Free Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police by Paul Lewis, Rob Evans Page B

maintenance payments to support Charlotte. ‘He abandoned me to support our son alone and to explain to him the disappearance of his father,’ she says. ‘I tried to track Bob down countless times over the years but those efforts were doomed to failure as I did not even know his real name.’ Both Charlotte and her son had been searching for Bob Robinson, a man who no longer existed. They presumed he had started a new life somewhere in Spain, still fearing arrest by Special Branch. They realised that Lambert might be anywhere, if, that was, he was still alive.
    Thursday, June 14 2012 had been an ordinary day for Charlotte . ‘I came home from work at about 4pm. As I don’t work Fridays, Thursdays are the start of my weekend. I made a pot of coffee and because the weather was good, I took the
Daily Mail
and the coffee out to the garden. As I flicked through the paper I saw the picture of Bob Robinson in the 80s – it was “my” Bob, my son’s dad. I had not had news of him for approximately 24 years and there was his face staring back at me from the paper. I went into shock, I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I started shaking. I did not even read the story which appeared with the picture.’
    In the end, it was veteran activists from the now-defunct London Greenpeace who had joined the dots and realised Bob Robinson was not a fugitive still hiding in Spain, but an academic touring lecture theatres in Britain. It was not hard for them to find Lambert’s photograph on the internet toward the end of 2011. The world had changed immeasurably since the days when Lambert and his comrades used old printing machines to producepolitical leaflets. Now they were staring in amazement at YouTube videos. The man they knew as Bob Robinson was thinner than the middle-aged academic on the screen. His hair was shorter and greyer, and he now had a beard. But it was his mannerisms that gave Lambert away. His disarming smile, his smooth voice, the inimitable way he held the attention of an audience.
    Some of the veteran campaigners were out of practice. They had not taken part in direct action protests for years. One afternoon in October 2011, they had a good reason to come out of retirement.
    Lambert was giving a speech in London alongside an impressive line-up of MPs, writers and musicians at a conference organised by two anti-racist groups, Unite Against Fascism and One Society Many Cultures. It was the kind of event Lambert was getting used to – a rally to ‘celebrate diversity, defend multiculturalism , oppose Islamophobia and racism’.
    That morning, five former London Greenpeace members met in a café near the rally to plan their confrontation. At lunchtime, two of them, Helen Steel and Martyn Lowe, came out of the sandwich shop, and walked directly into Lambert. For a moment, they thought he might look at them in horror, realising they were the activists he infiltrated years ago. But there was not even a flicker of recognition in his face as he strode confidently past.
    Shortly after, Lambert took his familiar position behind the podium and looked out at the 400-strong crowd at the Trades Union Congress building. Lowe, Steel and three other campaigners took seats dotted around the audience. Lambert gave a short, pugnacious speech castigating David Cameron, Tony Blair and other politicians for alienating Muslims. He walked a few metres back to the top table of speakers. Before the applause could die down, a man in the audience rose to his feet.
    ‘I have one question from the floor. Dave Morris, LondonGreenpeace. Is he going to apologise for organising disgusting undercover police infiltration of campaign groups including anti-fascists and my own group, London Greenpeace, for five years as Bob Robinson?’ There was confused whispering in the audience.
    The chairwoman tried unsuccessfully to quieten Morris down. But he was not going to stop – he had been chosen by the group to speak out because he had the strongest