robert Lambert, the man speaking before you seems to think that this is acceptable behaviour for a public servant. He engaged in all of them during his years as an officer with the Metropolitan Police, sent to spy on peaceful environmental and animal rights campaigns. Perhaps this is Lambert's idea of 'community engagement.' 

Is it yours?'' 

As soon as Bob Lambert started his talk two animal rights activists stormed out after shouting and pointing at Bob Lambert phrases like, 'shame!', 'where is your son, Bob?' and 'sex is not community engagement!.' Audience members reported him as startled and mumbled the first section of his speech. 

We were thrilled. 

We challenge the State's use of womyn's bodies; all animals are equal regardless of gender or species."


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## intersol32 (Feb 12, 2012)

All other touts and state agents usually do a runner to live in obscurity elsewhere. I don't see why this particular one should think it's ok to stick his head up above the parapet, as though nothing has happened.


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## Bernie Gunther (Feb 12, 2012)

Are there any other secret police types who have tried to santise their past and pose as decent members of society?


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## butchersapron (Feb 12, 2012)

Well, not the same but the killer of Blair Peach teaches at Sheffield.


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## frogwoman (Feb 12, 2012)

ugh.


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## SpineyNorman (Feb 14, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Well, not the same but the killer of Blair Peach teaches at Sheffield.


 
I heard something about this - what's his name? Do you know what he teaches?


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## 1%er (Feb 14, 2012)

intersol32 said:


> ..................... all animals are equal regardless of gender or species."


Do the animals know and understand this? My experience leads me to believe that some animals behave like errrr, animals, and have little time or regard for equality and the like as they are to busy eating each other  ( and not always in the biblical sense  )


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## TopCat (Feb 14, 2012)

Good stuff.


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## butchersapron (Feb 14, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> I heard something about this - what's his name? Do you know what he teaches?


corporate social responsibility - i kid you not. Alan Murray


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## ymu (Feb 14, 2012)

Good stuff, but ...





intersol32 said:


> We challenge the State's use of womyn's bodies; all animals are equal regardless of gender or species."


Bit of a bugbear of mine. Female coppers also slept with male activists, but the stuff I've seen from the 'activist community' seems determined to ignore this.

Maybe the blokes don't want to speak out, or maybe this approach is encouraging them not to, I dunno. Would be interested to hear from anyone who knows why the overwhelming focus on female activists being abused here, if it's anything more that shite stereotypical assumptions about how the victims feel about it.


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## intersol32 (Feb 14, 2012)

ymu said:


> Good stuff, but ...
> Bit of a bugbear of mine. Female coppers also slept with male activists, but the stuff I've seen from the 'activist community' seems determined to ignore this.
> 
> Maybe the blokes don't want to speak out, or maybe this approach is encouraging them not to, I dunno. Would be interested to hear from anyone who knows why the overwhelming focus on female activists being abused here, if it's anything more that shite stereotypical assumptions about how the victims feel about it.


 
True. You may remember in the 'McLibel' case in the 90's, where a female undercover officer slept with one of the male activists.


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## free spirit (Feb 17, 2012)

ymu said:


> Good stuff, but ...
> Bit of a bugbear of mine. Female coppers also slept with male activists, but the stuff I've seen from the 'activist community' seems determined to ignore this.
> 
> Maybe the blokes don't want to speak out, or maybe this approach is encouraging them not to, I dunno. Would be interested to hear from anyone who knows why the overwhelming focus on female activists being abused here, if it's anything more that shite stereotypical assumptions about how the victims feel about it.


If I slept with a copper, I'd at least want her to be in uniform... 

sorry


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## ymu (Feb 17, 2012)

free spirit said:


> If I slept with a copper, I'd at least want her to be in uniform...
> 
> sorry


Kind of illustrates my point. Making that joke in reference to the female activists who were tricked would probably not go down well, but blokes are just supposed to find it hilarious. Patriarchy and all that, but activists reinforcing that shit effectively denies the men who were abused any outlet. They're just ignored, or expected to be fine about it because men are just mindless sex machines, doncha know.


