Police spy dubbed the ‘Met’s Mata Hari’ married activist she focused
The agent, known publicly only by her false identity Christine Green, became so involved with the campaigner during her deployment that she left her husband and quit the Met altogether
A female police spy known as the “Met’s Mata Hari” married an activist she targeted while undercover in an animal rights group.
The agent, who used the fake identity Christine Green, became so involved with the campaigner, a prominent saboteur then in his 30s, during her deployment that she left her husband and quit the Met altogether. She told her lover the truth and they lived in Cornwall and Scotland before settling in Sweden, the Mail on Sunday reports.
The true identity of the officer, one of only a few female members of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), cannot be revealed for legal reasons. Green’s story is due to be examined in the coming weeks by the long-running Undercover Policing Inquiry in London.
The inquiry’s lead lawyer David Barr KC said: “Far fewer women than men served as undercover police officers in the SDS, but [Christine’s] case illustrates clearly that the risk of… becoming involved in sexual relationships with those they mixed with undercover is not confined to men.”
It has previously heard how her male colleagues, using fake identities under the names of dead children, tricked their way into the beds of unsuspecting female political campaigners. Green has been called the “Met’s Mata Hari” after the Dutch dancer and courtesan who was convicted of spying for Germany during World War I.
The former Met cop’s undercover deployment lasted five years and began in November 1994. She was among a group of animal rights activists that attacked a fur farm causing thousands of mink to be released into the countryside.
The raid in Crow Hill Farm near Ringwood in 1998 was carried out by a group which Green had infiltrated. A Met statement previously admitted that the force’s actions had “impacted” on the Hampshire police investigation.
No charges were ever brought over the attack in which up to 6,000 mink were set free. Many of the predators were killed to protect pets and livestock. The raid was carried out by members of the Animal Liberation Front.
In 2018 the Met confirmed that “Christine Green” – who they knew as “Agent 26” – was working for them. She blasted the force for unmasking her to the animal activist world, while concealing the names of the senior officers who had authorised her to participate in the raid.
She said: “That the current senior management team at the Metropolitan Police has chosen to expose my role, knowing the vilification and furore that would follow in the ‘trial by media’ whilst being fully aware of my ill-health issues, is scandalous… it is the Metropolitan Police, not I, who should be holding its head in shame.”
Green said she had a “great deal of therapy and counselling over the years” for the damage caused by her covert work. Mr Barr said: “[Christine] was authorised by her SDS managers to participate. The focus of our investigation … will concern the circumstances in which she was so authorised, the level of that authority and why local police were not informed either before or afterwards when the crime was being investigated.”
Green reportedly disappeared from the animal rights movement around 2000, telling activists she was going travelling around the world. But the truth was that her undercover role was over and she left the police and began living with her activist partner. He had previously been jailed for an attack on a fox hunter during a confrontation with the Surrey Union Hunt.
