Sack Bob Lambert

Picket London Metropolitan University

This Friday 28th November

12.00 – 2.00pm

Outside London Metropolitan University Tower, 166-220 Holloway Road, 
London N7 8DB

Islington Against Police Spies demands that London Metropolitan University sack lecturer Bob Lambert – Police spy, agent provocateur, exploiter of women.

These days Robert Lambert works part-time lecturing on Criminology and Policing at London Metropolitan University. But this expert on Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism has a dark past. He spent the 1980s and 1990s in Special Branch’s now discredited Special Demonstrations Squad, spying on community and activist groups campaigning against violence and oppression inflicted by governments and corporations around the world. While pretending to be an activist involved in peace and animal rights campaigns, he acted as an agent provocateur, encouraging people to carry out illegal actions which would lead to their arrest. He has been named in Parliament as having planted an incendiary device in a Debenhams store in 1987, one of three simultaneous arson attacks for which two animal rights activists went to prison for four years.

He also had sexual relationships with several women campaigners, lying to them about his identity and then disappearing from their lives – in the most abusive breach of trust imaginable. This abuse has had a severe and lasting emotional impact on those affected; one woman had a child fathered by Lambert. Only decades later did any of them discover he was a police spy.

After acting as an infiltrator himself, Lambert went on to run the Special Demonstrations Squad, supervising spies in many other political campaigns. Following his own example, almost all of the thirteen other undercover police so far unmasked have also used their position to sexually exploit women who were unaware of their real role. His protégés include police who spied on numerous families and campaigns opposing police racism and/or violence and murders, as well as London Greenpeace, Reclaim the Streets, anti fascist groups and campaigners against genetically modified crops. He is directly implicated in police attempts to spy on, smear and discredit Stephen Lawrence’s family campaign against the police failures to investigate Stephen’s racist murder in 1993, and also in the ‘mysterious’ passing on of Special branch files to a private company paid by large construction companies to compile a blacklist of trade unionists active in the building trade, many of whom were fired and victimised.

Top cops now claim that officers were told not to form sexual relationships while undercover; in reality Special Branch turned a blind eye to what one of Lambert’s victims herself said felt ‘like being raped by the state’. Eight women used in this way by police spies are currently suing the Metropolitan Police as the institution ultimately responsible.

These undercover police were not involved in ‘anti terrorist’ operations, they were spying to disrupt and weaken the growing opposition to the domination of our society by the interests of multinational corporations, and attacking community campaigns dealing with police corruption, racism and state violence. Several official inquiries and investigations have been launched into undercover policing because of the huge public outcry the exposures have created. However the establishment and the police won’t make significant changes unless we force them to by taking action.

Some Islington residents think London Metropolitan University should sack Bob Lambert. He is a known liar, spy and exploiter of women  – not in any way a fit person to be trusted teaching students at this University.

We aim to keep up pressure on London Met until they fire him. Join us in our picket of the University building where he works this Friday between 12-2pm as we hand out leaflets and raise awareness.

By Islington Against Police Spies 

Contact:

Islington Against Police Spies, email: islingtonagainstpolicespies@gmail.com

For more information on Bob Lambert and other undercover police activities, contact:

campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com | @copscampaign

policespiesoutoflives.org.uk  | @out_of_lives