Undercover policeman 'fire-bombed shop,' MPs told

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Wednesday June 13, 2012 22:23 by pat c

Carole Lucas MP reveals the role of police agent provocateurs who infiltrated the Animal Liberation Front. Full text and vid at link.

An MP has used parliamentary privilege to name an undercover police officer who allegedly planted a fire bomb at a London department store in 1987.
Green MP Caroline Lucas said a jailed man, Geoff Sheppard, believed police officer Bob Lambert planted a device. Mr Lambert infiltrated the Animal Liberation Front and his evidence helped convict two men of fire-bombing three Debenhams stores.

The attack in Harrow, north west London, did £340,000 of damage and was part of a series of attacks on stores, including attacks in Romford and Luton, which cost £8m and caused Debenhams to stop selling furs.

When contacted by the BBC for a response, Mr Lambert referred to his statement in the Guardian. In an interview with the Guardian, Mr Lambert denied planting the device. He told the newspaper: "It was necessary to create the false impression that I was a committed animal rights extremist to gain intelligence so as to disrupt serious criminal conspiracies.

Ms Lucas said one of the other men who was jailed claimed when he heard about the fire at Debenhams in Harrow "I straight away knew that Bob had carried out his part of the plan". Ms Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: "It seems that planting the third incendiary device was perhaps a move to bolster Lambert's credibility." She said Mr Lambert was known by the alias Bob Robinson and "pretended to be a committed environmental and animal rights campaigner between 1984 and 1988".
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