The Guardian’s Paul Lewis and Rob Evans on investigating one of British police’s most covert units and learning that they were using the identities of dead children. Frank Bennett reflects on the impact of discovering that a police spy had stolen his dead brother’s identity to infiltrate two leftwing organisations, and to deceive a woman into a sexual relationship
In 2018, Frank Bennett’s sister Honor received a hand-delivered letter from a public inquiry about their 18-year old brother Michael Hartley, who had been reported missing at sea believed dead 50 years before. For a moment they thought Michael had been found, but in fact, the letter revealed that their dead brother’s identity had been stolen by a police officer who had penetrated two leftwing organisations. Using this false identity, the police spy had deceived a woman into a sexual relationship and had been prosecuted during his deployment. Frank talks to Anushka Asthana about his childhood and the impact his brother’s death had on him and his family. Knowing that years on, his brother’s name had been used by police has had a huge impact on his mental health he says. Their behaviour has been “disgusting”.
Anushka also talks to Guardian investigative editor Paul Lewis and Guardian investigative reporter Rob Evans about their decade-long investigation with activists to uncover the activities of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). Over four decades, at least 139 police officers were given fake identities to closely monitor the inner workings of more than 1,000 political groups. Some of those identities had been stolen from dead children to lend credibility to their aliases – with some, in a macabre ritual, even visiting the graves of the deceased children whose identities they were using.
