Campaigners say there are not enough safeguards to protect children in covert operations

Children recruited to spy on drug dealers, gangs, terrorists and paedophiles have fewer safeguards when handled by investigators than those arrested for minor offences such as shoplifting, the high court has heard.

At a judicial review hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, campaigners challenging the use of children as covert human intelligence sources (CHISs) argued the lack of safeguards violates children’s human rights and puts them at risk of severe harm.

Introducing the case against the Home Office on Tuesday, Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, acting for Just for Kids Law, told Mr Justice Michael Supperstone that safeguards for children recruited as CHISs were inadequate.

“This case concerns children who may be recruited and deployed as CHIS in the most extreme circumstances,” Gallagher said, referring in particular to one case revealed in a House of Lords debate of a 17-year-old girl recruited to spy on a man who was selling her for sex.

Gallagher said: “A justification put forward is that some children are involved in or in close proximity to serious crimes which they could as a covert source help police to investigate and prosecute.

“That justification also demonstrates the acute need for stringent safeguards: keeping a child close to serious crimes may serve a compelling public interest, but it would appear to be antithetical to the child’s own interests.”

Seventeen children have been recruited as covert sources since January 2015 – including one just 15 at the time – according to figures released by the investigatory powers commissioner in March.

The powers under which they are used have existed for nearly two decades, but they came to light only last summer after a House of Lords committee raised the alarm over proposals to make recruitment and deployment easier.

Ministers had sought to increase the length of time that child spies could be deployed before re-authorisation from one month to four, and to broaden the range of people who could act as an “appropriate adult” when being interviewed with police. The new rules came into effect shortly after.

Just for Kids Law’s judicial review hinges on a claim that the rules governing the use of child spies fail to comply with the home secretary’s obligations to comply with article 8 of the Human Rights Act – guaranteeing children’s right to a private or family life – and article 3.1 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child – stipulating that the interests of the child should be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect them.

Gallagher warned that the extension of the length of time a child spy could be authorised had come about for the “administrative convenience of the authorities concerned.” Because the orders involve covert operations, officers are not required to check with other agencies about vulnerability, histories of domestic abuse or mental health issues of the child spies.

“The decision is made in a very closed circle,” she said.

The court heard evidence from Neil Woods, a former police officer who spent years undercover investigating drugs gangs, that such work posed the risk of severe physical and psychological harm to young people.

In a written statement read out in court, Woods said he had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his experiences undercover with drugs gangs, which included proximity to extreme violence, including torture and maimings of those considered to be working with police.

“I developed the ability to suppress my emotions at times of great stress when I was witnessing very grave things,” Woods said in his statement.

“It causes me great concern that a child could be asked to maintain a lie for any length of time and suffer the psychological harm that I have suffered … I question the legitimacy in allowing police to recruit child spies at a time when police are just beginning to recognise the lasting harm caused to adults in doing the same thing.”

Sir James Eadie QC, responding on behalf of the home secretary, emphasised the many layers of approvals and safeguards involved in recruiting children as CHISs.

The hearing lasted one day and Supperstone reserved his judgment, which he will hand down at a later date.