Families of police officers (Category M)

The families of undercover police officers have been recognised as having their own distinct interest in the issues under examination by the Undercover Policing Inquiry. The Inquiry has assigned them their own Category (Category M), with a number of them being granted core participant status.

It is clear that these core participants and their families were impacted by the actions of the undercovers. The requirements of undercover policing put a strain on their family life, not least through the infidelity of their spouses, or through being misled by the undercovers and their managers.

Category M core participants’ interests often overlap with the main body of non-state core participants (NSCPs). However, at other times, their interests have diverged (for example, around anonymity of former undercovers, something that the families have occasionally argued in favour of), and they are not part of the NSCPs’ Coordinating Group. They are represented in the Inquiry by Stefano Ruis of Hickman & Rose Solicitors.

Category M core participants are Jennifer Francis / HAB (ex-wife of whistleblower Special Demonstration Squad officer Peter Francis HN43 Peter Francis (procedural) Full page: HN43 Peter Francis (procedural) ), KTC (ex wife of HN104 Carlo Soracchi ‘Carlo Neri’ HN104 Carlo Soracchi 'Carlo Neri' ), and the person referred to simply as S. For Tranche 5, "Esther", wife of RFN2 was designated a core participant in March 2025.

In Tranche 1 Phase 2, Tranche 1 Phase 2 Full page: Tranche 1 Phase 2  the Inquiry released statements from the ex-wife of HN300 'Jim Pickford' HN300 'Jim Pickford' ‘Jim/Jimmy Pickford’ was the assumed name of an SDS undercover who from November 1974 to December 1976 infiltrated the International Socialists, Freedom Collective, Pavement Collective, Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Council Anti-Fascist Committee, Kingston Anarchist Workers Collective, South London Anarchist Workers Association and Federation of London Anarchist Groups. HN300 had a reputation as a philanderer in the SDS and was withdrawn from his deployment in December 1976 after he told another undercover that he had fallen in love with a member of his target group. After leaving the SDS he divorced his wife and married this activist. He is dead and his real name has been restricted.  and widow of HN13 'Barry Loader'. HN13 'Desmond (Barry) Loader' ‘Barry Loader’ was an undercover SDS officer who infiltrated the East London branch of the Maoist Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) between 1974 and 1978. He was undercover at the Battle of Lewisham in August 1977. He was convicted for public order offences twice in his cover identity, which in at least one case was not revealed to the court. This led to the Inquiry contacting his three fellow defendants to alert them to the fact they had potentially been the victims of a miscarriage of justice. He is dead and his real name has been restricted.