Steel was a prominent social justice, environmental and anti-corporate campaigner, while Dines was a police officer tasked with spying on her.<\/p>\n
The pair met in the late 1980s and began a relationship in 1990, eventually living together and discussing starting a family.<\/p>\n
After two years, Dines abruptly disappeared, telling Steel he had suffered a mental breakdown.<\/p>\n
In reality, he had left the police operation and was reportedly working as a lawyer in Auckland.<\/p>\n
Fearing for Dines\u2019 wellbeing, Steel began efforts to track him down, which UK police closely monitored through an investigation dubbed Operation Muscat.<\/p>\n
Part of her efforts included tracking down and contacting his real family members living in New Zealand, where he had told Steel he had grown up. <\/p>\n
Steel\u2019s case, among others, has been at the centre of the UK\u2019s Undercover Policing Inquiry. The details of the operation emerged across the years-long inquiry, widely reported by UK and international media as the \u201cspy cops scandal\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a public hearing in recent weeks, Steel described travelling with her parents to New Zealand in 2002, on a family trip to visit her sister who lives south of Auckland.<\/p>\n
Fearing Steel could find Dines in New Zealand, the Metropolitan Police launched an operation to monitor her during the trip and arranged for him to be relocated.<\/p>\n
Three weeks before the trip, a port warning was put in place at the request of UK Police.<\/p>\n
Upon arriving at Auckland Airport on December 14, 2002, New Zealand Customs undertook a \u201cdiscreet baggage search\u201d, a secret file note presented to the inquiry states.<\/p>\n
British activist Helen Steel and her family were monitored by NZ Police when arriving at Auckland Airport on 14 December 2002. Photo \/ Undercover Policing Inquiry<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand Police surveillance teams housed [trailed] the group to their declared address in [redacted] a small provincial town about one and a half hours south of Auckland,\u201d a police document titled \u201cOperation Muscat\u201d said.<\/p>\n
During her weeks in New Zealand, Steel was monitored by undercover New Zealand officers, including being photographed alongside her family outside her sister\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThus far Steel has done little other than local shopping with her sister,\u201d a police file from the time stated.<\/p>\n
During her trip, Dines was briefed on Steel\u2019s whereabouts.<\/p>\n
He was later relocated to Australia in a \u00a32.5 million effort by UK officials to protect his identity, which included the use of public money to help him buy a property there.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the inquiry, Steel described the New Zealand spying as a \u201cstaggering intrusion into my family\u2019s life and also a massive waste of New Zealand Police resources\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis man was responsible for destroying my life, destroying my ability to form trusting relationships, destroying my ability to connect with other people properly, destroying my ability to trust my own judgment,\u201d Steel said through tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe sexually exploited me for two years, I believe he tried to psychologically destroy me with his exit strategy … and here he is, he\u2019s rewarded for everything he\u2019s done, he\u2019s awarded a huge amount of public money, and he\u2019s protected.<\/p>\n
Undercover NZ Police photographed British activist Helen Steel and her family outside her sister’s home at the request of Metropolitan Police. Photo \/ Undercover Policing Inquiry<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they told the truth about the reason why I was searching, the New Zealand police wouldn\u2019t have assisted them.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to questions from the Herald, New Zealand Police Acting Assistant Commissioner National Security and International Sean Hansen said: \u201cfrom time to time, New Zealand Police receive requests from our international policing partners for assistance relating to their ongoing investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand Police would not answer questions about what they were told by UK officials was the reason for the surveillance, or whether they deemed their involvement appropriate given what is now known.<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman referred further questions to the Metropolitan Police.<\/p>\n
The Metropolitan Police apologised to a number of women involved, including Steel, in 2015, saying its actions were \u201cindefensible\u201d and the operation was a \u201cgross violation of personal dignity and integrity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steel was a prominent social justice, environmental and anti-corporate campaigner, while Dines was a police officer tasked with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[152622,1443,19053,32955,51,14801,2109,32576,189,37601,66403,277531,117,111,43,139,69,90,675,17146,40182,1517,178019,278215,126931,1620,165,1613,17249,1316,80],"class_list":["post-565300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-152622","tag-about","tag-activist","tag-answer","tag-auckland","tag-british","tag-family","tag-helen","tag-holiday","tag-inquiry","tag-involvement","tag-leftwing","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-police","tag-questions","tag-refusing","tag-reveals","tag-spied","tag-spycops","tag-spying","tag-steel","tag-their","tag-uk","tag-visited","tag-when","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}