am a “core participant” (CP) in the public inquiry into undercover policing (UCPI) because of my five-year relationship that started 26 years ago with Mark Cassidy, also known as Mark Jenner, when he infiltrated the Colin Roach Centre in Hackney, east London. Ten years ago, I embarked on a legal case against the Metropolitan police with seven other women, and for six years I’ve waited for disclosure from the inquiry. Chaired by Sir John Mitting, the UCPI’s remit is to get to the truth about undercover policing across England and Wales since 1968 and provide recommendations for the future. Last week, the UCPI completed its second set of hearings, covering deployments between 1973 and 1982. In this latest tranche of evidence, I have for the first time received information of interest. And for that I am grateful. Like all the women affected by intimate relationships with undercover police officers, I was granted access to the bundle of redacted documents weeks before they were published on the UCPI website. I scanned everything and was particularly interested in those relating to the appalling, ongoing surveillance of fellow activist Celia Stubbs, whose partner Blair Peach had been killed by a police officer during an Anti-Nazi League protest. Having not been alerted by the inquiry to my inclusion in any of the documents, I was shocked to read a number of reports clearly written by Mark, including ones about two meetings I remember being present at with him and that we now know he was spying on. This “secret and reliable source” – who had been sleeping with me for months when he wrote this report, and for years by the time he wrote this one – failed to mention my attendance at the meetings. Hollywood might represent this omission as an act of forbidden love. Emotionally conflicted, he was protecting me. The real world is grittier, however, and I suspect Mark’s instinct for self-preservation was the more dominant emotion. When I first read the report entitled “Touchy Subject”, I’d wrongly assumed this phrase was a crass reference to its contents: the 20th anniversary commemoration event to remember the killing of Blair Peach. During the oral evidence from Celia Stubbs, the solicitor to the inquiry made it clear, however, that this phrase did not refer to the subject matter; rather it was the codename for the officer who wrote the report. Instead of answers, this strange nugget of information raises more questions. Did undercover officers give themselves code names or were they chosen for them by managers? What or who does “Touchy Subject” refer to? Does it refer to our relationship – something he was warned against but wouldn’t discuss? The truth is, I don’t know and once again I’m left filling in the gaps with my imagination as facts and evidence evade me. I won’t have any evidence disclosed to me until my tranche is heard in 2024, but the inquiry is sitting on all of it. As I walk past counsel to the inquiry and lawyers representing the police, in the narrow corridors of the Amba Hotel where the hearings have taken place, it’s hard not to wonder what they might have read about me. What other documents might they have seen that offer insight into my relationship? And why can’t I see them now? The slow drip, drip of information is tantalising and frustrating. The inquiry’s highly legalistic proceedings and the opaque workings of the secret state combine to form a sturdy barrier against public access to the full truth. Despite this, and for those watching closely, the three weeks of hearings have revealed important insights, and is the main reason some of us will stick with the process. For now, at least. After sustained questioning and despite the repeated claim that ex-undercover officers couldn’t recall information, retired officers have collectively disclosed more than they might have wished. The institutional sexism, which we’ve been calling out since our cases were first launched, has come into even sharper focus. The custom and practice of using women to gratify the sexual needs of officers was commonplace within five years of the Special Demonstration Squad having been established. There is evidence so far that at least seven officers in this tranche had sexual relations with members of the public using their undercover identity. One told us that at safe-house meetings “gross and offensive” jokes about women were shared; one accepted the four women he had slept with (including “Madeleine”) would never have consented had they known he was an undercover policeman. Another retired officer explained that information collected could be used for vetting purposes for government positions. The Stasi-style level of surveillance is extraordinary – just take a look at the UCPI website – and as you balk at the banality of some of the details, including an Anarchy Collective film screening for seven people and an Anti-Nazi League meeting to organise printing leaflets, remember it’s a fraction of what there is. The personal information about individuals’ private lives, their medical histories and employment statuses cover thousands of members of the public. And this is just one strand of Special Branch’s operations. The UCPI has no remit to investigate any wrongdoing by these units outside England and Wales, by MI5 or MI6, nor to ask questions of any other unit within Special Branch. Since the inquiry first started hearing evidence last November, the Covert Human Intelligence Source Criminal Conduct Act has been passed. There are now no legal limits to what undercover police or informers can do while infiltrating a target group. For the UCPI to be of relevance, our collective testimony documenting decades of disproportionate, violating police operations, must inform legislative reform of this act. To have any confidence in the process from which many feel understandably alienated, CPs need to know the inquiry has heard what we’ve heard and felt as outraged by the evidence as we are. In the spirit of goodwill and the name of common decency, therefore, it is time the inquiry discloses to all CPs – irrespective of their “tranche” – all the files they hold on us. Five years into this process and I am no closer to understanding my own relationship and the man I was intimately involved with any better than I was before. And I don’t want to wait another three years before being told there’s nothing to see here. Alison is one of eight women who first took legal action against the Metropolitan police over the conduct of undercover officers