Full Breakdown
Metropolitan Police spent £2.5 million to hide undercover officer from former partner
7/26/2026, 7:46:52 AM
The £2.5 million relocation of an undercover officer
The Spycops public inquiry revealed that senior Metropolitan Police officers authorized the expenditure of £2.5 million of public funds to move former undercover officer John Dines from New Zealand to Australia after he was identified as a target of Helen Steel’s investigation. The money covered the purchase of a house in Sydney—four times the price of his New Zealand home—and compensation for his lost income as a barrister.
Surveillance of Helen Steel in New Zealand
On 14 December 2002, Helen Steel, a left-wing campaigner, arrived at Auckland airport with her parents for a family holiday. Within an hour, New Zealand customs conducted a discreet luggage search, and surveillance officers from the New Zealand police, acting on instructions from Scotland Yard, began tailing Steel and her family. Over the following weeks, officers logged her movements, photographed her leaving her sister’s home, and recorded telephone contacts, including a call to the chambers of future Labour leader Keir Starmer, then a barrister.
How the operation was justified
Metropolitan officials argued that Steel posed a threat to Dines because she was attempting to uncover his true identity and past relationship with her. The inquiry heard that the police believed protecting Dines from exposure was necessary, describing the relocation as a measure to “prevent” Steel from locating him. Campaigners and lawyers at the inquiry rejected this rationale, labeling it “malicious lies” and pointing to a pattern of undercover officers forming sexual relationships with targets.
Responses from former Met officials
Former Met commissioner Paul Condon testified that Scotland Yard had failed to control officers who committed “horrendous abuses,” including the surveillance of grieving families and the manipulation of identities. He acknowledged that the department’s oversight mechanisms were inadequate in the Dines-Steel case.
Campaigners’ criticism
Helen Steel, giving evidence to the inquiry, described the surveillance and the £2.5 million relocation as an abuse of state power intended to shield an “illegitimate and undemocratic” operation. Campaigners highlighted that undercover officers routinely engaged in sexual relationships with women they were spying on, and they argued that the expenditure was a misuse of taxpayer money to protect a police officer rather than the public.
