Power Struggle

POWER STRUGGLE

When the police forced their way into a school in Nottingham and arrested an unprecedented number of green activists - 114 - there was an outcry.

"Too heavy handed," some said.

"Why were they stopping a peaceful protest before it had begun?" asked others.

The activists were planning to close down one of the nation’s biggest coal fired power stations for a week starting on Easter Day 2009.

But the police knew their plan every step of the way.

They knew it was a well-organized military style operation and they wanted to halt it before it began to stop people getting hurt.

What most of the officers didn't know was the source of that information.

One of the protesters arrested in the midnight raid was an undercover policeman working for the Met who had been spying on the activists and acting as one of them for seven years.

The film shows the moment the officer, Mark Kennedy, is arrested by an unsuspecting colleague.

The unmasking of Mark Kennedy led to the collapse of the case against 26 climate change campaigners which in turn has led to the spotlight being turned on to police tactics.

Significantly it has also highlighted just how far the protest movement is now prepared to go, and why authorities try to stop them.

The Inside Out Special has exclusive access to footage of the police raid that Easter.

And the programme interviews a former undercover police officer who is scathing about the use of highly trained operatives to spy on climate change campaigners.

The film also highlights the dilemma facing energy companies and dispute over the way we should generate electricity in the future.

It looks likely the protests are here to stay.