Hey, Sandra? Do You Read Me?

This article was originally published on Diane Langford’s Substack.

Undercover police officer HN348 ‘Sandra Davies’ was deployed 1971-73, infiltrating the Women’s Liberation Front. The group studied political texts and campaigned for gender equality on issues that are now mainstream normality, such as like equal pay and creches at workplaces. She was paid 90% of a male officer’s salary, as was standard for the police at the time.

She said she only had a peripheral role and couldn’t remember what fake surname she’d used. However, WLF documents showed she was the group’s treasurer, ‘Sandra Davies’. Although, by her own admission, her deployment provided no useful information to the police, her deployment continued for two years and was only terminated because a fellow officer in a related area had been exposed. 

In 2015, the Undercover Policing Inquiry was set up. It is an independent, judge-led inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales. ‘Davies’ asked the Inquiry for anonymity. Although the Inquiry found there was very little risk of harm if her real identity was revealed, it agreed she would find it embarrassing. The Inquiry granted her request.

This left those she spied on, notably Diane Langford, with many unanswered questions.

We wrote summary reports of the Inquiry’s questioning of ‘Sandra Davies’ and of Diane Langford.

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A personal message to the woman spycop who surveilled the women’s liberation movement, by Diane Langford.

Hey Sandra, do you read me?

Are you a lurker on Facebook or Insta? Do you follow me on X or Bluesky? I’m easily found on social media or blog pages… WordPress, Substack, or Weebly.

My profile on the Undercover Policing Inquiry website is extensive too.

Sandra, are you reading this?

You spied on me in the early 1970s. You infiltrated the group I founded, the Women’s Liberation Front, (WLF). The long list of reports you wrote on us and other related groups testifies to this.

You say you only remember having used the name Sandra and that you accept, from documentary evidence, that you used the surname Davies.

You know me, Sandra. You’ve been inside my home, eaten food cooked by me, taken part in discussions in our women’s group about the issues we still face of male violence, discrimination in wages and conditions at work, unequal education, lack of child care, having to ask a male relative to vouch for us to obtain credit, lack of bodily autonomy… I could go on.

My problem is, nobody can remember you. I checked with other women involved in the WLF etc and no-one can remember a woman named Sandra Davies.

Were you the tight-lipped, uptight woman, who hardly ever spoke? Who broke down and cried and was comforted by us. You met my baby and may have contributed to buying her a carrycot.

Your claim, that you can’t remember your legend, is legendary. Maybe your name is ‘Sandra’. Other spycops have reported how much easier it is to use their first names. Being addressed by your actual name makes it easier to avoid the split-second failure to respond which rouses suspicion in circles well aware that undercover cops may be surveilling their meetings.

Of course we knew we were being spied on back then. The van parked outside with wires sticking out of its roof; the clicks on the phone lines. All very clumsy compared with today’s hi-tech surveillance. And of course there were people we suspected of infiltrating our groups.

Yet, discovering the details years later, there’s still a sense of betrayal. The creepy sense of you, attending Women’s Liberation Movement conferences and making derogatory notes about us and our campaigns, insulting lesbians, women of colour, and feminists in general, all the while being paid less than your male counterparts, apparently unaware of the irony.

My experience, obviously, is nowhere near the horror faced by the women deceived into exploitative intimate relationships, whose bravery has exposed state-sponsored rapes; it’s out of solidarity with them that I took part in the Undercover Policing Inquiry, to show the long history of sexism, misogyny and racism involved.

Now that the trauma those women experienced is out in the open, how do you feel about their exploitation by your male counterparts during your undercover work?

You applied for anonymity in the Undercover Policing Inquiry because you were afraid the people you spied on would hurt you. Your antics are worthy of a soap opera, the way you claimed I might rise out of my hospital bed, when, aged 80, I was undergoing a mastectomy, and physically attack you. ‘I’m afraid she might do me harm,’ you pleaded to the Chair of the Inquiry, and he heard you, Sandra, he heard you.

I, however, hereby challenge you to come clean. Tell me who you are, stop lying about your legend. For peace of mind, I need to know what you called yourself. If you have a shred of decency, I implore you to speak up against privileged anonymity, ridiculous redactions, threats to sequester our houses and possessions if we whisper the truth, even to our nearest and dearest.

Whatever your given name may be, or the name you are using now, I don’t care. I need to know what you called yourself and what you looked like then.

My personal details are laid out for all to read and judge in your reports, redacted to protect your identity and that of the many other spycops who surveilled me from the 1960s until… when? Now, Sandra? Are we still ‘friends’. Did you attend my daughter’s funeral? Send me a condolence card? Give me a hug? Who can I trust?