Who’s going to tell him?

Should someone tell Mr Justice Tugendhat, who has reportedly just commented that

“Bond girls who had intimate relationships with the promiscuous 007 could have suffered lasting psychological damage,”

that no one suffered anything because it’s all fiction!  And this is a judge.  God help us!

12 thoughts on “Who’s going to tell him?”

  1. Nice try, Sheona, but I rather suspect that Sir Michael knew exactly what he saying, on at least two levels. 🙂

    James Bond is the most famous fictional example of a member of the intelligence services who used relationships with women to obtain information, or access to persons or property.

    Since he was writing a light entertainment, Ian Fleming did not dwell on the extent to which his hero used deception, still less upon the psychological harm he might have done to the women concerned.

    But fictional accounts, and there are others, lend credence to the view that the intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature, whether or not they were physical relationships, in order to obtain information or access.

  2. Having just read the article in The Telegraph, I have to agree with you, Bearsy. This is exactly the tactics the intelligence services and undercover police officers used, and over a number of years.

    James Bond may be fictional, Sheona but the point of the case is valid, and I agree with the judgement.

  3. I don’t think Marcus Wolf ever bothered about psychological damage caused to all the German spinster secretaries he caught in honey traps. For him his country’s interests came first. So we have another British judge who’s not so inclined. Still, let these people appeal or whatever, so long as I’m not paying for it.

  4. You leave me utterly bemused, Sheona. 😕

    I will admit that I am disappointed by the way the UK has gone since I left, and will own up to thoroughly disliking the EUSSR and all those who sail in her, but I had not realised that the ex-head of the Stasi was someone to look up to.

    I am sure that the AFP, ASIO (and probably ASIS) are not allowed to spend Australian tax dollars on screwing (either literally or figuratively) their fellow citizens, even if they are dedicated tree-huggers. Undercover work, yes, but under the covers activities, no way!

    I just hope Australia doesn’t follow Europe’s sad example.

  5. I would like to suggest that most seductions are based on lies and half truths or at least involve a strong element. In which case the deeds of Mr Bond, fictional or real are ultimately no different to those perpetrated by the rest of society.

  6. Lasting psychological damage? I haven’t masterminded in Bond stories but I have the distinct impression that the young ladies not only tolerated but even enjoyed 007’s attentions. Shaken and stirred you might stay.

  7. I suspect such things have been going on since time immemorial. Cleopatra was at it and no doubt was not the first. Whatever your opinion of such things, I agree with Sheona that the judge was risking ridicule coming out with such a statement!

    Bearsy, how can you be so sure, especially with your present incumbent in charge? 🙂

  8. Good afternoon, Sheona

    I tend to agree with Bearsy at #1 that Mr Justice Tugendhat knows exactly what he is saying in his 227 paragraph judgment.

    Click to access akj-cpm-judgment-17012013.pdf

    As you will see, the Bond remarks to which you object come at paragraph 177 when he is considering the claimants’ argument that the alleged sexual abuses fall outwith the provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and should not, therefore, be considered in secrecy in the Investigatory Powers Trubunal but should instead be debated in open court under common law.

    He rules against the claimants on this one and the sexual allegations are going to be heard in the IPT. I personally think his reasoning compelling and his Bond analogy entirely appropriate. I particularly like his paragraph 178:-

    .So when Ms Kaufmann submitted, as she did, that, in enacting RIPA, Parliament
    cannot have contemplated that sexual, or intimate sexual, relationships might by
    established by a CHIS*, I took her to be using the word “contemplated” in a technical
    sense. In the 1980s and the 1990s, when RIPA and other statutes were passing
    through Parliament, everyone in public life would, in my view, have assumed,
    whether rightly or wrongly, that the intelligence services and the police did from time
    to time deploy officers as CHIS in this way.

    CHIS – Covert Human Intelligence Source

    Mr Justice Tugendhat, who has, in his time thrown out John Terry’s gagging order and allowed Fred the Shred to be named and shamed, strikes me as a pretty good egg in the main and a highly intelligent and extremely competent judge with excellent common sense.

    I would hesitate to believe that I could tell him anything that he did not already know.

  9. Bearsy, I think that Marcus Wolf probably was not a warm and wonderful human being, but he worked for the good of his country, so you can’t really fault him for patriotism. Obviously most people would feel that the former East Germany was not worthy of such devotion.

    I’m not quite sure why undercover officers were wasted on a bunch of bunny-huggers. But it may well be a natural hazard that such operatives should form relationships and the old expression “it takes two to tango” comes to mind. Of course the feelings could have been genuine and reciprocated, but now with our “compensation culture” some people see a chance to profit.

    JM, I hope you will excuse me not clicking on your link. I’m trying to follow that Aussie lad, Neil Robertson, in his attempt to beat Mark Selby in the final of the Masters Snooker tournament, the Sassenach having had the temerity to beat Wee Dott last night.

  10. Hi Sheona,

    I’m not a huge fan of snooker (because I’m an inexpert at the game) but I was hoping Dott would have triumphed. Love the wee man’s signature tune. 😉

    I heard John Virgo say earlier when Robertson got a cheer from the crowd ” he wouldn’t have got that at Lords”

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