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## intersol32 (Feb 18, 2012)

ymu said:


> Kind of illustrates my point. Making that joke in reference to the female activists who were tricked would probably not go down well, but blokes are just supposed to find it hilarious. Patriarchy and all that, but activists reinforcing that shit effectively denies the men who were abused any outlet. They're just ignored, or expected to be fine about it because men are just mindless sex machines, doncha know.


 
It's not just the sex either. It's the fact that these state agents have betrayed the victims trust to such a level that they're intimately involved with the person. It's likely that the targets have shared a huge portion of their personal lives with them; introducing them to friends, maybe relatives etc. The psychological damage would be huge.

Then again, are we likely to ever believe that the State and its security agencies are anything but immoral fuckers? At the end of the day they're quite happy to allow things like rendition where people are spirited away to other countries so they can be tortured.....


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## free spirit (Feb 18, 2012)

ymu said:


> Kind of illustrates my point. Making that joke in reference to the female activists who were tricked would probably not go down well, but blokes are just supposed to find it hilarious. Patriarchy and all that, but activists reinforcing that shit effectively denies the men who were abused any outlet. They're just ignored, or expected to be fine about it because men are just mindless sex machines, doncha know.


all true, and it's a valid point to query why it's only the women involved in this, but I don't think it's necessarily a problem as AFAIK there were far less women undercovers involved (I can personally only think of 1 who's been outed), and probably only a very few male activists who had relationships with / slept with her/them. These male activists would be well within their rights to not want to waste any more time or go through more emotional trauma dragging this through the courts for several years, which seems as likely a scenario to me as them never having been asked to get involved by any of the women involved.

FWIW, in my activist years I was at various times introduced to at least 3-4 of the more recent undercovers, definitely socialised on a couple of occasions with 2 of them including the woman (post dissent meetings etc), and would certainly have featured in their spying reports, so am not entirely divorced from this situation, though I'm not really in much contact with most of the rest of the people involved from back then.

eta - I do tend to work on the basis though that if we can't take the piss to some extent, and must instead always express our righteous anger and bitterness about the situation when asked, then they've already won.


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## Spymaster (Feb 18, 2012)

intersol32 said:


> ... all animals are equal regardless of gender or species.


 
Equal to what? 

A fly is "equal" to a horse in what way?


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## rover07 (Feb 18, 2012)

Spymaster said:


> Equal to what?
> 
> A fly is "equal" to a horse in what way?



They both have souls.


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## Spymaster (Feb 18, 2012)

Ahhh, gotcha.


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## killer b (Feb 18, 2012)

Its a c&p spy - no ones making that argument here. I hope.


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## ymu (Feb 18, 2012)

free spirit said:


> all true, and it's a valid point to query why it's only the women involved in this, but I don't think it's necessarily a problem as AFAIK there were far less women undercovers involved (I can personally only think of 1 who's been outed), and probably only a very few male activists who had relationships with / slept with her/them. These male activists would be well within their rights to not want to waste any more time or go through more emotional trauma dragging this through the courts for several years, which seems as likely a scenario to me as them never having been asked to get involved by any of the women involved.
> 
> FWIW, in my activist years I was at various times introduced to at least 3-4 of the more recent undercovers, definitely socialised on a couple of occasions with 2 of them including the woman (post dissent meetings etc), and would certainly have featured in their spying reports, so am not entirely divorced from this situation, though I'm not really in much contact with most of the rest of the people involved from back then.
> 
> eta - I do tend to work on the basis though that if we can't take the piss to some extent, and must instead always express our righteous anger and bitterness about the situation when asked, then they've already won.


Of course you can take the piss! I wasn't having a go.

It's not about which individuals are named in the action*. It's the prevalence of references specifically to 'women' and 'female activists' in the materials.You don't need to have named male activists come forward in order to make the campaign truthful. Completely ignoring the fact that there were male 'victims' too suggests an underlying assumption that men don't mind being used sexually so there's no need to make a fuss about it. It's insulting nonsense. I expect it of the media - they have the same double standard when it comes to teachers seducing their students - but I expect better of activists.

