Police spies may have had no choice over sexual relationships, officer claims

Inquiry told that infiltration of political groups creates hugely convoluted environment'

A police officer who infiltrated the Black Power movement has told a public inquiry that he believed undercover officers infiltrating political groups may have had no choice but to have sexual relationships with activists they were monitoring.

The officer, who used the fake name of Peter Fredericks during his covert deployment, at one point likened the intimate relationships police spies had with activists to an undercover officer sampling the product" of drug dealers whose operations they were infiltrating.