Helen Steel on holiday with John Dines

“AT the time it represented what was one of the happiest days of my life – with somebody who I loved, and who I thought loved me. Looking at it now, I can’t quite get my head around the way he’s just looking at the camera. And he knew who he was. I don’t know, I can’t…”

These were the harrowing words from Helen Steel, about the photograph right, as the campaigner finally got her chance to give evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry at the end of last month.

It’s now 15 years since the “spy cops” scandal was first revealed. Over two days Ms Steel, perhaps best known as one of the two London Greenpeace activists targeted in the infamous “McLibel” legal case of the 1990s, spoke in detail about the “manipulation” by Special Branch officer John Dines.

He had deceived her into a long-running sexual relationship that peaked with a “blissful” romantic holiday they shared in the village of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, she explained.

Mr Dines – who was 10 years older than her – had met her while volunteering with Ms Steel for London Greenpeace, then based in the Peace News office in Caledonian Road, King’s Cross.

Mr Dines, who was very active in the group and became its treasurer, had told her he had been working as a roofer and was vulnerable after his father recently died. They had been away together on hunt saboteur events, protests and seaside day trips. Driving her home after a fair at Conway Hall, he asked her out.

Soon afterwards he told her he had fallen in love with her and gave her a green stone pendant to wear so she would think of him at all times – part of what Ms Steel reflected was a long period of “emotional manipulation”.

“We were basically alone together for 12 days,” she told the inquiry about the holiday in Scotland.

“We spent all the time doing really pleasurable things, in a really beautiful environment, with him expressing his love for me. I remember it as really idyllic.”

All the while, however, he was filing reports on her that Ms Steel told the inquiry were in “stark contrast” to the “love bombing” and almost poetically romantic style of the letters he wooed her with. The reports were often derogatory in tone, one mentioning how she “lacked any original thought” and how her ex-boyfriend was “more intelligent than his former lover”.

Ms Steel spoke about how, at the time, she felt she had found a political soulmate after bonding over the environmental cause. They ended up living together around The Lanes area in Haringey, and Ms Steel believed he was ready to commit, having at one point suggested they have “five or six” children together.

She told the inquiry: “He raised the idea of having children, not me. It wasn’t something I had been thinking of, but I thought I had met the partner I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

“We used to go and feed the ducks together at Alexandra Park. He joked that if we got a place in the country he would dig a duck pond in it.”

With Dave Morris during the McLibel case

And then Mr Dines suddenly feigned a mental breakdown and vanished, claiming he was going “on the run” after being arrested at a Poll Tax demo.

He sent an apparently tear-stained letter ending the relationship that said “please don’t hate me forever”. Ms Steel said she was desperate to save the relationship, adding: “He had made the paper look tear-stained, like he was in a state of distress. I was devastated. I came home expecting him to be at home. I saw this letter in the front room and picked it up. There was no way of contacting him.”

“McLibel” centred on a leaflet published by London Greenpeace about McDonald’s treatment of animals.

In response to statements in the pamphlet, the burger corporation filed a lawsuit against Ms Steel and Dave Morris in a case that rumbled on for a decade. Mr Dines had claimed to Ms Steel at the time that it was the fast-food chain that had been spying on the activists.

The inquiry is now hearing its final tranche of evidence after almost 10 years of hearings. It is the longest-running and by far the most expensive public inquiry ever held in this country.

It has revealed all kinds of bizarre tactics used by an undercover police team called the Special Demonstrations Squad going back to the late 1960s.

Officers infiltrated and reported on what might be considered fringe groups that could not reasonably be considered to be masterminding mass violent disorder on the streets. These included the Hampstead branch of the CND and the Islington Managua Friendship Association.

It has shown how married officers would be told to grow their hair long, read up on Marx, and rent apartments in north London, while attending pub function room meetings of left-wing campaign groups.

They have been accused of making up reports about violent intentions of people they were spying on to justify their deployment. The inquiry, led by Judge Sir John Mitting, is now moving beyond simply hearing the testimonies of the victims and responses of officers. It is focusing on who the SDS managers were and who knew what when.

Last week, Detective Superintendent Keith Edmondson – one of the managers of the SDS in the early 1990s – talked about policy for relationships with “wearies”, a term used by the police to refer to left-wing activists. It said: “If you have no option but to become involved with a weary – you should try to have fleeting, disastrous relationships with individuals who are not important to your sources of information. One cannot be involved with a weary for any period of time without serious consequences.”

Mr Edmondson, in response to questions about undercover officers having sexual relationships, said: “I would say that it is irresponsible. Morality is a very subjective issue. But yes, it’s wrong.

At the end of the emotional evidence by Ms Steel, Justice Mitting asked Ms Steel to reflect on Mr Dines’ reason for the relationship.

Ms Steel’s final word was: “I think he enjoyed the power, and enjoyed exploiting me for sex. I think all the other officers they deceived into relationships didn’t genuinely love those women.

“If they had loved them, they wouldn’t have exploited them.”

The inquiry continues.

Full story: newjournal.substack.com