*although I do think that more of the men _might_ be willing to come forward if this shitty sexist attitude wasn't the fucking norm


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## free spirit (Feb 18, 2012)

ok, but in their defence, probably 95%+ of the people affected in this way are female, and 100% of the people who've had kids as a result are female, so focusing on the impact on the women involved doesn't strike me as completely unjustified.

At the end of the day, a large part of the aim of these actions must be to keep the subject in the headlines, and as anyone with any PR experience will know, carefully nuanced press releases covering all the angles in such a way that nobody could possible criticise them generally get filed in the round filing cabinet in the corner, which does nobody any good. 

Besides, this action was aimed squarely at Bob Lambert himself, and unless you're suggesting he was also involved in gay relationships with male activists, I don't really see the relevance of your point at all on this particular thread / action.


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## Spymaster (Feb 18, 2012)

killer b said:


> Its a c&p spy - no ones making that argument here. I hope.


 
Yeah, ok. 

Do those people _really_ believe that shit though or is it just a cliché that gets wheeled out for occasions like this?


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## free spirit (Feb 18, 2012)

Spymaster said:


> Yeah, ok.
> 
> Do those people _really_ believe that shit though or is it just a cliché that gets wheeled out for occasions like this?


IIRC lambert infiltrated animal rights activists, so it's not that surprising to find this sort of thing creeping in to stuff written by people who're challenging him on his actions back then.

It does grate though.


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## ymu (Feb 18, 2012)

free spirit said:


> Besides, this action was aimed squarely at Bob Lambert himself, and unless you're suggesting he was also involved in gay relationships with male activists, I don't really see the relevance of your point at all on this particular thread / action.


I was referring to a number of actions since the Mark Kennedy revelations, all of which seem to have focused exclusively on the poor abused women. But I did come in on this point because of a shitty line in the indymedia report on the Bob Lambert action:

_We challenge the State's use of womyn's bodies; all animals are equal regardless of gender or species._


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## free spirit (Feb 18, 2012)

tbf, the use of the 'Womyn' is a bit of a giveaway there.


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## ymu (Feb 18, 2012)

Well, yeah. Insulting on many levels.


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## Corax (Feb 18, 2012)

There seem to be another dozen of these wankers every week.  Have any every been positively ID'd on here?*

*not that it's really a hotbed of radicalism, but it did receive that label in the media at one point.


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## barney_pig (Mar 12, 2012)

Lambert has a new article on the 'open democracy' website. Police spy and rapist: the very definition of democracy.


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## Kaka Tim (Mar 12, 2012)

Did any of the female undercovers conduct long term relationships with blokes?


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## ymu (Mar 12, 2012)

Kaka Tim said:


> Did any of the female undercovers conduct long term relationships with blokes?


Yes (not sure about long-term, but I'm not sure I see the relevance of how long the relationships lasted). One case is mentioned above, but at least one female undercover exposed via Kennedy was also shagging activists.

But it doesn't matter because blokes are all mindless penises who are happy to be taken advantage of by any passing female. Apparently.


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## Kaka Tim (Mar 12, 2012)

Well theres a differnce between a one off shag (which is still very shit) and a cop based intimate relationship - which is even worse.

I agree with where your coming from - but wonder wether it might partly be to do with the male coppers having ongoing relationships with their victims - but i didn't know weather this was the case with the female cops.

clearly there is also the element that doing it do a female is seen as worse becasue they are more 'fragile vuneralbe' etc - when its should be seen as equally shit.

I'd feel fucking horrible if I found out I'd had sex with an undercover.


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## kenny g (Mar 17, 2012)

She was an undercover lover does have a certain ring to it though.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 19, 2012)

Is that a Mansun lyric or summat?


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## Balbi (Mar 19, 2012)

I fear it may be Phil 'Fucking' Collins.


