Jim Sutton - undercover cop in Reclaim the Streets

But if she was an activist, why did she marry an undercover copper? Thats disgusting.

So according to the Guardian Boyling now works for SO15 – aka the Counter ‘Terrorism’ Command – and according to the Met website its responsibilities are to "gather, assess and disseminate intelligence in relation to Domestic Extremism".

But at least Jim knows that a quick call to Rod Leeming and he too can become a Global Open 'consultant' alongside his former colleague Mark.

Environmental campaigners had been invited to the meeting at the Cock Tavern pub in Euston in June 1999. They were members of Reclaim the Streets, a group that had days earlier brought the City of London to a standstill. By chance, two strangers sat next to each other: Jim Sutton, an articulate, if at times moody, 34-year-old fitness fanatic who relished his role as the group's driver, a function that earned him the sobriquet "Jim the Van"; and Laura, 28, an idealistic activist. Laura (not her real name) did not know that this new acquaintance, a man she would go on to marry and have children with, was in fact Jim Boyling, a police officer living undercover among eco-activists.

...

She adds: "The impression in the press was that this was an isolated incident, that it was a really 'unusual thing' – but this is not true. I know of multiple cases. We're talking about a repeated pattern of long-term relationships and, for me at least, the deepest love I thought I'd ever known."

Her story suggests the collateral damage from a decade-long operation to infiltrate the protest movement is wider than police chiefs had expected. She says the deception that predated their marriage in 2005, with profound consequences for her wellbeing and that of their children, made her feel "like a prostitute; just an unknowing and unpaid one".

...

Boyling, a serving Met officer at the SO15, the force's counter-terrorism unit, is the fourth. His ex-wife alleges he encouraged her to change her name by deed poll in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal their relationship from senior officers.

...

Andrew James Boyling had adopted the alias "Jim Sutton" around 1995, and initially joined hunt saboteur groups and, according to friends, took part in anti-GM crop protests in Ireland and a "food summit" in Rome in 1996.

According to Laura, who says she had lengthy discussions with Boyling about his deployment during their nine-year relationship – once he had come clean to her, at least – the purpose of his police work was to infiltrate the closed ranks of those figures pulling the strings of Reclaim the Streets.

An environmental group counting anarchists and anti-capitalists among its ranks, Reclaim the Streets was a colourful collective opposed to cars. During its protests, members would block roads and start impromptu street parties. One notorious technique involved either crashing or parking "sacrificial cars" in the middle of traffic, sealing off the road. For police, they clearly constituted a potentially dangerous group of anarchists whose demonstrations had a record of descending into disorder.

Boyling's operation would prove to be so successful that he played a central organising role behind the so-called Carnival Against Capitalism in 1999, one of the major anti-capitalist demonstrations of the past two decades. Those involved in organising the protest recall that he was "navigator" in a car that had been intended to block Upper Thames Street, in central London, kickstarting a day in which thousands of activists would clash with police.

The woman who was driving the car – purchased for £200 – recalls how Boyling made what at the time appeared to be a stupid error. He left the window open, enabling police to open the door, take off the handbrake, and push the car away.

Confronted over his error, Boyling was said to have replied: "Oh, I forgot." The protest went ahead anyway, but it was a setback for the activists.

It seems that Boyling's deployment started around the time of the birth of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which took over the running of police agents embedded in the protest movement in 1999.

Three years later, having returned to uniformed duties, Boyling would receive a letter of commendation from an assistant commissioner at the Met.

The signed certificate noted his "outstanding devotion to duty and determination over an extended period in the investigation of serious crimes".

It was four months after the Carnival Against Capitalism, in June 1999, after a night in another pub, that Laura says she began to have a meaningful relationship with Boyling. "For the most part while he was undercover we had a blissfully in-love relationship," she says. "In the beginning I nearly broke it off because it almost felt too strong; he was a perfect blueprint for something I didn't even know I was looking for."

By February 2000, Laura says, the pair moved into a flat in East Dulwich, which they adorned with Celtic and African patterned throws. Laura says she became aware Boyling was "under-developed ideologically". "The thing about Jim is that he never really says much. He seemed to be bright but there seemed to be holes in his political development," she says.

"He didn't seem to like putting himself out there and making an effort, which is weird for someone who works in community-based groups."

