In 1984, Jacqui was 22 years old when she met a man named Bob Robinson among animal rights activists in London.
She fell in love with him, but there was something she did not know: Robinson was not who he said he was. His real name was Robert “Bob” Lambert, and he was an undercover Metropolitan Police officer who had been sent to infiltrate environmental and animal rights groups.
His mission would last five years. Lambert had to earn the activists’ trust and especially infiltrate the circles of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a movement that at the time was involved in clandestine actions against companies linked to animal testing, the meat industry, and fur. The information he obtained was passed on to his superiors.
Even his false identity had been constructed using the details of a child who had died, a practice used by the then-secret Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).
But Lambert took his persona much further than Jacqui could have imagined.
During his mission, he had relationships with at least four women without revealing that he was a police officer or that he was married. They included Charlotte, whom he met in 1983 during an animal rights demonstration; Jacqui, with whom he had a child; Belinda Harvey, with whom he had an 18-month relationship; and another woman publicly identified only as CTS.
With Jacqui, the relationship went even further. In 1985, their son was born, and Lambert stayed by her side during 14 hours of labor. During the early years, he behaved like an involved father and was part of his son’s life.
But in 1988, he disappeared.
He told Jacqui that he had to flee abroad because the police were looking for him over his political activities. It was a false story. In reality, he had finished his undercover mission and returned to Scotland Yard, where he continued his police career.
Jacqui spent more than two decades without knowing the truth.
In 2012, she happened to recognize his photograph in a newspaper and discovered that the man with whom she had had a child had been an undercover agent. By then, it had also been revealed that Lambert had had intimate relationships with other women during his deployment.
And his mission had been considered a success within the unit itself. Lambert managed to earn the activists’ trust and provided information that helped the police identify people involved in criminal actions.
After returning to the police, he went on to hold a leadership position within the same unit and ended up directing undercover operations in the 90s. He later received an MBE and worked as an academic.
But there was still one consequence that would directly affect Jacqui’s son.
She discovered that two of Lambert’s children had died from a genetic heart condition, raising fears that her own son might have inherited the same condition. He was eventually tested, and it was determined that he had not inherited the fatal gene.
The Metropolitan Police eventually paid Jacqui £425.000 (about US$576.000) in compensation and offered her an apology. Subsequently, her son also received compensation and a formal apology.
For decades, Jacqui believed that the father of her son had simply abandoned his family to escape the police.
The reality was much harder to imagine:
the man who entered her life, had a child with her, and disappeared… had been sent by the police to infiltrate the very world she was part of.