The Last Leg

Channel 4's satirical news show The Last Leg managed to look as if it was whitewashing the spycops over Christmas, infuriating victims.

Compered by comedian Adam Hills, The Last Leg's Christmas edition guests included the Reverend Richard Coles, who told its panel his brother was "a spycop in the 1980s, it's a subject of an inquiry right now".

Andy Coles was one of the policemen who infiltrated left-wing and environmental activist 19-year-old woman into a sexual relationship while undercover in animal rights groups in 1992; Coles told the inquiry he slept in a hed with "Jessica" (a pseudonym) but denied a sexual relationship.

Coles was posing as a 24-year-old single activist when he was in fact a 31-year-old married policeman. He managed other spycops, writing a "tradecraft manual" that recommended officers consider "fleeting and disastrous" sexual affairs with activists as part of their cover. Since 2015, spycops have been the subject of a public inquiry.

While Richard Coles said his brother's "shaggy hair and piercings" ade him think he was having a "mid-life crisis" rather than infiltrating groups, others panellists made Bond jokes - and the spycops' gross sexual misbehaviour went unmentioned.

The campaign group representing spycops' victims, Police Spies Out of Our Lives, responded angrily to the programme, while Jessica contacted Channel 4 and Last Leg production company Open Mike via her lawyers, demanding a right of reply. Neither Channel 4 nor the show has so far responded.