'I was tricked into 6-year relationship by undercover cop sent to spy on me'
With his long hair, tattoos and piercings, Mark Stone looked every inch the environmental activist, but underneath his cool exterior he was hiding a dark secret.
His real name was Mark Kennedy and he was in fact a police officer sent to live with and spy on a group of environmental activists back in 2003, passing on their secrets to his police superiors and MI5. He had allegedly had sex with up to 10 other women during his deployment. He was with one woman for six years before she discovered a passport in his real name.
When he was unmasked in October 2010 after seven years undercover, it was a case that shocked the nation. Why was a police officer paid to lie to these activists, many of whom hadn't done anything criminal. And worse still, why was he seemingly allowed to form a number of long term relationships with some of the community's women under false pretences? As a new podcast Undercover: The Spycops comes to the BBC, the Mirror takes a closer look at one of the UK’s most notorious undercover cops: Mark Kennedy.
Undercover policeman Mark Kennedy pictured with Lisa Jones on holiday in Italy in 2010. (Daily Record)Scrabbling around for her sunglasses in the glovebox, 'Lisa' - not her real name - came across her partner's passport and smiled to herself as she thought she'd take the opportunity to take a sneaky peak at his picture. But her smile soon turned to shock when she claimed she noticed his passport was in a different name and said Mark Kennedy and not Mark Stone. She started to wonder if her partner of six years was the man she thought he was.
"I stopped being able to see clearly," Lisa recalls. "We were on holiday in the Alps and it felt like the mountains were swimming - I felt like I was losing my grasp on reality. I started looking around for a bit more information and found a phone that didn't have much battery left but it did have messages from two children calling him dad. You can't be in a relationship with somebody for six years and find out they've got children you didn’t know about - that's not normal."
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Undercover policeman Mark Kennedy driving whilst on holiday in Scotland with Lisa Jones. (Daily Record)While Mark Kennedy allegedly enjoyed a string of relationships during his time as an undercover cop, Lisa says she was his long term partner and they were madly in love. Looking back, Lisa says she did have doubts from time to time, but his apparent lies were so convincing that he always managed to talk her round. When questions resurfaced in her mind again a few months after their trip to the Alps in his van she decided to investigate further.
“When he went back to work, I was suddenly left on my own and had time to reflect,” she explains. “I went to visit a friend who just so happened to be doing some ancestry research and I remember asking him ‘can you look anyone up?’” Their search didn’t uncover anything for Mark Stone, but when they looked for Mark Kennedy they found birth certificates for both his children that listed their father’s occupation as a police officer.
Undercover policeman Mark Kennedy had a string of sexual relationships with women who didn't know his true identity. (Daily Record)He had always told her he was a Rope Access Technician, so learning he was a London Metropolitan Police officer shook Lisa to the core. “I felt like I’d been fractured into many tiny pieces and I really didn’t know who I was anymore,” she explains. Lisa tells the BBC’s Undercover: The Spycops podcast her and Mark’s friendship blossomed into love when they discovered they shared an appreciation of climbing and the great outdoors. “I was absolutely in love with him,” she reveals. “Finding out he was a police officer turned my whole identity upside down. It felt like an explosion had gone off - nothing has been the same since. It rips the bottom out of your world.”
Sadly, it’s not just ‘Lisa’ who was allegedly left heartbroken and betrayed by Mark’s lies. Kate Wilson dated him for two years and waived her right to anonymity when she took the police to court in 2018 claiming they had infringed her human rights by allowing Mark to conduct a sexual relationship with her while covering up who he really was. In January 2022, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal found his actions to be an "abuse of the highest order" and that he had "grossly debased, degraded and humiliated" her.
Environmental activist Kate Wilson took the case to court and was awarded £229,000 in damages (PA)The tribunal found that Kennedy had “invaded the core of her private life”, “caused her mental suffering" and had “interfered” with her “sexual autonomy” showing “a profound lack of respect” for her “bodily integrity and human dignity.” She was awarded £229,000 in compensation. But more than 13 years on and his former lovers and friends are still fighting for the truth.
Mark Kennedy is yet to tell his side of the story to the public inquiry which is due to finish in 2026. But in 2011, he told The Guardian he was just doing his job. “My role was to gather intelligence so appropriate policing could take place," Kennedy says. "It wasn't to prevent people from demonstrating. I was lying because it was my job to lie. I'm not a dishonest person. I had to tell lies about who Mark Stone was and where he was from for it to be real.”
But the women who apparently fell for him say conducting sexual relationships with those he was spying on was unethical. As a new podcast reveals the extent of the heartbreak and betrayal of Mark Kennedy’s alleged lovers, Eleanor Fairbraida, who herself says she had a brief relationship with Mr Kennedy, told The Mirror Mark’s reported former partners and friends are still fighting for the truth.
“For 12 years we’ve been fighting to uncover the truth and get justice,” she said. “Initially I felt shame then fear after being infiltrated in such a way. Something like that takes a long time to get over - it’s a personal betrayal and It leaves a big shadow hanging over your life. This shouldn’t happen in a functional democracy - the government sending in spies to infiltrate activists' lives.”
The podcast’s producer Andy Whittaker was a breakfast presenter at Radio Nottingham when the story first broke and recalls how he was horrified when he first heard the claims. “To me an undercover police officer infiltrated drug gangs or terrorists,” he says. “I had no idea police officers were living a double life for that amount of time.
“As the months went on it then became clear that he’d had a significant number of relationships while he was there. It’s shocking that a police officer working on behalf of the state is having that many relationships with people he is supposedly targeting. The podcast asks why? Why was he allowed to get away with it?”
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The podcast also reveals how Mark allegedly tried to set up a liaison with one of his friends and two of his housemates when he was living with the activists. “It shows that he was either setting up another police officer for casual sex as a perk or he was trying to bring another officer in - so sex was being used as a tactic,” Andy says. “This is something the inquiry is looking into.”
The BBC audio series Undercover: The Spycops recounts how Mr Kennedy, who was calling himself Mark Stone, appeared at the Sumac community centre in 2003, saying he wanted to help environmental campaigns. He quickly made friends and was accepted into the group and was finally unmasked when a case against protesters who had allegedly been plotting to shut down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottingham collapsed.
He was paid to live among them for nearly eight years.
“If you look at how underfunded the police are, how could they justify sending Mark Kennedy to spy on them at great expense? If you’re not a criminal and you’re a political campaigner - is this level of infiltration warranted? We’ll have to wait for the public inquiry to answer that one.
The 10-part is available on BBC Sounds now.
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