A SENIOR police manager has said that undercover officers who deceived activists into sexual relationships did not abuse their powers because the women “consented,” an inquiry heard today.

Angus McIntosh served as a detective inspector in the special demonstration squad, a secret Scotland Yard unit that spied on largely left-wing political groups between 1976 and 1979. 

During that time, he supervised multiple officers who had sex with their targets while pretending to be political activists. 

Mr McIntosh told the Undercover Policing inquiry today that he had no knowledge of the relationships at the time, and that such conduct was an offence within the force. 

However, when pressed on whether the relationships — involving deceived women who did not know they were having sex with an undercover officer, sent to spy on them by the state —  also amounted to an abuse of police powers he replied: “No, not at all.

“I would have reviewed it as: if you take away the discipline side [sic] ... between a male and female … things happen and the mental track of that is up to the individual.”

Elaborating on this later on, he said: “Does everybody say before they have a sexual encounter: ‘What is your occupation?’” 

The unrepentant spycop manager also suggested that there was no ethical problems with stealing the identities of dead children — a practice established in the squad in the 1970s to create cover identities. 

Families who have since discovered that their relatives’ identities were appropriated by undercover officers have spoken of their exacerbated suffering. 

Mr McIntosh said the practice was a “good system” for officers to create a fool-proof fake identity and his view on this had remained unchanged because the families should never have found out about the practice. 

“I don’t go back on my views,” he told the inquiry. “I think it’s most unfortunate that this inquiry had enabled the poor families and relatives to realise that this has happened, in normal circumstances it wouldn’t have happened. I mean it’s extraordinary.”

The SDS boss also said it was “understandable” that an undercover officer was sent to spy on mourners at the funeral of Blair Peach, an anti-racism protester who was killed at the infamous Southall demo in 1979. 

The Met has previously accepted that the teacher from New Zealand was almost certainly killed by a riot police officer. 

Asked by inquiry chair Sir John Mitting whether he appreciated this could be considered “distasteful,” Mr McIntosh acknowledged some people could be “upset” by this. 

But he justified the move, saying the funeral could have posed a risk of public disorder: “In Northern Ireland for instance, funerals were often a hotbed of problems and it wasn’t the true friends and relatives of the person whose funeral it was … it would be anti-police in one way or another.”

These comments triggered particular anger in the public gallery among spied-on campaigners, who regularly attend the proceedings. 

Tom Fowler, an activist who was spied on during the 2000s, said Mr McIntosh’s comments showed he “clearly considered anybody who was involved in any kind of protest as beneath contempt.

“The callous nature with which he dismissed the grief of the friends and comrades of Blair Peach was disgusting and dehumanising,” he continued. “His attitude towards women particularly shows a deep level of misogyny and old-fashioned sexism.”

The inquiry, which is investigating abuses by officers who served in two secret police units that infiltrated more than 1,000 political groups over 40 years, continues today.