Jim the Van was also known as "Grumpy Jim", and Laura says her boyfriend also raised eyebrows by a seeming reluctance to get involved in a sustainable activist culture, once refusing to help pick up rubbish at a campsite. "He was interested in disrupting, not building, it surprised me but I put down to immaturity." Despite a slight sense that he did not fit in, Laura never suspected her boyfriend was a police informant – except for on one occasion.

"It's such a cliche – but it was the way he was cleaning his walking boots," she said. "I suddenly thought, 'Who is this intruder?' – and then I came to and suddenly he was Jim again. It was such a brief moment and it made such little sense that I blanked it."

But despite their loving relationship, Laura says Boyling's moods grew increasingly erratic until, in September 2000, he said he was leaving for Turkey, from where he planned to hitchhike to South Africa. He then vanished.

'He no longer existed'

Confused, Laura says she spent more than a year trying to track him down. She tried to locate his family members – people who, it transpired, did not exist – and then travelled to South Africa. "He no longer existed in physical presence or on paper," she says. "I didn't know what to think or what to do."

Tipped off that Boyling had returned to England and was living in Kingston, Surrey, Laura moved there hoping to find him, she says. But it was a chance encounter, in the bookshop where she was working, that saw them reunited.

"He said: 'Don't be angry,' and I said I wasn't," she says. "He asked for a hug and he smelt the same, which was weird. We went for a coffee by Kingston Bridge and he said: "This can't be, I'm a police officer." At the time she was "very vulnerable", she says, as she had used "all my savings trying to find him, and I was very thin, down to 6 stone 12lb".

She said he refused to leave the police. "He said they would hound him. And I said that if he believed in leaving them, we could run away together and live a normal life anywhere in the world. He agreed."

Two weeks later, Laura says, she was pregnant. What ensued were, according to Laura, several painful and difficult years in which the pair maintained a relationship while living apart. They would eventually have two children.

"He said he would tell the police what he could get away with and nothing else. He promised me he was no longer working undercover and that there were no more agents in her movement because police had lost interest."

But Laura said she came to have reason to believe her husband was not being honest. He appeared determined that no one should know about their relationship.

She said he encouraged her to change her name by deed poll, saying that if she did not, there was a danger their address would be discovered and their child – then unborn – put at risk.

The Guardian has seen the deed certificate that confirms the change in name, and lists Boyling, who gave the occupation "police officer", as a witness.

Laura now believes that Boyling was desperate to hide their relationship from police, and alleges he gave false information to his seniors about their marriage to conceal her activist past.

She also says he encouraged her to cut ties with the activist community and wanted to "train" her in the art of deception. "He said the trick was to have a whole and detailed story but not tell too much of it," she says.

Boyling, however, may have struggled to balance his two lives.

"He said he missed that [activist] life – he said it was great because it was like being God. He knew everyone's secrets on both sides and got to decide what to tell who and decide upon people's fate."

According to Laura, the classified information Boyling said he had access to included wiretaps of one of her friends in the protest movement and "details of the private lives of activists", including, she said, information about what was contained in their luggage after they were stopped at passport control.

"Initially he promised me that he was the last officer in my movement and he was pulled out because the police no longer had any interests or concerns there, but that was a lie," she says.

"I found this out when he insisted we hide on our first visit to Kingston Green Fair [a sustainability event], because he had seen another undercover agent who knew us both and that this man would take it straight back to his superior."

After their two children were born, the couple married under Laura's new name in 2005. But it was not until two years later, in 2007, that Laura recalls two of Boyling's police colleagues visiting their home.

Laura said her then husband told her that he had only recently told one of the men about their relationship. The other, his long-time boss, had only known since 2005. She was told that both officers, to whom she was introduced by name, had worked as undercover agents.

Boyling later named one other supposed activist as a undercover police officer, and gave identifying descriptions of several others, according to Laura. If true, the suggestion that, as well as marrying an activist, Boyling had identified fellow undercover operatives could prove highly damaging for police chiefs, who say the actions of Kennedy are a rare example of "Stockholm syndrome".

Warning to others

Laura and Boyling's marriage was officially brought to an end around two years ago, when the pair divorced. Looking back, she believes their relationship should cause serious alarm. Senior police officers tasked with managing the fallout from the Kennedy controversy maintain that sexual relationships with activists are strictly prohibited, and rarely occur. However out of the four undercover police officers identified by the Guardian, three, all men, stand accused of having sex with activists. Two, Kennedy and Boyling, are known to have maintained long-term, meaningful relationships lasting several years.

