Environmental activist who had a relationship with spy Mark Kennedy is taking legal action against Global Open – thought to be first lawsuit of its kind

An environmental campaigner who had an intimate relationship with an undercover spy is suing a corporate security firm in what is believed to be the first legal action of its kind.



The woman is taking legal action against Global Open, a commercial firm hired by companies to monitor protesters. She alleges in the high court case that Mark Kennedy pursued her to start the relationship, while, she says, he worked undercover for Global Open.

Kennedy had previously worked for the police as an undercover officer and used a false identity to infiltrate environmental groups for seven years. He maintained his fake persona after he left the police.

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She alleges that he used this fake identity to continue spying on protesters “under the direction and control of Global Open”, while they were having a sexual relationship. Global Open, which is contesting the lawsuit and has filed a defence, is understood to argue that Kennedy did not work undercover for it.

Disclosure of the lawsuit comes as the home secretary, Theresa May, prepares to announce this month the remit of a judge-led public inquiry into the undercover infiltration of hundreds of political groups since 1968.

More than 10 women who had long-term relationships with undercover police officers have been taking legal action against the police. In the first settlement, the Metropolitan police last year paid more than £400,000 to a woman who discovered by chance that the father of her son was an undercover police officer. However, the lawsuit against Global Open is believed to be the first one of this nature launched against a corporate security firm.



Global Open, established by a former Special Branch officer Rod Leeming, is one of a number of private security firms that operate in a largely secretive world. Big companies, such as energy producers and arms dealers, hire firms to monitor protesters who are organising campaigns against them.

Like the women suing the police, the woman, who has been granted anonymity during the legal case against Global Open, says she has suffered psychiatric damage after discovering the true identity of her one-time boyfriend.

The woman, who has been active in environmental groups for many years, knew Kennedy only casually while he worked for the police. His covert mission for the police started in 2003 when he appeared in radical groups in Nottingham with the elaborate fictional persona of “Mark Stone”, a professional climber with an apparently disreputable criminal past.

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He gathered information about campaigners until he resigned from the police in early 2010. However, he had reappeared in Nottingham still pretending to be “Stone”.



The woman says that from February 2010, he “began to positively seek out a relationship” with her. She says she fell in love with him after he invited her to stay on his canal boat in Nottingham the following month. She adds that Kennedy had to “go deliberately out of his way to make and sustain” his relationship with her as she lived some distance from Nottingham. She says Kennedy gathered inside information about environmental campaigners and planned protests while working for Global Open.



He also became involved in campaigning on animal rights issues – something he had previously shown no interest in, according to several campaigners. The woman says that “monitoring animal rights protest was a core focus” of Global Open’s work.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Italian activist describes how “Mark Stone” took part in an Italian animal rights meeting in July 2010 (posted by Black Helmet Productions on YouTube).

Kennedy was exposed as a police spy by the activists he had been spying on in October 2010. Within hours, she says, he travelled to her house and confessed his real identity and covert police role, leaving her devastated. The relationship ended.

Asked for a comment about the legal action, Leeming, a director of Global Open, told the Guardian: “We are not allowed to talk about it anyway and I don’t want to talk to you.”

Two years ago, Kennedy told a parliamentary select committee: “When I first left the police, I was employed by Global Open and I assisted them in investigating a serious offence.”

Kennedy, who is not the subject of the lawsuit, has said that he did not work undercover for Global Open. He said he returned to Nottingham after he left the police in order to spend more time withdrawing from his fake identity in a credible way.



The woman’s lawyer, Beth Handley of Hickman & Rose law firm, said the lawsuit – which started in 2013 – has “reached an advanced stage”. She has described the lawsuit in a submission to the public inquiry into the undercover policing of political groups, which is being led by Lord Justice Pitchford and has yet to open.

Handley and the woman are pressing the public inquiry to examine the work of private security firms. Handley said the lawsuit raised important issues about the crossover between state and corporate monitoring of political movements and the unregulated nature of the private sector.



Three women who had intimate relationships with Kennedy are part of the legal action against police chiefs.