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The widow of a police officer murdered in the line of duty has hit out at Lush's 'anti-police' campaign.

The cosmetic chain has sparked outrage with its new campaign , which accuses police officers of being "paid to lie" and uses the hashtag #spycops.

The chain has defended the bizarre poster, saying it shines a light on 'a controversial branch of political undercover policing'.

But Christine Fulton, 54, was left alone with a seven-month-old baby, Luke, when her husband Lewis was stabbed to death at the age of 28 after answering an emergency call.

She has reacted with fury to Lush's campaign.

Critics have accused the Poole-based firm of being "anti-police" and smearing officers - and customers and supporters of police have called for a boycott of the chain.

(Image: Twitter) (Image: SWNS.com)

(Image: justgiving.com)

The campaign is meant to call attention to Lush's claims of "intrusive, abusive, political policing" - including women being tricked into sexual relationships for the sake of investigations - and for major changes to a public inquiry into undercover policing.

But it appears to have backfired into a PR disaster as it has angered customers and current and former police officers, who have complained that it is a "disgrace" that wrongly and unfairly paints all cops as corrupt.

(Image: LushLtd/Twitter)

Christine tweeted: "As the widow of a police officer murdered on duty I am appalled at the campaign by LushLtd the police service should be supported and respected.

"Who do Lush call when they have a shoplifter, their staff are abused or their stores broken into? Hang your heads in shame."

She added in a follow up tweet: "This tarnishes the whole police service."

Lush has defended the campaign - which has been reported to the Advertising Standards Authority - and denied claims that it is "anti-police".

(Image: PA) (Image: Bristol Post/SWNS.com)

The campaign includes window displays featuring the slogan "Paid to lie", along with police tape and a split image of a man wearing a police hat and a nose piercing.

It uses the hashtag "spycops" on social media and is due to run through most of June after its launch on Thursday.

The campaign takes aim at undercover policing and in particular the activities of secretive Special Demonstration Squad of the Met Police, which infiltrated protest groups from the 1960s to the 1990s.

The chain is supporting women who it says were tricked into sexual relationships with undercover officers, drawing attention to "human rights abuses" against them, and pressuring the government to make the inquiry more transparent.

Christine has dedicated her life to helping other police widows to rebuild their lives in the years since her partner Lewis died. She formed the Care of Police Survivors (COPS) charity.

(Image: gazbaz2894/Twitter)

Christine became a widow at just 34 - and single mum to a seven-month-old baby.

Over the years, each new police tragedy has brought memories flooding back of Lewis, who was just 28 when he was taken from his wife and son Luke, now 16.

His killer, schizophrenic Philip McFadden served less than 12 years in Carstairs State Mental Hospital, after being declared insane.

Police were forced to apologise and pay out £425,000 to a woman who had a child with Special Branch detective Bob Lambert, who was working undercover and spying on a protest group of which she was a member.

The Undercover Policing Inquiry into undercover policing in Britain is now taking place, but is still in its early stages despite opening three years ago.

Full statement from Lush defending campaign This is not an anti-state/anti-police campaign. We are aware that the police forces of the UK are doing an increasingly difficult and dangerous job whilst having their funding slashed. We fully support them in having proper police numbers, correctly funded to fight crime, violence and to be there to serve the public at our times of need. This campaign is not about the real police work done by those front line officers who support the public every day - it is about a controversial branch of political undercover policing that ran for many years before being exposed. Our campaign is to highlight this small and secretive subset of undercover policing that undermines and threatens the very idea of democracy. There is an age old understanding that our government and public institutions are there to protect and preserve the rights and safety of the public. In the case of these secretive undercover units, their work went well beyond the boundaries of acceptable police tactics and is now the subject of an ongoing public inquiry, which was instigated by Theresa May during her time as Home Secretary when the scale and scope of the breaches of protocols started to become clear. This public inquiry needs help from the public to keep it on track and ensure that this one opportunity for full honesty and disclosure is not lost or squandered. All citizens should be concerned when human rights are abandoned by those in power. The police themselves have admitted in their public apology to seven of the females deceived into long-term relationships with police spies, that these actions were "a violation of the women’s human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma”. In a recent court case the police admitted the actions amounted to "inhumane and degrading treatment" breaching Article 3 of the European Declaration of Human Rights. Those victims are now asking that the public inquiry demands that the undercover units release a full list of the undercover names used by their operatives, release a list of which campaign groups were targeted, and also that they release the information and data entries they hold on individuals whose lives and homes were infiltrated during these operations. Without this full disclosure there is no way of knowing the full extent of what happened during the dark years of this renegade secret policing operation - and that full disclosure might not happen unless the public demand it.

In it, Mark Constantine OBE, Lush's co-founder and managing director, said: "Confidence in the police will never be restored until this public inquiry does its job”.

An article on Lush's website says it has partnered with activists from two groups - Police Spies Out of Lives (PSOOL) and Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS) - who have lost confidence in the inquiry over claims of secrecy and derailment.

The article says the officer had infiltrated an activist group called the Colin Roach Centre, in Hackney, north London, which had exposed corruption and systemic racism within the Met Police, as he pretended to be a fellow activist.

It adds that activists - mostly women - who were friends with or dated undercover officers, while unaware of their true identities, felt betrayed and have been left traumatised by the "spy cops", and are demanding answers.

Lush has been responding to the campaign's critics on Twitter, writing: "To clear this up, this isn't an anti-police campaign, it's to highlight the abuse that people face when their lives have been infiltrated by undercover police."

But it appears the message may have been lost in head-turning window displays and social media images, as many feel the campaign is unfair to police.

West Midlands Police Crime Commissioner David Jamieson slammed the campaign, calling it "crass" and saying it was written by an "inexperienced" PR consultant.