"Jim complained one day that his superiors said there was to be no more sexual relations with activists anymore – the implicit suggestion was that they were fully aware of this before and that it hadn't been restricted in the past," Laura says.

"He was scoffing at it saying that it was impossible not to expect people to have sexual relations. He said people going in had 'needs' and I felt really insulted. He also claimed it was a necessary tool in maintaining cover."

Despite fearing the consequences of speaking out, Laura said she hoped her story would be a warning.

"Everybody knows there are people in the movement who aren't who they say they are. Being too paranoid would hinder everything. But you don't expect the one person you trust most in the world not to exist. It wrecks lives. You don't expect it, especially when you really are not important. I don't think the Met consider us at all … I find it shocking that so much public money is being spent on that to put members of the public under surveillance."

Boyling and the Met have been asked to respond to all the allegations about his undercover deployment and subsequent marriage to Laura, but neither has offered comment.

The latest undercover police officer exposed for infiltrating activist movements was seemingly prepared to go to the lengths of living in East Dulwich as part of his deep entry into Reclaim the Streets. Oh and eventually marrying and having kids with one of the people he met during his time organising streets parties and carnivals against capital.

According to the Guardian tonight, 'By February 2000, Laura says, the pair moved into a flat in East Dulwich, which they adorned with Celtic and African patterned throws'. Her suspicions were only briefly aroused by the meticulous way he cleaned his walking boots!

I recognise Jim Sutton (or to give him his real name Jim Boyling) from my time in those circles, perhaps thanks to him there's a record somewhere in the secret files of my meticulous planning of the children's play area on the 1998 Brixton Reclaim the Streets party. No doubt that's why he was commended for 'outstanding devotion' to combating 'serious crime'.

People involved in activist scenes shouldn't get too paranoid about this. Of course they should always assume they're under surveillance but in the mean time those infiltrating have to work very hard to maintain their cover - looks like half the people driving vans and transporting radicals round Europe were cops, a service kindly funded by the secret state. Thanks guys!

In his study of police agent provocateurs in the Russia, Victor Serge noted that thousands of police agents didn't stop the overthrow of the Tsar. His advice was 'Be on your guard against conspiracy mania, against posing, adopting airs of mystery, dramatising simple events, or “conspiratorial” attitudes. The greatest virtue in a revolutionary is simplicity, and scorn for all poses ... including “revolutionary” and especially conspiratorial poses'.

 http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1926/repression/index.htm

there's a pattern which has emerged here of how undercover cops have maneuvered into positions where they take control of hub activities in the group, whether it be transport (Kennedy) or being responsible for administrative duties (emails, office duties etc - which is what Sutton was doing for RTS in 1999*), which of course is unsurprising really since they are cops and it's their job to monitor what's going on at key nodes of information in the chain.

* not in Guardian article - that is from first-hand memory

According to David "the messiah" Shayler, at an unspecified time in the past (maybe early 90s), Class War had an undercover MI5-agent doing admin stuff in their "office" .... however, it goes without saying, liberal helpings of salt required on that last one - especially since it may be that he still works for MI5's Clown Army impersonations dept.

The murky world of state operatives. As Larry O-Hara reminded us in an earlier thread, the most interesting case in recent memory remains the actions of agent Hepple/Matthews within Green Anarchist and the background to GANDALF who went so far as to criminalise a bunch of people in his actions as a covert agent provocateur and undercover surveillance agent.

And then there's also the nagging feeling that we're only skimming the surface with all this stuff, like a chapter out of G K Chestertons' "The Man Who Was Thursday".

As the comments above state, the capacity for undercover agents to get to the heart of activism is nothing new. Anyone interested in the subject should read "In the spirit of Crazy Horse" by Peter Matthieson, an account of the American Indian Movement in the 1970's. This was a deeply radical movement and it seems that many of those working hard for it and doing lots of the important and boring jobs were actually police officer or paid informants.

The appendix contains court transcripts of some of the evidence the spies gave...well worth a read, but scary stuff.

Joe

Maybe because she was in love, involved in a fucked up and very messy relationship, and he had some level of abusive controlling power over her at the time. Do you blame every woman in an abusive relationship for being there?

