'My lover was sent to spy on me'

For five years, Alison* and Mark lived together and were very much in love, filming jokes and yearly highlights on a camcorder to watch back when they grew old together.
But it turns out that Mark Cassidy was not a joiner from Birkenhead, as Alison had believed – nor was he in love with her.
He disappeared – dumping Alison by letter – in spring 2000. Just months later, she found out he was a police officer called Mark Jenner, working undercover for the Metropolitan Police Special Demonstration Squad – and had a wife and children.
In a shocking new documentary, home video footage shows Mark and Alison on Christmas Day, which he spent with her family rather than his own.
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The inside story of a secret unit of undercover police, paid to spy on members of the public who were suspected of being political or environmental activists, is now being laid bare in a three-part ITV series.
Alison, who altered her appearance for the documentary, and four other women decided to speak about their relationships with officers on covert operations. But thanks to an ongoing public inquiry it has emerged that there are at least 60 women who were deceived. Some have only found out in recent months that they were involved with someone living a fake life.
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Alison says, “I’m here to tell this story so people understand what has happened in the British police. We want people to understand why we are campaigning for this to never happen again to other women, to understand that the misogyny and sexism in our culture has filtered down and is reflected in the police and the security services, and to hopefully galvanize people.”
'GOD COMPLEX'
Discussing her own experience, Alison says she didn't suspect a thing when she was with Mark.
He even managed to explain away a credit card with another surname on it, claiming he bought it from a dodgy bloke at the pub and promising to get rid of it. Footage shown over three episodes shows him seemingly carefree on camera, laughing, smoking and joking like any normal boyfriend.
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"The video footage is indicative of Mark on a personal level, but also of the unit as a whole - of their arrogance. They were supremely arrogant. They just never, ever thought they'd be exposed," Alison tells us.
"They each had a god complex and we were being contained and managed. But in the Christmas Day footage, and other clips you'll see, you forget, when watching it, that he had a wife and children."
Alison teamed up with fellow campaigner Helen in 2003. Helen had a two-year relationship with 'John Barker' who turned out to be undercover policeman John Dines. Years later they met other women who had been through similar scenarios and they began their push for changes in the force. Eight women launched legal action against the Met Police in 2011. In 2015, Theresa May, then Home Secretary, set up the Undercover Policing Inquiry, after a public outcry over covert officers' actions. It is not due to finish until December 2026 and has so far cost a reported £88 million. But the costs to the women involved are much more than just financial.
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WASTED YEARS
Alison continues, “Mark stole some of the most fertile years of my life. I was with him from the age of 29 to 34. He left in spring, I turned 35 that summer.
“Yes, I have been able to rebuild my life.
Partly because I come from a small Jewish community in London. I was fortunate enough to find someone I went to a Jewish youth club with. But had it not been somebody I grew up with, I don't...