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## Mrs Magpie (Jun 13, 2012)

Serious allegation via parliamentary privilege from Caroline Lucas
*MP accuses undercover policeman of firebombing shop*


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18423441


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## Pickman's model (Jun 13, 2012)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Serious allegation via parliamentary privilege from Caroline Lucas
> *MP accuses undercover policeman of firebombing shop*
> 
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18423441


i'm lovin' it


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## butchersapron (Jun 13, 2012)

Now this is getting very interesting. I think the PSC/related people may have some serious questions to ask themselves - as does exter university.


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## xes (Jun 13, 2012)

killer b said:


> Its a c&p spy - no ones making that argument here. I hope.


I'd defend the right of anything which was born onto this planet, to have the right to live out its life. No one species is more important than the other. It's only this illusion of inteligence which makes humans think they're more worthy of life than every thing else. Quite frankly, thoughts like that show the exact opposite.


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## butchersapron (Jun 13, 2012)

xes said:


> I'd defend the right of anything which was born onto this planet, to have the right to live out its life. No one species is more important than the other. It's only this illusion of inteligence which makes humans think they're more worthy of life than every thing else. Quite frankly, thoughts like that show the exact opposite.


Picture missing.


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## butchersapron (Jun 13, 2012)

Lambert has been right up the arse of the_ london pluralists_ for the last few years - i think they need to look at themselves as well.


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## butchersapron (Jun 13, 2012)

Anyone have any contact with Geoff Shepherd and Andrew Clarke today?


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## butchersapron (Jun 13, 2012)

Just a reminder:
Undercover police had children with activists

Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal.​One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner.

The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child's mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother's political activities and life.​


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## barney_pig (Jun 13, 2012)

Utter scum


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## butchersapron (Jul 29, 2013)

Anyone know if this is the same Bob Lambert in 2004:



> The security services, who know a real terrorist threat from a tabloid fabrication, actually wanted us to engage with al-Qaradawi and Special Branch believed his visit was important in preventing al- Qaeda from recruiting young British Muslims. An internal Special Branch report said ‘Sheikh al-Qaradawi has a positive Muslim community impact in the fight against al-Qaeda propaganda in the UK. His support for Palestinian suicide bombers adds credibility to his condemnation for al-Qaeda in those sections of the community most susceptible to the blandishments of al-Qaeda terrorist propaganda.’ The head of the Special Branch Muslim Contact Unit, Detective Inspector Bob Lambert, told Andrew Hosken: ‘It became clear that most of the Muslim groups we were working with – those groups which were proving to be effective at the grass roots and in persuading young people not to get involved in dangerous activity – held City Hall and the Mayor in very high regard.


 


> Rejecting criticism from journalists like Nick Cohen and Martin Bright that we were ‘appeasing radical Islam’, Bob Lambert said, ‘We were worried about young London Muslims who in some cases could have become al-Qaeda terrorists and supporters. Ken is part of an alliance which says to
> the same young people, “Look we can empathise with your grievances, the same grievances that al-Qaeda exploits for terrorist recruitment – we have the same grievances; you don’t have to go down that road …” Where the mayor was useful was with his record of support for minorities, I think
> potentially, if anyone can, he is well placed to broker dialogue … Only through engagement can you hope to move people forward.’


 
This is from Ken Livingstone's memoir, You Can't Say That and it's referring to 2004.

(Cheers to Paul for the tip),


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## butchersapron (Aug 8, 2013)

Yes, it is the same Bob Lambert - who the crazy Bob 'islamophobiawatch' Pitt lauds in this review of the Evans and Lewis book.

(Cheers once more to Paul for the tip),


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## DaveCinzano (Aug 13, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Yes, it is the same Bob Lambert - who the crazy Bob 'islamophobiawatch' Pitt lauds in this review of the Evans and Lewis book.
> 
> (Cheers once more to Paul for the tip),


The Lewis/Evans book does have weaknesses - some possibly serious - but the Pitt review points to none of them.


