The article discusses a podcast episode that reveals shocking details about a police officer who stole the identity of a deceased teenager, Michael Hartley, to infiltrate political groups. The investigation, involving journalists and activists, highlights the misuse of identities of at least 139 individuals, often taken from dead children, for undercover operations over four decades. This revelation has profoundly impacted the family of the victim, Frank Bennett, who shares his traumatic experience. The episode culminates in a call for accountability, resulting in a statutory public inquiry into these practices by the police.
Knowing that, years on, his brother's name had been used by police has had a huge impact on his mental health, he says. Frank describes the police's behaviour as disgusting.
Some of those identities had been stolen from dead children to lend credibility to their aliases and some officers, in a macabre ritual, even visited the graves of the children whose identities they were using.
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