Now is not the time to publically criticise her, but to offer unconditional support to her for the horrors that state sanctioned operatives have put her through.

Solidarity and love to her and those who have suffered similar fucked up situations.

Agreed with the second David. These "revelations" are proving deeply divisive, for the love of fuck let's not start judging victims of state-sanctioned abuse.

Please please do not get tempted to post her real name up and please do not speculate. Remember that there are young children involved in this. There are things that had to be left out of Guardian article for legal reasons and many subtle yet important inaccuracies. More details and a fuller explanation will follow as soon as possible but this has to be a slow process for many reasons. This story is only just breaking and we need to proceed with caution. Please respect that and try to be patient.

Before people get too bothered thinking the first David comment is out of order for a fellow activist, bear in mind it could easily be from a troll working for the cops or other opposition group. There is no way of having any trust in the authenticity of Indymedia posts, so you have to treat every one as suspect.

 http://www.checksure.biz/Director/ANDREW+JAMES+BOYLING-14732653.htm

The Guardian article gives his full name as Andrew James Boyling and links him to the Kingston area. On the above link it has a (former) company director of the same name at KT8 9BA, which is Hampton Court Crescent, East Molesey.

Does any one have access to Company House records and could check out what company he was director of? It seems he no longer holds the position. Could be someone else with the same name of course, but it might be an interesting company.

PersonID is 14732653

Love and solidarity.Best wishes.

The first David may well be an agent provocateur or troll. The comment seems purpose designed to cause divisions. I hope an activist wouldn't have made it.

I don't see any reason for the true name of the activist to be revealed or speculated about, now or in the future. For her sake and even more for the children. She is a grown woman, the children are children. Knowing the true name makes no difference to those of us who are not closely involved.

It was brave to reveal the story to the Guardian. I don't know if I would have been that brave, but it does tell us how far the forces of inertia will go to mess up people's lives. How many of us have not done something for love which others thought was wrong?

Hugs to the activist, children and those supporting them. Don't rush into revealing more. Don't feel you need to reveal anything else. Your true friends will understand whatever you decide to do.

..all these revelations of police agents. It doesnt surpise me, from the perspectiv of a medium/shamman type person I wood say a lot mor..but not here, possibly on usenet> alt.org.earth-first which is unmoderated.

You don't need special access to get companies information. It's public, though companies house the source of it) charge a quid or two.
Pointers to it are simple enough, you search the online data sales sites (like that checkbiz) on the postcode, and find, eg a couple of food companies, a 'building management' company. Weird tax evading, restrucured versions of the same company, and so forth. Try it.

Directors names that come up in a search like this are the company's registered address.
The same Andrew James Boyling was living not in Hampton Court, but in nearby Surbiton.
He moved out though.
You'd need credit reference access to find out where.

For those who like photos, try  http://www.epsomoddballs.org/club.php

Here is Jim Boyling's e-mail address at the Metropolitan Police

 jim.boyling@met.police.uk

S'cuse me that was a bit abstract as far as solidarity goes (considering). Just to say that i'm still at the same address and tel number as you knew me back then. Don't hesitate to get in touch whenever you want.

What I really mean is... does anyone mind their IP address and credit card details being logged whilst retrieving the company details for this Andrew James Boyling. Because I would rather not do that.

I'm not so interested in where he lived as what the company was and what it was for. e.g. was it a private investigation company? Who were the other directors? Or is this just a wild goose chase and it is someone else entirely?

Well, hopefully someone in the mainstream media will do this anyway, seeing as it is their job and they do it all the time.

Completely agree with A. Friend, Rob, and A.N. Other, and I also send love and solidarity to Laura, who's had a lot of bottle to bring this all out.

Let's hope there's no repetition of the abusive and stupid accusations of "withholding" vital information being "cop protectors" etc., as there was over Mark Kennedy. As in that case, there are children involved. No doubt most of the nonsense is from police trolls, with maybe a few of our own being misguided enough to join in.

The main pic of "Jim Van" is not actually a very good likeness. The one near the top of these comments will be more recognisable to those who knew him. The running club newsletter posted by Scribbler is interesting. You have to scroll down to the very last pic. That looks pretty much like him a decade+ on to me, but impossible to be absolutely certain..

I now have confirmation that the guy in the running club newsletter IS the bastard in question.

I don't see any links to a running club newsletter? URL please! Or copy of image.

