For more than 40 years, a secret unit of undercover police were paid to spy on ordinary members of the public. Shockingly, they included more than 60 women – deceived into deeply intimate relationships with officers who they had no idea were deployed in covert operations. The ‘spycops scandal' is the subject of an almost decade-long £88 million public inquiry into their tactics and now, a gripping three-part documentary series for ITV1 and
ITVX, The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed, which will air in early
2025.
Five of the women who were deceived and blew the lid off this scandal, have entrusted ITV, makers of the award-winning drama series Mr Bates vs The Post Office, to expose how they turned detective to uncover one of the state's biggest secrets. Speaking together on camera for the first time, the creepy similarities between the women's
experiences come to light: from the way they were seduced into their relationships, to the
almost identical letters they received when they were abandoned - and ghosted - by the men they loved.
They reveal how they discovered police officers stole the identities of deceased children to create new aliases and even fathered children with the women they spied upon whilst undercover.