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## ska invita (Aug 13, 2013)

DaveCinzano said:


> The Lewis/Evans book does have weaknesses - some possibly serious -


what are they dave?


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## DaveCinzano (Aug 14, 2013)

ska invita said:


> what are they dave?


Mostly to do with obfuscation of sources, failure to clearly corroborate sources, inconsistencies in some areas of their analysis (eg classification and numbering conventions), and similar issues which could be reasonably ascribed to the desire to protect journalistic sources.

In addition whilst there is an index, there is no proper referencing of sources. The book borrows liberally from texts such as Eveline Lubbers' _Secret Manoeuvres In The Dark_ and John Vidal's _McLibel_, and the Peter Taylor documentary series _True Spies_, without accurate attribution, and sometimes conflates Lewis/Evans' narrative or original research with that of the previous authors.

Most troubling on this front, they borrow from Taylor's work seemingly without reservation, despite the documentary's _interesting_ genesis - at a time of Security Service/Special Branch inter- and intra-factional fighting. Lewis and Evans regurgitate the same claims made in the Taylor documentary (such as the Newbury private security spy hired by Thames Valley Police) without further standing them up.

(In contrast, Lubbers contacted Taylor to find out which private security company the Newbury spy worked for, but after checking through his notes he was unable to tell her whether he had been told the firm's name, and if he had been which firm it was; he could only find general reference in his notes to three security firms.)

The authors also fail to transparently explain their methodology in identifying police spies (hence the confusing exposure/non-exposure of 'Rod Richardson').

There is a general failure to provide historical context to the various (identified) police spies.

In terms of the narrative of the investigation into police spies, there is a somewhat disingenuous downplaying of the release of the original Mark Kennedy/Mark Stone exposure story on IndyMedia. Tony Thompson is also whitewashed out of the story (bar a thank-you in the acknowledgements).

There's other stuff, but it's late and I'm sure the above gives an idea.


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## butchersapron (Aug 14, 2013)

Thank you Dave. More to come i think.


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## DaveCinzano (Aug 18, 2014)

In case you hadn't seen it, here's the _New Yorker_ piece which came out today. 

You may be familiar with the basic elements of the story, but this is the first time some of the background details have been publicly aired. And some of them are gruesome.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/the-spy-who-loved-me-2

It tells the story of Jacqui (previously referred to as ‘Charlotte’), the woman who once upon a time fell in love with a dashing animal rights activist named ‘Bob Robinson’.

In reality, ‘Robinson’ was Robert Lambert, a career-long veteran of Special Branch, who in 1983 was sent deep undercover to infiltrate political groups on behalf of the secretive Special Demonstration Squad.

Almost immediately after being deployed on the ground, complete with the stolen identity of a dead child, Lambert sought out Jacqui at a protest, and began to woo her - which helped ease his way into animal rights groups that she was on the periphery of. Pretty soon they were an item, and by Christmas of 1984 Jacqui fell pregnant with Bob's son.

But in 1987 the relationship fell apart, as Bob became increasingly distant, argumentative, provocative. He began an 18 month relationship with another woman, ‘Karen’, who not part of any activist scene. In 1988, he disappeared completely from the lives of Jacqui, ‘Karen’ and all the people he had befriended during his adventure as a spy - ostensibly on the run in Spain to avoid the clutches of Special Branch, who had already arrested two other members of Bob's ALF incendiary bomb gang. 

Between 1988 and late 2012, he made no attempt to remain in the life of his son. It was only when Jacqui realised that her long-disappeared ‘Bob Robinson’ was the same man as the former secret policeman Bob Lambert who had been accused of having set off a firebomb that gutted a department store whilst an undercover policeman, and tracked him down, that he showed any interest in his own progeny.

And that, in a nutshell, is the “genuine personal feelings” that the Met Police, recently forced to admit that Lambert was one of its spies, thinks drove Lambert to seek out an impressionable young activist, pester her into a relationship, impregnate her, emotionally bully her, dump her and then disappear from her life and the life of their son.

[Cross-posted]


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