URL is already on the "How to" post, above. Scroll all the way down to last pic. I just saw it there and commented.

 http://www.epsomoddballs.org/club.php

Events secretary
Jim Boyling

Profile: As events secretary, Jim puts together a schedule of events for the Club website, and works with Rob Donkin to get this published in the regular newsletter. This lists Mabac, Cross Country league, and Road league fixtures, and other events which may appeal to club members.

If you look at the HTML source for  http://www.epsomoddballs.org/club.php you can see they have tried to hide the email address, but they have just commented out the code so it is still visible to the public!

The so-called encrypted email is just an obfuscation to put off spammers from the collecting the address, but if you copy this code to a local file, and put in a document.write(encryptedemail) at the end, then you can view the page and it reveals the email address is  jim.boyling@epsomoddballs.org

<td> <!-- Jim's email address temporarily removed -->
 

</td>
<!--
<td class="l3body">Email:
<script type="text/javascript">
/*<![CDATA[*/

/***********************************************
* Encrypt Email script- Please keep notice intact
* Tool URL:  http://www.dynamicdrive.com/emailriddler/
* **********************************************/
<!-- Encrypted version of: jim.boyling [at] *************.*** //-->
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var emailriddlerarray=[106,105,109,46,98,111,121,108,105,110,103,64,101,112,115,111,109,111,100,100,98,97,108,108,115,46,111,114,103]
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encryptedemail_id28+=String.fromCharCode(emailriddlerarray[i])



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 http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=230987

Jim Boyling

Club: Epsom Oddballs
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: 09/03/1965
Age Group: V45
County: Surrey
Region: South East
Nation: England

He was at the Kingston park run on 8 Jan 2011:
5KMT 21:34 11 Kingston Kingston parkrun 5K Event 40 8 Jan 11

No doubt the same as Kennedy, Jacobs, Watson and the others yet to outed.

"He said he missed that [activist] life – he said it was great because it was like being God. He knew everyone's secrets on both sides and got to decide what to tell who and decide upon people's fate."

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/19/wife-fourth-police-spy-children

Having persuaded his activist girlfriend to change her name by deedpoll before marrying her, Boyling now finds himself with time on his hands.

Quote:

In a statement, the Metropolitan police said: "A specialist operations police constable has been suspended from duty pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations reported in the media regarding an inappropriate relationship ... A thorough investigation is now underway. As the allegation is subject to investigation, we are not able to comment further at this stage."

Everyone who votes, who pays taxes is, wether they like it or not, an undercover state operative.....

"Everyone who votes, who pays taxes is, wether they like it or not, an undercover state operative..... "

It's this kind of puerile, uber-activist crap that really gets on fuckin wick.
Nothing wrong with be active - it's necessary - but when you start raising the bar and distancing yourself from the lives of ordinary people - defining yourself as an activ-IST, that the problems start.

I'm not making some equally exclusivist point that anarchism can only take place on class issues in actually communites. However, I do feel that the 'you can only be a real protester if you do x, y and z' logic creates the perfect opportunity for police spies. Once you set the template for what the perfect 'activist' is and should look like, all they have to do is go to central casting for an off the peg identity.

Equally, I'm not suggesting that the groups that were infiltrated operated in this way (I know some of the people involved). However there is an element in the 'scene' that distances activism so far from people's day to day lives that it's ripe for spying.

Another member of Epsom Oddballs is leading FIT member Ian Skivens- interesting!

Actually I was wrong. Skivens is on the same list of runners as Boyling, but he's listed as MPAA ( Metroplitan Police Athletics Association?)

I just bought a cheap pen. You know, one of those stick-like things you use to write stuff on bits of paper. Very 20th century, I know, but you can use it to write down cops' numbers and notes about their crimes. I paid 70p for it. That included 20% Value Added TAX.

I must, therefore, now out myself and confess that I am an undercover state operative. As shown by the astute analysis of Geo Balls, I am the same sort of bastard as Mark Kennedy, Jim Boyling etc. I bought a pen! I paid TAX! How can I live with this stain of betrayal? I am a broken man. I think I'll just top myself.

There is VAT on everything except food, children's clothes and books. Must be a scary place, this world almost entirely populated by undercover state operatives.

BTW, would that be P.C. Balls, by any chance? Sgt. Balls, perhaps?