Jim Boyling was unmasked by the Guardian six years ago after he deceived woman into long-term relationship

A police spy who deceived an environmental activist into forming a long-term relationship with him is facing disciplinary proceedings initiated by Scotland Yard.

Jim Boyling, a serving Metropolitan police officer, will appear before the disciplinary panel six years after he was unmasked as an undercover spy when the activist revealed details of their relationship to the Guardian. The activist wishes to remain anonymous and is known as Laura.

The Met has apologised unreservedly to Laura and six other women after admitting they had been deceived by undercover officers into having intimate relationships that were “abusive, deceitful or manipulative”. The Met paid substantial compensation to Laura and the other women after a long legal battle.

Police chiefs have maintained that undercover officers were not permitted to start sexual relationships with the people they were sent to spy on.

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Boyling, who denies wrongdoing, used a fake identity to infiltrate environmental and animal rights groups between 1995 and 2000 while a member of the Met’s covert unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).



More than 100 undercover officers have been sent on long-term missions to infiltrate political groups since 1968.



Boyling had three intimate relationships while undercover. In 1999, he started a relationship with Laura who did not know his real identity. In 2000, he abandoned her, saying he was having a breakdown and needed to go abroad.

She started to investigate his background and pursued leads to find him. She discovered that much of what he had told her about his background was not true, leaving her increasingly frightened and paranoid.

After more than a year, she saw him in London when he walked into a bookshop where she was working. Later that day, he admitted he had been a police spy but said he regretted what he had done. He told her that he still loved her and wanted to continue the relationship.

Laura has described how she was desperately vulnerable and fearful at the time and how Boyling isolated her and exploited her state of mind to entrap her deeper in the relationship.

She said Boyling repeatedly promised her that he would leave the police and start a new life, claiming he opposed the work of the spies. They married and had two children together before divorcing in 2008.

She has said that during their relationship, Boyling gave her the names of other undercover officers and details of confidential police files held on activists. He has denied he committed any criminal offence or misconduct while undercover. He has said he carried out his undercover work with the approval of the Met, adding: “I have never opposed the work of the SDS and I have never compromised my work colleagues.”

Boyling, who has said that much of Laura’s account of their relationship was incorrect without elaborating, has also denied her claim that he hid their relationship from his police superiors. He did not wish to comment on the misconduct tribunal.

The Met said: “A serving specialist operations detective constable was suspended from duty in November 2015, pending the outcome of a misconduct hearing. The hearing will be chaired by a chief officer from an independent police force. A directions hearing will be held later this year. It would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this stage.”

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Undercover officers who infiltrated political groups frequently deceived women into forming sexual relationships. Many of them are known, or understood, to have left the police and are therefore no longer subject to misconduct proceedings.

Police misconduct hearings can now be heard in public following reforms. However, the Met said Boyling’s hearing would be held in private because the allegations were made before the reforms were implemented.

Laura said: “I’m not convinced that taking an in-house investigation behind closed doors will lead to truth or justice. As distressing as it is to ongoingly have to deal with all of this, ignoring it will not make it go away, and just allows it to happen to others.”

In May, another former undercover officer, Andy Coles, resigned as the Cambridgeshire deputy police and crime commissioner after being accused of deceiving a woman into an intimate relationship.

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