Use of High Court for sex case queried

The High Court is not the appropriate forum for a damages action brought by 11 people who claim they were tricked into forming relationships with undercover police officers, it has been argued.

The group want compensation for emotional trauma allegedly caused by officers infiltrating environmental activist groups.

All 10 women say they had a sexual relationship with a man who was later discovered to be a covert human intelligence source (Chis), while a male claimant alleges a non-sexual relationship.

At the start of a two-day hearing in London, Monica Carss-Frisk, QC, counsel for the Metropolitan Police and Association of Chief Police Officers, told Mr Justice Tugendhat: “This case is not about denying any remedy for any legitimate grievance that these claimants may have. It is about the right forum for determining these claims.”

Some of the claimants say they had relationships with Mark Kennedy, the undercover police officer who spent seven years spying on environmental activists posing as a long-haired dropout called Mark “Flash” Stone.