CEDAW/C/74/D/126/2018
defendants made financial offers during the proceedings to settle the authors ’ claims.
Under their insurance policy, the authors’ insurance coverage would terminate if they
did not accept a “reasonable” offer. If the authors had been obligated to pay the
defendants’ legal costs, they would have been financially ruined. Thus, to retain their
insurance policy, the authors collectively decided to enter into agreements to settle
their civil claims. They felt that they had no other choice owing to the prohibitive
level of the costs that they risked facing. The settlement agreements included the
provision of compensation and a public apology to the authors. However, the authors
consider that they retain their victim status before the Committee.
2.14 In July 2015, a public inquiry was initiated and is currently pending. Owing to
extensive delays, no evidence is to be heard until 2019, and the final report is expected
no earlier than 2022.
2.15 On 20 November 2015, the police published an apology to all of the authors. In
the apology, the police recognized that the relationships were “abusive, deceitful,
manipulative and wrong”, and that they constituted “a violation of the women’s
human rights, an abuse of police power and caused significant trauma ”. The police
stated that the relationships should never have happened and were a “gross violation
of personal dignity and integrity”. The police also recognized that “money alone
cannot compensate the loss of time, their hurt or the feelings of abuse caused by these
relationships” and acknowledged that such relationships should not be allowed to
happen again.
2.16 The authors submit that they have exhausted all available domestic remedies.
They also claim that domestic remedies were ineffective because: (a) they still do not
know the extent of the violations to which they were subjected or who sanctioned the
violations; (b) they did not receive a declaration or ruling by the court in which it was
stated that their rights had been violated; (c) the legislative framework still allows,
and even enables, such violations to occur; (d) the contradictory conduct of the police
undermines the public apology that it provided; and (e) the State party ’s prosecuting
authority, the Crown Prosecution Service, has taken no further action to sanction the
men involved or their superiors.
Complaint
3.1 The authors allege that the State party violated their rights under articles 1, 2 (a),
(b), (d) and (f), 3, 5, 7 (c) and 16 (a), (b) and (e) of the Convention by authorizing
and/or failing to provide effective protection from undercover police officers who
entered into sexual relations with them without disclosing their law enforcement
affiliations.
3.2 The policy and practice of instructing and/or enabling undercover police officers
to have and maintain emotional, familial and sexual relations with women while
deceiving them as to their real identity and purpose constituted direct discrimination
against women. The policy and practice overwhelmingly affected women. There is no
indication that men were targeted in the same way. Moreover, the policy and practice
affected women differently, in particular because it had a significant effect on the
victims’ reproductive rights. The effect of the discriminatory treatment was to nullify
the authors’ enjoyment and exercise of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The discriminatory treatment fundamentally undermined each author ’s dignity and
privacy. By commencing and maintaining sexual relationships with the authors on the
basis of false identities, and by acting as State agents, the police officers invaded the
authors’ bodily integrity and privacy, showed complete disregard and disrespect for
their human dignity, deeply degraded and humiliated them and caused them intense
mental suffering and pain. By using and deceiving the authors to obtain information,
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