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Cardiff Undercover Protest Cop: Mark "Marco" Jacobs

L

llantwit

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Interested to see no thread in the Wales forum about this. In case anyone missed the news, in the wake of the big Guardian stories on infiltration of the protest movement Cardiff activists worked with the Guardian to confirm that we had our very own undercover police here in Wales.
Mark "Marco" Jacobs (or whatever his real name is) used his connection to the Cardif Anarchist Network (CAN) to infiltrate a wide range of local, Welsh, UK and international protest movements and groups.
More here:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/01/472388.html?c=on
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/01/23/welsh-protest-groups-infiltrated-by-police-undercover-officers-talk-of-their-feeling-of-bitterness-and-betrayal-91466-28037425/
http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/2011/01/14/marco-confirmed-as-undercover-cop-in-cardiff/
http://leannewoodamac.blogspot.com/2011/01/surveillance-society.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/14/third-undercover-police-spy-cardiff
:(
 
Marco was a warm, generous, fun bloke to have around. A soul mate who was not just around for activism, but was a good laugh to just go for a pint or go to a gig with. He even stood on the grange end with us once. It really is a head-fuck to comprehend that it was all just a charade.

Cunt. :mad:

I was looking forward to cheap holidays in Corfu with him :facepalm:
 
It starting to look like all activists are actually coppers reporting on their own. If all the coppers owned up tomorrow actvism would cease over night cos there's no one else organising!!:D
 
This one totally looks like a copper

Those earrings and hair aren't kidding anyone (well obvisouly they did...)

marco-resized.png
 
My one outstanding question: if Brighton anarchists had twigged him as they claimed, why the hell didn't they warn someone in Cardiff?
 
I think the answer to that is that they didn't really twig to him. Some Brighton people voiced soft concerns about him to Cardiff people, but they had no evidence.
We've got to be an open social movement as far as possible, and making decisions to marginalise someone based on rumours isn't the way to go.
That said, after concerns from Brighton were raised I understand that Marco wasn't privvy to discussions about almost all "sensitive" protests (bar one quite late on in his stay in Cardiff, which was messy and involved lots of police).
It was after this last one that people started to get very suspicious here, as there were eventually some grounds to be concerned about him.
 
Clint Iguana said:
Marco was a warm, generous, fun bloke to have around. A soul mate who was not just around for activism, but was a good laugh to just go for a pint or go to a gig with. He even stood on the grange end with us once. It really is a head-fuck to comprehend that it was all just a charade.

Cunt. :mad:

I was looking forward to cheap holidays in Corfu with him :facepalm:
Click to expand...

I can't believe i missed this.

I remember Marco. Back in the ole West Midlands Anarchist days we had a lot of time for CAN and Marco always seemed to have a healthy interest in us.
Now i know why.

Thankfully we were all paranoid muppets anyway and i doubt we'd have let anything important slip.

Anyone from CAN remember coming to Brum for a pint and a wee chat about a Mayday action? Was Marco likely to have been there, i can't remember as it was so long ago.
 
he is 'officer B'
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/jan/19/undercover-police-officer-mark-jacobs

He was first noticed in activists' gatherings in Brighton in March 2005 and became a regular face at meetings of Dissent!, the network mobilising protesters for the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July. At 6ft and 15 stone, he stood out from the crowd.

One former friend said Jacobs made friends easily and remembered him for his sayings used to deflect questions or ease tensions. "Dear diary ..." he'd say when discussing the day's events or upcoming projects, or "And relax ..." at the end of stressful conversations.

When others smoked cannabis he would refuse, repeating another favourite phrase: "Strong European lager is my drug of choice." Those close to him said he would drink heavily at most social occasions.

In 2006, he moved to Cardiff where he monitored the activities of an anarchist group as well as the Rising Tide Network. Former friends said he travelled with UK activists to protest against the G8 in Heligendam, Germany, in 2007.

Jacobs, like both the other male undercover officers exposed by the Guardian, has been accused of having an affair while infiltrating a group. A 29-year-old former girlfriend told the Guardian last week that she had an affair with Jacobs for three months in the summer of 2008.
"I was doing nothing wrong. I was not breaking the law at all. For him to come along and lie to us and get that deep into our lives was a colossal, colossal betrayal," the woman said. "I am incredibly angry. Obviously to do that to anybody is pretty low, but to do that to somebody who trusted you and cared about you is just unspeakable."

By 2009, friends had become suspicious of Jacobs and he was increasingly being left out of sensitive discussions. He left claiming he had got a job in Corfu as a gardener. His former friends never heard from him again.
Click to expand...
the massive bastard
not that i knew him or was hurt by him as others were
 
Demo today in Cardiff tonight at 6pm and tomorrow outside court in London
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/police-being-sued-over-alleged-8905129
JS59770936.jpg

https://southwalesanarchists.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/solidarity-against-spycops/
It has been over five years since we learned that Mark “Marco” Jacobs was not just another anarchist in the south Wales activist scene, but was actually an undercover police officer. We made all the relevant political points about the matter in our statement at the time: “They come at us because we are strong”

Since then a number of activists are taking legal action against South Wales Police and the Metropolitan Police in an attempt to hold the system to account.

Since we first filed an application in court, both sets of Police lawyers have attempted to obstruct justice, giving a “Neither Confirm Nor Deny” defence of all aspects of Officer Jacobs (and all other undercover police) deployment.

On Wednesday 25th March we will be in the Royal Courts of Justice in London attempting to strike out this non-defence.

The night before we are in London we will be holding a protest outside Cardiff Central Police Station to draw attention to the case and the problem of undercover political policing in general.

Protest outside Cardiff Central Police Station, King Edward VIII Avenue, CF10
Tuesday 24th March, 6pm – 8pm (facebook event)

Then please join us if you can in a Solidarity picket of the court before the case starts.

Picket outside Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London, WC2 (Holborn or Temple tube)
Wednesday 25th March, 9am – 10am (facebook event)

It was recently announced that there will be a full public inquiry into political undercover policing. Though this is welcome, providing it is transparent, robust and independent, such exercises are unlikely to ever offer any path to justice. It is particularly unlikely that the truth about the role of undercover police in suppressing political activism in the UK will come to light whilst would-be whistleblowers have the threat of prosecution hanging over them.
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