by Bethany Rielly
at the Undercover Policing Inquiry in the Amba Hotel, central London 

AN UNDERCOVER officer who was unmasked as a spycop was ordered by senior police to claim that his bosses were unaware of his clandestine activities, the continuing public inquiry heard today. 

After his cover was blown, “Dave Robertson,” an officer who infiltrated small Moaist groups in the 1970s, said he was paid a visit by the Metropolitan Police’s deputy commissioner and the head of the force’s special branch.

He claimed senior officers had created a “masterplan” to deal with the problem, and said that if he was confronted for being a spycop, he should say that he was “acting completely ‘off my own bat’ and that my superior officers were unaware of what I was doing,” the inquiry heard.