A former south London spy cop has admitted sleeping in a bed with a 19-year-old woman he was spying on – but claimed he rebuffed her sexual advances by telling her condoms weren’t vegan.
Andrew Coles told the Undercover Policing Inquiry he had not abused his undercover role to have a years-long sexual relationship with his accuser, codenamed Jessica.
He insisted witnesses were lying and contemporaneous documents must have been faked.
But Jessica told the inquiry that Coles, who later became a Peterborough councillor and Cambridgshire’s deputy police commissioner, was “a liar”.
Calling himself Andy Davey, Coles lived undercover from 1991 to 1995 for the Metropolitan Police, basing himself in Peckham and Streatham.
He infiltrated more than 50 anti-war movements and animal rights groups, filing reports not only for his bosses but also for MI5.
He told the inquiry he was mentored by Bob Lambert, who spent years undercover in some of the same groups in the 1980s and has admitted having sexual relationships with four women.
The Met has upheld Jessica’s complaint, ruling Coles did have a sex with her at the same time he was filing intelligence reports about her.
But Coles, current president of the Peterborough Conservatives, denied the relationship on Wednesday (December 18).
Andrew Coles testified that he had not had sex with Jessica, a 19-year-old activist he was spying on (Image: Undercover Policing Inquiry YouTube Page) Confronted with two handwritten letters Jessica allegedly sent to a friend at the time, referencing the relationship, Coles claimed they must be forgeries.
Shown a statement by a witness who said they remembered the relationship, he called them a liar.
He claimed a second woman, who said Coles stormed out of her house when she rebuffed what she felt were his sexual advances, was also lying.
A defiant Jessica told the inquiry the Met had not only apologised but paid her a settlement.
“They don’t dispute that it happened,” she testified. “The only person that disputes that it happened is [Andrew]. And he is a liar.”
Coles said he had been ordered to slowly ingratiate himself with animal rights activists so he could eventually infiltrate militant groups.
Jessica testified that she had joined the Hackney and Islington Animal Rights movements and begun attending “hunt sabs”, where activists sabotaged fox hunts.
On those trips she encountered Coles, who had infiltrated the Brixton Hunt Saboteurs.
She claimed Coles continually showed up uninvited at her east London home. The location is subject to a reporting restriction, to preserve Jessica’s anonymity.
Coles testified he’d been trying to get close to Jessica as he’d heard she was a member of the militant Animal Liberation Front (ALF) – which she denies.
Jessica testified that during one visit he “lunged at” and kissed her, but she was too young, awkward and sexually inexperienced to reject him, so they ended up in a “passionless” relationship.
She said she later learned he was almost ten years older than he’d told her, describing him to the inquiry as “a creepy letch” and his actions as “inappropriate”.
Coles denied lying about his age when questioned by David Barr KC, lead counsel to the inquiry.
Andrew Coles said Jessica was lying and he believed she had fabricated contemporaneous letters about their relationship (Image: Undercover Policing Inquiry YouTube Page) “Did there come an occasion when you were watching television with Jessica and you moved forward and kissed her?” asked Mr Barr.
“No,” Coles replied.
“Are you certain about that?”
“I mean, it’s difficult to know whether – you know, sometimes you greet each other with a hug. That sort of thing was not unusual. It’s difficult to remember. It’s just what’s normal social interaction with people.”
“Was that kiss the beginning of what became a sexual relationship?” asked Mr Barr.
“That’s what she says,” Coles replied.
He told the inquiry he slept at Jessica’s address three times: once on a sofa, once on a spare bed with no mattress and once with her in her single bed.
“Whilst you were sleeping in Jessica’s single bed, was there any physical contact between you?” asked Mr Barr.
“Well, we would be touching in the bed, yes. It’s a very small single bed.”
“Was there any contact of a sexual nature?”
“No.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m absolutely sure.”
“Why didn’t you sleep somewhere else to avoid concerns and not sleep in the single bed of a 19-year-old?”
“I was staying with a fellow activist and it wasn’t unusual to share a bed with someone,” said Coles, adding that he’d done it at his own undercover address with other activists.
“There was no issue with me being that close to an activist,” he insisted. “It had happened before. It would happen later. It was perfectly normal.”
“Is the truth that you started a sexual relationship with Jessica?” asked Mr Barr.
“No, that’s not true,” Coles responded.
He claimed said it was Jessica who had come onto him that night in the single bed, but he had talked her out of sex by telling her condoms weren’t vegan.
Mr Barr pointed out that in his witness statement to the inquiry, Coles had claimed he never even shared a bed with Jessica.
David Barr KC, lead counsel to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, put it to Andrew Coles that he was lying. He insisted he was telling the truth (Image: Undercover Policing Inquiry YouTube Page) “Is the reality that your evidence is all over the place because it’s simply not true?” the barrister asked.
“I dispute that it’s all over the place,” Coles replied, saying the contradiction was due to a memory lapse.
He said he had confused Jessica with another woman he shared a bed with while undercover.
Mr Barr asked him about two letters Jessica sent during the alleged relationship, referring to Coles as her boyfriend.
In one, she told a friend Coles had suggested they see other people while she was working in France because “he wouldn’t be getting enough sex”.
“On its face, this is contemporary written evidence that you had been in a relationship with Jessica, isn’t it?” asked Mr Barr.
“Yes,” Coles responded – but he said he disputed the letters’ authenticity because to him, they appeared to have different handwriting.
“Why it’s in two different hands would be something that I would be interested in,” he said.
Coles was then shown a statement by a member of the Brixton Hunt Saboteurs, who wrote: “I personally observed intimate moments between [Jessica and Andrew].”
Once, the witness wrote, “I can clearly recollect when it was time to leave, Andy could not be found and on searching was found to be already in his vehicle with Jessica sharing an intimate moment.”
Coles dismissed the witness’s account as “ridiculous” and “an utter creation”.
Mr Coles said a witness to his relationship with Jessica was lying and a second woman who said he stormed out of her house was also lying (Image: Undercover Policing Inquiry YouTube Page)
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That witness also claimed Coles had a reputation among activists as “sexist” and “a letch”.
Coles denied that.
Mr Barr put to him that he had filed “sexualised” reports about the physical attributes and sex lives of people he spied on.
The barrister provoked laughter when he said of one document: “It might be said that there is more sexual gossip in this passage than in a copy of the News of the World.”
Coles described one woman in an official report as “very attractive”, wrote of another’s “good looks”, and described a third as “strikingly attractive”.
“Were you in fact thinking of those women in sexual terms?” asked Mr Barr.
“No,” said Coles.
Mr Barr presented the statement of another woman Coles met undercover, called Emily Johns.
She said she felt Coles “wanted to get off with me” one night, so she “teasingly” asked him if he wanted to stay the night.
“He eagerly said yes,” she wrote – but when she presented him with a mattress and a sleeping bag, “he stormed out and slammed the door. I did not see him again.”
“That’s fabricated,” Coles said.
Asked why the witness would fabricate such a thing, he replied: “I have a view, but that’s not evidence – and I wouldn’t want to give a view without evidence.”
The inquiry continues.