Sussex Police chief says Lush #SpyCops campaign is '˜clumsy'

Chief Constable Giles York hit out at the campaign

Sussex Chief Constable Giles York has hit out at cosmetics company Lush's controversial campaign about undercover policing.

Lush hit the headlines after it put posters up about what it called an ‘ongoing undercover policing scandal’.

CC York said: “Modern covert policing is regulated and inspected giving effective, efficient options for tackling changing face of today’s most serious criminality.

“Transparency is key to public legitimacy and #Lush clumsily bring focus to awful mistakes in our past that still affect victims today.”

Lush announced it was joining forces with the Police Spies Out of Lives campaign to push for progress in the Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing.

A spokesman for Lush said: “Hosted in Lush UK shops, social channels and on uk.lush.com, the campaign will support the already active #SpyCops conversation and aims to highlight the current lack of progress of the Undercover Policing Inquiry and the granting of anonymity to key police witnesses.

“For the duration of campaign, Lush staff will be asking customers to add their support by signing a postcard to the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid.

“This is not an anti-state/anti-police campaign. We are aware that the police forces of the UK are doing an increasingly difficult and dangerous job whilst having their funding slashed.

The posters have been put up in branches of Lushand have been widely criticised

“We fully support them in having proper police numbers, correctly funded to fight crime, violence and to be there to serve the public at our times of need.

“This campaign is not about the real police work done by those front line officers who support the public every day – it is about a controversial branch of political undercover policing that ran for many years before being exposed.”

Some Lush stores have now taken the campaign down from their displays.